Part 2 (1/2)

Again came the shrill piping of the Princess in the royal cell. Another wave of excitement ran over the hive. And again and again the weird sound came. Suddenly the royal nurses began excitedly to plaster wax on the outside of the great cell, especially over its mouth.

Beffa whispered to Nuova: ”She is trying to work her way out, but they don't want to let her out yet. See, the drones are coming.”

And even as he spoke a gay song was heard, in voices very different from any that Nuova had yet heard in the hive; and suddenly, as the song grew louder, there came a half-dancing, half-marching file of splendid-looking, robust bees, moving spiritedly directly toward the royal cell. They were a fine-looking lot, these drones, these dandy drones, and Nuova had a thrill she had never felt before. She gazed at them entranced.

The drones made a half-circle about the cell of the Princess and lined up there, strutting and dancing and singing loudly. This is the song they sang: We are the courtiers, the beaux of the hive; Of the dandy drones surely you've heard! Our wings are a rainbow, our bodies are gold, To soil them would be most absurd.

No, we never mix up with the common hive stuff, Neither garner, nor plaster, nor clean; 'Tis superior far to be just what we are, And do naught but make love to the Queen.

CHAPTER VI.

Nuova and Hero, and the Birth of the Princess.

All through their song Nuova had given the drones her absorbed attention. She admired them greatly for their fine appearance, and when she learned from their song that they did no work, but had all day only to follow their own sweet will, she became especially interested in them. She was a little puzzled, too, for, from what she had heard from Saggia and the others, and from all she had seen, she had come to believe that all bees worked all the time. And here were all these stout-bodied, vigorous bees proudly singing that they loafed all the days through. She was so much interested in this that she approached one end of the line of drones and spoke to the one nearest her.

”What a fine time you drones must have,” she said. ”Don't you ever have to do any work?”

The drone did not hear her at first and paid no attention to her, but as she repeated her question louder and more insistently, he turned and stared at her amazed.

”Well, well, bless my eyes!” he said, stammering in his amazement at being addressed by a common worker bee. ”Bless my eyes! I say, work? Work? Me work? Who ever heard such a question? What sort of a bee are you? Who are you, anyway?” He touched the drone next to him to call his attention. ”Look here, who is this bee?”

Nuova was nettled by his manner and by what he said. She answered, rather sharply, ”Well, I'll tell you who I am. I am a bee that works; anyway, I am the kind of a bee that works, like all the others except you, and you” (looking defiantly at the second drone, who was staring insolently at her) ”and I want to know why you do not work--you and you others that loaf around all the time and eat what we bring in, and do nothing but sing and dance in the hive, or fly around doing nothing in the garden, and keep all dressed up and just look handsome.”

The drone was more and more astonished, but he was also a little flattered by her reference to his clothes and appearance.

”Well, you are a silly little bee,” he said; ”that's what we are here for. Drones work? It isn't done, you know. Our business is to love. And singing and dancing and looking handsome, and not getting all dusty with pollen and sticky with wax and dirty with cleaning, is part of it. That's our work; not working, but loving.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Drones work? It isn't done, you know.”]

Nuova was so astonished by hearing this, and so excited to learn that some bees did not have to work, and also so angry to think that these bees were allowed to live without working, while she was always being told to work, and scolded for resting for even the shortest time, that when she answered him she spoke so loudly as to attract the attention of other bees near her, including Saggia, who was moving around near by, cleaning the floor.

”So that is what you call your work, is it?” she burst out. ”Well, I am glad to know there is some kind of bee work besides feeding babies and sweating out wax and filling up cracks and scrubbing up floors. Loving, you call it; well, I want to do some of that; show me how.”

The two drones were stupefied with astonishment by Nuova's words, but the one nearest her, to whom she was speaking directly, was rather taken by the audacity of the pretty little bee's demand, and he involuntarily strutted and swaggered a little and eyed her with special attention. He even smiled down at her rather pleasantly, and seemed to be about to speak to her again when Saggia and three or four other bees, who had heard her last words and were scandalized to see and hear her talking with the drone, especially in such a manner, bustled up to her.

This last unheard-of behavior of Nuova was too much for Saggia. Her patience and sympathy with her were exhausted, and she broke out in a tirade of scolding.

”Well, I never in my life!” she exclaimed, grasping Nuova and jerking her around; ”what in the world are you doing and saying? Talking to a drone about love! You don't know anything about love. You can't know anything about it. Only drones and princesses know what love is, or can know. You are worse than a silly bee; you are a bad bee!” She jerked her again and again; at the same time she went on with her scolding. ”Well, I wash my hands of you! If you can't be a sensible bee we don't want you! Our thinking has all been done for us long, long ago. All we have to do is what custom tells us to. And if you can't behave as the rest of us do, you are useless. Here, take her, throw her out of the hive!”

Again Saggia jerked her vigorously, and other bees, especially Uno, Due, and Tre, hustled her and struck at her. A couple of soldiers even came up and began jabbing at her with their lances. Poor Nuova seemed about to be torn piecemeal, like the Bee Moth, and turned out of the hive, when one of the drones, who was in the line some little distance from Nuova and Saggia, was attracted by the uproar. He came over to the group in a lordly and leisurely manner, shouldering his way through the crowd and carelessly driving off the jostling bees. They left Nuova reluctantly, casting dark looks and making malevolent gestures toward her as they turned their attention again to the excitement still raging about the cell of the Princess. Poor Nuova, half dead from her ill-treatment, could hardly utter her thanks to her rescuer. In a weak voice she attempted to say something, but finding it too much of an effort she contented herself with looking up gratefully into the face of the newcomer. He looked down at her curiously.

”What is the matter with you?” he said, not unkindly. ”Can you not do as other bees do? What are you--a nurse, a wax-maker, or what? Why don't you stick to your work? Why don't you do what you are expected to do? Are you one of those dreadful creatures they call 'new bees'?”

Nuova, although still weak and faint from her jostling and fright, was made angry again by these questions. ”I do not know what I am,” she said, ”but I'd rather die than be just a puppet in this hive. Is all my life cut out for me, and not according to what I want to do and can do, but just according to rules made by somebody I don't know anything about and who doesn't know anything about me?”

She tried to say more, but a faintness came over her, and she staggered a little and would have fallen if the drone had not unconsciously put a wing behind her and supported her. She looked up at him, unable to thank him in words, but expressing her grat.i.tude in her eyes.

As she rested this way, leaning heavily against him, she closed her eyes, happy to be protected, and even feeling strange little thrills running over her body that were mysteriously enjoyable. Without opening her eyes she murmured: ”I am very grateful to you. You are very good.” He said nothing, but looked with more and more interest at the sweet-faced little bee beside him.

Soon she opened her eyes again, and this time a pathetic little smile ran over her face. Indeed, it grew to be a roguish smile as an interesting idea formed more and more clearly in her brain.

”But you,” she said--”aren't you rather breaking bee tradition by helping me? If I am a useless bee, and only in the way, and a trouble to the community, shouldn't you let them sting me and throw me out of the hive? Are you” (she smiled again)--”are you, a--new bee, too?”

The drone, whose name was Hero, and who was truly the handsomest and finest drone in the hive, was first surprised and then a little embarra.s.sed by what Nuova was saying. He looked rather fearfully around to see if other bees were observing them and tried gently to take his wing from behind Nuova, who, however, on realizing his intention, gave new signs of weakness and leaned more heavily than ever on it. In fact, it must be confessed, she nestled as closely against him, enclosed by his protecting wings, as she could.

”No, I am not a new bee,” he said, rather stiffly. ”I know my duty, and I try to do it.” He looked again into his companion's pretty face, and then spoke more gently.

”Still, I admit that some of our ways are old-fas.h.i.+oned, rather absurd in fact,” he said, with a manner and voice growing more and more confidential. ”I have often had a curious feeling as if I should like to work.” He smiled down at her. ”Terrible, isn't it? And sometimes it is pretty hard to work up a violent love for a Princess you never see until you are just about to dash after her in the Great Courting Chase. Still, that's something worth while. One such flight is excitement and exertion enough for a whole life.”

”Have you ever done it?” asked Nuova, curiously and even a little enviously. ”And did you win?”

”Yes,” said Hero, ”I have been in one chase. But I was so young my wings were hardly dry and, of course, I didn't win, or I shouldn't be here now. Don't you know that the winner always dies in the winning?”

”Oh, how dreadful!” cried Nuova, shocked. ”And how silly! To die just as you become King. How is it worth it?”

”What!” said Hero, surprised, and in a reproving and even stern voice. ”Not worth while to win in the Great Courting Chase? To prove yourself the fastest and strongest and boldest of all the drones, and to be the consort of the Queen, the father of all the Queen's children? Not worth while dying for? What do I live for but that?”

”Ah, yes,” cried Nuova, carried away for the moment by his enthusiasm, ”that is something to live for!”

Suddenly, however, she realized that if Hero won in the Great Chase that was soon to occur--that is, would take place when the Princess, already trying to get out of her cell, was really out and ready for her wedding flight--he would really have to die for a bee, so far unseen and unknown, and who had done nothing to deserve such a sacrifice, and who would give her love as well to any other drone as to Hero, this handsome and kind new friend.

This made her angry and bitter again, and very sad, too, for she was beginning to realize that she liked this beautiful, strong bee much more than she liked Saggia or Beffa. He was different from all the other bees she knew, and her liking for him was different. She wanted to be with him all the time, and to have him talk to her or even just to look at her. This must be loving, she thought, or part of it, anyway. She began to dislike this Princess that was soon to come out of her cell. Probably she would be very beautiful. When she thought of that she disliked her more than ever. She could not bear to think of Hero's loving her or of her loving Hero.

She looked keenly at Hero, and then spoke to him slowly and cautiously, growing suddenly wise because of her new feeling for him.

”But how do you know you will love the new Princess?” she said. ”Is she certain to be beautiful and sweet? And will she certainly love you?”

Hero looked at her curiously. It was strange how this pretty little bee attracted him. And it was strange that she seemed to have very clearly certain thoughts that were already rather hazily in his own mind.

”Oh, well,” he said musingly, ”I shall not see much of her. It is not, in a sense, love for her, but the response to the call of the race, the fulfilling of my duty to our community, that will drive me to my best effort to win her. But, of course, it is love for her, too; that is, so far as there is love at all among bees. We can love only Princesses, you know, we drones; that is honey-bee tradition.”

Hero had seen no betrayal of Nuova's real feeling in her questions. He only saw in them the expression of her odd, independent way of looking at things and thinking about them. Nuova realized this and so became bolder by his blindness. And she was made bitter, too, by hearing this hero of hers repeat that always irritating phrase of ”honey-bee tradition.”

”Oh, yes,” she exclaimed, ”you can only do what your grandfathers and your great-grandfathers did! You must keep your eyes closed and your heart cold and loll and loaf through all your life until they tell you to go and love--love a Princess--love her, sight unseen--love her so hard that if you win her you kill yourself! You are not you; you are not a bee with a heart and brain and strong body of your own, to live and strive and suffer and succeed after your own way and your own desires, but you are a machine, an automaton, to do what custom has fas.h.i.+oned you to do! You are not a bee; you are a clock-work; big and strong and handsome--and hollow!”

Hero, amazed at her vehemence and her breaking of all bee tradition, looked at her more and more interestedly. He found a responsive feeling in himself, not only to the ideas expressed by her words, but to her own attractiveness and boldness.

”Well,” he said amazedly, but also sympathetically--”well, you are a silly little bee!”

But now the excitement around the Princess's cell broke out afresh. She was evidently about to come forth. From inside her cell she piped more loudly and more often than ever. Suddenly a loud, answering trumpeting was heard, and Beffa came hopping and humming to announce the approach of the old Queen. It was the Queen who was making the answering trumpeting. She came majestically along toward the cell of the Princess with a group of attendant bees about her. These attendants always kept circling slowly, but animatedly, about her, facing toward her, and although constantly s.h.i.+fting and changing places, always maintaining a complete circle around her. Every now and then she gave a loud trumpeting, and each time she was answered by a shrill piping from the cell. Or perhaps it was the old Queen who was defiantly answering the challenges of the Princess.

All the bees were enormously excited. They moved about constantly, buzzing and grouping in dense ma.s.ses, now here, now there, but mostly close to the great cell. They were, however, plainly divided in their feeling, for some of the groups were intent on keeping near the Queen.

All the drones, however, cl.u.s.tered around the Princess's cell. Only Hero, who still stood by the side of Nuova a little to one side, had not joined the group of drones which was giving all its attention to the awaited appearance of the Princess. None of them paid the slightest attention to the Queen.