He seemed suddenly to take on new life, and began to flap his wings for joy.
After a little pause he again flapped his wings violently. I did not understand.
“I still can fly!” he exclaimed. “I can fly! Go now, finish your work,” he commanded. “Perhaps I shall yet be able to labor for a little; but I want to be as much as possible with you. Go now.”
I went at his word, but when I came to the place of the débris, no scrap remained. My fellow-workers, alarmed at the news of the worms, had fallen upon it and borne it all away.
Almost without thinking, I moved slowly toward the door of the hive, for the afternoon was sultry and there now seemed nothing to do. Indeed, when I reached the outside the bees were heaped on the board, and they clung in great masses to the front of the hive.
“What idlers!” thought I. But I quickly realized that there was nothing in the fields to gather, and further, I knew that our hive was well stored with bread and honey against any possible contingency.
I made my way through the crowd, and presently I, too, was seized with the fever of sleep, and, taking my place among a group that clung to the uppermost front of the hive, I soon fell asleep.
How long I slept I know not, but when again I roused myself a summer moon was streaming above us, big and gloriously bright. The little dots of stars that glinted through were almost lost in the sea of light. I could hear the night hymn of the hive clearly, just as long ago I heard it for the first time. It was the low, murmured music of a thousand voices. This hymn of the night was like the throbbing of a muffled Æolian harp. Mingling with its harmonies rose the dull whirring of many wings set to the task of driving the sweet night air into the heart of the hive, to render it tolerable for the little ones dreaming in their cells against a day of awakening, and for our precious Queen-Mother, brooding through her watches without end.
Late in the night the air grew chilly, and one by one we drifted inside. I had been one of the first, for I bethought me of Crip, whom I had left disconsolate and battered from his fight with the worm. Returning to our old haunt, he was nowhere to be found. Then I went to the spot of the combat and there he was, more or less chilled and still sore from the loss of his leg.
“I thought you had forgotten me,” was his greeting.