ave his life.

"Let me manage it," she said. "The young man will soon come down to
dine with us. I will drop poison into a glass of wine, and at the end of
the meal I will give it to him. Nothing can be easier."

So, when the hour came, Theseus sat down to dine with the king and
Medea; and while he ate he told of his deeds and of how he had overcome
the robber giants, and Cercyon the wrestler, and Procrustes the
pitiless; and as the king listened, his heart yearned strangely towards
the young man, and he longed to save him from Medea's poisoned cup. Then
Theseus paused in his talk to help himself to a piece of the roasted
meat, and, as was the custom of the time, drew his sword to carve
it--for you must remember that all these things happened long ago,
before people had learned to use knives and forks at the table. As the
sword flashed from its scabbard, AEgeus saw the letters that were
engraved upon it--the initials of his own name. He knew at once that it
was the sword which he had hidden so many years before under the stone
on the mountain side above Troezen.

"My son! my son!" he cried; and he sprang up and dashed the cup of
poisoned wine from the table, and flung his arms around Theseus. It was
indeed a glad meeting for both father and son, and they had many things
to ask and to tell. As for the wicked Medea, she knew that her day of
rule was past. She ran out of the palace, and whistled a loud, shrill
call; and men say that a chariot drawn by dragons came rushing through
the air, and that she leaped into it and was carried away, and no one
ever saw her again.

The very next morning, AEgeus sent out his heralds, to make it known
through all the city that Theseus was his son, and that he would in time
be king in his stead. When the fifty nephews heard this, they were angry
and alarmed.

"Shall this upstart cheat us out of our heritage?" they cried; and they
made a plot to waylay and kill Theseus in a grove close by the city
gate.

Right cunningly did the wicked fellows lay their trap to catch the young
hero; and one morning, as he was passing that way alone, several of them
fell suddenly upon him, with swords and lances, and tried to slay him
outright. They were thirty to one, but he faced them boldly and held
them at bay, while he shouted for help. The men of Athens, who had borne
so many wrongs from the hands of the nephews, came running out from the
streets; and in the fight which followed, every one of th