The rosy Aurora spread over the morning sky, and when Apollo rose in his chariot with its heavily-maned white steeds he looked down upon the lonely meadows and missed the cattle. Amazed, he looked for the tracks of their feet, but nowhere found a trace of them, and no sign that man or god had been that way. He came to Onchestus, where he found an old man, keeper of a vineyard, and asked him about it. The old man replied: “It was a wee child who swung a wand with his hand and drove the herd away.” Apollo thought of Hermes and betook himself to Maia’s grotto. When Hermes saw the Sun-god’s dazzling face he buried himself deeper in the snow-white sheets and pretended to be asleep. But Apollo saw through the cunning of the child. He searched through the cavern and opened all the spacious chambers. In one he saw nectar and ambrosia and plenty of gold, in another chests of cedar filled with the purple and snow-white garments of the nymph. But as he nowhere found what he sought, he stepped to the cradle and said: “Cunning boy, arise and show me the cattle you carried off. If you do not hasten to obey me, I will hurl you without mercy into the blackened depths of Tartarus, from which no one can rescue you.” As Hermes struggled to rise, Apollo seized him and took him to Zeus, who, after hearing the Sun-god’s complaint, laughed loudly and released his cunning son. After giving some living cattle to the Sun-god, Zeus kept Hermes and he became the deity of barter and business and the swift messenger of the gods. All ways were soon known to him and his winged feet bore him with the swiftness of the wind over land and sea. Chapter IV Phaëthon Clymene bore a son, named Phaëthon, who grew up a handsome and stately youth. His father was Phœbus (Apollo), the Sun-god. Once, when he boasted of his heavenly descent, his companions laughed at him. Shame and anger filled the youth’s heart and he resolved, upon the advice of his mother, to ask the Sun-god himself if he were not his father. After wandering through Ethiopia and India, he at last reached Apollo’s palace. Lofty columns, some made of solid gold, others of fire-colored rubies, dazzled him. Their splendid pediments were made of polished ivory and the folding door of lustrous silver, the work of the artistic divinity, Hephaestus. There too were to be seen upon the billows of the sea the horn-blowing Triton, near him gray Proteus, whose office it is to protect the sea god’s seals, and Doris, with her daughters, the Nereids.[7] Some of these sea maidens were represented as sitting upon the rocks and drying their green hair, others, riding upon dolphins. Above them was the arching firmament.