came to his assistance. She gave him a great iron rattle that Hephaestus had made, and when Heracles shook it, it made such a fearful noise that all the birds flew out screaming. Then Heracles shot arrow after arrow among them; a great many of them fell dead into the lake, and the rest were so much frightened that they flew far away and never came back again.

4. The Last Six Labours.

The seventh Labour that Eurystheus imposed upon Heracles was to bring the Cretan bull to Mycenae. In the island of Crete lived King Minos, who was very wise, and who was allowed to hold intercourse with the gods. One day, when the Cretans were on the seashore offering sacrifices to Poseidon, the king prayed that Poseidon would send him a bull out of the sea for sacrifice, for he wanted to show the Cretans what great regard the gods had for him. Immediately there came, borne to the shore upon the swelling waves, a most beautiful bull, and Minos was so fascinated by its beauty that he did not keep his word, but sacrificed another bull and put the one that came out of the sea among his flocks. Poseidon punished him by making the bull mad; he killed the herdsmen and escaped into the forest, and did so much damage that the king repented of having broken his word. When Heracles came to him and said that he wanted to catch the bull, Minos gladly supplied him with ropes and spears, for he would not have minded paying a heavy price in order to get the plague removed from the country. Heracles went into the forest and soon found his way to the bull,

for he was guided to him by the bellowing he made. When he came near, he threw a spear at him in order to irritate him. The bull ran at him furiously, lowering his horns to toss him into the air, but Heracles waited quietly till he came up, and then he seized his horns and held them fast, so that the bull could not raise his head again. They went on for some time pulling at each other, and the bull dragged Heracles about from place to place, bellowing horribly all the time. He was a huge powerful animal, but he could not get his horns free, and only tired himself to no purpose. At last he was quite exhausted, and Heracles made a halter out of the rope he had brought with him and wound it round his neck, and the bull followed him quite quietly. The Cretans ran together to look at the strong man. leading the fierce bull, and were astonished to see the bull walking so quietly by his side. Heracles got into his ship and sailed back to Mycenae with the bull, and when he had led him through the city, he let him go free. You will hear more of him again by-and-by.'

The eighth Labour of Heracles was that of procuring the horses of Diomedes. Diomedes was a king of Thrace, a savage and cruel man, who cared for nothing in the world but his fierce horses which he fed upon human flesh; and every stranger that came into his country was thrown to the horses. Heracles knew that he would not be able to obtain the horses unless he first conquered the king and his people, and he therefore took with him a number of brave heroes who were glad to accompany him on this expedition. As soon as the ship landed in Thrace, the heroes went to the stables, killed

For the rest of the story of the Cretan bull, see p. 184.

the keeper, and brought away the horses; one of them. was going to bite, but Heracles gave him such a sound blow that he had something else to think of. They had almost reached the shore, when they looked back and saw King Diomedes coming after them followed by a number of soldiers, so they tied up the horses and turned round again. Then a fierce battle took place, for the Thracians were a warlike people, but at last they were all killed, and their king made prisoner. Heracles said that he should die by the same death that he had inflicted on others, and he loosed the horses of Diomedes and gave him to them to devour. The king cried out in an agony to his horses, 'Have I not been kind to you and taken care of you?' But they had become so fierce through eating human flesh that they did not spare even their own master. One tore off his arm, another bit him in the chest, and a third in the thigh, and they soon tore him to pieces, so that he perished miserably. Heracles then caught the horses again and took them home, and when he had shown them to Eurystheus, he drove them to the foot of Mount Olympus where they were devoured by wild beasts.

King Eurystheus had a daughter, who was continually begging him to procure for her the girdle of the Queen of the Amazons. This beautiful girdle was world-famed; it had been given to the queen by Ares, the god of war, and she wore it as a mark of royalty. Eurystheus knew that to secure the queen's girdle would be a task of great danger and difficulty, and therefore he told Heracles that this was to be his ninth Labour. So Heracles again set sail with his companions, and they journeyed for many days till they came to the

country of the Amazons, who lived in Asia, near the river Thermodon. There were no men amongst them. but they were all women, and very remarkable women, too. They liked war better than anything else, and were so well skilled in riding and in shooting with the bow that no army was feared so much as the army of the Amazons. When Heracles reached their country, they happened to be in a meadow near the sea practising with their weapons of war,—all but the queen, who was sitting on the shore looking out over the sea, with her girdle glittering in the sunshine. When she saw the ship coming, she wondered who could be the strangers that ventured into her country, and most of all she marvelled at the sight of Heracles who was standing in the fore-part of the ship, dressed in his lion's skin and grasping his club. She asked him who he was and what he wanted, and he answered, 'I am Heracles, the son of Zeus, and I am performing hard labours in the service of Eurystheus; he has sent me here to fetch your girdle and take it back to Mycenae.' When the queen heard that it was Heracles, whose deeds were spoken of all over the world, she said that she would make him a present of the girdle, and came towards the ship to greet him, holding out her hand. But Hera would not allow Heracles to carry off the girdle without a struggle, and taking the form of an Amazon, she went to the meadow where the others were, and called out to them, 'A stranger is going to rob our queen.' They all rushed down to the shore and began to shoot at the strangers, killing many a brave man; but when Heracles saw that they treated him and his followers as enemies, he thought that the queen had meant to act treachously,

and he slew her, and shot at the Amazons with his arrows, and killed so many of them that they were soon obliged to fly. He took the girdle from off the dead queen and laid her corpse on the shore, and after the ship had sailed away, the Amazons came and buried her.

Some days after this, the heroes landed at the city of Troy, where they found all the people very sorrowful because an innocent maiden was to suffer death on account of the crime of her father Laomedon, the king of Troy. The gods Poseidon and Apollo, in order to try Laomedon, had entered into an engagement with him, by which they undertook to build a wall round the city that could never be destroyed. The wall was soon finished, but Laomedon, who was very miserly and who did not know that he had to deal with gods instead of men, refused to give the reward that had been agreed upon. Both the gods punished him for this. Apollo sent a pestilence into the land which destroyed both men and cattle, and Poseidon created a monster who came up every day out of the sea, and laid waste the fields devouring every living thing that he met with. Even after the pestilence had ceased, the monster still came every day, and took his fill of blood. The Trojans asked the Oracle how they could get rid of him, and the Oracle answered that the king's young daughter Hesione must be given him to eat. The Trojans were very fond of the beautiful maiden, but as they were all in danger of perishing, they demanded of Laomedon that he should give up his daughter as a victim. The king shed many tears, but at last he consented, and when the heroes landed, Hesione had just been brought to the