erse."

"Oh--oh, yes. Yes, I thought it was very good."

"It is, isn't it!" cried Alois. "What you mean to say is that
_Man's Finger_ may 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, "_he_ knows. Perhaps he's not full grown
yet; he certainly isn't large." She looked after him, as he
hastened up 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.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XIII

THE FORTRESS

How happily 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 really _was_ the 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 ma