ushered into his
presence. Now, Minos was a stern and pitiless king. If the figure that
guarded Crete was made of brass, then the monarch, who ruled over it,
might be thought to have a still harder metal in his breast, and might
have been called a man of iron. He bent his shaggy brows upon the poor
Athenian victims. Any other mortal, beholding their fresh and tender
beauty, and their innocent looks, would have felt himself sitting on
thorns until he had made every soul of them happy by bidding them
go free as the summer wind. But this immitigable Minos cared only
to examine whether they were plump enough to satisfy the Minotaur's
appetite. For my part, I wish he himself had been the only victim; and
the monster would have found him a pretty tough one.

One after another, King Minos called these pale, frightened youths and
sobbing maidens to his footstool, gave them each a poke in the ribs
with his sceptre (to try whether they were in good flesh or no), and
dismissed them with a nod to his guards. But when his eyes rested on
Theseus, the king looked at him more attentively, because his face was
calm and brave.

"Young man," asked he, with his stern voice, "are you not appalled at
the certainty of being devoured by this terrible Minotaur?"

"I have offered my life in a good cause," answered Theseus, "and
therefore I give it freely and gladly. But thou, King Minos, art thou
not thyself appalled, who, year after year, hast perpetrated this
dreadful wrong, by giving seven innocent youths and as many maidens to
be devoured by a monster? Dost thou not tremble, wicked king, to turn
shine eyes inward on shine own heart? Sitting there on thy golden
throne, and in thy robes of majesty, I tell thee to thy face, King
Minos, thou art a more hideous monster than the Minotaur himself!"

"Aha! do you think me so?" cried the king, laughing in his cruel way.
"To-morrow, at breakfast time, you shall have an opportunity of judging
which is the greater monster, the Minotaur or the king! Take them away,
guards; and let this free-spoken youth be the Minotaur's first morsel."

Near the king's throne (though I had no time to tell you so before)
stood his daughter Ariadne. She was a beautiful and tender-hearted
maiden, and looked at these poor doomed captives with very different
feelings from those of the iron-breasted King Minos. She really wept
indeed, at the idea of how much human happiness would be needlessly
thrown away, by giving so ma