The noise died out as the bees settled in empty cells for the night.
“You hear?” said the Queen. “I know the Hive!”
“Quite between ourselves, I taught them that,” cried the Wax-moth. “Wait till my principles develop, and you'll see the light from a new quarter.”
“You speak truth for once,” the Queen said suddenly, for she recognized the Wax-moth. “That Light will break into the top of the Hive. A Hot Smoke will follow it, and your children will not be able to hide in any crevice.”
“Is it possible?” Melissa whispered. “I—we have sometimes heard a legend like it.”
“It is no legend,” the old Queen answered. “I had it from my mother, and she had it from hers. After the Wax-moth has grown strong, a Shadow will fall across the gate; a Voice will speak from behind a Veil; there will be Light, and Hot Smoke, and earthquakes, and those who live will see everything that they have done, all together in one place, burned up in one great fire.” The old Queen was trying to tell what she had been told of the Bee Master's dealings with an infected hive in the apiary, two or three seasons ago; and, of course, from her point of view the affair was as important as the Day of Judgment.
“And then?” asked horrified Sacharissa.
“Then, I have heard that a little light will burn in a great darkness, and perhaps the world will begin again. Myself, I think not.”
“Tut! Tut!” the Wax-moth cried. “You good, fat people always prophesy ruin if things don't go exactly your way. But I grant you there will be changes.”
There were. When her eggs hatched, the wax was riddled with little tunnels, coated with the dirty clothes of the caterpillars. Flannelly lines ran through the honey-stores, the pollen-larders, the foundations, and, worst of all, through the babies in their cradles, till the Sweeper Guards spent half their time tossing out useless little corpses. The lines ended in a maze of sticky webbing on the face of the comb. The caterpillars could not stop spinning as they walked, and as they walked everywhere, they smarmed and garmed everything. Even where it did not hamper the bees' feet, the stale, sour smell of the stuff put them off their work; though some of the bees who had taken to egg laying said it encouraged them to be mothers and maintain a vital interest in life.