“What are you doing here, you vile beggar?” he cried, and he gave him a kick that sent him into some bushes that grew by the side of the path.
The Bee-man scrambled to his feet, and ran as fast as he could to the place where he had hidden his hive and his old doublet.
“If I am certain of anything,” he thought, “it is that I was never a person who would kick a poor old man. I will leave this place. I was transformed from nothing that I see here.”
He now travelled for a day or two longer, and then he came to a great black mountain, near the bottom of which was an opening like the mouth of a cave.
This mountain he had heard was filled with caverns and underground passages, which were the abodes of dragons, evil spirits, horrid creatures of all kinds.
“Ah me!” said the Bee-man with a sigh, “I suppose I ought to visit this place. If I am going to do this thing properly, I should look on all sides of the subject, and I may have been one of those horrid creatures myself.”
Thereupon he went to the mountain, and, as he approached the opening of the passage which led into its inmost recesses, he saw, sitting upon the ground, and leaning his back against a tree, a Languid Youth.
“Good-day,” said this individual when he saw the Bee-man. “Are you going inside?”
“Yes,” said the Bee-man, “that is what I intend to do.”
“Then,” said the Languid Youth, slowly rising to his feet, “I think I will go with you. I was told that if I went in there I should get my energies toned up, and they need it very much; but I did not feel equal to entering by myself, and I thought I would wait until some one came along. I am very glad to see you, and we will go in together.”