"So you want hospitality, do you?" asked Sciron. "Very well, as you're a traveler, and don't know the ways of the castle, you shall be let off easily. Of course you'll have to be thrown from the cliff after supper--that's the rule. But instead of being tortured, you shall only wash my feet for me and wait on me at table. You look as if you understood washing and how things ought to be served. Now, then, get some hot water and begin," he said, thrusting out a pair of feet which looked as if they had not been touched by water for years. A grinning robber brought a bowl of hot water. Theseus took it and threw it in the face of Sciron. "That wants washing, too," said he. Sciron rushed at him; but Theseus received him at the point of his sword, and the two fought furiously, while the robbers looked on, enjoying the game. Sciron was twice the size and weight of Theseus; but Theseus was the best swordsman in all Greece, and presently had him down. "There," said he, pricking Sciron's throat with his sword, "you have had a lesson in manners. You shall wash _my_ feet and wait on _me_ before you go over the cliff after your victims. For I am not going away to leave a brigand like you alive behind me." Sciron, like all such bullies, was a coward at heart, and his own men had no longer any respect for him now that he had been worsted by a stripling. Amid the laughter of the robbers, he had to wash the feet of Theseus, and to serve him humbly with meat and drink, and was finally punished for his many cruel murders by being thrown into the sea. Having received the thanks of the country for ridding it of such a scourge, Theseus traveled on till he came to another village, where he thought he would rest a little. No sooner had he entered the place, however, than he was surrounded by a number of armed men, who gave him to understand that he was their prisoner. "Is this the way you treat travelers in your country?" asked he. "Assuredly," answered the captain of the troop. "You are in the country of King Cercyon, and the law is that no traveler may leave it until he has wrestled with the king." "I ask for nothing better," said Theseus. "What happens to the traveler if he conquers Cercyon?" "Then he may pass on." "But if Cercyon conquers him?" "Then he is tortured till he dies." "It is strange," said Theseus, "that I never heard of such a law, or even of King Cercyon." "Not at all strange," said the captain. "I don't see how you could have heard it, seeing that no traveler has ever lived to tell the tale. Cercyon has conquered and killed them all, as he will conquer and kill you." And when he saw Cercyon Theseus could well believe it. The king was of immense height, with broad shoulders, and muscles that stood out like globes of iron. He smiled savagely when he saw Theseus, and stripped without a word. Theseus stripped also, and the two were soon clasping each other like a pair of fierce bears, or rather like a bear and a man.