My home is Light. The crystal bowlOf Heaven’s blue, I love it so!Both Death and Life will change, I know,But not my soul, my living soul.My soul is that which breathes anewFrom all of loveliness and grace;And as it flows from God’s own face,It flows from His creations, too.Maya burst into sobs. What it was that made her so sad and yet so happy, she could not have told.The little human being turned around.“Who is crying?” he asked in his chiming voice.“It’s only me,” stammered Maya. “Excuse me for interrupting you.”“But why are you crying?”“I don’t know. Perhaps just because you are so beautiful. Who are you? Oh, do tell me, if I am not asking too much. You are an angel, aren’t you? You must be.”“Oh, no,” said the little creature, quite serious. “I am only a sprite, a flower-sprite.—But, dear little bee, what are you doing out here in the meadow so late at night?”The sprite flew over to a curving iris blade beside Maya and regarded her long and kindly from his swaying perch in the moonlight.Maya told him all about herself, what she had done, what she knew, and what she longed for. And while she spoke, his eyes never left her, those large dark eyes glowing in the whitefairy face under the golden hair that ever and anon shone like silver in the moonlight.When she finished he stroked her head and looked at her so warmly and lovingly that the little bee, beside herself with joy, had to lower her gaze.“We sprites,” he explained, “live seven nights, but we must stay in the flower in which we are born, else we die at dawn.”Maya opened her eyes wide in terror.“Then hurry, hurry! Fly back into your flower!”The, sprite shook his head sadly.“Too late.—But listen. I have more to tell you. Most of us sprites are glad to leave our flowers never to return, because a great happiness is connected with our leaving. We are endowed with a remarkable power: before we die, we can fulfill the dearest wish of the first creature we meet. It is when we make up our minds seriously to leave the flower for the purpose of making someone happy that our wings grow.”“How wonderful!” cried Maya. “I’d leave the flower too, then. It must be lovely to fulfillanother person’s wish.” Thatshewas the first being whom the sprite on his flight from the flower had met, did not occur to her. “And then—must you die?”The sprite nodded, but not sadly this time.“We live to see the dawn still,” he said, “but when the dew falls, we are drawn into the fine cobwebby veils that float above the grass and the flowers of the meadows. Haven’t you often noticed that the veils shine white as though a light were inside them? It’s the sprites, their wings and their garments. When the light rises we change into dew-drops. The plants drink us and we become a part of their growing and blooming until in time we rise again as sprites from out their flowers.”“Then you were once another sprite?” asked Maya, tense, breathless with interest.The earnest eyes said yes.“But I have forgotten my earlier existence. We forget everything in our flower-sleep.”“Oh, what a lovely fate!”“It is the same as that of all earthly creatures,when you really come to think of it, even if it isn’t always flowers out of which they wake up from their sleep of death. But we won’t talk of that to-night.”“Oh, I’m so happy!” cried Maya.“Then you haven’t got a wish? You’re the first person I’ve met, you know, and I possess the power to grant your dearest wish.”“I? But I’m only a bee. No, it’s too much. It would be too great a joy. I don’t deserve it, I don’t deserve that you should be so good to me.”“No one deserves the good and the beautiful. The good and the beautiful come to us like the sunshine.”Maya’s heart beat stormily. Oh, she did have a wish, a burning wish, but she didn’t dare confess it. The elf seemed to guess; he smiled so you couldn’t keep anything a secret from him.“Well?” He stroked his golden hair off his pure forehead.“I’d like to know human beings at their best and most beautiful,” said the little bee. She spoke quickly and hotly. She was afraidshe would be told that so great a wish could not be granted.But the sprite drew himself up, his expression was serious and serene, his eyes shone with confidence. He took Maya’s trembling hand and said:“Come. We’ll fly together. Your wish shall be granted.”Maya and the spriteCHAPTER XIWITH THE SPRITEAndso Maya and the flower-sprite started off together in the bright mid-summer night, flying low over the blossomy meadow. His white reflection crossing the brook shone as though a star were gliding through the water.How happy the little bee was to confide herself to this gracious being! Whatever he were to do, wherever he were to lead her would be good and right, she felt. She would have liked to ask him a thousand questions had she dared.As they were passing between a double row of high poplar-trees, something whirredabove them; a dark moth, as big and strong as a bird, crossed their way.“One moment, wait one moment, please,” the sprite called.Maya was surprised to see how readily the moth responded.All three alighted on a high poplar branch, from which there was a far view out upon the tranquil, moonlit landscape. The quaking leaves whispered delicately. The moth, perching directly opposite Maya in the full light of the moon, slowly lifted his spread wings and dropped them again, softly, as if gently fanning—fanning a cool breath upon someone. Broad, diagonal stripes of a gorgeous bright blue marked his wings, his black head was covered as with dark velvet, his face was like a strangely mysterious mask, out of which glowed a pair of dark eyes. How wonderful were the creatures of the night! A little cold shiver ran through Maya, who felt she was dreaming the strangest dream of her life.“You are beautiful,” she said to the moth, “beautiful, really.” She was awed and solemn.“Who is your companion?” the moth asked the sprite.“A bee. I met her just as I was leaving my flower.”The moth seemed to realize what that meant. He looked at Maya almost enviously.“You fortunate creature!” he said in a low, serious, musing tone, shaking his head to and fro.“Are you sad?” asked Maya out of the warmth of her heart.The moth shook his head.“No, not sad.” His voice sounded friendly and grateful, and he gave Maya such a kind look that she would have liked to strike up a friendship with him then and there.“Is the bat still abroad, or has he gone to rest?” This was the question for which the sprite had stopped the moth.“Oh, he’s gone to rest long ago. You want to know, do you, on account of your companion?”The sprite nodded. Maya was dying to find out what a bat was, but the sprite seemed to be in a hurry. With a charming gesture ofrestlessness he tossed his shining hair back from his forehead.“Come, Maya,” he said, “we must hurry. The night is so short.”“Shall I carry you part of the way?” asked the moth.The sprite thanked him but declined. “Some other time!” he called.“Then it will be never,” thought Maya as they flew away, “because at dawn the flower-sprite must die.”The moth remained on the leaf looking after them until the glimmer of the fairy garments grew smaller and smaller and finally sank into the depths of the blue distance. Then he turned his face slowly and surveyed his great dark wings with their broad blue stripes. He sank into revery.“So often I have heard that I am gray and ugly,” he said to himself, “and that my dress is not to be compared with the superb robes of the butterfly. But the little bee saw only what is beautiful in me.—And she asked me if I was sad. I wonder whether I am or not.—No, I am not sad,” he decided, “not now.”Meanwhile Maya and the flower-sprite flew through the dense shrubbery of a garden. The glory of it in the dimmed moonlight was beyond the power of mortal lips to say. An intoxicatingly sweet cool breath of dew and slumbering flowers transformed all things into unutterable blessings. The lilac grapes of the acacias sparkled in freshness, the June rose-tree looked like a small blooming heaven hung with red lamps, the white stars of the jasmine glowed palely, sadly, and poured out their perfume as if, in this one hour, to make a gift of their all.Maya was dazed. She pressed the sprite’s hand and looked at him. A light of bliss shone from his eyes.“Who could have dreamed of this!” whispered the little bee.Just then she saw something that sent a pang through her.“Oh,” she cried, “look! A star has fallen! It’s straying about and can’t find its way back to its place in the sky.”“That’s a firefly,” said the flower-sprite, without a smile.Now, in the midst of her amazement, Maya realized for the first time why the sprite seemed so dear and kind. He never laughed at her ignorance; on the contrary, he helped her when she went wrong.“They are odd little creatures,” the sprite continued. “They carry their own light about with them on warm summer nights and enliven the dark under the shrubbery where the moonlight doesn’t shine through. So firefly can keep tryst with firefly even in the dark. Later, when we come to the human beings, you will make the acquaintance of one of them.”“Why?” asked Maya.“You’ll soon see.”By this time they had reached an arbor completely overgrown with jasmine and woodbine. They descended almost to the ground. From close by, within the arbor, came the sound of faint whispering. The flower-sprite beckoned to a firefly.“Would you be good enough,” he asked, “to give us a little light? We have to push through these dark leaves here; we want toget to the inside of the jasmine-arbor.”“But your glow is much brighter than mine.”“I think so, too,” put in Maya, more to hide her excitement than anything else.“I must wrap myself up in a leaf,” explained the sprite,“else the human beings would see me and be frightened. We sprites appear to human beings only in their dreams.”“I see,” said the firefly. “I am at your service. I will do what I can.—Won’t the great beast with you hurt me?”The sprite shook his head no, and the firefly believed him.The sprite now took a leaf and wrapped himself in it; the gleam of his white garments was completely hidden. Then he picked a little bluebell from the grass and put it on his shining head like a helmet. The only bit of him left exposed was his face, which was so small that surely no one would notice it. He asked the firefly to perch on his shoulder and with its wing to dim its lamp on the one side so as to keep the dazzle out of his eyes.“Come now,” he said, taking Maya’s hand. “We had better climb up right here.”The little bee was thinking of something the sprite had said, and as they clambered up the vine, she asked:“Do human beings dream when they sleep?”“Not only then. They dream sometimes even when they are awake. They sit with their bodies a little limp, their heads bent a little forward, and their eyes searching the distance, as if to see into the very heavens. Their dreams are always lovelier than life. That’s why we appear to them in their dreams.”The sprite now laid his tiny finger on his lips, bent aside a small blooming sprig of jasmine, and gently pushed Maya ahead.“Look down,” he said softly, “you’ll see what you have been wishing to see.”Maya and the sprite watching two humansThe little bee looked and saw two human beings sitting on a bench in the shadows cast by the moonlight—a boy and a girl, the girl with her head leaning on the boy’s shoulder, and the boy holding his arm around the girlas if to protect her. They sat in complete stillness, looking wide-eyed into the night. It was as quiet as if they had both gone to sleep. Only from a distance came the chirping of the crickets, and slowly, slowly the moonlight drifted through the leaves.Maya, transported out of herself, gazed into the girl’s face. Although it looked pale and wistful, it seemed to be transfused by the hidden radiance of a great happiness. Above her large eyes lay golden hair, like the golden hair of the sprite, and upon it rested the heavenly sheen of the midsummer night. From her red lips, slightly parted, came a breath of rapture and melancholy, as if she wanted to offer everything that was hers to the man by her side for his happiness.And now she turned to him, pulled his head down, and whispered a magical something that brought a smile to his face such as Maya thought no earthly being could wear. In his eyes gleamed a happiness and a vigor as if the whole big world were his to own, and suffering and misfortune were banished forever from the face of the earth.Maya somehow had no desire to know what he said to the girl in reply. Her heart quivered as though the ecstasy that emanated from the two human beings was also hers.“Now I have seen the most glorious thing that my eyes will ever behold,” she whispered to herself. “I know now that human beings are most beautiful when they are in love.”How long Maya stayed behind the leaves without stirring, lost in looking at the boy and girl, she did not know. When she turned round, the firefly’s lamp had been extinguished, the sprite was gone. Through the doorway of the arbor far across the country on the distant horizon showed a narrow streak of red.Maya with the ladybird beetleCHAPTER XIIALOIS, LADYBIRD AND POETThesun was risen high above the tops of the beech-trees when Maya awoke in her woodland retreat. In the first moments, the moonlight, the chirping of the cricket, the midsummer night meadow, the lovely sprite, the boy and the girl in the arbor, all seemed the perishing fancies of a delicious dream. Yet here it was almost midday; and she remembered slipping back into her chamber in the chill of dawn. So it had all been real, shehadspent the night with the flower-sprite andhadseen the two human beings, with their arms round each other, in the arbor of woodbine and jasmine.The sun outside was glowing hot on the leaves, a warm wind was stirring, and Maya heard the mixed chorus of thousands of insects. Ah, what these knew, and whatsheknew! So proud was she of the great thing that had happened to her that she couldn’t get out to the others fast enough; she thought they must read it in her very looks.But in the sunlight everything was the same as ever. Nothing was changed; nothing recalled the blue moonlit night. The insects came, said how-do-you-do, and left; yonder, the meadow was a scene of bustling activity; the insects, birds and butterflies hopped, flew and flitted in the hot flickering air around the tall, gay midsummer flowers.Sadness fell upon Maya. There was no one in the world to share her joys and sorrows. She couldn’t make up her mind to fly over and join the others in the meadow. No, she would go to the woods. The woods were serious and solemn. They suited her mood.How many mysteries and marvels lie hidden in the dim depths of the woods, no one suspects who hurries unobservant along thebeaten tracks. You must bend aside the branches of the underbrush, or lean down and peep between the blackberry briars through the tall grasses and across the thick moss. Under the shaded leaves of the plants, in holes in the ground and tree-trunks, in the decaying bark of stumps, in the curl and twist of the roots that coil on the ground like serpents, there is an active, multiform life by day and by night, full of joys and dangers, struggles and sorrows and pleasures.Maya divined only a little of this as she flew low between the dark-brown trunks under the leafy roof of green. She followed a narrow trail in the grass, which made a clear path through thicket and clearing. Now and then the sun seemed to disappear behind clouds, so deep was the shade under the high foliage and in the close shrubbery; but soon she was flying again through a bright shimmer of gold and green above the broad-leaved miniature forests of bracken and blackberry.After a long stretch the woods opened their columned and over-arched portals; before Maya’s eyes lay a wide field of grain in thegolden sunshine. Butterfly-weed flamed on the grassy borders. She alighted on the branch of a birch-tree at the edge of the field and gazed upon the sea of gold that spread out endlessly in the tranquillity of the placid day. It rippled softly under the shy summer breeze, which blew gently so as not to disturb the peace of the lovely world.Under the birch-tree a few small brown butterflies, using the butterfly-weed for corners, were playing puss-in-the-corner, a favorite game with butterfly-children. Maya watched them a while.“It must be lots of fun,” she thought, “and the children in the hive might be taught to play it, too. The cells would do for corners.—But Cassandra, I suppose, wouldn’t permit it. She’s so strict.”Ah, now Maya felt sad again. Because she had thought of home. And she was about to drift off into homesick revery when she heard someone beside her say:Maya and Alois go different ways“Good morning. You’re a beast, it seems to me.”Maya turned with a start.“No,” she said, “decidedly not.”There sitting on her leaf was a little polished terra-cotta half-sphere with seven black dots on its cupola of a back, a minute black head and bright little eyes. Peeping from under the dotted dome and supporting it as best they could Maya detected thin legs fine as threads. In spite of his queer figure, she somehow took a great liking to the stout little fellow; he had distinct charm.“May I ask who you are? I myself am Maya of the nation of bees.”“Do you mean to insult me? You have no reason to.”“But why should I? I don’t know you, really I don’t.” Maya was quite upset.“It’s easy tosayyou don’t know me.—Well, I’ll jog your memory. Count.” And the little rotundity began to wheel round slowly.“You mean I’m to count your dots?”“Yes, if you please.”“Seven,” said Maya.“Well?—Well? You still don’t know. All right then, I’ll tell you. I’m called exactlyaccording to what you counted. The scientific name of our family is Septempunctata.Septemis Latin for seven,punctatais Latin for dots, points, you see. Our common name is ladybird, my own name is Alois, I am a poet by profession. You know our common name, of course.”Maya, afraid of hurting Alois’ feelings, didn’t dare to say no.“Oh,” said he, “I live by the sunshine, by the peace of the day, and by the love of mankind.”“But don’t you eat, too?” asked Maya, quite astonished.“Of course. Plant-lice. Don’t you?”“No. That would be—that is....”“Is what? Is what?”“Not—usual,” said Maya shyly.“Of course, of course!” cried Alois, trying to raise one shoulder, but not succeeding, on account of the firm set of his dome. “As a bourgeoise you would, of course, do only what is usual. We poets would not get very far that way.—Have you time?”“Why, yes,” said Maya.“Then I’ll recite you one of my poems. Sit real still and close your eyes, so that nothing distracts your attention. The poem is calledMan’s Finger, and is about a personal experience. Are you listening?”“Yes, to every word.”“Well, then:“‘Since you did not do me wrong,That you found me, doesn’t matter.You are rounded, you are long;Up above you wear a flatter,Pointed, polished sheath or platterWhich you move as swift as light,But below you’re fastened tight!’”“Well?” asked Alois after a short pause. There were tears in his eyes and a quaver in his voice.“Man’s Fingergripped me very hard,” replied Maya in some embarrassment. She really knew much lovelier poems.“How do you find the form?” Alois questioned with a smile of fine melancholy. He seemed to be overwhelmed by the effect he had produced.“Long and round. You yourself said so in the poem.”“I mean the artistic form, the form of my verse.”“Oh—oh, yes. Yes, I thought it was very good.”“It is, isn’t it!” cried Alois. “What you mean to say is thatMan’s Fingermay be ranked among the best poems you know of, and one must go way back in literature before one comes across anything like it. The prime requisite in art is that it should contain something new, which is what most poets forget. And bigness, too. Don’t you agree with me?”“Certainly,” said Maya, “I think....”“The firm belief you express in my importance as a poet really overwhelms me. I thank you.—But I must be going now, for solitude is the poet’s pride. Farewell.”“Farewell,” echoed Maya, who really didn’t know just what the little fellow had been after.“Well,” she thought, “heknows. Perhaps he’s not full grown yet; he certainly isn’t large.” She looked after him, as he hastenedup the branch. His wee legs were scarcely visible; he looked as though he were moving on low rollers.Maya turned her gaze away, back to the golden field of grain over which the butterflies were playing. The field and the butterflies gave her ever so much more pleasure than the poetry of Alois, ladybird and poet.Maya with the millipedeCHAPTER XIIITHE FORTRESSHowhappily the day had begun and how miserably it was to end!Before the horror swept upon her, Maya had formed a very remarkable acquaintance. It was in the afternoon near a big old water-butt. She was sitting amid the scented elder blossoms, which lay mirrored in the placid dark surface of the butt, and a robin redbreast was warbling overhead, so sweetly and merrily that Maya thought it was a shame, a crying shame that she, a bee, could not make friends with the charming songsters. The trouble was, they were too big and ate you up.She had hidden herself in the heart of the elder blossoms and was listening and blinking under the pointed darts of the sunlight, when she heard someone beside her sigh. Turning round she saw—well, now it reallywasthe strangest of all the strange creatures she had ever met. It must have had at least a hundred legs along each side of its body—so she thought at first glance. It was about three times her size, and slim, low, and wingless.“For goodness sake! Mercy on me!” Maya was quite startled. “You must certainly be able to run!”The stranger gave her a pondering look.“I doubt it,” he said. “I doubt it. There’s room for improvement. I have too many legs. You see, before all my legs can be set in motion, too much time is lost. I didn’t use to realize this, and often wished I had a few more legs. But God’s will be done.—Who are you?”Maya introduced herself. The other one nodded and moved some of his legs.“I am Thomas of the family ofmillepeds. We are an old race, and we arouse admiration and astonishment in all parts of the globe. Noother animals can boast anything like our number of legs. Eight istheirlimit, so far as I know.”“You are tremendously interesting. And your color is so queer. Have you got a family?”“Why, no! Why should I? What good would a family do me? We millepeds crawl out of our eggs; that’s all. Ifwecan’t stand on our own feet, who should?”“Of course, of course,” Maya observed thoughtfully. “But have you no relations?”“No, dear child. I earn my living, and doubt. I doubt.”“Oh!Whatdo you doubt?”“I was born doubting. I must doubt.”Maya stared at him in wide-eyed bewilderment. What did he mean, what could he possibly mean? She couldn’t for the life of her make out, but she did not want to pry too curiously into his private affairs.“For one thing,” said Thomas after a pause, “for one thing I doubt whether you have chosen a good place to rest in. Don’t you know what’s over there in the big willow?”“No.”“You see! I doubted right away if you knew. The city of the hornets is over there.”Maya turned deathly white and nearly fell off the elder blossoms. In a voice shaking with fright, she asked just where the city was.“Do you see that old nesting-box for starlings, there in the shrubbery near the trunk of the willow-tree? It’s so poorly placed that I doubted from the first whether starlings would ever move in. If a bird-house isn’t set with its door facing the sunrise, every decent bird will think twice before taking possession. Well, the hornets have entrenched themselves in it. It’s the biggest hornets’ fortress in the country. You as a bee certainly ought to know of the place. Why, the hornets are brigands who lie in wait for you bees. So, at least, I have observed.”Maya scarcely heard what he was saying. There, showing clear against the green, she saw the brown walls of the fortress. She almost stopped breathing.“I must fly away,” she cried.Too late! Behind her sounded a loud, mean laugh. At the same moment the littlebee 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. “Nevermind. 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.“I could bite your head off, little one, to punish you for your impudence. And I would, too, I would indeed, but for our queen. She prefers fresh bees to dead carcasses. So a good soldier saves a juicy morsel like you to bring to her alive.”The hornet, with Maya still in his grip, rose into the air and made directly for the fortress.“This is too awful,” thought the poor little bee. “No one can stand this.” She fainted.Maya in the hornet prisonWhen she came to her senses, she found herselfin half darkness, in a sultry dusk permeated by a horrid, pungent smell. Slowly everything came back to her. A great paralyzing sadness settled in her heart. She wanted to cry: the tears refused to come.“I haven’t been eaten up yet, but I may be, any moment,” she thought in a tremble.Through the walls of her prison she caught the distinct sound of voices, and soon she noticed that a little light filtered through a narrow chink. The hornets make their walls, not of wax like the bees, but of a dry mass resembling porous grey paper. By the one thread of light she managed bit by bit to make out her surroundings. Horror of horrors! Maya was almost congealed with fright: the floor was strewn with the bodies of dead insects. At her very feet lay a little rose-beetle turned over on its back; to one side was the skeleton of a large locust broken in two, and everywhere were the remains of slaughtered bees, their wings and legs and sheaths.“Oh, oh, to think this had to happen to me,” whimpered little Maya. She did not dare to stir the fraction of an inch and pressed herselfshivering into the farthest corner of this chamber of horrors.Again she heard voices on the other side of the wall. Impelled by mortal fear, she crept up to the chink and peeped through. What she saw was a vast hall crowded with hornets and magnificently illuminated by a number of captive glow-worms. Enthroned in their midst sat the queen, who seemed to be holding an important council. Maya caught every word that was said.If those glittering monsters had not inspired her with such unspeakable horror, she would have gone into raptures over their strength and magnificence. It was the first time she had had a good view of any of the race of brigands. Tigers they looked like, superb tigers of the insect world, with their tawny black-barred bodies. A shiver of awe ran through the little bee.A sergeant-at-arms went about the walls of the hall ordering the glow-worms to give all the light they could; they must strain themselves to the utmost. He muttered his commands in a low voice, so as not to interruptthe deliberations, and thrust at them with a long spear, hissing as he did so:“Light up, or I’ll eat you!”Terrible the things that were done in the fortress of the hornets!Then Maya heard the queen say:“Very well, we shall abide by the arrangements we have made. To-morrow, one hour before dawn, the warriors will assemble and sally forth to the attack on the city of the bees in the castle park. The hive is to be plundered and as many prisoners taken as possible. He who captures Queen Helen VIII and brings her to me alive will be dubbed a knight. Go forth and be brave and victorious and bring back rich booty.—The meeting is herewith adjourned. Sleep well, my warriors. I bid you good-night.”The queen-hornet rose from her throne and left the hall accompanied by her body-guard.Maya nearly cried out loud.“My country!” she sobbed, “my bees, my dear, dear bees!” She pressed her hands to her mouth to keep herself from screaming. She was in the depths of despair. “Oh, wouldthat I had died before I heard this. No one will warn my people. They will be attacked in their sleep and massacred. O God, perform a miracle, help me, help me and my people. Our need is great!”In the hall the glow-worms were put out and devoured. Gradually the fortress was wrapped in a hush. Maya seemed to have been forgotten. A faint twilight crept into her cell, and she thought she caught the strumming of the crickets’ night song outside.—Was anything more horrible than this dungeon with its carcasses strewn on the ground!Maya with the hornet sentinelCHAPTER XIVTHE SENTINELSoon,however, the little bee’s despair yielded to a definite resolve. It was as though she once more called to mind that she was a bee.“Here I am weeping and wailing,” she thought, “as if I had no brains and as if I were a weakling. Oh, I’m not much of an honor to my people and my queen. They are in danger. I am doomed anyhow. So since death is certain one way or another, I may as well be proud and brave and do everything I can to try to save them.”It was as though Maya had completely forgotten the long time that had passed since sheleft her home. More strongly than ever she felt herself one of her people; and the great responsibility that suddenly devolved upon her, through the knowledge of the hornets’ plot, filled her with fine courage and determination.“If my people are to be vanquished and killed, I want to be killed, too. But first I must do everything in my power to save them.”“Long live my queen!” she cried.“Quiet in there!” clanged harshly from the outside.Ugh, what an awful voice!—The watchman making his rounds.—Then it was already late in the night.As soon as the watchman’s footsteps had died away, Maya began to widen the chink through which she had peeped into the hall. It was easy to bite away the brittle stuff of the partition, though it took some time before the opening was large enough to admit her body. At length, in the full knowledge that discovery would cost her her life, she squeezed through into the hall. From remote depthsof the fortress echoed the sound of loud snoring.The hall lay in a subdued blue light that found its way in through the distant entrance.“The moonlight!” Maya said to herself. She began to creep cautiously toward the exit, cowering close in the deep shadows of the walls, until she reached the high, narrow passageway that led from the hall to the opening through which the light shone. She heaved a deep sigh. Far, far away glimmered a star.“Liberty!” she thought.The passageway was quite bright. Softly, stepping oh so very softly, Maya crept on. The portal came nearer and nearer.“If I fly now,” she thought, “I’ll be out in one dash.” Her heart pounded as if ready to burst.But there in the shadow of the doorway stood a sentinel leaning against a column.Maya stood still, rooted to the spot. Vanished all her hopes. Gone the chance of escape. There was no getting by that formidablefigure. What was she to do? Best go back where she had come from. But the sight of the giant in the doorway held her in a spell. He seemed to be lost in revery. He stood gazing out upon the moon-washed landscape, his head tilted slightly forward, his chin propped on his hand. How his golden cuirass gleamed in the moonlight! Something in the way he stood there stirred the little bee’s emotions.“He looks so sad,” she thought. “How handsome he is, how superbly he holds himself, how proudly his armor shines! He never removes it, neither by day nor by night. He is always ready to rob and fight and die....”Little Maya quite forgot that this man was her enemy. Ah, how often the same thing had happened to her—that the goodness of her heart and her delight in beauty made her lose all sense of danger.A golden dart of light shot from the bandit’s helmet. He must have turned his head.“My God,” whispered Maya, “this is the end of me!”But the sentinel said quietly:“Just come here, child.”“What!” cried Maya. “You saw me?”“All the time, child. You bit a hole through the wall, then you crept along—crept along—tucking yourself very neatly into the dark places—until you reached the spot where you’re standing. Then you saw me, and you lost heart. Am I right?”“Yes,” said Maya, “quite right.” Her whole body shook with terror. The sentinel, then, had seen her the entire time. She remembered having heard how keen were the senses of these clever freebooters.“What are you doing here?” he asked good-humoredly.Maya still thought he looked sad. His mind seemed to be far away and not to concern itself with what was of such moment to her.“I’d like to get out,” she answered. “And I’m not afraid. I was just startled. You looked so strong and handsome, and your armor shone so. Now I’ll fight you.”The sentinel, slightly astonished, leaned forward, and looked at Maya and smiled. Itwas not an ugly smile, and Maya experienced an entirely new feeling: the young warrior’s smile seemed to exercise a mysterious power over her heart.“No, little one,” he said almost tenderly, “you and I won’t fight. You bees belong to a powerful nation, but man for man we hornets are stronger. To do single battle with a bee would be beneath our dignity. If you like you may stay here a little while and chat. But only a little while. Soon I’ll have to wake the soldiers up; then, back to your cell you must go.”How curious! The hornet’s lofty friendliness disarmed Maya more than anger or hate could have done. The feeling with which he inspired her was almost admiration. With great sad eyes she looked up at her enemy, and constrained, as always, to follow the impulses of her heart, she said:“I have always heard bad things about hornets. But you are not bad. I can’t believe you’re bad.”The warrior looked at Maya.“There are good people and bad peopleeverywhere,” he said, gravely. “But you mustn’t forget we are your enemies, and shall always remain your enemies.”“Must an enemy always be bad?” asked Maya. “Before, when you were looking out into the moonlight, I forgot that you were hard and dangerous. You seemed sad, and I have always thought that people who were sad couldn’t possibly be wicked.”The sentinel said nothing, and Maya continued more boldly:“You are powerful. If you want to, you can put me back in my cell, and I’ll have to die. But you can also set me free—if you want to.”At this the warrior drew himself up. His armor clanked, and the arm he raised shone in the moonlight.But the moonlight was turning dimmer in the passageway. Was dawn coming already?“You are right,” he said. “I can. My people and my queen have entrusted me with this power. My orders are that no bee who hasset foot in this fortress shall leave it alive. I shall keep faith with my people.”Maya talks to the hornet sentinelAfter a pause he added softly as if to himself: “I have learned by bitter experience how faithlessness can hurt—when Loveydear forsook me....”Little Maya was overcome. She did not know what to say. Ah, the same sentiments moved her, too—love of her own kind, loyalty to her people. Nothing to be done here but to use force or strategy. Each did his duty, and yet each remained an enemy to the other.But hadn’t the sentinel mentioned a name? Hadn’t he said something about someone’s having been unfaithful to him? Loveydear—why, she knew Loveydear—the beautiful dragon-fly who lived at the lakeside among the waterlilies.Maya quivered with excitement. Here, perhaps, was her salvation. But she wasn’t quite sure how much good her knowledge would be to her. So she said prudently:“Who is Loveydear, if I may ask?”“Never mind, little one. She’s not your affair,and she’s lost to me forever. I shall never find her again.”“I know Miss Loveydear.” Maya forced herself to put the utmost indifference into her tone. “She belongs to the family of dragon-flies and she’s the loveliest lady of all.”A tremendous change came over the warrior. He seemed to have forgotten where he was. He leapt over to Maya’s sides as if blown by a violent gust.“What! You know Loveydear? Tell me where she is. Tell me, right away.”“No.”Maya spoke quietly and firmly; she glowed with secret delight.“I’ll bite your head off if you don’t tell.” The warrior drew dangerously close.“It will be bitten off anyhow. Go ahead. I shan’t betray the lovely dragon-fly. She’s a close friend of mine.... You want to imprison her.”The warrior breathed hard. In the gathering dawn Maya could see that his foreheadwas pale and his eyes tragic with the inner struggle he was waging.“Good God!” he said wildly. “It’s time to rouse the soldiers.—No, no, little bee, I don’t want to harm Loveydear. I love her, more dearly than my life. Tell me where I shall find her again.”Maya was clever. She purposely hesitated before she said:“But I love my life.”“If you tell me where Loveydear lives”—Maya could see that the sentinel spoke with difficulty and was trembling all over—“I’ll set you free. You can fly wherever you want.”“Will you keep your word?”“My word of honor as a brigand,” said the sentinel proudly.Maya could scarcely speak. But, if she was to be in time to warn her people of the attack, every moment counted. Her heart exulted.“Very well,” she said, “I believe you. Listen, then. Do you know the ancient linden-trees near the castle? Beyond them lies one meadow after another, and finally comes a biglake. In a cove at the south end where the brook empties into the lake the waterlilies lie spread out on the water in the sunlight. Near them, in the rushes, is where Loveydear lives. You’ll find her there every day at noon when the sun is high in the heavens.”The warrior had pressed both hands to his pale brow. He seemed to be having a desperate struggle with himself.“You’re telling the truth,” he said softly and groaned, whether from joy or pain it was impossible to tell. “She told me she wanted to go where there were floating white flowers. Those must be the flowers you speak of. Fly away, then. I thank you.”And actually he stepped aside from the entrance.Day was breaking.“A brigand keeps his word,” he said.Not knowing that Maya had overheard the deliberations in the council chamber, he told himself that one small bee more or less made little difference. Weren’t there hundreds of others?“Good-by,” cried Maya, breathless with haste, and flew off without a word of thanks.As a matter of fact, there was no time to spare.Maya returns to her hiveCHAPTER XVTHE WARNINGLittleMaya summoned every bit of strength and will power she had left. Like a bullet shot from the muzzle of a gun (bees can fly faster than most insects), she darted through the purpling dawn in a lightning beeline for the woods, where she knew she would be safe for the moment and could hide herself away should the hornet regret having let her go and follow in pursuit.Gossamer veils hung everywhere over the level country, big drops fell from the trees on the dry leaves carpeting the ground, and the cold in the woods threatened to paralyze little Maya’s wings. No ray of the dawn had asyet found its way between the trees. The air was as hushed as if the sun had forgotten the earth, and all creatures had laid themselves to eternal rest.Maya, therefore, flew high up in the air. Only one thing mattered—to get back as quickly as strength and wits permitted to her hive, her people, her endangered home. She must warn her people. They must prepare against the attack which the terrible brigands had planned for that very morning. Oh, if only the nation of bees had the chance to arm and make ready its defenses, it was well able to cope with its stronger opponents. But a surprise assault at rising time! What if the queen and the soldiers were still asleep? The success of the hornets would then be assured. They would take prisoners and give no quarter. The butchery would be horrible.Thinking of the strength and energy of her people, their readiness to meet death, their devotion to their queen, the little bee felt a great wrath against their enemies the hornets. Her beloved people! No sacrifice was too great for them. Little Maya’s heart swelled withthe ecstasy of self-sacrifice and the dauntless courage of enthusiasm.It was not easy for her to find her way over the woods. Long before she had ceased to observe landmarks as did the other bees, who had great distances to come back with their loads of nectar. She felt she had never flown as high before, the cold hurt, and she could scarcely distinguish the objects below.“What can I go by?” she thought. “No one thing stands out. I shan’t be able to reach my people and help them. Oh, oh! And here I had a chance to atone for my desertion. What shall I do? What shall I do?”—Suddenly some secret force steered her in a certain direction. “Whatis pushing and pulling me? It must be homesickness guiding me back to my country.” She gave herself up to the instinct and flew swiftly on. Soon, in the distance, looking like grey domes in the dim light of the dawn, showed the mighty lindens of the castle park. She exclaimed with delight. She knew where she was. She dropped closer to the earth. In the meadows on one side hung the luminous wisps of fog, thicker here than in thewoods. She thought of the flower-sprites who cheerfully died their early death inside the floating veils. That inspired her anew with confidence. Her anxiety disappeared. Let her people spurn her from the kingdom, let the queen punish her for desertion, if only the bees were spared this dreadful calamity of the hornets’ invasion.Close to the long stone wall shone the silver-fir that shielded the bee-city against the west wind. And there—she could see them distinctly now—were the red, blue, and green portals of her homeland. The stormy pounding of her heart nearly robbed her of her breath. But on she flew toward the red entrance which led to her people and her queen.On the flying-board, two sentinels blocked the entrance and laid hands upon her. Maya was too breathless to utter a syllable, and the sentinels threatened to kill her. For a bee to force its way into a strange city without the queen’s consent is a capital offense.“Stand back!” cried one sentinel, thrusting her roughly away. “What’s the matter with you! If you don’t leave this instant, you’ll die.—Didyou ever!” He turned to the other sentinel. “Have you ever seen the like, and before daytime too?”Now Maya pronounced the password by which all the bees knew one another. The sentinels instantly released her.“What!” they cried. “You are one of us, and we don’t know you?”“Let me get to the queen,” groaned the little bee. “Right away, quick! We are in terrible danger.”The sentinels still hesitated. They couldn’t grasp the situation.“The queen may not be awakened before sunrise,” said the one.“Then,” Maya screamed, her voice rising to a passionate yell such as the sentinels had probably never heard from a bee before, “then the queen will never wake up alive. Death is following at my heels. Take me to the queen! Take me to the queen, I say!” Her voice was so wild and wrathful that the sentinels were frightened, and obeyed.The three hurried together through the warm, well-known streets and corridors.Maya recognized everything, and for all her excitement and the tremendous need for haste, her heart quivered with sweet melancholy at the sight of the dear familiar scenes.“I am at home,” she stammered with pale lips.In the queen’s reception room she almost broke down. One of the sentinels supported her while the other hurried with the unusual message into the private chambers. Both of them now realized that something momentous was taking place, and the messenger ran as fast as his legs would carry him.The first wax-generators were already up. Here and there a little head thrust itself out curiously from the openings. The news of the incident traveled quickly.Two officers emerged from the private chambers. Maya recognized them instantly. In solemn silence, without a word to her, they took their posts, one on each side of the doorway: the queen would soon appear.She came without her court, attended only by her aide and two ladies-in-waiting. She hurried straight over to Maya. When shesaw what a state the child was in, the severe expression on her face relaxed a little.see captionThe Queen came without her court, attended only by her aide and two ladies-in-waiting“You have come with an important message? Who are you?”Maya could not speak at once. Finally she managed to frame two words:“The hornets!”The queen turned pale. But her composure was unshaken, and Maya was somewhat calmed.“Almighty queen!” she cried. “Forgive me for not respecting the duties I owe Your Majesty. Later I will tell you everything I have done. I repent. With my whole heart I repent.—Just a little while ago, as by a miracle, I escaped from the fortress of the hornets, and the last I heard was that they were planning to attack and plunder our kingdom at dawn.”The wild dismay that the little bee’s words produced was indescribable. The ladies-in-waiting set up a loud wail, the officers at the door turned pale and made as if to dash off and sound the alarm, the aide said: “Good God!” and wheeled completely round, because he wanted to see on all sides at once.As for the queen, it was really extraordinary to see with what composure, what resourcefulness she received the dreadful news. She drew herself up, and there was something in her attitude that both intimidated and inspired endless confidence. Little Maya was awed. Never, she felt, had she witnessed anything so superior. It was like a great, magnificent event in itself.the queen bee with attendantsThe queen beckoned the officers to her side and uttered a few rapid sentences aloud. At the end Maya heard:“I give you one minute for the execution of my orders. A fraction of a second longer, and it will cost you your heads.”But the officers scarcely looked as if they needed this incentive. In less time than it takes to tell they were gone. Their instant readiness was a joy to behold.“O my queen!” said Maya.The queen inclined her head to the little bee, who once again for a brief moment saw her monarch’s countenance beam upon her gently, lovingly.“You have our thanks,” she said. “You havesaved us. No matter what your previous conduct may have been, you have made up for it a thousandfold.—But go, rest now, little girl, you look very miserable, and your hands are trembling.”“I should like to die for you,” Maya stammered, quivering.“Don’t worry about us,” replied the queen. “Among the thousands inhabiting this city there is not one who would hesitate a moment to sacrifice his life for me and for the welfare of the country. You can go to sleep peacefully.”She bent over and kissed the little bee on her forehead. Then she beckoned to the ladies-in-waiting and bade them see to Maya’s rest and comfort.Maya, stirred to the depths of her being, allowed herself to be led away. After this, life had nothing lovelier to offer. As in a dream she heard the loud, clear signals in the distance, saw the high dignitaries of state assemble around the royal chambers, heard a dull, far-echoing drone that shook the hive from roof to foundation.“The soldiers! Our soldiers!” whispered the ladies-in-waiting at her side.The last thing Maya heard in the little room where her companions put her to bed was the tramp of soldiers marching past her door and commands shouted in a blithe, resolute, ringing voice. Into her dreams, echoing as from a great distance, she carried the ancient song of the soldier-bees:
My home is Light. The crystal bowlOf Heaven’s blue, I love it so!Both Death and Life will change, I know,But not my soul, my living soul.My soul is that which breathes anewFrom all of loveliness and grace;And as it flows from God’s own face,It flows from His creations, too.
My home is Light. The crystal bowl
Of Heaven’s blue, I love it so!
Both Death and Life will change, I know,
But not my soul, my living soul.
My soul is that which breathes anew
From all of loveliness and grace;
And as it flows from God’s own face,
It flows from His creations, too.
Maya burst into sobs. What it was that made her so sad and yet so happy, she could not have told.
The little human being turned around.
“Who is crying?” he asked in his chiming voice.
“It’s only me,” stammered Maya. “Excuse me for interrupting you.”
“But why are you crying?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps just because you are so beautiful. Who are you? Oh, do tell me, if I am not asking too much. You are an angel, aren’t you? You must be.”
“Oh, no,” said the little creature, quite serious. “I am only a sprite, a flower-sprite.—But, dear little bee, what are you doing out here in the meadow so late at night?”
The sprite flew over to a curving iris blade beside Maya and regarded her long and kindly from his swaying perch in the moonlight.
Maya told him all about herself, what she had done, what she knew, and what she longed for. And while she spoke, his eyes never left her, those large dark eyes glowing in the whitefairy face under the golden hair that ever and anon shone like silver in the moonlight.
When she finished he stroked her head and looked at her so warmly and lovingly that the little bee, beside herself with joy, had to lower her gaze.
“We sprites,” he explained, “live seven nights, but we must stay in the flower in which we are born, else we die at dawn.”
Maya opened her eyes wide in terror.
“Then hurry, hurry! Fly back into your flower!”
The, sprite shook his head sadly.
“Too late.—But listen. I have more to tell you. Most of us sprites are glad to leave our flowers never to return, because a great happiness is connected with our leaving. We are endowed with a remarkable power: before we die, we can fulfill the dearest wish of the first creature we meet. It is when we make up our minds seriously to leave the flower for the purpose of making someone happy that our wings grow.”
“How wonderful!” cried Maya. “I’d leave the flower too, then. It must be lovely to fulfillanother person’s wish.” Thatshewas the first being whom the sprite on his flight from the flower had met, did not occur to her. “And then—must you die?”
The sprite nodded, but not sadly this time.
“We live to see the dawn still,” he said, “but when the dew falls, we are drawn into the fine cobwebby veils that float above the grass and the flowers of the meadows. Haven’t you often noticed that the veils shine white as though a light were inside them? It’s the sprites, their wings and their garments. When the light rises we change into dew-drops. The plants drink us and we become a part of their growing and blooming until in time we rise again as sprites from out their flowers.”
“Then you were once another sprite?” asked Maya, tense, breathless with interest.
The earnest eyes said yes.
“But I have forgotten my earlier existence. We forget everything in our flower-sleep.”
“Oh, what a lovely fate!”
“It is the same as that of all earthly creatures,when you really come to think of it, even if it isn’t always flowers out of which they wake up from their sleep of death. But we won’t talk of that to-night.”
“Oh, I’m so happy!” cried Maya.
“Then you haven’t got a wish? You’re the first person I’ve met, you know, and I possess the power to grant your dearest wish.”
“I? But I’m only a bee. No, it’s too much. It would be too great a joy. I don’t deserve it, I don’t deserve that you should be so good to me.”
“No one deserves the good and the beautiful. The good and the beautiful come to us like the sunshine.”
Maya’s heart beat stormily. Oh, she did have a wish, a burning wish, but she didn’t dare confess it. The elf seemed to guess; he smiled so you couldn’t keep anything a secret from him.
“Well?” He stroked his golden hair off his pure forehead.
“I’d like to know human beings at their best and most beautiful,” said the little bee. She spoke quickly and hotly. She was afraidshe would be told that so great a wish could not be granted.
But the sprite drew himself up, his expression was serious and serene, his eyes shone with confidence. He took Maya’s trembling hand and said:
“Come. We’ll fly together. Your wish shall be granted.”
Maya and the sprite
Andso Maya and the flower-sprite started off together in the bright mid-summer night, flying low over the blossomy meadow. His white reflection crossing the brook shone as though a star were gliding through the water.
How happy the little bee was to confide herself to this gracious being! Whatever he were to do, wherever he were to lead her would be good and right, she felt. She would have liked to ask him a thousand questions had she dared.
As they were passing between a double row of high poplar-trees, something whirredabove them; a dark moth, as big and strong as a bird, crossed their way.
“One moment, wait one moment, please,” the sprite called.
Maya was surprised to see how readily the moth responded.
All three alighted on a high poplar branch, from which there was a far view out upon the tranquil, moonlit landscape. The quaking leaves whispered delicately. The moth, perching directly opposite Maya in the full light of the moon, slowly lifted his spread wings and dropped them again, softly, as if gently fanning—fanning a cool breath upon someone. Broad, diagonal stripes of a gorgeous bright blue marked his wings, his black head was covered as with dark velvet, his face was like a strangely mysterious mask, out of which glowed a pair of dark eyes. How wonderful were the creatures of the night! A little cold shiver ran through Maya, who felt she was dreaming the strangest dream of her life.
“You are beautiful,” she said to the moth, “beautiful, really.” She was awed and solemn.
“Who is your companion?” the moth asked the sprite.
“A bee. I met her just as I was leaving my flower.”
The moth seemed to realize what that meant. He looked at Maya almost enviously.
“You fortunate creature!” he said in a low, serious, musing tone, shaking his head to and fro.
“Are you sad?” asked Maya out of the warmth of her heart.
The moth shook his head.
“No, not sad.” His voice sounded friendly and grateful, and he gave Maya such a kind look that she would have liked to strike up a friendship with him then and there.
“Is the bat still abroad, or has he gone to rest?” This was the question for which the sprite had stopped the moth.
“Oh, he’s gone to rest long ago. You want to know, do you, on account of your companion?”
The sprite nodded. Maya was dying to find out what a bat was, but the sprite seemed to be in a hurry. With a charming gesture ofrestlessness he tossed his shining hair back from his forehead.
“Come, Maya,” he said, “we must hurry. The night is so short.”
“Shall I carry you part of the way?” asked the moth.
The sprite thanked him but declined. “Some other time!” he called.
“Then it will be never,” thought Maya as they flew away, “because at dawn the flower-sprite must die.”
The moth remained on the leaf looking after them until the glimmer of the fairy garments grew smaller and smaller and finally sank into the depths of the blue distance. Then he turned his face slowly and surveyed his great dark wings with their broad blue stripes. He sank into revery.
“So often I have heard that I am gray and ugly,” he said to himself, “and that my dress is not to be compared with the superb robes of the butterfly. But the little bee saw only what is beautiful in me.—And she asked me if I was sad. I wonder whether I am or not.—No, I am not sad,” he decided, “not now.”
Meanwhile Maya and the flower-sprite flew through the dense shrubbery of a garden. The glory of it in the dimmed moonlight was beyond the power of mortal lips to say. An intoxicatingly sweet cool breath of dew and slumbering flowers transformed all things into unutterable blessings. The lilac grapes of the acacias sparkled in freshness, the June rose-tree looked like a small blooming heaven hung with red lamps, the white stars of the jasmine glowed palely, sadly, and poured out their perfume as if, in this one hour, to make a gift of their all.
Maya was dazed. She pressed the sprite’s hand and looked at him. A light of bliss shone from his eyes.
“Who could have dreamed of this!” whispered the little bee.
Just then she saw something that sent a pang through her.
“Oh,” she cried, “look! A star has fallen! It’s straying about and can’t find its way back to its place in the sky.”
“That’s a firefly,” said the flower-sprite, without a smile.
Now, in the midst of her amazement, Maya realized for the first time why the sprite seemed so dear and kind. He never laughed at her ignorance; on the contrary, he helped her when she went wrong.
“They are odd little creatures,” the sprite continued. “They carry their own light about with them on warm summer nights and enliven the dark under the shrubbery where the moonlight doesn’t shine through. So firefly can keep tryst with firefly even in the dark. Later, when we come to the human beings, you will make the acquaintance of one of them.”
“Why?” asked Maya.
“You’ll soon see.”
By this time they had reached an arbor completely overgrown with jasmine and woodbine. They descended almost to the ground. From close by, within the arbor, came the sound of faint whispering. The flower-sprite beckoned to a firefly.
“Would you be good enough,” he asked, “to give us a little light? We have to push through these dark leaves here; we want toget to the inside of the jasmine-arbor.”
“But your glow is much brighter than mine.”
“I think so, too,” put in Maya, more to hide her excitement than anything else.
“I must wrap myself up in a leaf,” explained the sprite,“else the human beings would see me and be frightened. We sprites appear to human beings only in their dreams.”
“I see,” said the firefly. “I am at your service. I will do what I can.—Won’t the great beast with you hurt me?”
The sprite shook his head no, and the firefly believed him.
The sprite now took a leaf and wrapped himself in it; the gleam of his white garments was completely hidden. Then he picked a little bluebell from the grass and put it on his shining head like a helmet. The only bit of him left exposed was his face, which was so small that surely no one would notice it. He asked the firefly to perch on his shoulder and with its wing to dim its lamp on the one side so as to keep the dazzle out of his eyes.
“Come now,” he said, taking Maya’s hand. “We had better climb up right here.”
The little bee was thinking of something the sprite had said, and as they clambered up the vine, she asked:
“Do human beings dream when they sleep?”
“Not only then. They dream sometimes even when they are awake. They sit with their bodies a little limp, their heads bent a little forward, and their eyes searching the distance, as if to see into the very heavens. Their dreams are always lovelier than life. That’s why we appear to them in their dreams.”
The sprite now laid his tiny finger on his lips, bent aside a small blooming sprig of jasmine, and gently pushed Maya ahead.
“Look down,” he said softly, “you’ll see what you have been wishing to see.”
Maya and the sprite watching two humans
The little bee looked and saw two human beings sitting on a bench in the shadows cast by the moonlight—a boy and a girl, the girl with her head leaning on the boy’s shoulder, and the boy holding his arm around the girlas if to protect her. They sat in complete stillness, looking wide-eyed into the night. It was as quiet as if they had both gone to sleep. Only from a distance came the chirping of the crickets, and slowly, slowly the moonlight drifted through the leaves.
Maya, transported out of herself, gazed into the girl’s face. Although it looked pale and wistful, it seemed to be transfused by the hidden radiance of a great happiness. Above her large eyes lay golden hair, like the golden hair of the sprite, and upon it rested the heavenly sheen of the midsummer night. From her red lips, slightly parted, came a breath of rapture and melancholy, as if she wanted to offer everything that was hers to the man by her side for his happiness.
And now she turned to him, pulled his head down, and whispered a magical something that brought a smile to his face such as Maya thought no earthly being could wear. In his eyes gleamed a happiness and a vigor as if the whole big world were his to own, and suffering and misfortune were banished forever from the face of the earth.
Maya somehow had no desire to know what he said to the girl in reply. Her heart quivered as though the ecstasy that emanated from the two human beings was also hers.
“Now I have seen the most glorious thing that my eyes will ever behold,” she whispered to herself. “I know now that human beings are most beautiful when they are in love.”
How long Maya stayed behind the leaves without stirring, lost in looking at the boy and girl, she did not know. When she turned round, the firefly’s lamp had been extinguished, the sprite was gone. Through the doorway of the arbor far across the country on the distant horizon showed a narrow streak of red.
Maya with the ladybird beetle
Thesun was risen high above the tops of the beech-trees when Maya awoke in her woodland retreat. In the first moments, the moonlight, the chirping of the cricket, the midsummer night meadow, the lovely sprite, the boy and the girl in the arbor, all seemed the perishing fancies of a delicious dream. Yet here it was almost midday; and she remembered slipping back into her chamber in the chill of dawn. So it had all been real, shehadspent the night with the flower-sprite andhadseen the two human beings, with their arms round each other, in the arbor of woodbine and jasmine.
The sun outside was glowing hot on the leaves, a warm wind was stirring, and Maya heard the mixed chorus of thousands of insects. Ah, what these knew, and whatsheknew! So proud was she of the great thing that had happened to her that she couldn’t get out to the others fast enough; she thought they must read it in her very looks.
But in the sunlight everything was the same as ever. Nothing was changed; nothing recalled the blue moonlit night. The insects came, said how-do-you-do, and left; yonder, the meadow was a scene of bustling activity; the insects, birds and butterflies hopped, flew and flitted in the hot flickering air around the tall, gay midsummer flowers.
Sadness fell upon Maya. There was no one in the world to share her joys and sorrows. She couldn’t make up her mind to fly over and join the others in the meadow. No, she would go to the woods. The woods were serious and solemn. They suited her mood.
How many mysteries and marvels lie hidden in the dim depths of the woods, no one suspects who hurries unobservant along thebeaten tracks. You must bend aside the branches of the underbrush, or lean down and peep between the blackberry briars through the tall grasses and across the thick moss. Under the shaded leaves of the plants, in holes in the ground and tree-trunks, in the decaying bark of stumps, in the curl and twist of the roots that coil on the ground like serpents, there is an active, multiform life by day and by night, full of joys and dangers, struggles and sorrows and pleasures.
Maya divined only a little of this as she flew low between the dark-brown trunks under the leafy roof of green. She followed a narrow trail in the grass, which made a clear path through thicket and clearing. Now and then the sun seemed to disappear behind clouds, so deep was the shade under the high foliage and in the close shrubbery; but soon she was flying again through a bright shimmer of gold and green above the broad-leaved miniature forests of bracken and blackberry.
After a long stretch the woods opened their columned and over-arched portals; before Maya’s eyes lay a wide field of grain in thegolden sunshine. Butterfly-weed flamed on the grassy borders. She alighted on the branch of a birch-tree at the edge of the field and gazed upon the sea of gold that spread out endlessly in the tranquillity of the placid day. It rippled softly under the shy summer breeze, which blew gently so as not to disturb the peace of the lovely world.
Under the birch-tree a few small brown butterflies, using the butterfly-weed for corners, were playing puss-in-the-corner, a favorite game with butterfly-children. Maya watched them a while.
“It must be lots of fun,” she thought, “and the children in the hive might be taught to play it, too. The cells would do for corners.—But Cassandra, I suppose, wouldn’t permit it. She’s so strict.”
Ah, now Maya felt sad again. Because she had thought of home. And she was about to drift off into homesick revery when she heard someone beside her say:
Maya and Alois go different ways
“Good morning. You’re a beast, it seems to me.”
Maya turned with a start.
“No,” she said, “decidedly not.”
There sitting on her leaf was a little polished terra-cotta half-sphere with seven black dots on its cupola of a back, a minute black head and bright little eyes. Peeping from under the dotted dome and supporting it as best they could Maya detected thin legs fine as threads. In spite of his queer figure, she somehow took a great liking to the stout little fellow; he had distinct charm.
“May I ask who you are? I myself am Maya of the nation of bees.”
“Do you mean to insult me? You have no reason to.”
“But why should I? I don’t know you, really I don’t.” Maya was quite upset.
“It’s easy tosayyou don’t know me.—Well, I’ll jog your memory. Count.” And the little rotundity began to wheel round slowly.
“You mean I’m to count your dots?”
“Yes, if you please.”
“Seven,” said Maya.
“Well?—Well? You still don’t know. All right then, I’ll tell you. I’m called exactlyaccording to what you counted. The scientific name of our family is Septempunctata.Septemis Latin for seven,punctatais Latin for dots, points, you see. Our common name is ladybird, my own name is Alois, I am a poet by profession. You know our common name, of course.”
Maya, afraid of hurting Alois’ feelings, didn’t dare to say no.
“Oh,” said he, “I live by the sunshine, by the peace of the day, and by the love of mankind.”
“But don’t you eat, too?” asked Maya, quite astonished.
“Of course. Plant-lice. Don’t you?”
“No. That would be—that is....”
“Is what? Is what?”
“Not—usual,” said Maya shyly.
“Of course, of course!” cried Alois, trying to raise one shoulder, but not succeeding, on account of the firm set of his dome. “As a bourgeoise you would, of course, do only what is usual. We poets would not get very far that way.—Have you time?”
“Why, yes,” said Maya.
“Then I’ll recite you one of my poems. Sit real still and close your eyes, so that nothing distracts your attention. The poem is calledMan’s Finger, and is about a personal experience. Are you listening?”
“Yes, to every word.”
“Well, then:
“‘Since you did not do me wrong,That you found me, doesn’t matter.You are rounded, you are long;Up above you wear a flatter,Pointed, polished sheath or platterWhich you move as swift as light,But below you’re fastened tight!’”
“‘Since you did not do me wrong,
That you found me, doesn’t matter.
You are rounded, you are long;
Up above you wear a flatter,
Pointed, polished sheath or platter
Which you move as swift as light,
But below you’re fastened tight!’”
“Well?” asked Alois after a short pause. There were tears in his eyes and a quaver in his voice.
“Man’s Fingergripped me very hard,” replied Maya in some embarrassment. She really knew much lovelier poems.
“How do you find the form?” Alois questioned with a smile of fine melancholy. He seemed to be overwhelmed by the effect he had produced.
“Long and round. You yourself said so in the poem.”
“I mean the artistic form, the form of my verse.”
“Oh—oh, yes. Yes, I thought it was very good.”
“It is, isn’t it!” cried Alois. “What you mean to say is thatMan’s Fingermay be ranked among the best poems you know of, and one must go way back in literature before one comes across anything like it. The prime requisite in art is that it should contain something new, which is what most poets forget. And bigness, too. Don’t you agree with me?”
“Certainly,” said Maya, “I think....”
“The firm belief you express in my importance as a poet really overwhelms me. I thank you.—But I must be going now, for solitude is the poet’s pride. Farewell.”
“Farewell,” echoed Maya, who really didn’t know just what the little fellow had been after.
“Well,” she thought, “heknows. Perhaps he’s not full grown yet; he certainly isn’t large.” She looked after him, as he hastenedup the branch. His wee legs were scarcely visible; he looked as though he were moving on low rollers.
Maya turned her gaze away, back to the golden field of grain over which the butterflies were playing. The field and the butterflies gave her ever so much more pleasure than the poetry of Alois, ladybird and poet.
Maya with the millipede
Howhappily the day had begun and how miserably it was to end!
Before the horror swept upon her, Maya had formed a very remarkable acquaintance. It was in the afternoon near a big old water-butt. She was sitting amid the scented elder blossoms, which lay mirrored in the placid dark surface of the butt, and a robin redbreast was warbling overhead, so sweetly and merrily that Maya thought it was a shame, a crying shame that she, a bee, could not make friends with the charming songsters. The trouble was, they were too big and ate you up.
She had hidden herself in the heart of the elder blossoms and was listening and blinking under the pointed darts of the sunlight, when she heard someone beside her sigh. Turning round she saw—well, now it reallywasthe strangest of all the strange creatures she had ever met. It must have had at least a hundred legs along each side of its body—so she thought at first glance. It was about three times her size, and slim, low, and wingless.
“For goodness sake! Mercy on me!” Maya was quite startled. “You must certainly be able to run!”
The stranger gave her a pondering look.
“I doubt it,” he said. “I doubt it. There’s room for improvement. I have too many legs. You see, before all my legs can be set in motion, too much time is lost. I didn’t use to realize this, and often wished I had a few more legs. But God’s will be done.—Who are you?”
Maya introduced herself. The other one nodded and moved some of his legs.
“I am Thomas of the family ofmillepeds. We are an old race, and we arouse admiration and astonishment in all parts of the globe. Noother animals can boast anything like our number of legs. Eight istheirlimit, so far as I know.”
“You are tremendously interesting. And your color is so queer. Have you got a family?”
“Why, no! Why should I? What good would a family do me? We millepeds crawl out of our eggs; that’s all. Ifwecan’t stand on our own feet, who should?”
“Of course, of course,” Maya observed thoughtfully. “But have you no relations?”
“No, dear child. I earn my living, and doubt. I doubt.”
“Oh!Whatdo you doubt?”
“I was born doubting. I must doubt.”
Maya stared at him in wide-eyed bewilderment. What did he mean, what could he possibly mean? She couldn’t for the life of her make out, but she did not want to pry too curiously into his private affairs.
“For one thing,” said Thomas after a pause, “for one thing I doubt whether you have chosen a good place to rest in. Don’t you know what’s over there in the big willow?”
“No.”
“You see! I doubted right away if you knew. The city of the hornets is over there.”
Maya turned deathly white and nearly fell off the elder blossoms. In a voice shaking with fright, she asked just where the city was.
“Do you see that old nesting-box for starlings, there in the shrubbery near the trunk of the willow-tree? It’s so poorly placed that I doubted from the first whether starlings would ever move in. If a bird-house isn’t set with its door facing the sunrise, every decent bird will think twice before taking possession. Well, the hornets have entrenched themselves in it. It’s the biggest hornets’ fortress in the country. You as a bee certainly ought to know of the place. Why, the hornets are brigands who lie in wait for you bees. So, at least, I have observed.”
Maya scarcely heard what he was saying. There, showing clear against the green, she saw the brown walls of the fortress. She almost stopped breathing.
“I must fly away,” she cried.
Too late! Behind her sounded a loud, mean laugh. At the same moment the littlebee 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. “Nevermind. 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.
“I could bite your head off, little one, to punish you for your impudence. And I would, too, I would indeed, but for our queen. She prefers fresh bees to dead carcasses. So a good soldier saves a juicy morsel like you to bring to her alive.”
The hornet, with Maya still in his grip, rose into the air and made directly for the fortress.
“This is too awful,” thought the poor little bee. “No one can stand this.” She fainted.
Maya in the hornet prison
When she came to her senses, she found herselfin half darkness, in a sultry dusk permeated by a horrid, pungent smell. Slowly everything came back to her. A great paralyzing sadness settled in her heart. She wanted to cry: the tears refused to come.
“I haven’t been eaten up yet, but I may be, any moment,” she thought in a tremble.
Through the walls of her prison she caught the distinct sound of voices, and soon she noticed that a little light filtered through a narrow chink. The hornets make their walls, not of wax like the bees, but of a dry mass resembling porous grey paper. By the one thread of light she managed bit by bit to make out her surroundings. Horror of horrors! Maya was almost congealed with fright: the floor was strewn with the bodies of dead insects. At her very feet lay a little rose-beetle turned over on its back; to one side was the skeleton of a large locust broken in two, and everywhere were the remains of slaughtered bees, their wings and legs and sheaths.
“Oh, oh, to think this had to happen to me,” whimpered little Maya. She did not dare to stir the fraction of an inch and pressed herselfshivering into the farthest corner of this chamber of horrors.
Again she heard voices on the other side of the wall. Impelled by mortal fear, she crept up to the chink and peeped through. What she saw was a vast hall crowded with hornets and magnificently illuminated by a number of captive glow-worms. Enthroned in their midst sat the queen, who seemed to be holding an important council. Maya caught every word that was said.
If those glittering monsters had not inspired her with such unspeakable horror, she would have gone into raptures over their strength and magnificence. It was the first time she had had a good view of any of the race of brigands. Tigers they looked like, superb tigers of the insect world, with their tawny black-barred bodies. A shiver of awe ran through the little bee.
A sergeant-at-arms went about the walls of the hall ordering the glow-worms to give all the light they could; they must strain themselves to the utmost. He muttered his commands in a low voice, so as not to interruptthe deliberations, and thrust at them with a long spear, hissing as he did so:
“Light up, or I’ll eat you!”
Terrible the things that were done in the fortress of the hornets!
Then Maya heard the queen say:
“Very well, we shall abide by the arrangements we have made. To-morrow, one hour before dawn, the warriors will assemble and sally forth to the attack on the city of the bees in the castle park. The hive is to be plundered and as many prisoners taken as possible. He who captures Queen Helen VIII and brings her to me alive will be dubbed a knight. Go forth and be brave and victorious and bring back rich booty.—The meeting is herewith adjourned. Sleep well, my warriors. I bid you good-night.”
The queen-hornet rose from her throne and left the hall accompanied by her body-guard.
Maya nearly cried out loud.
“My country!” she sobbed, “my bees, my dear, dear bees!” She pressed her hands to her mouth to keep herself from screaming. She was in the depths of despair. “Oh, wouldthat I had died before I heard this. No one will warn my people. They will be attacked in their sleep and massacred. O God, perform a miracle, help me, help me and my people. Our need is great!”
In the hall the glow-worms were put out and devoured. Gradually the fortress was wrapped in a hush. Maya seemed to have been forgotten. A faint twilight crept into her cell, and she thought she caught the strumming of the crickets’ night song outside.—Was anything more horrible than this dungeon with its carcasses strewn on the ground!
Maya with the hornet sentinel
Soon,however, the little bee’s despair yielded to a definite resolve. It was as though she once more called to mind that she was a bee.
“Here I am weeping and wailing,” she thought, “as if I had no brains and as if I were a weakling. Oh, I’m not much of an honor to my people and my queen. They are in danger. I am doomed anyhow. So since death is certain one way or another, I may as well be proud and brave and do everything I can to try to save them.”
It was as though Maya had completely forgotten the long time that had passed since sheleft her home. More strongly than ever she felt herself one of her people; and the great responsibility that suddenly devolved upon her, through the knowledge of the hornets’ plot, filled her with fine courage and determination.
“If my people are to be vanquished and killed, I want to be killed, too. But first I must do everything in my power to save them.”
“Long live my queen!” she cried.
“Quiet in there!” clanged harshly from the outside.
Ugh, what an awful voice!—The watchman making his rounds.—Then it was already late in the night.
As soon as the watchman’s footsteps had died away, Maya began to widen the chink through which she had peeped into the hall. It was easy to bite away the brittle stuff of the partition, though it took some time before the opening was large enough to admit her body. At length, in the full knowledge that discovery would cost her her life, she squeezed through into the hall. From remote depthsof the fortress echoed the sound of loud snoring.
The hall lay in a subdued blue light that found its way in through the distant entrance.
“The moonlight!” Maya said to herself. She began to creep cautiously toward the exit, cowering close in the deep shadows of the walls, until she reached the high, narrow passageway that led from the hall to the opening through which the light shone. She heaved a deep sigh. Far, far away glimmered a star.
“Liberty!” she thought.
The passageway was quite bright. Softly, stepping oh so very softly, Maya crept on. The portal came nearer and nearer.
“If I fly now,” she thought, “I’ll be out in one dash.” Her heart pounded as if ready to burst.
But there in the shadow of the doorway stood a sentinel leaning against a column.
Maya stood still, rooted to the spot. Vanished all her hopes. Gone the chance of escape. There was no getting by that formidablefigure. What was she to do? Best go back where she had come from. But the sight of the giant in the doorway held her in a spell. He seemed to be lost in revery. He stood gazing out upon the moon-washed landscape, his head tilted slightly forward, his chin propped on his hand. How his golden cuirass gleamed in the moonlight! Something in the way he stood there stirred the little bee’s emotions.
“He looks so sad,” she thought. “How handsome he is, how superbly he holds himself, how proudly his armor shines! He never removes it, neither by day nor by night. He is always ready to rob and fight and die....”
Little Maya quite forgot that this man was her enemy. Ah, how often the same thing had happened to her—that the goodness of her heart and her delight in beauty made her lose all sense of danger.
A golden dart of light shot from the bandit’s helmet. He must have turned his head.
“My God,” whispered Maya, “this is the end of me!”
But the sentinel said quietly:
“Just come here, child.”
“What!” cried Maya. “You saw me?”
“All the time, child. You bit a hole through the wall, then you crept along—crept along—tucking yourself very neatly into the dark places—until you reached the spot where you’re standing. Then you saw me, and you lost heart. Am I right?”
“Yes,” said Maya, “quite right.” Her whole body shook with terror. The sentinel, then, had seen her the entire time. She remembered having heard how keen were the senses of these clever freebooters.
“What are you doing here?” he asked good-humoredly.
Maya still thought he looked sad. His mind seemed to be far away and not to concern itself with what was of such moment to her.
“I’d like to get out,” she answered. “And I’m not afraid. I was just startled. You looked so strong and handsome, and your armor shone so. Now I’ll fight you.”
The sentinel, slightly astonished, leaned forward, and looked at Maya and smiled. Itwas not an ugly smile, and Maya experienced an entirely new feeling: the young warrior’s smile seemed to exercise a mysterious power over her heart.
“No, little one,” he said almost tenderly, “you and I won’t fight. You bees belong to a powerful nation, but man for man we hornets are stronger. To do single battle with a bee would be beneath our dignity. If you like you may stay here a little while and chat. But only a little while. Soon I’ll have to wake the soldiers up; then, back to your cell you must go.”
How curious! The hornet’s lofty friendliness disarmed Maya more than anger or hate could have done. The feeling with which he inspired her was almost admiration. With great sad eyes she looked up at her enemy, and constrained, as always, to follow the impulses of her heart, she said:
“I have always heard bad things about hornets. But you are not bad. I can’t believe you’re bad.”
The warrior looked at Maya.
“There are good people and bad peopleeverywhere,” he said, gravely. “But you mustn’t forget we are your enemies, and shall always remain your enemies.”
“Must an enemy always be bad?” asked Maya. “Before, when you were looking out into the moonlight, I forgot that you were hard and dangerous. You seemed sad, and I have always thought that people who were sad couldn’t possibly be wicked.”
The sentinel said nothing, and Maya continued more boldly:
“You are powerful. If you want to, you can put me back in my cell, and I’ll have to die. But you can also set me free—if you want to.”
At this the warrior drew himself up. His armor clanked, and the arm he raised shone in the moonlight.
But the moonlight was turning dimmer in the passageway. Was dawn coming already?
“You are right,” he said. “I can. My people and my queen have entrusted me with this power. My orders are that no bee who hasset foot in this fortress shall leave it alive. I shall keep faith with my people.”
Maya talks to the hornet sentinel
After a pause he added softly as if to himself: “I have learned by bitter experience how faithlessness can hurt—when Loveydear forsook me....”
Little Maya was overcome. She did not know what to say. Ah, the same sentiments moved her, too—love of her own kind, loyalty to her people. Nothing to be done here but to use force or strategy. Each did his duty, and yet each remained an enemy to the other.
But hadn’t the sentinel mentioned a name? Hadn’t he said something about someone’s having been unfaithful to him? Loveydear—why, she knew Loveydear—the beautiful dragon-fly who lived at the lakeside among the waterlilies.
Maya quivered with excitement. Here, perhaps, was her salvation. But she wasn’t quite sure how much good her knowledge would be to her. So she said prudently:
“Who is Loveydear, if I may ask?”
“Never mind, little one. She’s not your affair,and she’s lost to me forever. I shall never find her again.”
“I know Miss Loveydear.” Maya forced herself to put the utmost indifference into her tone. “She belongs to the family of dragon-flies and she’s the loveliest lady of all.”
A tremendous change came over the warrior. He seemed to have forgotten where he was. He leapt over to Maya’s sides as if blown by a violent gust.
“What! You know Loveydear? Tell me where she is. Tell me, right away.”
“No.”
Maya spoke quietly and firmly; she glowed with secret delight.
“I’ll bite your head off if you don’t tell.” The warrior drew dangerously close.
“It will be bitten off anyhow. Go ahead. I shan’t betray the lovely dragon-fly. She’s a close friend of mine.... You want to imprison her.”
The warrior breathed hard. In the gathering dawn Maya could see that his foreheadwas pale and his eyes tragic with the inner struggle he was waging.
“Good God!” he said wildly. “It’s time to rouse the soldiers.—No, no, little bee, I don’t want to harm Loveydear. I love her, more dearly than my life. Tell me where I shall find her again.”
Maya was clever. She purposely hesitated before she said:
“But I love my life.”
“If you tell me where Loveydear lives”—Maya could see that the sentinel spoke with difficulty and was trembling all over—“I’ll set you free. You can fly wherever you want.”
“Will you keep your word?”
“My word of honor as a brigand,” said the sentinel proudly.
Maya could scarcely speak. But, if she was to be in time to warn her people of the attack, every moment counted. Her heart exulted.
“Very well,” she said, “I believe you. Listen, then. Do you know the ancient linden-trees near the castle? Beyond them lies one meadow after another, and finally comes a biglake. In a cove at the south end where the brook empties into the lake the waterlilies lie spread out on the water in the sunlight. Near them, in the rushes, is where Loveydear lives. You’ll find her there every day at noon when the sun is high in the heavens.”
The warrior had pressed both hands to his pale brow. He seemed to be having a desperate struggle with himself.
“You’re telling the truth,” he said softly and groaned, whether from joy or pain it was impossible to tell. “She told me she wanted to go where there were floating white flowers. Those must be the flowers you speak of. Fly away, then. I thank you.”
And actually he stepped aside from the entrance.
Day was breaking.
“A brigand keeps his word,” he said.
Not knowing that Maya had overheard the deliberations in the council chamber, he told himself that one small bee more or less made little difference. Weren’t there hundreds of others?
“Good-by,” cried Maya, breathless with haste, and flew off without a word of thanks.
As a matter of fact, there was no time to spare.
Maya returns to her hive
LittleMaya summoned every bit of strength and will power she had left. Like a bullet shot from the muzzle of a gun (bees can fly faster than most insects), she darted through the purpling dawn in a lightning beeline for the woods, where she knew she would be safe for the moment and could hide herself away should the hornet regret having let her go and follow in pursuit.
Gossamer veils hung everywhere over the level country, big drops fell from the trees on the dry leaves carpeting the ground, and the cold in the woods threatened to paralyze little Maya’s wings. No ray of the dawn had asyet found its way between the trees. The air was as hushed as if the sun had forgotten the earth, and all creatures had laid themselves to eternal rest.
Maya, therefore, flew high up in the air. Only one thing mattered—to get back as quickly as strength and wits permitted to her hive, her people, her endangered home. She must warn her people. They must prepare against the attack which the terrible brigands had planned for that very morning. Oh, if only the nation of bees had the chance to arm and make ready its defenses, it was well able to cope with its stronger opponents. But a surprise assault at rising time! What if the queen and the soldiers were still asleep? The success of the hornets would then be assured. They would take prisoners and give no quarter. The butchery would be horrible.
Thinking of the strength and energy of her people, their readiness to meet death, their devotion to their queen, the little bee felt a great wrath against their enemies the hornets. Her beloved people! No sacrifice was too great for them. Little Maya’s heart swelled withthe ecstasy of self-sacrifice and the dauntless courage of enthusiasm.
It was not easy for her to find her way over the woods. Long before she had ceased to observe landmarks as did the other bees, who had great distances to come back with their loads of nectar. She felt she had never flown as high before, the cold hurt, and she could scarcely distinguish the objects below.
“What can I go by?” she thought. “No one thing stands out. I shan’t be able to reach my people and help them. Oh, oh! And here I had a chance to atone for my desertion. What shall I do? What shall I do?”—Suddenly some secret force steered her in a certain direction. “Whatis pushing and pulling me? It must be homesickness guiding me back to my country.” She gave herself up to the instinct and flew swiftly on. Soon, in the distance, looking like grey domes in the dim light of the dawn, showed the mighty lindens of the castle park. She exclaimed with delight. She knew where she was. She dropped closer to the earth. In the meadows on one side hung the luminous wisps of fog, thicker here than in thewoods. She thought of the flower-sprites who cheerfully died their early death inside the floating veils. That inspired her anew with confidence. Her anxiety disappeared. Let her people spurn her from the kingdom, let the queen punish her for desertion, if only the bees were spared this dreadful calamity of the hornets’ invasion.
Close to the long stone wall shone the silver-fir that shielded the bee-city against the west wind. And there—she could see them distinctly now—were the red, blue, and green portals of her homeland. The stormy pounding of her heart nearly robbed her of her breath. But on she flew toward the red entrance which led to her people and her queen.
On the flying-board, two sentinels blocked the entrance and laid hands upon her. Maya was too breathless to utter a syllable, and the sentinels threatened to kill her. For a bee to force its way into a strange city without the queen’s consent is a capital offense.
“Stand back!” cried one sentinel, thrusting her roughly away. “What’s the matter with you! If you don’t leave this instant, you’ll die.—Didyou ever!” He turned to the other sentinel. “Have you ever seen the like, and before daytime too?”
Now Maya pronounced the password by which all the bees knew one another. The sentinels instantly released her.
“What!” they cried. “You are one of us, and we don’t know you?”
“Let me get to the queen,” groaned the little bee. “Right away, quick! We are in terrible danger.”
The sentinels still hesitated. They couldn’t grasp the situation.
“The queen may not be awakened before sunrise,” said the one.
“Then,” Maya screamed, her voice rising to a passionate yell such as the sentinels had probably never heard from a bee before, “then the queen will never wake up alive. Death is following at my heels. Take me to the queen! Take me to the queen, I say!” Her voice was so wild and wrathful that the sentinels were frightened, and obeyed.
The three hurried together through the warm, well-known streets and corridors.Maya recognized everything, and for all her excitement and the tremendous need for haste, her heart quivered with sweet melancholy at the sight of the dear familiar scenes.
“I am at home,” she stammered with pale lips.
In the queen’s reception room she almost broke down. One of the sentinels supported her while the other hurried with the unusual message into the private chambers. Both of them now realized that something momentous was taking place, and the messenger ran as fast as his legs would carry him.
The first wax-generators were already up. Here and there a little head thrust itself out curiously from the openings. The news of the incident traveled quickly.
Two officers emerged from the private chambers. Maya recognized them instantly. In solemn silence, without a word to her, they took their posts, one on each side of the doorway: the queen would soon appear.
She came without her court, attended only by her aide and two ladies-in-waiting. She hurried straight over to Maya. When shesaw what a state the child was in, the severe expression on her face relaxed a little.
see caption
The Queen came without her court, attended only by her aide and two ladies-in-waiting
“You have come with an important message? Who are you?”
Maya could not speak at once. Finally she managed to frame two words:
“The hornets!”
The queen turned pale. But her composure was unshaken, and Maya was somewhat calmed.
“Almighty queen!” she cried. “Forgive me for not respecting the duties I owe Your Majesty. Later I will tell you everything I have done. I repent. With my whole heart I repent.—Just a little while ago, as by a miracle, I escaped from the fortress of the hornets, and the last I heard was that they were planning to attack and plunder our kingdom at dawn.”
The wild dismay that the little bee’s words produced was indescribable. The ladies-in-waiting set up a loud wail, the officers at the door turned pale and made as if to dash off and sound the alarm, the aide said: “Good God!” and wheeled completely round, because he wanted to see on all sides at once.
As for the queen, it was really extraordinary to see with what composure, what resourcefulness she received the dreadful news. She drew herself up, and there was something in her attitude that both intimidated and inspired endless confidence. Little Maya was awed. Never, she felt, had she witnessed anything so superior. It was like a great, magnificent event in itself.
the queen bee with attendants
The queen beckoned the officers to her side and uttered a few rapid sentences aloud. At the end Maya heard:
“I give you one minute for the execution of my orders. A fraction of a second longer, and it will cost you your heads.”
But the officers scarcely looked as if they needed this incentive. In less time than it takes to tell they were gone. Their instant readiness was a joy to behold.
“O my queen!” said Maya.
The queen inclined her head to the little bee, who once again for a brief moment saw her monarch’s countenance beam upon her gently, lovingly.
“You have our thanks,” she said. “You havesaved us. No matter what your previous conduct may have been, you have made up for it a thousandfold.—But go, rest now, little girl, you look very miserable, and your hands are trembling.”
“I should like to die for you,” Maya stammered, quivering.
“Don’t worry about us,” replied the queen. “Among the thousands inhabiting this city there is not one who would hesitate a moment to sacrifice his life for me and for the welfare of the country. You can go to sleep peacefully.”
She bent over and kissed the little bee on her forehead. Then she beckoned to the ladies-in-waiting and bade them see to Maya’s rest and comfort.
Maya, stirred to the depths of her being, allowed herself to be led away. After this, life had nothing lovelier to offer. As in a dream she heard the loud, clear signals in the distance, saw the high dignitaries of state assemble around the royal chambers, heard a dull, far-echoing drone that shook the hive from roof to foundation.
“The soldiers! Our soldiers!” whispered the ladies-in-waiting at her side.
The last thing Maya heard in the little room where her companions put her to bed was the tramp of soldiers marching past her door and commands shouted in a blithe, resolute, ringing voice. Into her dreams, echoing as from a great distance, she carried the ancient song of the soldier-bees: