“What is that?” I asked of the gentle guard.
“The Master’s lamp,” he said.
The Master’s lamp! What might that be? But I asked no more questions. There was too much of mystery around me. I clambered over the combs as rapidly as I might, back to my cell; but even there it was a long time before I slept, so spellbound was I, so stirred to the depths. Vast harmonies seemed athrob in the outer world, and one dim undercurrent of tone, the night song of my hive, ebbed and flowed ceaselessly around me. Gradually I seemed to lose my identity and to merge with the spirit of the things about me.
In a flash I felt that I was no longer just a helpless little bee, floating about in the maze of life, intent on my own purposes, bound no whither, owning no duties and driven by no destinies. Up to the moment I had given no concern to things beyond dipping into honey-cells for food, to exploring the house in which I found myself, to groping about with eyes wide and ears that missed no sound. But now I had been shaken with new desires. I seemed to have climbed out of myself, even as I had crawled out of my cell on that other day, now but a memory—so far away it seemed. My thoughts, my activities, my soul were no longer my own—they belonged to my little brothers buzzing in the alcoves or busy with endless tasks which I seemed to know without knowing.
CHAPTER FOUR
The First Flight
My sleep was interrupted by I know not what strange dreams or fantasies. I suppose I was shaking my wings or my legs unduly, when a kindly nurse laid her hands on me.
“What troubles you?” she asked.