looked so much like the wave-beaten figure-head 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, webfooted sort of personage, with
something like a tuft of sea-weed 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