"Do you call this hospitality, you savages?" he shouted, stumbling out of the house, and laying about him with his club freely among the crowd, while Pholus vainly tried to prevent mischief. Down went Centaur after Centaur, till those who were uninjured galloped away panic-stricken, Pholus himself being among the slain. "To Chiron!" cried the Centaurs; "he will know how to deal with this madman." They rode as hard as they could to Chiron's dwelling, Hercules, furious with wine and anger, still pursuing. As they were outstripping him, he let fly his arrows among them; and, as evil luck would have it, at that very moment Chiron rode out from his gate to see what was happening, and to quiet the disorder, and one of the arrows struck him in the knee, and he fell. Hercules became sober enough when he came up and found his old friend and teacher writhing in terrible agony; for the arrow was one which he had dipped in the deadly poison of the Hydra. He could only look on with remorse. Chiron knew him, and, when the agony passed away into death, gave him a look of forgiveness. What the wise Centaur's last word to his favorite pupil was, I know not; but I think it must have been something like: "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." * * * * * I will not try to think of what Hercules felt when he watched the burial of the friends whom he had slain in a fit of drunken passion, for no cause. However, his duty lay still before him, and it had become more clear. Never again would he complain of his fate, or question the justice of the gods, or think of the life which had been lent to him as if it were his own. In due time, after a long and dangerous journey among the mountains, he came upon the den of the great wild boar which he was to capture alive. There was nothing to be done but to follow it as he had followed the stag, watching for a chance of trapping it unawares: and in the pursuit another whole year passed away. Then, in the middle of winter, there fell such a snow that the boar was unable to leave its den. Hercules forced his way through the snowed-up entrance, and tried to seize the brute as he had seized the Nemean lion. The boar, however, rushed past him, and would have escaped again had not the snow hindered his running, and at last exhausted him. Hercules, though nearly exhausted himself, chose the right moment for closing with him, and, after a long struggle, bound him with a halter in such a manner that, in spite of its efforts, he could drag it by main strength down the mountain. * * * * *