CHAPTER VII.
PHILOCTETES.
All that was mortal of Hercules, as we have seen, perished in the flames on Mount Œta; but his famous bow and the arrows with the hydra's blood were not burnt with the hero. Philoctetes, his armour-bearer, had been among the few who had aided Hyllus in carrying his father up the steep sides of the mountain; he had gathered the wood for the funeral-pile; and it was said that he had with his own hands applied the torch and kindled the flames. In gratitude for these last offices, Hercules had given him the bow and the poisoned arrows; which proved a possession almost as full of trouble to their new owner as they had to the hero himself.
Philoctetes had sailed for Troy with the rest of the armament; but on the voyage it happened that the Greek fleet touched at Chrysa, and there, while rashly treading on consecrated ground, he had been bitten in the foot by a venomous serpent. The wound gangrened and festered—and so noisome was the stench from it, and so terrible were the sufferer's cries of agony, that,
