Waldemar Bonsels

“ At that moment she saw the spider herself—very near, under a blackberry leaf. At sight of the great monster, silent and serious, crouching there as if ready to pounce, Maya’s horror was indescribable. The wicked shining eyes were fastened on the little bee in sinister, cold-blooded patience.
Maya gave one loud shriek. This was the worst agony of all. Death itself could look no worse than that grey, hairy monster with her mean fangs and the raised legs supporting her fat body like a scaffolding. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ He shook her hand and held the last curtain aside for her.
“Oh, the blue sky!” rejoiced Maya. “Good-by.”
“So long,” called Peter, remaining on the top petal to see Maya rise rapidly straight up to the sky in the golden sunlight and the clear, pure air of the morning. With a sigh he returned, pensive, to his cool rose-dwelling, for though it was still early he was feeling rather warm. He sang his morning song to himself, and it hummed in the red sheen of the petals and the radiance of the spring day that slowly mounted and spread over the blossoming earth. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Bobbie crawled up on the leaf, caught hold of the thread by which Maya was hanging, clung to it, then let go of the leaf. The thread broke, and they both fell to the ground.
“That’s only the beginning,” said Bobbie.—“But Maya, you’re trembling. My dear child, you poor little girl, how pale you are! Now who would be so afraid of death? You must look death calmly in the face as I do. So. I’ll unwrap you now.”
Maya could not utter a syllable. Bright tears of joy ran down her cheeks. She was to be free again, fly again in the sunshine, wherever she wished. She was to live. ”

“ She let herself down on the outermost of its curved petals and clung to it tightly. At the gentle tipping of the petal a shining silver sphere almost as big as herself, came rolling toward her, transparent and gleaming in all the colors of the rainbow. Maya was dreadfully frightened, yet fascinated too by the splendor of the cool silver sphere, which rolled by her, balanced on the edge of the petal, leapt into the sunshine, and fell down in the grass. Oh, oh! The beautiful ball had shivered into a score of wee pearls. Maya uttered a little cry of terror. ”

“ Maya made off quickly. She couldn’t bear to stay and see the mosquito hurt the sleeping child. And how could she do this thing and not perish? Hadn’t Cassandra said: “If you sting a human being, you will die?”
Maya still remembered every detail of this incident with the child and the mosquito, but her craving to know human beings well had not been stilled. She made up her mind to be bolder and never stop trying until she had reached her goal.
At last Maya’s longing to know human beings was to be satisfied, and in a way far, far lovelier and more wonderful than she had dreamed. ”

“ 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 the 166 golden sunshine. Butterfly-weed flamed on the grassy borders. ”

“ Now then, Miss Maya, or whatever your name is, now then, you’ve got to have your wits about 84 you. I see the hand coming, but I wait until the last moment, then I fly nimbly to one side, sit down, and watch him feel to see if I am still there.—We kept the game up often for a full half hour. You have no idea what a lot of endurance the man has. Finally he jumps up and pours out a string of words which show how ungrateful he is. Well, what of it? A noble soul seeks no reward. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Maya could see it perched on a branch, could see its throat swell and pulse with the song as it held its little head raised up to the light.
“If only I could sing like that robin redbreast,” she said, “I’d perch on a flower and keep it up the livelong day.”
“You’d produce something lovely, you would, with your humming and buzzing.”
“The bird looks so happy.”
“You have great fancies,” said the daddy-long-legs. “Supposing every animal were to wish he could do something that nature had not fitted him to do, the world would be all topsy-turvy. ”

“ She straightened up, lifted her lovely, transparent wings, uttered her high clear buzz, and said with a gleam in her eyes:
“I am a bee, Mr. Hannibal.”
“I beg your pardon,” said he, and without saying good-by turned and ran down the tree-trunk as fast as a person can run who has seven legs.
Maya had to laugh, willy-nilly. From down below Hannibal began to scold.
“You’re bad. You threaten helpless people, you threaten them with your sting when you know they’re handicapped by a misfortune and can’t get away fast. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Her words, which seemed to sound the enemy’s doom, had instant effect. Men and officers alike felt their courage rise.
But when in the quiet of the morning an ominous whirring was heard outside the hive, 207 first softly, then louder and louder, and the entrance darkened, and the whispering voices of the hornets, the most frightful robbers and murderers in the insect world, penetrated into the hive, then the faces of the valiant little bees turned pale as if washed over by a drab light falling upon their ranks. ”

“ CHAPTER XII ALOIS, LADYBIRD AND POET The sun 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. ”

“ Then the bandit’s fearful sting leapt out and pierced 210 between the young officer’s breast-rings right into his heart; and dying the bee felt himself and his mortally wounded enemy sink under a cloud of storming bees. His brave death inspired them all with the wild rapture that comes from utter willingness to die for a noble cause. Fearful was their attack upon the invaders. The hornets were sore pressed.
But the hornets are an old race of robbers, trained to warfare. Pillage and murder have long been their gruesome profession. ”

“ My dear little Maya, there will be other things in your life—the sunshine, lofty green trees, flowery heaths, lakes of silver, rushing, glistening waterways, the heavens blue and radiant, and perhaps even human beings, the highest and most perfect of Nature’s creations. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ A human being in miniature was coming up out of the iris
Words cannot tell Maya’s awe and rapture. She sat rigid.
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The tiny being climbed to the edge of the blossom, lifted its arms up to the moonlight, and looked out into the bright shining night with a smile of bliss lighting up its face. Then a faint quiver shook its luminous body, and from its shoulders two wings unfolded, whiter than the moonlight, pure as snow, rising above its blond head and reaching down to its feet. How lovely it was, how exquisitely lovely. Nothing that Maya had ever seen compared with it in loveliness. ”

“ As he sat there, a little brown man with slightly curtailed wing-sheaths and a breastplate that looked like a head too large for its body, Maya thought he was almost comical; but she knew he was a dangerous beetle who could do immense harm to the mighty trees of the forest, and if his tribe attacked a tree in numbers then the green needles were doomed, the tree would turn sear and die. ”

“ She was no longer so very young; she had grown into a strong, superb creature with sound, bright wings, a sharp, dangerous sting, and a highly developed sense 135 of both the pleasures and the hazards of her life. Through her own experience she had gathered information and stored up wisdom, which she now often wished she could apply to something of real value. There were days when she was ready to return to the hive and throw herself at the queen’s feet and sue for pardon and honorable reinstatement. But a great, burning desire held her back—the desire to know human beings. ”

“ You don’t understand. It’s something you know nothing about,” Puck rejoined calmly, and slid his legs over his wings till they curved round the tip of his body. “I’m more than a fly,” he added with some pride. “I’m a housefly. I flew out here for the fresh air.”
“How interesting!” exclaimed Maya gleefully. “Then you must know all about human beings.”
“As well as the pockets of my trousers,” Puck threw out disdainfully. “I sit on them every day. Didn’t you know that? I thought you bees were so clever. You pretend to be at any rate.” ”

“ The beetle moved with a clumsy lurch through the wet grass, presenting a not exactly elegant appearance. Directly under Maya’s blossom was a withered leaf. Here he stopped, shoved the leaf aside, and made a step backward. Maya saw a hole in the ground.
“Well,” she thought, all a-gog with curiosity, “the things there are in the world. I never thought of such a thing. Life’s not long enough for all there is to see.”
She kept very quiet. ”

“ 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 to 159 get 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.” ”