Castor's strenght began to ebb, and Polydeuces, who could not otherwise induce him to stop, shipped his own oar.

Jason and Heracles, however, continued to urge the Argo forward, seated on opposite sides of the ship, until presently, as they reached the mouth of the river Chius in Mysia, Jason fainted.

Almost at once Heracles's oar snapped. He glared about him, in anger and disgust; and his weary companions, thrusting their oars through the oar-holes again, beached the Argo by the riverside.

While they prepared the evening meal, Heracles went in search of a tree which would serve to make him a new oar. He uprooted an enourmous fir, but when he dragged it back for trimming beside the camp fire, found that his squire Hylas had set out, an hour or two previously, to fetch water from the near-by pool of Pegae, and not yet returned; Polyphemus was away searching for him.

Hylas had been Heracles's minion and darling ever since the death of his father, Theiodamas, king of the Dryopians, whom Heracles had killed when refused the gift of a plough-ox.

Crying 'Hylas! Hylas!', Heracles plunged frantically into the woods and soon met Polyphemus, who reported: 'Alas, I heard Hylas shouting for help; and ran towards his voice. But when I reached Pegae I found no sign of a struggle either with wild beast or with other enemies. There was only his water-pitcher lying abandoned by the pool side.'

Heracles and Polyphemus continued their search all night, and forced every Mysian whom they met to join in it, but to no avail; the fact being that Dryope and her sister-nymphs of Pegae had fallen in love with Hylas, and enticed him to come and live with them in an underwater grotto."

(Graves)