"It was not a yard under me now. I dared not move, for I knew what concentrated misery the swarm held for the man who angered it. As I watched it floating nearer, my skin crept and my; brain was fascinated by that monotonous buzzing. Perhaps, if I sat perfectly quiet, it would pass and leave me unharmed.
"For a moment, apparently undecided, the ball hovered under me.
Then with a quickened motion, up it came, straight for my feet.
"I grew hot and cold. My flesh quivered with the imaginary stings of thousands of poisoned needles, as the fearful mass melted apart and settled in thick clusters on my shoes and legs!
"As I watched the crawling thousands come to rest, I simply choked with terror. What could I do? If I made the slightest motion to get up, they would swarm over me like lightning, and sting me to death.
"Twenty feet behind me one of my mates began to hammer, shaking the beam with his blows. I was afraid the jar might anger the bees into an attack.
"'Stop that pounding, Jim!' I begged huskily, as he ceased for a moment. The hammering stopped.
"Then exclamations of alarm and sympathy fell upon my ears, and presently all work on the steel was suspended. I could hear feet shuffling quietly back to the bank. Soon I was left alone on the truss, threatened with a death ten times more horrible than any tiger or snake could inflict.
"Not daring to move a muscle, not even to turn my head, I sat, as it seemed to me, for hours, perfectly rigid, staring straight forward at the red-painted end of the opposite beam, wavering in the heat fifty feet away. My brain was clear as glass, my senses keen. Low, excited voices babbled behind me. I could smell onions boiling in the cook's quarters, and hear his pans and dishes rattling.
"Every little while I turned my eyes downward, hoping to see the bees getting ready to leave. But my shoes and trousers were still buried inches deep under the sluggishly clinging black bodies.
"The brassy alarm-clock in the mess tent clanged out eleven. I had been sitting there only half an hour.