r the old man his
father?"

"Stranger, 'tis the wife of Admetus that is dead."

"What sayest thou? And yet he gave me entertainment?"

"Yea, for he would not, for shame, turn thee from his house."

"O miserable man, what a helpmeet thou hast lost!"

"Ay, and we are all lost with her."

"Well I knew it; for I saw the tears in his eyes, and his head shaven,
and his sorrowful regard; but he deceived me, saying that the dead woman
was a stranger. Therefore did I enter the doors and make merry, and
crown myself with garlands, not knowing what had befallen my host. But
come, tell me; where doth he bury her? Where shall I find her?"

"Follow straight along the road that leadeth to Larissa, and thou wilt
see her tomb in the outskirts of the city."

Then said Hercules to himself, "O my heart, thou hast dared many great
deeds before this day; and now most of all must I show myself a true son
of Zeus. Now will I save this dead woman Alcestis, and give her back to
her husband, and make due recompense to Admetus. I will go, therefore,
and watch for this black-robed king, even Death. Methinks I shall find
him nigh unto the tomb, drinking the blood of the sacrifices. There will
I lie in wait for him and run upon him, and throw my arms about him, nor
shall any one deliver him out of my hands, till he have given up to me
this woman. But if it chance that I find him not there, and he come not
to the feast of blood, I will go down to the Queen of Hell, to the land
where the sun shineth not, and beg her of the Queen; and doubtless she
will give her to me, that I may give her to her husband. For right nobly
did he entertain me, and drave me not from his house, for all that he
had been stricken by such sorrow. Is there a man in Thessaly, nay in the
whole land of Greece, that is such a lover of hospitality? I trow not.
Noble is he, and he shall know that he is no ill friend to whom he hath
done this thing."

So he went his way. And when he was gone, Admetus came back from the
burying of his wife, a great company following him, of whom the elders
sought to comfort him in his sorrow. And when he was come to the gates
of his palace he cried, "How shall I enter thee? how shall I dwell in
thee? Once I came within thy gates with many pine-torches from Pelion,
and the merry noise of the marriage song, holding in my hand the hand of
her that is dead; and after us followed a troop that magnified her and
me, so noble a pair we were. And now w