ests, in a far-off
island, and on that island he alighted. It was a country of beautiful
flowers, and pine forests high on the hill, but below the pines all was
like a garden, and in that garden was a tree bearing apples of gold, and
round the tree were dancing three fair maidens, clothed in green, and
white, and red.

'These must be the Nymphs of the Isle of the West,' said Perseus, and he
floated down into the garden, and drew near them.

As soon as they saw him they left off dancing, and catching each other
by the hands they ran to Perseus laughing, and crying, 'Hermes, our
playfellow Hermes has come!' The arms of all of them went round Perseus
at once, with much laughing and kissing. 'Why have you brought a great
shield, Hermes?' they cried, 'here there is no unfriendly god or man to
fight against you.'

Perseus saw that they had mistaken him for the god whose sword and
winged shoon he wore, but he did not dislike the mistake of the merry
maidens.

'I am not Hermes,' he said, 'but a mortal man, to whom the god has
graciously lent his sword and shoon, and the shield was lent to me by
Pallas Athene. My name is Perseus.'

The girls leaped back from him, blushing and looking shy. The eldest
girl answered, 'We are the daughters of Hesperus, the God of the Evening
Star. I am Aegle, this is my sister Erytheia, and this is Hesperia. We
are the keepers of this island, which is the garden of the gods, and
they often visit us; our cousins, Dionysus, the young god of wine and
mirth, and Hermes of the Golden Wand come often; and bright Apollo, and
his sister Artemis the huntress. But a mortal man we have never seen,
and wherefore have the gods sent you hither?'

'The two gods sent me, maidens, to ask you the way to the Isle of the
Gorgons, that I may slay Medusa of the snaky hair, whom gods and men
detest.'

'Alas!' answered the nymphs, 'how shall you slay her, even if we knew
the way to that island, which we know not?'

Perseus sighed: he had gone so far, and endured so much, and had come to
the Nymphs of the Isle of the West, and even they could not tell how to
reach the Gorgons' island.

[Illustration: PERSEUS IN THE GARDEN OF THE HESPERIDES.]

'Do not fear,' said the girl, 'for if we know not the way we know one
that knows it: Atlas is his name--the Giant of the Mountain. He dwells
on the highest peak of the snow-crested hill, and it is he who holds up
the heavens, and keeps heaven and earth asunder. He looks ov