Page:Half a hundred hero tales of Ulysses and the men of old.djvu/124

 108 pair abode in Calydon, and children were born to them. Deianira was a happy wife, and her only grief was that her lord was so often absent from home, for Hercules would never rest from his toils. On one of these adventures he had been persuaded by his wife to take her with him, and on their way home they came to a broad and rapid river. The stream was swollen with winter rains, and the eddies were deep and dangerous. Nessus the Centaur, who lived in a cavern close by, offered to carry Deianira over on his back. He knew the fords, and his strength was as the strength of ten. So Hercules trusted his wife to the Centaur, although she was almost as much afraid of Nessus as she was of the dark roaring torrent. He himself threw his club and crooked bow across, and plunged boldly into the stream.

Just as he reached the farther bank and was taking up his bow he heard a scream. Nessus had betrayed his trust, and was about to carry off Deianira in the very sight of her husband. Swiftly flew an arrow from the bow, which pierced the traitor's back. It was tinged with poison from the hydra, and the wound was mortal. Nessus, as he drew the barbed steel from his body, muttered to himself, "I will not die unavenged." Then handing his blood-stained tunic to Deianira, he cried, " I have sinned, and am justly punished. Pardon a dying man, and in token of forgiveness accept from me a dying gift. Keep this tunic as a talisman. If ever thy lord's love should wax cold, or he should look upon an other woman to love her more than thee, give him this charmed tunic to wear, and it will rekindle his old passion."

Time passed by, and the feats of the mighty Hercules were known all over the world. Returning victorious