And even as he spoke, the confused shrieks of the women surged closer and closer upon their ears: ‘Kill dem—kill dem! De liquor—de liquor!’
‘Ah! I told you so,’ Mr Dupuy murmured, half to himself, very complacently, with a deep breath. ‘Only a foolish set of tipsy negresses, waking and rum-drinking, and kicking about firebrands.’
For another second, there was a slight pause again, while one might count twenty; and then the report of a pistol rang out clear and definite upon the startled air from the direction of the flaring trash-houses. It was Delgado’s pistol, shooting down the tipsy recalcitrant.
‘This means business!’ Mr Dupuy ejaculated, raising his voice, with a sidelong glance at poor trembling Nora.—‘Come along, ’Zekiel; come along all of you. We must go out at once and quiet them or disperse them.—Dick, Thomas, Emilius, Robert, Jo, Mark Antony! every one of you! come along with me, come along with me, and see to the trash-houses before these tipsy wretches have utterly destroyed them.’
(To be continued.)
BEES AND HONEY.
The honey-bee has been an object of great interest from the very earliest ages; the most ancient historical records make frequent reference to it. ‘A little balm and a little honey’ formed part of the present which Jacob sent into Egypt to Joseph in the time of the great famine. The ‘busy bee’ figures also in Greek as well as Hebrew history. The little creature has given a name to many females of high degree. The Hebrew name of the bee (Deborah) was given to Rebecca’s nurse, as also to that magnanimous prophetess whose courage and patriotism inspired the flagging zeal and waning energies of her dispirited countrymen. The Greek name of the bee (Melissa) was given to one of the daughters of Melissus, king of Crete. It was she who, with her sister Amalthæa, is fabled to have fed Jupiter with the milk of goats. She is said, also, to have first discovered the means of collecting honey from the stores of the bees, from which some ancient writers inferred that she not only bore the name, but that she was actually changed into a bee.
Another Greek story tells of a woman of Corinth, also bearing the name of Melissa, who, having been admitted to officiate in the festivals of Ceres, the goddess of agriculture, afterwards refused to initiate others, and was torn to pieces for her disobedience, a swarm of bees being made to rise from her body.
The old Greek name for the bee seems to have fallen into disuse in this country as a name given to females, though there can be no reason why its use should not be revived, for it is at least as melodious as the Hebrew name of the same significance, still applied to many a matron and maiden—a name which is expressive of honeyed sweetness, as also of unwearied energy and untiring industry.
Those who have had personal knowledge and experience of bee-culture will bear out the remark that bees are not particular as to the size or the position of the home in which they choose to dwell, so that it suffices for them to carry on with security their wonderful operations. In their wild state, cavities of rocks and hollow trees are alike available; and in their domestic conditions they have no preference for a straw skep over a wooden box, nor for the wooden house over the straw castle.