One day his wanderings brought him into the heart of the great mountain-range called Caucasus, a vast and dreadful region of snow-covered peaks which no human foot had ever climbed. Never had even he known a harder labor than to make his way among these icy precipices, where every step meant danger. Not a sign of life was to be seen or heard, when suddenly he heard a terrible cry like that of a giant in pain. He looked round; but saw nothing but the silent mountains. Then the cry came again, as if from far above him; and, lifting his eyes to the highest peak of all, he was sure that something moved there like the flapping of great wings. What could it be? What could be happening upon the highest mountain peak in the world? He set himself to climb its sides, often so steep and icy that he was over and over again on the point of giving up in despair; and the higher he climbed the louder and more full of agony became the cry. At last, after many days of toil, he reached the topmost peak whence the cry came, and there he forgot hunger, cold, and weariness in wonder at what he saw. Bound to the rocks by huge chains, so that he could not move a limb, lay what seemed a man, bigger than Hercules himself, with every muscle drawn and writhing in agony. And with good reason, for a gigantic and horrible vulture had his limbs in its talons and its beak in his heart, which it was fiercely tearing. The vulture was too busy at his cruel feast to see Hercules. But its tortured victim cried-- "Depart, whoever you are: I am Prometheus the Titan, who tried to conquer the strength of the gods by cunning, and am thus punished for my sin forever." And then he sent forth another dreadful cry as the vulture plunged its beak into his heart again. * * * * * Prometheus! Yes; it was nothing less than Prometheus the Titan, who, when his race was beaten in the great battle with the gods of Olympus, had stolen fire from heaven, and made Man, and who was thus punished for having made what gave the gods such trouble. But Hercules, though he knew all this, and the story of Pandora besides, exclaimed-- "Then, gods or no gods, sin or no sin, this shall not be!" And at the word he grasped the vulture by the throat, and then followed a struggle beside which even his battle with the hell-hound Cerberus had been as nothing. For it was no common vulture of the mountains: it was the demon of Remorse, whose beak had not left the heart of Prometheus one moment for thousands and thousands of years. But it was over at last, and the vulture lay strangled at the feet of Hercules. To free Prometheus from his chains was the work of a moment, and the Titan rose and stretched his free limbs with a heart at ease. * * * * *