64 HISTORICAL TALES.

likely the bodies of the former victims broke his
fall. Seeing no possible way out from the deep
cavity, he wrapped himself in his cloak, and re-
signed himself to die. But, while thus lying, he
saw a fox prowling among the dead bodies, and
questioned himself how it had found its way into
the pit. When it came near him he grasped its tail,
defending himself from its bites by means of his
cloak. Holding fast, he followed the fox to the
aperture by which it had entered, enlarged it so
that he could creep out, and soon appeared alive
again in the field, to the surprise of his friends and
the consternation of his foes.

Being seized again by some Cretan bowmen, he
was rescued by a maiden, who dreamed that wolves
had brought into the city a chained lion, bereft of
its claws, and that she had given it claws and set it
free. When she saw Aristomenes among his captors,
she believed that her dream had come true, and that
the gods desired her to set him free. This she did
by making his captors drunk, and giving him a
dagger with which he cut his bonds. The indiscreet
bowmen were killed by the warrior, while the es-
caped hero rewarded the maiden by making her the
wife of his son.

But Messenia was doomed by the gods, and no
man could avert its fate. The oracle of Delphi de-
clared that if the he-goat (Tragos) should drink the
waters of the Neda, the god could no longer defend
that fatal country. And now a fig-tree sprang up
on the banks of the Neda, and, instead of spreading
its branches aloft, let them droop till they touched