Beffa settled down comfortably
Nuova saw through Beffa's transparent means of sending her off to work, and was as much amused as vexed. "Oh," she said, "I much prefer working to talking with bees whose wisdom might put me to sleep, too. Good-bye." She made a mocking curtsy and went off slowly to a small group of flowers which was hidden by a large bush from the rest of the bees.
As soon as she had started, Beffa opened one eye to spy on her, and as she disappeared behind the bush he slowly straightened up, very much awake and evidently strongly possessed by some idea. He let his eyes roam over all of the garden he could see, and he even scanned the air in all directions. Apparently not finding what he sought, he remained quiet, but alert, on the flat dandelion leaf. The bees at the flowers worked industriously. The garden was fragrant and quiet in the sun.
CHAPTER XI
Hero finds Nuova in the Garden
Saggia had joined a group of foragers at work, among whom were Uno and Tre. These two bees at first moved away a little as Saggia came over, but in their foraging work they gradually came close to her again. Pretty soon Uno, after glancing toward Beffa sitting quietly by the dandelion, spoke to Saggia.
"The garden is not a place for jesting," she said sharply; "nor for listening to jesting. Beffa is not a good example for bees who work." As she said this she looked significantly at Saggia, and several of the other bees, overhearing her, smiled maliciously.
Saggia said nothing at first, but busied herself at her flowers. As she changed, however, from one flower to another one near by, she said quietly: "Beffa works harder than most of us."
"Do you call jesting work?" asked Tre indignantly.
"I call Beffa's work hard work—for Beffa; and useful work," Saggia replied.
"What other hive has a jester, a bee that does no work, that just hops and sings?" demanded Uno angrily.
"We are more fortunate than other hives," said Saggia evenly. "We have a bee who has time to think, and a clever tongue to say what he thinks."
No one spoke for a moment, then Tre said mechanically, as if repeating by rote: "Bees ought not to think; and if they do they ought to keep their thoughts to themselves." Then she added maliciously: "I think I learned that from you, Saggia."
The other bees turned and smiled.
"One lives and learns," said Saggia, a little confused.
"Oh, worse yet!" exclaimed Uno. "'Bees do not learn: they know.' That also is from Saggia," she said, turning to the other bees.
They all smiled again enjoying Saggia's discomfiture.
"Well," said Saggia desperately, "bees do know most things, but—not—everything."
Just then Beffa came hopping toward them hurriedly. He was singing loudly, too, and was evidently much excited about something. As he reached the group of foraging bees he did not stop, but kept hopping right on by them singing loudly as he passed:
"Hoptoad squats beneath the flower;
Waits that pleasant fateful hour
When honey-bee on food intent
Comes within his leafy tent;
Open! Shut! Poor bee, good-bye;
An ugly, horrid way to die!"
As the bees heard this, they all became much frightened and excited, skipping about and peering in all directions.
"The Toad!" they cried. "Where? There! I don't see him! Where, Beffa? Beffa, where?"
Beffa's movements plainly indicated the direction of danger to be toward where he had come from, and the way of safety correspondingly in the direction of his hopping. All the bees, therefore, with much buzzing and jumping about, moved along with the hopping and singing Beffa. Only Saggia seemed a little slow to take alarm or to follow him closely. She watched him curiously, and kept turning to look in the direction from which he had come. She remembered that Nuova was back there somewhere, and she could not believe that Beffa would leave her in danger in order to warn ever so many other bees. Saggia knew well poor Beffa's hopeless love for Nuova.
As a matter of fact, Beffa had seen not a toad, but something else, which, under the circumstances of bee life and tradition, was much more extraordinary, and he had come hopping over to lead off the other bees that they might not also see it.
What he had seen was something that his keen wits had told him all along he might see: in fact, he had been looking for it all the time since he had been in the garden; it was something that made him happy and unhappy at the same time. It was something that would make Nuova the happiest bee in the world, for a little while at least, though it might mean something very dreadful to her in the end. And what could make Nuova happy made him happy—even though her happiness should come from seeing somebody else who would almost make her forget that Beffa ever lived. What Beffa had seen was Hero flying slowly down into the garden near where Nuova was. It was certain that they would see each other in a moment.
In fact, Nuova, turning away from the flower which she had been slowly and listlessly rifling of nectar, saw Hero just a moment after he alighted. Her heart gave a great jump, and her first impulse was to slip away before he could see her; but when she saw how dejected and sad he seemed, she felt a great pity for him and wanted to comfort him. Just then he lifted his eyes and saw her. He started, then controlled himself and came to her. "Nuova," he said quietly but earnestly; "Nuova, I am glad you are here."
Nuova could hardly speak. She was so tense with excitement, with wonder, with happiness that they were together again. But what had happened? How could this be?
"You did not win?" she stammered. "You are not dead?" She stared at him with painful intentness.
"I did not go on," said Hero slowly and somberly.
Nuova did not understand. "An accident?" she cried. "You could not fly? Your wings were not—" she stopped, alarmed and almost in tears at her thought. "Surely I did not hurt them when I—I—pulled them?"
Hero did not understand clearly what she meant. In fact, he was too intent on the overwhelming fact of what he had just done, of the absolute break he had just made with bee tradition, to think, for the moment, of anything else.
"No, no," he said; "I just decided not to go on. I—wanted to come to you."
Nuova could not realize at once all he meant by these words. The thing clearest in her mind just now was what Saggia and all the others had told her so often. She began to speak slowly and almost mechanically as her memory guided her.
"But you can't do that," she said. "It—it—isn't done, you know. You must chase the Princess; you must win her; and you—you"—she sobbed—"you must die."
She stepped toward him, excitedly, with her hands outstretched to urge him on. "Go on!" she exclaimed. "Go on! Start again! You are so much swifter and stronger than the others! You can beat them yet! Hurry! Fly!"
In her excitement and half-crazed exaltation she pressed against him to push him into starting. He held her closely to him for a moment, caressing her gently. But soon she drew violently away, and spoke again with choking voice. "Fly!" she said. "Go on! Go on!"
Hero shook his head doggedly. "No, I will not go. I cannot go. I never wanted to go. I wanted to come to you. I didn't know you were in the garden. But here you are." In his joy at being with her, he began to dismiss the dark thoughts of his break with bee custom. He looked intently and eagerly at her.
"Yes, here you are, I have come to you. I have come to tell you that I"—he stumbled a little in his speech, and smiled slightly—"I—am a new bee, too!"
Nuova laughed happily. Then she grew serious and puzzled. "And Saggia and Beffa," she said. "Are we all new bees in this hive?"
Hero smiled. "Uno, Due, and Tre—" he said.
"Ugh! horrid bees," said Nuova with a grimace. "They would like to kill me."
"Beasts!" broke in Hero, "I'll kill them!" But then he remembered the fact that he had no lance nor by bee tradition could have any. "Absurd," he said in disgust. "What a world, where only the women may carry lances and fight and work, and the men are only loafers and lovers, and can only love by tradition, at that. Bah! I'd rather be even a human being. They are silly enough, those awkward giants, and can't fly and eat other animals as spiders and snakes do, but their men can work and fight; and they can love whom they like. At least they can if they don't try to be too much like us, as some of them seem to want to be. It's a terrible thing to be a man bee. We have no rights at all!"
Nuova looked up at him wonderingly. "Why, the other drones seem to like to loaf," she said. "Anyway, they don't object."
"Don't object!" exclaimed Hero contemptuously. "They don't think; they don't feel! Each just does what the others do and all just do what drones have always done."
"But how else are we to know what to do," persisted Nuova, who had learned her lesson well from Saggia, "except by seeing what others do, and being told what the bees before us did?"
Hero was amazed and disconcerted to hear Nuova talk in this way.
"Why, you talk like Saggia!" he said. "What do you mean? Haven't you always objected to doing what the others do? Haven't you always tried to do what you most wanted to? And haven't you wanted to talk with me? I thought you—liked me."
Nuova was disconcertingly calm. "Oh, yes, I have objected to some things, and I do like to talk with you. And I like you. But all that must not interfere with the work and life of the community. And I am afraid it is interfering. I ought to be getting more honey, and you ought to be flying after the Princess." She paused; then she added, determinedly and even severely: "You must go right away. You can catch up with them yet, and beat them, and—and—win her." Nuova had grown more excited and earnest as she continued urging him, but her voice broke a little as she uttered the last words.
Hero, paying too little attention to her manner and reading nothing in it, so seized was he by surprise at Nuova's new attitude, was yet doggedly intent on speaking out his own feelings. "No, I am not going after the Princess," he declared, speaking almost roughly in his vehemence. "I stopped flying because I wished to, and I came here because I wished to, and I shall talk to you because I wish to. You must hear me! Nuova, it is not the Princess that I love; it is you." Nuova started. "Yes, you; just you; all you. I love you, Nuova."
Nuova had stood rigidly at first, but then unconsciously swayed a little toward him. Then she caught herself and stepped back, all the time staring at him fixedly. He leaned toward her as he finished speaking, but made no other motion.
Nuova began to speak, still holding herself rigid and staring at him. She spoke in an even, monotonous voice, even mechanically, and as if directed by some foreign influence.
"You cannot love me," she said. "You can only love a Princess. I cannot love you. I cannot love anybody. There are other things for me to do. I have not cleaned floors; I must clean floors. And you, you must chase Princesses, chase Princesses, chase—Princesses—all—the—time." Her voice trailed away into tense silence, and she swayed as if about to fall, but recovered herself, and half-turned as if to move away.
Hero stepped forward, caught hold of her roughly, and spoke harshly. "You shall not clean floors," he said, "and I will not court the Princess." Then suddenly he spoke tenderly, "Nuova, I love you. Saggia says I can't; all of them say I can't; you say I can't. Well, I do. That is all. That is the answer. I have never loved a Princess and I do love you; I have loved you from the moment I saw you." He spoke more impetuously. "I didn't know what it was at first; now I do. I found out when I started to fly after Principessa. I can fly faster than any other drone; yet every one was beating me. I can fly higher than any other bee; but I couldn't rise at all. Why? Because of you, Nuova; because I loved you, Nuova, and could not love Principessa. And they say that you cannot love me. Saggia says so, does she?—and all of them say so, do they?—and you say so, do you? Well, they are all mistaken. Just as they are all mistaken about me. I can love you, because I do. You can love me, because you are going to. You were not an Amazon, yet you fought. You are not a Princess, but you are going to love. I can teach you; I will teach you."
Nuova was almost carried away by Hero's speech—and her own inclinations. But she still fought blindly and feebly against what she wanted most. "No, no," she stammered; "I must work; I must go; I am only a worker bee; I cannot love; it is all fixed; it has been that way for a long time; I know; Saggia knows; Beffa—"
She stopped short, remembering some of Beffa's cryptic words.
Just then Beffa's voice was heard. He was coming toward them hopping and singing.
CHAPTER XII
The Happy Ending
Beffa had not been able to hold the foragers any longer away from that part of the garden where Nuova and Hero were. The flowers here were more abundant and sweeter with honey, and the bees soon forgot their fright of the toad they had not seen—and that Beffa had not, either.
Hero and Nuova were still concealed by the bush, behind which they stood, from the returning bees, but it was only a matter of a short time before they would certainly be seen. Beffa, therefore, came hopping toward them and singing. He could at least warn them of the approach of the others. So he sang loudly:
"Ah, well, who knows?
Ah, well, who knows?
The old world for the old bee;
The new world for the new;
For who may know the real truth?
The untrue may be true.
Ah, well, who knows?
Ah, well, who knows?"
Hero turned triumphantly to Nuova. "Yes, yes, you hear?" he said. "Beffa knows. Say it; say it. Beffa knows: not Saggia; not the others; but Beffa. They are all blind. They only see what has been, but Beffa sees what may be. And you see it, Nuova, and I see it. You are a new bee, Nuova, and so is Beffa, and so am I. And we shall do new things; live a new life. Ah, Nuova, my little Nuova! I love you, and you love me. My little Nuova!"
Nuova could say nothing, do nothing. It was too much. She could only look up through a mist of tears into Hero's face and smile happily at him; it was half-smiling, half-crying, but unmistakable to Hero for what it truly was; the full revelation of Nuova's consent to all he had said. They stood together, silent in their great happiness. And thus Uno saw them. Uno was the first of the returned foragers to come, in seeking new flowers, around the bush and in sight of them. She stared at them amazed. Then, angry and malevolent, she beckoned, without calling out, to her companions to come to her. They crowded up and looked where Uno pointed. They were astounded and outraged. Uno first spoke up.
"They call themselves bees!" she said with scorn and malice.
"Beasts, rather!" said Due similarly.
"No, human beings," said Tre. "Like the daughter of the owner of the garden and her lover. In secret, and against all the customs. Shame and scandal!"
"Drive them out! Kill them!" burst out all the other bees, who had come crowding up at the words of Uno, Due, and Tre. "Call the Amazons! Sting them to death! Hero, the faithless one! Nuova, the silly new bee! Hero, our finest drone! Nuova, the pretty little nurse! Traitors! Kill them!"
It was a terrible moment for Nuova and Hero, for death looked them in the face. But they stood quietly side by side realizing their impending fate, yet fearless in their exaltation. Neither one spoke. They looked at each other with great eyes shining with love and happiness. Death—together—was such a little thing. It was even a thing, under the circumstances, to be courted. There seemed, indeed, nothing else that could be a "happy ending" for Nuova and Hero's romance. And as the Amazons pressed forward with lances set and already almost touching the devoted pair, it seemed to be the inevitable and immediate end. Yet, just at the moment when Nuova, with one last look of love and joy to Hero, turned full toward the shining lance points as if to say, "Welcome, sweet Death!" something happened.
A cry from the air just above them was heard. A messenger bee, greatly excited and almost breathless, was dropping down to them and gasping: "The Princess! The Princess! The Princess is lost! The Bee-Bird has caught the Princess!"
The mob about Hero and Nuova stopped in its attack and stood still, thunderstruck by the news. The messenger dropped to the grass just between the foremost Amazons and the pair of lovers, and there collapsed with fatigue and grief. She was caught and supported by Saggia and Beffa, who had pushed forward out of the crowd at the first cry from the messenger.
The horror-stricken bees were dumb for a moment, overwhelmed by the catastrophe. Then they began to call out, all speaking confusedly together: "The Princess is lost! The Bee-Bird has killed Principessa! Our only Princess! The old Queen gone, the new Queen killed! Our hive is doomed! We are queenless! No more children in our hive! It is our end!"
