There was one of the plants which up to that time had had no leaves, but came up out of the ground looking like a mere club or stick.  This plant took pity on the maiden.  It began at once to send out long feathery branches with delicate green leaves, which grew so fast that Perigune was soon hidden from sight beneath them.  Theseus knew that she must be somewhere in the garden, but he could not find her, so well did the feathery branches conceal her.  So he called to her: 

“Perigune,” he said, “you need not fear me; for I know that you are gentle and good, and it is only against things dark and cruel that I lift up my hand.”

The maiden peeped from her hiding-place, and when she saw the fair face of the youth and heard his kind voice, she came out, trembling, and talked with him.  And Theseus rested that evening in her house, and she picked some of her choicest flowers for him and gave him food.  But when in the morning the dawn began to appear in the east, and the stars grew dim above the mountain peaks, he bade her farewell and journeyed onward over the hills.  And Perigune tended her plants and watched her flowers in the lone garden in the midst of the piny grove; but she never plucked the stalks of asparagus nor used them for food, and when she afterwards became the wife of a hero and had children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, she taught them all to spare the plant which had taken pity upon her in her need.

The road which Theseus followed now led him closer to the shore, and by and by he came to a place where the mountains seemed to rise sheer out of the sea, and there was only a, narrow path high up along the side of the cliff.  Far down beneath his feet he could hear the waves dashing evermore against the rocky wall, while above him the mountain eagles circled and screamed, and gray crags and barren peaks glistened in the sunlight.

But Theseus went on fearlessly and came at last to a place where a spring of clear water bubbled out from a cleft in the rock; and there the path was narrower still, and the low doorway of a cavern opened out upon it.  Close by the spring sat a red-faced giant, with a huge club across his knees, guarding the road so that no one could pass; and in the sea at the foot of the cliff basked a huge turtle, its leaden eyes looking always upward for its food.  Theseus knew—­for Perigune had told him—­that this was the dwelling-place of a robber named Sciron, who was the terror of all the coast, and whose custom it was to make strangers wash his feet, so that while they were doing so, he might kick them over the cliff to be eaten, by his pet turtle below.

When Theseus came up, the robber raised his club, and said fiercely:  “No man can pass here until he has washed my feet!  Come, set to work!”

Then Theseus smiled, and said:  “Is your turtle hungry to-day? and do you want me to feed him?” The robber’s eyes flashed fire, and he said, “You shall feed him, but you shall wash my feet first;” and with that he brandished his club in the air and rushed forward to strike.