"Beffa, you are sad," said Saggia
Even Beffa did not hear her at first, or, at least, he did not heed her. But when Saggia repeated what she had said, Beffa came out of his reverie with a jerk, and awkwardly made a little hop and grimace.
"Sad," said he. "Great Apis forfend. Haven't we a shining new Princess to our hive; a virgin new Princess to wed and be a new Queen to us all? Why should we mourn for an old Queen that's gone? Why be sad with a new Queen to come? Ha-ha," he laughed sardonically and bitterly.
"Yes, sad," repeated Saggia again, still speaking low and significantly, "when we have just lost our old Queen who liked her jester, Beffa, and even her old floor-cleaner, Saggia, who neither of them know whether the new Queen will like them or not. Oh, sad, sad! Ha-ha!" And she half-imitated Beffa's sardonic laugh and his hop and grimace.
Beffa turned and faced Saggia squarely, surprised to find wise old Saggia troubled and depressed just as he was. After a long, keen look at her, he made a solemn gesture to the distance, and then a mocking bow toward the hive entrance.
"The Queen has passed: long live the Queen!" he exclaimed.
Several of the guard and forager bees near him heard his cry and called out after him—
"The Queen has passed: long live the Queen!"
But one old guard of testy temper added, speaking rather roughly to Beffa: "What are you doing here? Doesn't the Princess laugh at your old tricks? Can't you find some new ones?"
Beffa turned angrily toward the guard, as if to answer sharply, but suddenly checked himself and began capering and humming. Then he sang in a bitter voice:
"Let the guards guard, and the jester jest,
Let Saggia clean, and the new queen wed,
Let all the bees do all they did,
For life is doing what we're bid.
Oh, life is doing what we're bid.
Ha-ha!"
Saggia felt a little anxious on Beffa's account, for his song seemed bitter, and she saw that the guard was looking both puzzled and sour as she listened to it. So Saggia spoke to her hurriedly.
"The odor from our full pantries comes strong from the hives this morning," she said. "I hope it won't attract the Black Bees."
"Oh, the Black Bees," said the guard, superiorly. "Let them come. We'll show them how robbers are treated."
Just as the guard finished speaking, a commotion began on the other side of the platform, and Nuova saw a large black-and-yellow-striped creature with a long spear lunging fiercely toward the entrance of the hive. It was a Yellow Jacket. She knew it at once, because she had heard some of the nurse bees one day talking about these fierce black-and-yellow-banded robbers that sometimes fought their way into the hive to steal honey.
The guard near Saggia and Beffa hurried across the platform brandishing her lance. But already three or four other guards had thrown themselves on the intruder and were beating it back, striking it viciously with their lances. The Yellow Jacket made a good fight, but the bee Amazons were too many for it. It was wounded, began to weaken, and soon was hustled back off the platform and on through the grass behind a near-by bush.
The guard who had been talking with Saggia came back proudly to her, still brandishing her long lance.
"That's the way we do it," she said. "And a Yellow Jacket is stronger than a Black Bee."
"Yes," replied Saggia, wagging her old head wisely, "but not stronger than ten Black Bees, or a hundred, and that is the way they come."
As Saggia finished speaking, the guards who had driven the Yellow Jacket away returned boisterously, and joining all the other guards on the platform, formed in a line, and half-marching, half-dancing, went through some military maneuvers. While they were doing this, another lot of guards came out of the hive, and forming in a line opposite them, also went through the martial dance. At the end of it all the guards who had been outside marched into the hive, while the new ones remained outside on the platform. It was the "relief of the guard."
All during the guards' dancing and marching, Nuova had stood still watching them intently. Neither Saggia nor Beffa had seen her yet. And she was afraid to speak to them for fear of being made to go back into the hive again. She had made up her mind to stay outside. It was all so much more beautiful and exciting out here. She had decided that she would not be a nurse or wax-maker or anything else inside the hive any longer. She wanted to be a forager and be free to go in and out as she liked, and to fly far out into the garden and spend long, sunshiny hours there.
Just then, however, Saggia caught sight of her. It was, indeed, Beffa who saw her first. He quietly touched Saggia with one of his antennæ and waved the other in Nuova's direction. Saggia hurried over to her, looking anxiously around her to see if any other bees had noticed Nuova.
"What are you doing out here?" whispered Saggia to her as she reached her side. "Who sent you out? It isn't time for a week yet for you to come outside."
Saggia wanted to be angry with her, but the sight of Nuova, so sad and forlorn-looking, and with tear-marks still on her face, was too much for her kind heart. And she really loved Nuova very much. Indeed, all that Nuova had done, and what she had said, had made a strange appeal to the wise old bee. She was almost frightened sometimes to feel that down deep in her heart she not only sympathized with much of Nuova's revolt against the rigid traditions and automatic life of the bees, but that she realized that this stifling of all independent action and all personal emotions was not always the way to the highest happiness nor even the wisest conduct for the bees. She shuddered to think that perhaps she, too, was a "new bee."
Nuova was half-frightened by Saggia's discovery of her and by her hard words. But she answered her willfully and defiantly, although with a touch of attractive mischievousness.
"Nobody sent me out," she said. "I have just decided to be a forager; that's all. While I was in the hive a little while ago a forager came in with two great loads of pollen in her pollen baskets. She was very tired and seemed sick. While she was looking around for an empty cell in which to put her pollen, she suddenly sank down—and—and died."
Nuova shivered as she said this, and dropped her antennæ down over her eyes for a moment.
"Ah, yes," said Saggia sadly but proudly; "worked herself to death. That is the noble death we have. We die in the harness—working for others, working for the hive. The bees know that death well and honor it."
"They may know it well," broke in Nuova sharply, "but they do not honor it well. Anyway, not by their actions. Nobody paid any attention to the poor forager when she was staggering along with her load, and none when she sank down on the floor and died. Except pretty soon a couple of cleaners came along and dragged her body away. I suppose they brought it out here and flung it off the platform somewhere. A noble death, well honored, indeed! Well, I don't want that kind. I am going to die out in the garden, under a flower."
While Nuova was speaking, Beffa had hopped and hummed his way over to them, and now he broke in with a song, which he sang as he hopped and danced about them. This is what he sang:
"Work, no play; work all day;
A useful life; a usual life;
The good bee's way,
All day, all day.
Then die and lie
Till Saggia spy
The carrion stuff—
A tug; a shove,
And the friend you love
Is gone to grass:
Ha, ha, alas, is gone to grass.
A noble life; a halted breath:
The epitaph: 'She worked to death.'"
Both Saggia and Nuova listened to Beffa and watched him till he had finished singing. They both saw clearly his own unhappiness and his own revolt against the rigor of the bee tradition that demands always the full sacrifice of the individual for the community. Saggia realized that Beffa, too, was a "new bee."
Nuova, in the meanwhile, was looking off again into the beautiful garden; at the green grass and bushes; the many-colored flowers; the blue sky and warm, bright sunshine over all. She was enchanted. She drew a long breath of relief and happiness. She turned to Saggia.
"Will they keep me in," she whispered, "if I go back into the hive? If they will, I shan't go," she added positively.
Saggia looked about again to see if other bees were paying attention to them. None was.
"No," she said, speaking in a low voice, "they won't keep you. They won't pay any attention to you as long as you keep busy, coming and going. You can be a honey-gatherer. The honey-flowers are only a little way off, there in the garden. But first you must get acquainted with the outside of the hive and the entrance. Look around. See, we are just by the side of this big bush, with that long branch hanging over. You can go out a little way from the platform, then turn around and see how the hive looks from there. Then go a little farther and look back again. Then go a little way to one side, and then to the other, and notice everything that will help you to find your way back. If you get lost, see if you can't see other honey-gatherers or pollen-foragers flying with full loads; they are returning to the hive; follow them. As to collecting the honey, you will learn that easily; in fact, you will be surprised when you get to the flowers, to find that you already know how. Be careful and not get into the poppies that shut up on you, and watch always for the great-crested bee-bird that swoops down on you, and, peck"—Saggia exaggeratedly imitated a bird's pecking—"and that is the end. Now, be off for your first flight. But not too far—not for the first time."
Nuova's face shone with eagerness. "Oh, thank you, Saggia, thank you. You are good to me. You are different from the others. Thank you, dearest Saggia."
Nuova started quickly forward toward the edge of the platform. Just then Beffa, who had been hopping gently about Nuova and Saggia while they were talking, now hopped and danced along in front of Nuova, singing:
"The new bee and the old world;
Flowers are there and butterflies;
But ugly toads and big bee-birds,
If the old bee thinks she knows,
The new bee knows she doesn't.
Ah, new bee knows the world-old truth,
That the old world's ever new."
Nuova had slowed her steps so that she could hear all of Beffa's little song, and as he finished she came up to him and touched him caressingly with one of her antennæ. But Beffa shrank from her caress. It meant so much to him, and yet he knew it meant so little to her. He knew Nuova liked him; yes, but he knew that he more than liked Nuova: he loved her. Poor Beffa! Love! A pitiful, deformed drone that could not fly; that could never be in the Great Courting Chase! And it was only then that the drones loved; and then only a Princess that could be loved. What he felt was impossible for a bee to feel; bee tradition told him that; and yet, he knew that he did feel this impossible thing.
"Beffa, you are good to me too," said Nuova to him; "you and Saggia are both good to me. And you two are the wisest bees in the hive, for you know that I am not the same as the other bees. No bees are exactly the same, I believe. We can't be all exactly alike, and we can't all like the same things, or think the same way, can we? I wish I could be a Queen so that I could have you always for my jester; always by to say funny things and wise things."
Beffa made a grimace—to hide a sob. And he hopped more grotesquely than ever, while he sang:
"Ah, well, who knows?
New things unheard of may be true,
For every day the world is new.
Ah, well, who knows?
Ah, well, who knows?"
"Good-bye, Beffa," said Nuova. And she stepped to the edge of the platform, and spread her wings for her first flight, her first plunge into the outside world of grass and flowers and butterflies and bee-birds. And just then something happened that postponed this flight.
CHAPTER VIII
Nuova and Hero again, and a Battle
Just as Nuova was about to launch herself into the air, a sudden commotion at the hive opening made her look back. After this look she had no further thought of the garden. What she saw was the group of drones coming out of the hive, with another group of worker bees attendant upon them. These attendants were cleaning the drones' bodies and wings and evidently preparing them for some great event. It was plain to Nuova that this was the preparation for the Great Courting Chase. Her heart gave a leap, her eyes became misty; she stumbled and almost fell. She was so dizzy that she thought sudden death had struck her. It was only, however, the blow of her heart and mind in realizing that Hero—her Hero—must be in the group and preparing to leave her forever. He had, in a sense, already left her forever she knew, for he had made his decision—or rather she felt that the cruel bee tradition had made the decision for him—to follow the Princess. And if he followed her he could but win. Her wonderful, handsome, powerful Hero would be easily the successful one in the Great Courting Chase.
She ran her eyes anxiously over the group of drones now well out of the entrance and spreading out on the platform. At first she did not see Hero. But in a moment she did. He was a little apart from the others, and showed none of the excitement of the other drones. Indeed, he seemed to be rather depressed, and was evidently keeping quite by himself. He had not even an attendant with him. Nuova saw in this her chance.
She turned back from the edge of the platform, merged into the excited crowd, none of the bees paying any attention to her at all, and began to work her way through the press toward Hero.
Just then, however, Uno appeared by his side and began to brush his wings. He turned on her with an impatient gesture. Surprised and angry, Uno made a grimace and left him. A moment later, Due, noticing that he had no helper, hurried over to him, but she, also, much to her surprise and chagrin, was treated as Uno had been.
Hero seemed to be in an irritable mood. As the drones and their attendants came farther out, he moved away toward the front of the platform. This brought him rather near Nuova, who was able to reach him before any other bee could offer him her services.
Nuova, unperceived by Hero, slipped behind him and began nervously and awkwardly, glancing at the attendants on the other drones for guidance, to clean his wings. Soon an awkward tug apprised Hero that some one was again trying to attend him, and he turned with an angry movement to drive her off, when he recognized Nuova, and arrested his gesture. He stood still, looking at her keenly, and, without a word, let her go on caring for him. She grew even more nervous and awkward. Then he smiled gently, and spoke to her in a low voice.
