. But I speak of after-time; first let me talk of
that which is first.

The twice twenty-four, who were of a very bold and courageous nature,
and feared nothing more than to be thought cowards, attacked the
serpents with their bows and arrows. It was fruitless, however, to
wage war with creatures covered with an impenetrable coat of scales.
The serpents were not even startled by the arrows, so that no resource
but death remained to the twice twenty-four. Their food being soon
gone, they were compelled to venture out in quest of the means of
sustaining life. As fast as they came out at the gate of the
fortification, the one or other of the monsters snapped them up at a
mouthful, until there remained of all those who occupied it at first
but ten women and eleven men. What was to be done? I could not have
told had I been there, but the eleventh man had the art and cunning to
deliver the land from the assaults of the venomous serpents. He said
to his brothers, "One of the serpents is a woman. I know it by her
eyes, which are very bright, and beguiling, and roving, and
treacherous. I know it by her sputtering, if all does not go right,
and her frequent viewing herself in the waters of Lake Canandaigua,
and the noisy chatter she is continually making about nothing. These
are signs which cannot be misunderstood; she is a woman, I know. Now,
if I can but catch the _old man_, asleep, I will make love to her,
and it shall go hard but I will get her to assist in his destruction."
So the Eleventh Man--who was a curious creature for making love to
women, and knew all the arts necessary to be used, and all the
nonsense proper to be uttered, knew when to look, and when to shut his
eyes, when to be passionate, and when to be cold, and all that sort of
thing--set about winning the love of the frail wife of the Great
Snake. Whenever the old man took a nap, which was very often, then of
a certainty would you see the Bomelmeek on the top of the
fortification, winking and blinking, ogling and sighing, and doing
other fooleries, at the Squaw-Snake. And soon could it be seen that
she had noticed his declarations of love, and was not disposed to be
_very_ cruel or "ridiculous." Oh, it was a curious sight to see the
courtship, though not more curious than I have seen other courtships.
When he winked, she winked; when he ogled her, she ogled him; when he
sighed, she--taking care to turn her head the other way, for her
breath was not the myrtle'