would put a sweet grape between her rosy lips, lest it should make him
bashful to eat alone.

The traveler proceeded to tell how he had chased a very swift stag,
for a twelvemonth together, without ever stopping to take breath, and
had at last caught it by the antlers, and carried it home alive. And
he had fought with a very odd race of people, half horses and half
men, and had put them all to death, from a sense of duty, in order
that their ugly figures might never be seen any more. Besides all
this, he took to himself great credit for having cleaned out a stable.

"Do you call that a wonderful exploit?" asked one of the young
maidens, with a smile. "Any clown in the country has done as much!"

"Had it been an ordinary stable," replied the stranger, "I should not
have mentioned it. But this was so gigantic a task that it would have
taken me all my life to perform it, if I had not luckily thought of
turning the channel of a river through the stable-door. That did the
business in a very short time!"

Seeing how earnestly his fair auditors listened, he next told them how
he had shot some monstrous birds, and had caught a wild bull alive and
let him go again, and had tamed a number of very wild horses, and had
conquered Hippolyta, the warlike queen of the Amazons. He mentioned,
likewise, that he had taken off Hippolyta's enchanted girdle, and had
given it to the daughter of his cousin, the king.

"Was it the girdle of Venus," inquired the prettiest of the damsels,
"which makes women beautiful?"

"No," answered the stranger. "It had formerly been the sword-belt of
Mars; and it can only make the wearer valiant and courageous."

"An old sword-belt!" cried the damsel, tossing her head. "Then I
should not care about having it!"

"You are right," said the stranger.

Going on with his wonderful narrative, he informed the maidens that as
strange an adventure as ever happened was when he fought with Geryon,
the six-legged man. This was a very odd and frightful sort of figure,
as you may well believe. Any person, looking at his tracks in the sand
or snow, would suppose that three sociable companions had been walking
along together. On hearing his footsteps at a little distance, it was
no more than reasonable to judge that several people must be coming.
But it was only the strange man Geryon clattering onward, with his six
legs!

Six legs, and one gigantic body! Certainly, he must have been a very
queer monster to look a