You must understand that the Old Man of the Sea, though he generally looked so much like the wave-beaten figurehead of a vessel, had the power of assuming any shape he pleased.  When he found himself so roughly seized by Hercules, he had been in hopes of putting him into such surprise and terror, by these magical transformations, that the hero would be glad to let him go.  If Hercules had relaxed his grasp, the Old One would certainly have plunged down to the very bottom of the sea, whence he would not soon have given himself the trouble of coming up, in order to answer any impertinent questions.  Ninety-nine people out of a hundred, I suppose, would have been frightened out of their wits by the very first of his ugly shapes, and would have taken to their heels at once.  For one of the hardest things in this world is to see the difference between real dangers and imaginary ones.

But, as Hercules held on so stubbornly, and only squeezed the Old One so much the tighter at every change of shape, and really put him to no small torture, he finally thought it best to reappear in his own figure.  So there he was again, a fishy, scaly, web-footed sort of personage, with something like a tuft of seaweed at his chin.

“Pray, what do you want with me?” cried the Old One, as soon as he could take breath; for it is quite a tiresome affair to go through so many false shapes.  “Why do you squeeze me so hard?  Let me go this moment, or I shall begin to consider you an extremely uncivil person!”

“My name is Hercules!” roared the mighty stranger.  “And you will never get out of my clutch until you tell me the nearest way to the garden of the Hesperides!”

When the old fellow heard who it was that had caught him, he saw with half an eye that it would be necessary to tell him everything that he wanted to know.  The Old One was an inhabitant of the sea, you must recollect, and roamed about everywhere, like other seafaring people.  Of course, he had often heard of the fame of Hercules, and of the wonderful things that he was constantly performing in various parts of the earth, and how determined he always was to accomplish whatever he undertook.  He therefore made no more attempts to escape, but told the hero how to find the garden of the Hesperides, and likewise warned him of many difficulties which must be overcome before he could arrive thither.

“You must go on, thus and thus,” said the Old Man of the Sea, after taking the points of the compass, “till you come in sight of a very tall giant, who holds the sky on his shoulders.  And the giant, if he happens to be in the humour, will tell you exactly where the garden of the Hesperides lies.”

“And if the giant happens not to be in the humour,” remarked Hercules, balancing his club on the tip of his finger, “perhaps I shall find means to persuade him!”

Thanking the Old Man of the Sea, and begging his pardon for having squeezed him so roughly, the hero resumed his journey.  He met with a great many strange adventures, which would be well worth your hearing, if I had leisure to narrate them as minutely as they deserve.