Tanglewood Tales Read Online Free PDF

Talus, I suppose."
    As the breeze came fresher just then, the master was busy with trimming
his sails, and had no more time to answer questions. But while the
vessel flew faster and faster towards Crete, Theseus was astonished to
behold a human figure, gigantic in size, which appeared to be striding,
with a measured movement, along the margin of the island. It stepped
from cliff to cliff, and sometimes from one headland to another, while
the sea foamed and thundered on the shore beneath, and dashed its jets
of spray over the giant's feet. What was still more remarkable, whenever
the sun shone on this huge figure, it flickered and glimmered; its vast
countenance, too, had a metallic lustre, and threw great flashes of
splendor through the air. The folds of its garments, moreover, instead
of waving in the wind, fell heavily over its limbs, as if woven of some
kind of metal.
    The nigher the vessel came, the more Theseus wondered what this immense
giant could be, and whether it actually had life or no. For, though it
walked, and made other lifelike motions, there yet was a kind of jerk
in its gait, which, together with its brazen aspect, caused the young
prince to suspect that it was no true giant, but only a wonderful piece
of machinery. The figure looked all the more terrible because it carried
an enormous brass club on its shoulder.
    "What is this wonder?" Theseus asked of the master of the vessel, who
was now at leisure to answer him.
    "It is Talus, the Man of Brass," said the master.
    "And is he a live giant, or a brazen image?" asked Theseus.
    "That, truly," replied the master, "is the point which has always
perplexed me. Some say, indeed, that this Talus was hammered out for
King Minos by Vulcan himself, the skilfullest of all workers in metal.
But who ever saw a brazen image that had sense enough to walk round an
island three times a day, as this giant walks round the island of Crete,
challenging every vessel that comes nigh the shore? And, on the other
hand, what living thing, unless his sinews were made of brass, would not
be weary of marching eighteen hundred miles in the twenty-four hours, as
Talus does, without ever sitting down to rest? He is a puzzler, take him
how you will."
    Still the vessel went bounding onward; and now Theseus could hear the
brazen clangor of the giant's footsteps, as he trod heavily upon the
sea-beaten rocks, some of which were seen to crack and crumble into the
foaming waves beneath his weight. As they approached the entrance of the
port, the giant straddled clear across it, with a foot firmly planted on
each headland, and uplifting his club to such a height that its butt-end
was hidden in the cloud, he stood in that formidable posture, with the
sun gleaming all over his metallic surface. There seemed nothing else
to be expected but that, the next moment, he would fetch his great club
down, slam bang, and smash the vessel into a thousand pieces, without
heeding how many innocent people he might destroy; for there is seldom
any mercy in a giant, you know, and quite as little in a piece of brass
clockwork. But just when Theseus and his companions thought the blow was
coming, the brazen lips unclosed themselves, and the figure spoke.
    "Whence come you, strangers?"
    And when the ringing voice ceased, there was just such a reverberation
as you may have heard within a great church bell, for a moment or two
after the stroke of the hammer.
    "From Athens!" shouted the master in reply.
    "On what errand?" thundered the Man of Brass.
    And he whirled his club aloft more threateningly than ever, as if he
were about to smite them with a thunderstroke right amidships, because
Athens, so little while ago, had been at war with Crete.
    "We bring the seven youths and the seven maidens," answered the master,
"to be devoured by the Minotaur!"
    "Pass!" cried the brazen giant.
    That one loud word rolled all about the sky, while again there was a
booming reverberation within the figure's breast. The vessel