"How will you prevent me," asked Hercules,
"from going whither I please?"

"By hitting you a rap with this pine tree
here," shouted Antaeus, scowling so that he
made himself the ugliest monster in Africa.
"I am fifty times stronger than you; and, now
that I stamp my foot upon the ground, I am
five hundred times stronger! I am ashamed to
kill such a puny little dwarf as you seem to be.
I will make a slave of you, and you shall like-
wise be the slave of my brethren, here, the
Pygmies. So throw down your club and your
other weapons; and as for that lion's skin, I
intend to have a pair of gloves made of it."

"Come and take it off my shoulders, then,"
answered Hercules, lifting his club.

Then the Giant, grinning with rage, strode
tower-like towards the stranger, (ten times
strengthened at every step,) and fetched a mon-
strous blow at him with his pine tree, which
Hercules caught upon his club; and being more
skilful than Antaeus, he paid him back such a
rap upon the sconce, that down tumbled the
great lumbering man-mountain, flat upon the
ground. The poor little Pygmies (who really

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