the brown breadth of it. "Nurses, guards, fanners, sweepers--out!"

"Never mind the babies. They're better dead.--Out, before the Light and
the Hot Smoke!"

The Princess's first clear fearless call (Melissa had found her) rose
and drummed through all the frames. "La Reine le veult! Swarm! Swar-rm!
Swar-r-rm!"

The Hive shook beneath the shattering thunder of a stuck-down quilt
being torn back.

"Don't be alarmed, dears," said the Wax-moths. "That's our work. Look
up, and you'll see the dawn of the New Day."

Light broke in the top of the hive as the Queen had, prophesied--naked
light on the boiling, bewildered bees.

Sacharissa rounded up her rearguard, which dropped headlong off the
frame, and joined the Princess's detachment thrusting toward the Gate.
Now panic was in full blast, and each sound bee found herself embraced
by at least three Oddities. The first instinct of a frightened bee is
to break into the stores and gorge herself with honey; but there were no
stores left, so the Oddities fought the sound bees.

"You must feed us, or we shall die!" they cried, holding and clutching
and slipping, while the silent scared earwigs and little spiders twisted
between their legs. "Think of the Hive, traitors! The Holy Hive!"

"You should have thought before!" cried the sound bees., "Stay and see
the dawn of your New Day."

They reached the Gate at last over the soft bodies of many to whom they
had ministered.

"On! Out! Up!" roared Melissa in the Princess's ear. "For the Hive's
sake! To the Old Oak!"

The Princess left the alighting-board, circled once, flung herself at
the lowest branch of the Old Oak, and her little loyal swarm--you could
have covered it with a pint mug--followed, hooked, and hung.

"Hold close!" Melissa gasped. "The old legends have come true! Look!"

The Hive was half hidden by smoke, and Figures moved through the smoke.
They heard a frame crack stickily, saw it heaved high and twirled round
between enormous hands--a blotched, bulged, and perished horror of grey
wax, corrupt brood, and small drone-cells, all covered with crawling
Oddities, strange to the sun.

"Why, this isn't a hive! This is a museum of curiosities," said the
Voice behind the Veil. It was only the Bee Master talking to his son.

"Can you blame 'em, father?" said a second voice. "It's rotten with
Wax-moth. See here!"

Another frame came up. A finger poked through it, and it broke away in
rustling flakes of ashy rott