hesitated.

"Is the sky very heavy?" he inquired.

"Why, not particularly so, at first," answered the giant, shrugging his
shoulders. "But it gets to be a little burdensome after a thousand
years!"

"And how long a time," asked the hero, "will it take you to get the
golden apples?"

"Oh, that will be done in a few moments," cried Atlas. "I shall take ten
or fifteen miles at a stride, and be at the garden and back again before
your shoulders begin to ache."

"Well, then," answered Hercules, "I will climb the mountain behind you
there and relieve you of your burden."

The truth is, Hercules had a kind heart of his own, and considered that
he should be doing the giant a favour by allowing him this opportunity
for a ramble. And, besides, he thought that it would be still more for
his own glory if he could boast of upholding the sky, than merely to do
so ordinary a thing as to conquer a dragon with a hundred heads.
Accordingly, without more words, the sky was shifted from the shoulders
of Atlas and placed upon those of Hercules.

When this was safely accomplished, the first thing that the giant did
was to stretch himself; and you may imagine what a prodigious spectacle
he was then. Next, lie slowly lifted one of his feet out of the forest
that had grown up around it; then, the other. Then, all at once, he
began to caper, and leap, and dance for joy at his freedom; flinging
himself nobody knows how high into the air, and floundering down again
with a shock that made the earth tremble. Then he laughed--Ho! ho!
ho!--with a thunderous roar that was echoed from the mountains, far and
near, as if they and the giant had been so many rejoicing brothers. When
his joy had a little subsided, he stepped into the sea; ten miles at the
first stride, which brought him midleg deep; and ten miles at the
second, when the water came just above his knees; and ten miles more at
the third, by which he was immersed nearly to his waist. This was the
greatest depth of the sea.

Hercules watched the giant as he still went onward; for it was really a
wonderful sight, this immense human form, more than thirty miles off,
half hidden in the ocean, but with his upper half as tall, and misty,
and blue as a distant mountain. At last the gigantic shape faded
entirely out of view. And now Hercules began to consider what he should
do in case Atlas should be drowned in the sea, or if he were to be stung
to death by the dragon with the hundred heads,