Nuova began to clean his wings
"How do you come to be out here?" he asked. "You weren't sent as an attendant to us. Only the older and more experienced bees are given that—honor." He smiled again. "You didn't come out just now?"
"No," said Nuova almost in a whisper—"no, I was going out for honey."
"Oh, fine!" said Hero. "Out into the world already! You must have done your work in the hive very well."
"Yes," murmured Nuova demurely.
Just then two or three Black Bees slipped out from behind a bush near the platform, but no one noticed them.
"But why don't you go, then?" asked Hero. "It is beautiful over there among the flowers." He waved an antenna toward the garden. "And fragrant, and exciting. Other kinds of creatures; beetles and grasshoppers and big buzzing flies. Some bad ones, too; spiders and giant bee-birds always watching, watching to catch you." Nuova shuddered. "But you are not afraid, are you?" Hero looked at her keenly. "Or are you? Do you prefer to stay here in safety and just wait on the drones?"
"Yes," said Nuova slowly, "I prefer to wait on a drone."
"I am surprised," said Hero sternly and even half-contemptuously.
Just then Nuova made an awkward tug at his wing. He winced. "Ouch!" he said; then half-laughed. "Your champion will never win Principessa if you pull his wings out."
As he said this, Nuova involuntarily, in response to her feelings, gave an even harder tug at his wings.
Hero exclaimed again, and half-pulled away from her. He spoke almost angrily.
"Here, what are you doing?" he cried. Then, as he looked into the eager, excited, pretty face of his little attendant, he felt his heart give a curious throb. And when he spoke again it was almost tenderly.
"Well, you are good to try and help me, anyway. But"—and now he spoke rather moodily—"I don't need much preparing. I can beat any of them"—and he waved contemptuously toward the other drones—"easily, just as I am."
Poor Nuova! He could hardly have said a more discouraging thing to her, or one to hurt her more. She drew back a little and had hard work not to cry. She half-sobbed as she said: "That—is—fine. I am sure—you can." She paused. Then she said slowly: "And if you do beat them, are you sure to get—her? Are you sure to be able to catch—her?"
The excitement on the platform was growing. The drones seemed to be getting impatient, and the attendants worked feverishly at the cleaning and making ready for the wonderful event about to happen. The infection of all this excitement began to seize Hero. He had turned his face away from Nuova to stare intently at the opening of the hive. It was there, of course, that the Princess would soon appear.
At Nuova's last question he started a little. "Eh?" he said rather brusquely. "Oh, yes, of course, I can catch her. She will fly faster than we at first, but she can't keep it up as long as we can. She will try to go higher and higher in the air, but that is hard work. That is when we shall catch up with her." He paused, then added, musingly: "It is odd; she is trying her best to get away from us and yet she wants to get caught all the time. She must get caught, you know, or we shouldn't have any Queen, and the hive would go all to pieces. The old Queen never comes back, of course. The Princess is our one chance to have a Queen at all."
Nuova seemed to be thinking hard. Something was puzzling her. "But," she asked insistently, "what really does happen if a Princess doesn't get caught, or something happens to her. There must be some way to save the community, isn't there?"
Hero seemed to have lost interest again in Nuova and her questionings. He was gazing fixedly at the hive entrance.
"Oh," he said carelessly, "I don't know. I've heard sometimes that a worker bee can—"
He was suddenly interrupted. There was a new and very violent commotion on that side of the platform which the few Black Bees had approached, unnoticed, a few minutes before. Now there was a whole group of them plainly in sight and many others were coming quickly out from behind the bush. A great and angry buzzing was heard from the guards on the platform and cries of "Lotta, Lotta! The Amazons! Call Lotta! Call the Amazons! Hurry! The Black Bees! The Black Bees!"
The guards, few as they were in comparison with the oncoming horde of Black Bees, threw themselves bravely at them, and a moment after Lotta and her Amazons began issuing pell-mell from the hive entrance. They were met almost immediately by the foremost Black Bees, who had easily killed or were driving back the few guards, and were making rapid headway over the platform toward the entrance. A few even had passed in through the entrance, but they were driven out again at once by the issuing Amazons. In fact, most of the first Black Bees to gain a foothold on the platform and to push forward to the entrance or into it were killed. But that brought no terror to the others. They pressed on over the dead bodies of their comrades, lunging and striking viciously with their long lances.
But Lotta and the Amazons were fighting fiercely, too. They were making a heroic defense of the hive and its stores. The battle raged with great fury, but for a little while with no apparent advantage to either side. The Black Bees seemed, on the whole, the more expert and the more furious fighters—they are, indeed, a race of bees famous for their fighting—but Lotta's wonderful personal courage and deeds of prowess were a great inspiration to the defenders. She appeared to be everywhere at once, and her shouts of defiance to the enemy and of encouragement to her followers made up in some measure for the feebler strength and less experience of her band.
This was so obvious to the Black Bees that she was soon singled out for special attack by groups of her adversaries. Two or three Black Bees would combine to assail her from different sides, but her lightning movements and dashing bravery had so far saved her even from being touched by an enemy's lance. But just at the moment when Nuova had recovered a little from her amazement and terror at this sudden invasion, Lotta received her first wound. The fierce Black Bees were closing around her too closely. Nuova felt a violent rage rising within her as she realized that at any cost the Black Bees were going to kill the leader of the Amazons. Lotta was staggering, and a half-dozen lances were lunging at her. She stumbled, gave one final shout of defiance—and fell.
It was a terrible blow to the Amber Amazons. They were seized with dismay. They had no one to lead them. They hesitated, gave way here and there, and the Black Bees with triumphant shouts pressed forward. Some of them had even reached the entrance, when a new, shrill battle-cry and call of encouragement to the Amber fighters rose above all the noise of the battle.
The cry came from Nuova. She had watched the whole terrible struggle in a sort of daze; half of terror, half of utter amazement. But when Lotta was struck down, the rage rising within her seized her completely, and when the Black Bees had pressed on over the fallen leader's body with shouts of triumph, she sprang forward, grasped Lotta's own lance from her sinking hand, and threw herself with such fury on the rear of the marauders that they had to turn to defend themselves. Then it was that she had uttered her first battle-cry. As the Amber bees heard it and saw at the same time that some of the black fighters had turned to defend themselves against an attack in the rear, they checked their retreat and began answering back this new shrill call. In the next moment they saw something that filled them all with rejoicing and gave them at once a new courage.
Nuova, taking a lesson from the method of the attackers, had looked about, even as she leaped into the fight, for the leader of the Blacks, and had fought her way fiercely directly toward her. In a moment they were face to face, and in another moment thrusting and parrying in deadly personal combat.
But nothing could withstand the vigor and audacity of this rage-maddened new warrior's assault, and the black leader, first contemptuous, then amazed, then terrified, found herself fighting vainly for her life. She managed to strike Nuova one or two glancing blows with her lance, but for answer received a thrust fairly through the body, and fell with a great cry of defeat and pain.
This it was that filled the despairing Amber bees with a new courage and reanimated them to fresh resistance. Turning on their attackers, they renewed the battle with an irresistible surge toward Nuova, and reaching her and following her lead in but few moments more they had rushed the disheartened Black Bees off of the platform. They even followed them into the grass, where they killed many of them one by one. Then they hurried back with shouts of victory, and ranged themselves in lines for marching and dancing. While the foragers busied themselves with carrying the bodies of the fallen off of the platform, all the Amazons marched and danced and sang loud songs of triumph.
