A lance wound in his heart had finished my beloved friend.
“Crip—Crip!” I cried aloud; but got no answer. One little foot moved a few times, then was still.
Almost simultaneously an alarm sounded. The impostor had disappeared.
I shook with an unrestrained emotion. “We are saved,” I thought.
“Where is our Queen? The Queen is gone!” they called.
A wild rush of bees set the hive in pandemonium. Finally one began to cry: “Here she is—she is dead.”
“Dead—dead!” rose loud over the place.
They were wailing over the lifeless body of the impostor, while I stood broken-hearted beside my Crip, who, at the sacrifice of his life, had redeemed that of the colony.