In front of one of their harbors lay a beautiful island, well-stocked with goats. Leaving his fleet at this island, Odysseus went with one ship to the mainland. Here he entered the cave of a Cyclops, Polyphemus by name. When Polyphemus returned in the evening with his flocks and found strangers there, he asked who they were. Odysseus said that they had been shipwrecked, and appealed to his mercy and reverence for the gods. Polyphemus cared for neither and he seized and killed and devoured two young Greeks. The door of the cave was closed with an immense rock, so that, if they killed Polyphemus, they could not have escaped, for they could not move the rock. The next night, though, when Polyphemus was in a drunken sleep, they took his staff, which was as large as a mast, heated it in the fire, and put out his one eye. When the giant roared out with pain, the other Cyclops came to see what was the matter. Odysseus had told him that his name was _Nobody_. So when he called out that Nobody was killing him, they thought him dreaming. Next morning when Polyphemus turned out his sheep and goats, which were of great size, the Greeks fastened themselves beneath their bellies and so escaped. After they had put out to sea a little way, Odysseus called out his true name, and the angry Cyclops hurled great stones at him, and nearly destroyed his ship. HERCULES’ TWELVE TASKS. In obedience to the god Zeus, Hercules was made to serve Eurystheus, who gave him twelve tasks to perform. The first task was to bring the skin of an unconquerable lion, the Nemean. Hercules choked the lion. The second task was to destroy the nine-headed hydra, or water-snake. He cut off the heads, but two sprang up where one was cut off. Then his companion with a torch burned the necks where the heads were cut off by Hercules the second time. The third task was to bring the golden-horned hind alive. He wounded and then caught her. The fourth task was to bring an immense wild boar alive. The fifth task was to cleanse the immense stables of King Augeas in one day. This he did by mining the rivers Penios and Alpheios. The sixth task was to drive away the stymphalid water-fowl. A goddess gave him brazen clappers, the beating of which made the birds rise from their hiding-places, when Hercules destroyed them with his arrows. The seventh task was to fetch the wild and furious Cretan bull. The eighth task was to bring the Centaurs of Thrace. The Centaurs were horses with the heads and upper half of the human body. The ninth was to bring the girdle of the mighty queen of the Amazons. The tenth was to bring the purple-headed oxen of the Ruddy-isle. The eleventh was to bring the apples of the Hesperides. After meeting with various adventures he reached the place where they were, and while he upheld the heavens Atlas plucked the apples, which Hercules, by a cute device, secured from him. The twelfth task was to bring Cerberus from the under-world.