Hercules, as you must be careful to remember, was a remarkably strong man; and though it certainly requires a great deal of muscular power to uphold the sky, yet, if any mortal could be supposed capable of such an exploit, he was the one.  Nevertheless, it seemed so difficult an undertaking that, for the first time in his life, he hesitated.

“Is the sky very heavy?” he inquired.

“Why, not particularly so, at first,” answered the giant, shrugging his shoulders.  “But it gets to be a little burdensome after a thousand years!”

“And how long a time,” asked the hero, “will it take you to get the golden apples?”

“Oh, that will be done in a few moments,” cried Atlas.  “I shall take ten or fifteen miles at a stride, and be at the garden and back again before your shoulders begin to ache.”

“Well, then,” answered Hercules, “I will climb the mountain behind you there and relieve you of your burden.”

The truth is, Hercules had a kind heart of his own, and considered that he should be doing the giant a favour by allowing him this opportunity for a ramble.  And, besides, he thought that it would be still more for his own glory if he could boast of upholding the sky, than merely to do so ordinary a thing as to conquer a dragon with a hundred heads.  Accordingly, without more words, the sky was shifted from the shoulders of Atlas and placed upon those of Hercules.

When this was safely accomplished, the first thing that the giant did was to stretch himself; and you may imagine what a prodigious spectacle he was then.  Next, lie slowly lifted one of his feet out of the forest that had grown up around it; then, the other.  Then, all at once, he began to caper, and leap, and dance for joy at his freedom; flinging himself nobody knows how high into the air, and floundering down again with a shock that made the earth tremble.  Then he laughed—­Ho! ho! ho!—­with a thunderous roar that was echoed from the mountains, far and near, as if they and the giant had been so many rejoicing brothers.  When his joy had a little subsided, he stepped into the sea; ten miles at the first stride, which brought him midleg deep; and ten miles at the second, when the water came just above his knees; and ten miles more at the third, by which he was immersed nearly to his waist.  This was the greatest depth of the sea.

Hercules watched the giant as he still went onward; for it was really a wonderful sight, this immense human form, more than thirty miles off, half hidden in the ocean, but with his upper half as tall, and misty, and blue as a distant mountain.  At last the gigantic shape faded entirely out of view.  And now Hercules began to consider what he should do in case Atlas should be drowned in the sea, or if he were to be stung to death by the dragon with the hundred heads, which guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides.  If any such misfortune were to happen, how could he ever get rid of the sky?  And, by the by, its weight began already to be a little irksome to his head and shoulders.