But all these fair and glorious scenes were lost upon the gallant
Stuyvesant; nought occupied his mind but thoughts of iron war, and proud
anticipations of hardy deeds of arms. Neither did his honest crew trouble
their heads with any romantic speculations of the kind. The pilot at the
helm quietly smoked his pipe, thinking of nothing either past, present, or
to come; those of his comrades who were not industriously smoking under
the hatches were listening with open mouths to Antony Van Corlear, who,
seated on the windlass, was relating to them the marvelous history of
those myriads of fireflies, that sparkled like gems and spangles upon the
dusky robe of night. These, according to tradition, were originally a race
of pestilent sempiternous beldames, who peopled these parts long before
the memory of man, being of that abominated race emphatically called
brimstones; and who, for their innumerable sins against the children of
men, and to furnish an awful warning to the beauteous sex, were doomed to
infest the earth in the shade of these threatening and terrible little
bugs; enduring the internal torments of that fire, which they formerly
carried in their hearts and breathed forth in their words, but now are
sentenced to bear about for ever--in their tails!