s or the orange blossom's--sighed also, and
very loud. So foolery was exchanged for foolery, and the thing throve
well. Still the Eleventh Man dared not, for some time, venture out of
the fortification, for he had remarked her taste for human flesh, and
her dexterity in snapping off heads, and did not know but her love
for him might extend to a wish to try the flavour of his meat, and
that she might, in a moment of soft dalliance, practise on him her
skill in unjointing necks. Women have been known to inflict a greater
evil than either on the man they have pretended to love. At least, so
the Eleventh Man said, and, as I have before told my brother, he was a
knowing man in these matters. It soon became plain that something must
be done. There was no food remaining in the fort, and the speedy death
of all must ensue, unless it were procured. The Eleventh Man, who was
as courageous in war as he was in peace, with the high-mindedness
which belongs to an Indian(1), said he would go and submit himself to
the good will of the _pretty_ creature. So, taking his spear, and his
bow and arrow, for he knew that women like to be wooed by warriors,
and delight in the handsome bearing and gay dress of lovers, and often
die and perish of a fever for feathers and gewgaws, he chose the
moment when the old man was wrapped in a deep sleep, and ventured out.
A woman can hear the lightest step of a lover when she is fast asleep,
and when the thunder of the western hills would not awake her. And so
it was with the Squaw-Snake, who, though very drowsy with watching the
stars, and squinting at the moonas folks always do when they are in
love--had no sooner heard the step of her beloved on the green sod
than she advanced to meet him. Now comes the perilous moment!
Bomelmeek, beware! She is raising her tail, at whose end is a horrible
sting to clasp thee as with a pair of arms. And look, see her jaws,
white with foam, and larger than the largest tree of the forest, are
extended to kiss thy cheek, or scarcely worse to snap off thy head.
Brave man! With what undaunted firmness he suffers himself to be taken
to her arms--no, not to her arms, but her tail--and how patiently he
suffers his cheeks that have felt the breath of sweet lips to be
slabbered by a nasty snake! Oh! if he fall a victim to his love for
his nation, he will deserve to live as long in the remembrance of the
Bomelmeeks, as their great founder, the Earwig.

Fond and long continued wer