carried a staff
made of twined reeds. When Acheloues spoke, his voice was like the
rippling of a stream.

"The princess Deianira shall be mine!" said Acheloues. "I will make her
the queen of the river lands. The music of the waters shall be always
in her ears, and the plenty that follows wherever I flow shall make
her rich."

"No," shouted Hercules. "I am the strength of the earth. Deianira is
mine. You shall not have her."

Then the river-god grew very angry. His green robe changed to the
black of the sea in a storm, and his voice was as loud as a mountain
cataract. Acheloues could be almost as powerful as Hercules when he was
angered.

"How do you dare claim this royal maiden?" he roared, "you, who have
mortal blood in your veins? I am a god, and the king of the waters.
Wherever I take my way through the earth, grains and fruits ripen, and
flowers bud and bloom. The princess is mine by right."

Hercules frowned as he advanced toward the river-god. "Your strength
is only in words," he said scornfully. "My strength is in my arm. If
you would win Deianira, it must be by hand-to-hand combat." So the
river-god threw off his garments and Hercules his lions' skins, and
the two fought for the hand of the princess.

It was a brave and valorous battle. Neither yielded; both stood firm.
Acheloues slipped in and out of Hercules' mighty grasp a dozen times,
but at last Hercules' greater strength overpowered him. Hercules held
the river-god fast by his neck, panting for breath. But Acheloues knew
magic arts which he could practise. He suddenly changed himself into a
long, slippery serpent. He twisted out of Hercules' grasp, and darted
out his forked tongue at him, showing his poisonous fangs.

Hercules was not yet outdone, though. He laughed in scorn at the
serpent. While he was still in his cradle, Hercules had strangled two
serpents, and he had met a Hydra with a hundred heads that he had cut
off. He was not in the least afraid of the river-god in the form of a
serpent, but gripped the creature by the back of its neck, ready to
strangle it.

Acheloues struggled in vain to escape, and at last tried his magic arts
again. In a second the serpent had changed its form to that of a
bellowing ferocious bull. With its horns lowered, it charged upon
Hercules.

But Hercules was still unvanquished. He seized hold of the bull's
horns, bent its head, grasped its brawny neck, and throwing it down
buried the horns in the ground. Th