Hill he! hill he!’ Theseus rose to his full height too. ‘Let it be a duel at least,’ he said. ‘You kill me … kill me!’ So saying he aimed a kick at a heap of dung. Thick pieces flew up into the Minotaur’s face. ‘Come on, then!’ The creature gave a roar of outrage as flecks of his own faeces stung his eyes. He stamped his hoofs, shook his head and lunged at Theseus. Theseus stepped left and then right, goading the Minotaur to come at him. It shook its head one way and the other in confusion. ‘Yah! Yah! Come on now,’ shouted Theseus, backing towards a wall. It made up its mind, lowered its horns and charged. Theseus leapt aside at the last moment and the Minotaur crashed headfirst into the stone wall. The left-hand horn snapped with a great crack and hung down loose. Theseus rolled forward in a somersault, wrenched the horn free and before the dazed creature had time to know what was happening, he thrust the sharp point deep into the folds of its throat and pulled viciously across, severing the windpipe. The eruption of blood covered Theseus from head to foot. The creature stamped about in a jerking dance as more and more blood jetted out from its neck in a fountain. Its hoofs slipped on the blood-wet stones and it fell, shuddering to the ground. Theseus knelt beside it and talked gently into its ear. ‘I send you to your eternal rest with all speed and respect, Asterion. The world will know that you died a brave and noble death.’ The act of slashing the creature’s neck must have loosed the tight vocal cords that moments earlier had denied it the power of speech. Now, despite the blood bubbling from the open gash in its throat, it managed to speak. Theseus heard as clearly as from an orator on the Acropolis the words ‘Thank you’ before the creature’s ghost departed its monstrous body. ‘Farewell, bull man,’ breathed Theseus. ‘Farewell, Asterion, son of Pasiphae, son of the Bull from the Sea, the Cretan Bull, the Marathonian Bull. Farewell brother of the beautiful Ariadne. Farewell, farewell.’