Too late! Behind her sounded a loud, mean laugh. At the same moment the little bee felt herself caught by the neck, so violently that she thought her joints were broken. It was a laugh she would never forget, like a vile taunt out of hellish darkness. Mingling with it was another gruesome sound, the awful clanking of armor.
Thomas let go with all his legs at once and tumbled head over heels through the branches into the water-butt.
“I doubt if you get away alive,” he called back. But the poor little bee no longer heard.
She couldn’t see her assailant, her neck was caught in too firm a grip, but a gilt-sheathed arm passed before her eyes, and a huge head with dreadful pincers suddenly thrust itself above her face. She took it at first to belong to a gigantic wasp, but then realized that she had fallen into the clutches of a hornet. The black-and-yellow striped monster was surely four times her size.
Maya lost sight, hearing, speech; every nerve in her body went faint. At length her voice came back, and she screamed for help.
“Never mind, girlie,” said the hornet in a honey-sweet tone that was sickening. “Never mind. It’ll last until it’s over.” He smiled a baleful smile.
“Let go!” cried Maya. “Let me go! Or I’ll sting you in your heart.”
“In my heart right away? Very brave. But there’s time for that later.”
Maya went into a fury. Summoning all her strength, she twisted herself around, uttered her shrill battle-cry, and directed her sting against the middle of the hornet’s breast. To her amazement and horror, the sting, instead of piercing his breast, swerved on the surface. The brigand’s armor was impervious.
Wrath gleamed in his eyes.