BRYANT, _Iliad_, Book XX.

To compensate Tros for the loss of his son, Jupiter gave him four
magnificent horses of immortal breed and marvelous fleetness. These were
the horses which Hercules asked as his reward for destroying the
serpent. As there was no other way of saving the life of his daughter,
Laomedon consented. Hercules then went down to the seashore, bearing in
his hand the huge club which he usually carried, and wearing his
lion-skin over his shoulders. This was the skin of a fierce lion he had
strangled to death in a forest in Greece, and he always wore it when
going to perform any of his heroic feats.

When Hesione had been bound to the rock, the hero stood beside her and
awaited the coming of the serpent. In a short time its hideous form
emerged from beneath the waves, and darting forward it was about to
seize the princess, when Hercules rushed upon it, and with mighty
strokes of his club beat the monster to death. Thus was the king's
daughter saved and all Troy delivered from a terrible scourge. But when
the hero claimed the reward that had been agreed upon, and which he had
so well earned, Laomedon again proved himself to be a man who was
neither honest nor grateful. Disregarding his promise, and forgetful,
too, of what he and his people had already suffered as a result of his
breach of faith with the two gods, he refused to give Hercules the
horses.

The hero at once went away from Troy, but not without resolving to
return at a convenient time and punish Laomedon. This he did, not long
afterwards, when he had completed the celebrated "twelve labors" at
which he had been set by a Grecian king, whom Jupiter commanded him to