Hercules shook his head.

“I must depart now,” said he.

“We will then give you the best directions we can,” replied the damsels.  “You must go to the seashore, and find out the Old One, and compel him to inform you where the golden apples are to be found.”

“The Old One!” repeated Hercules, laughing at this odd name.  “And, pray, who may the Old One be?”

“Why, the Old Man of the Sea, to be sure!” answered one of the damsels.  “He has fifty daughters, whom some people call very beautiful; but we do not think it proper to be acquainted with them, because they have sea-green hair, and taper away like fishes.  You must talk with this Old Man of the Sea.  He is a seafaring person, and knows all about the garden of the Hesperides, for it is situated in an island which he is often in the habit of visiting.”

Hercules then asked whereabouts the Old One was most likely to be met with.  When the damsels had informed him, he thanked them for all their kindness,—­for the bread and grapes with which they had fed him, the lovely flowers with which they had crowned him, and the songs and dances wherewith they had done him honour—­and he thanked them, most of all, for telling him the right way—­and immediately set forth upon his journey.

But, before he was out of hearing, one of the maidens called after him.

“Keep fast hold of the Old One, when you catch him!” cried she, smiling, and lifting her finger to make the caution more impressive.  “Do not be astonished at anything that may happen.  Only hold him fast, and he will tell you what you wish to know.”

Hercules again thanked her, and pursued his way, while the maidens resumed their pleasant labour of making flower wreaths.  They talked about the hero long after he was gone.

“We will crown him with the loveliest of our garlands,” said they, “when he returns hither with the three golden apples, after slaying the dragon with a hundred heads.”

Meanwhile, Hercules travelled constantly onward, over hill and dale, and through the solitary woods.  Sometimes he swung his club aloft, and splintered a mighty oak with a downright blow.  His mind was so full of the giants and monsters with whom it was the business of his life to fight, that perhaps he mistook the great tree for a giant or a monster.  And so eager was Hercules to achieve what he had undertaken, that he almost regretted to have spent so much time with the damsels, wasting idle breath upon the story of his adventures.  But thus it always is with persons who are destined to perform great things.  What they have already done seems less than nothing.  What they have taken in hand to do seems worth toil, danger, and life itself.  Persons who happened to be passing through the forest must have been affrighted to see him smite the trees with his great club.  With but a single blow, the trunk was riven as by the stroke of lightning and the broad boughs came rustling and crashing down.