No matter for the golden apples ! No matter for the king , your cruel cousin ! We do not wish the dragon with the hundred heads to eat you up ! '' The stranger seemed to grow impatient at these remonstrances . He carelessly lifted his mighty club , and let it fall upon a rock that lay half buried in the earth , near by . With the force of that idle blow , the great rock was shattered all to pieces . It cost the stranger no more effort to achieve this feat of a giant 's strength than for one of the young maidens to touch her sister 's rosy cheek with a flower . `` Do you not believe , '' said he , looking at the damsels with a smile , `` that such a blow would have crushed one of the dragon 's hundred heads ? '' Then he sat down on the grass , and told them the story of his life , or as much of it as he could remember , from the day when he was first cradled in a warrior 's brazen shield . While he lay there , two immense serpents came gliding over the floor , and opened their hideous jaws to devour him ; and he , a baby of a few months old , had griped one of the fierce snakes in each of his little fists , and strangled them to death . When he was but a stripling , he had killed a huge lion , almost as big as the one whose vast and shaggy hide he now wore upon his shoulders . The next thing that he had done was to fight a battle with an ugly sort of monster , called a hydra , which had no less than nine heads , and exceedingly sharp teeth in every one of them . `` But the dragon of the Hesperides , you know , '' observed one of the damsels , `` has a hundred heads ! '' `` Nevertheless , '' replied the stranger , `` I would rather fight two such dragons than a single hydra . For , as fast as I cut off a head , two others grew in its place ; and , besides , there was one of the heads that could not possibly be killed , but kept biting as fiercely as ever , long after it was cut off . So I was forced to bury it under a stone , where it is doubtless alive , to this vary day . But the hydra 's body , and its eight other heads , will never do any further mischief . '' The damsels , judging that the story was likely to last a good while , had been preparing a repast of bread and grapes , that the stranger might refresh himself in the intervals of his talk . They took pleasure in helping him to this simple food ; and , now and then , one of them would put a sweet grape between her rosy lips , lest it should make him bashful to eat alone . The traveller proceeded to tell how he had chased a very swift stag , for a twelve-month together , without ever stopping to take breath , and had at last caught it by the antlers , and carried it home alive .
And he had fought with a very odd race of people , half horses and half men , and had put them all to death , from a sense XXXXX duty , in order that their ugly figures might never be seen any more .
So at besides from in of on under upon without