,
upon my honor, I marvel how your small bodies can contain them. I sue
for peace, and, as a condition of it, will take five strides, and be out
of your kingdom at the sixth. Good-bye. I shall pick my steps carefully,
for fear of treading upon some fifty of you, without knowing it. Ha, ha,
ha! Ho, ho, ho! For once, Hercules acknowledges himself vanquished."

Some writers say, that Hercules gathered up the whole race of Pygmies
in his lion's skin, and carried them home to Greece, for the children of
King Eurystheus to play with. But this is a mistake. He left them, one
and all, within their own territory, where, for aught I can tell, their
descendants are alive to the present day, building their little houses,
cultivating their little fields, spanking their little children, waging
their little warfare with the cranes, doing their little business,
whatever it may be, and reading their little histories of ancient times.
In those histories, perhaps, it stands recorded, that, a great many
centuries ago, the valiant Pygmies avenged the death of the Giant
Antaeus by scaring away the mighty Hercules.

THE DRAGON'S TEETH.

Cadmus, Phoenix, and Cilix, the three sons of King Agenor, and their
little sister Europa (who was a very beautiful child), were at play
together near the seashore in their father's kingdom of Phoenicia. They
had rambled to some distance from the palace where their parents dwelt,
and were now in a verdant meadow, on one side of which lay the sea, all
sparkling and dimpling in the sunshine, and murmuring gently against the
beach. The three boys were very happy, gathering flowers, and twining
them into garlands, with which they adorned the little Europa. Seated
on the grass, the child was almost hidden under an abundance of buds and
blossoms, whence her rosy face peeped merrily out, and, as Cadmus said,
was the prettiest of all the flowers.

Just then, there came a splendid butterfly, fluttering along the meadow;
and Cadmus, Phoenix, and Cilix set off in pursuit of it, crying out
that it was a flower with wings. Europa, who was a little wearied with
playing all day long, did not chase the butterfly with her brothers, but
sat still where they had left her, and closed her eyes. For a while,
she listened to the pleasant murmur of the sea, which was like a voice
saying "Hush!" and bidding her go to sleep. But the pretty child, if she
slept at all, could not have slept more than a moment, when she heard
somet