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If the dragon-fly could catch her engrossed in some small slaughter of her own, and, pouncing upon her from above, grip the back of her armed abdomen in his great grinding jaws, her sting could do nothing but dart out vainly like a dark, licking flame; and she would prove as good a meal as the most unresisting bluebottle or horse-fly.
And the great horse-fly buzzed in Brok's face, and darted at his eyes, and at last settled upon his neck, and stung him until the pain caused big drops of sweat to roll off of his forehead. But the dwarf stopped not nor faltered, until his brother again cried out, "Enough!" This time Sindre drew out a wondrous ring of solid gold, sparkling all over with the rarest and most costly jewels.
The yellow horse blustered and squealed a little, and at last said that, if it was a horse-fly that had stung Muldoon, he would accept an apology. "You'll get it," said Muldoon, "in de sweet by-and-bye all de apology you've any use for. Excuse me interruptin' you, Mr. Rod, but I'm like Tweezy I've a Southern drawback in me hind legs."
The flames leaped up white and hot, and the furnace glowed with a dazzling light, while Brok plied the bellows, and Sindre, with unblinking eyes, watched the slowly changing colors that played around the melted and shapeless mass within. While the brothers were thus intent upon their work, Loki changed himself to a great horse-fly, and settled upon Brok's hand, and bit him without mercy.
The buzz of a horse-fly sounding in our ears explained all. It was one of those large insects the "horse-bug," peculiar to the Mississippi country, and usually found near watercourses. They are more terrible to horses than a fierce dog would be. I have known horses gallop away from them as if pursued by a beast of prey.
The yellow horse blustered and squealed a little, and at last said that, if it was a horse-fly that had stung Muldoon, he would accept an apology. "You'll get it," said Muldoon, "in de sweet by-and-bye all de apology you've any use for. Excuse me interruptin' you, Mr. Rod, but I'm like Tweezy I've a Southern drawback in me hind legs."
All this was at Nessaik, near Eastport. Then he said to his wife, 'Take one of your leggins and put it on my head. She did so. Then he took medicine. A rainbow appeared in the sky, and a great horse-fly came out of his mouth, and then a large grasshopper. The smell of the fresh fish after such a fight is the same in an Eskimo legend.
How curious this instinct seems! The fly regards the bird, which affords it the warmth and food essential to life, as its only deadly enemy; and with an inherited wisdom, like that of the mosquito with regard to the dragon-fly, or of the horse-fly with regard to the Monedula wasp, vanishes like smoke from its presence, and only approaches the bird secretly from a place of concealment.
Between them, inside, carefully saddled, bridled, and in full housings, was a horse-fly, led by a snail, to keep the restive animal from going at a too rapid pace. Three big, gawky helmet-headed beetles next followed, bearing rice-sprouts, with full heads of rice. "Oh! oh! look there!" cried a little grub at the side of the road. "See the little grasshopper riding on his father's back!"
The meat-fly, house-fly, and horse-fly made themselves promiscuous in every portion of the spray, and what with the rainbow-eyed and ruby-eyed flies, black and silver-banded flower-flies, and other tiny, restless, iridescent atoms of the fly fraternity, the family of Musca was well represented at the feast.
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