nk at your table."

"That I can give you," said AEgeus, "if at least I am master in my own
hall."

Then he bade them put a seat for Theseus, and set before him the best
of the feast, and Theseus sat and ate so much that all the company
wondered at him, but always he kept his club by his side.

But Medeia, the dark witch-maiden, was watching all the while, and she
saw how the heart of AEgeus opened to Theseus, and she said to herself,
"This youth will be master here, unless I hinder it."

Then she went back modestly to her chamber, while Theseus ate and
drank, and all the servants whispered, "This, then, is the man who
killed the monsters! How noble are his looks, and how huge his size!
Ah, would he were our master's son!"

Presently Medeia came forth, decked in all her jewels and her rich
Eastern robes, and looking more beautiful than the day, so that all
the guests could look at nothing else. And in her right hand she held
a golden cup, and in her left a flask of gold. She came up to Theseus,
and spoke in a sweet and winning voice, "Hail to the hero! drink of my
charmed cup, which gives rest after every toil and heals all wounds;"
and as she spoke she poured sparkling wine into the cup.

Theseus looked up into her fair face and into her deep dark eyes, and
as he looked he shrank and shuddered, for they were dry eyes like the
eyes of a snake.

Then he rose and said, "The wine is rich, and the wine-bearer fair.
Let her pledge me first herself in the cup that the wine may be
sweeter."

Medeia turned pale and stammered, "Forgive me, fair hero, but I am ill
and dare drink no wine."

Theseus looked again into her eyes and cried, "Thou shalt pledge me in
that cup or die!"

Then Medeia shrieked and dashed the cup to the ground and fled, for
there was strong poison in that wine.

And Medeia called her dragon chariot, and sprang into it, and fled
aloft, away over land and sea, and no man saw her more.

[Illustration: THESEUS LOOKED UP INTO HER FAIR FACE.]

AEgeus cried, "What have you done?"

But Theseus said, "I have rid the land of one enchantment, now I will
rid it of one more."

And he came close to AEgeus and drew from his cloak the sword and the
sandals, and said the words which his mother bade him, "The stone is
lifted."

AEgeus stepped back a pace and looked at the lad till his eyes grew
dim, and then he cast himself on his neck and wept, and Theseus wept,
till they had no strength left to weep more