“Is it not a strange fatality,” he continued, “that we should be given
stingers with which to defend ourselves and our homes, and yet, when
we make use of them, we lose our lives! Still, we are always ready to
strike, with no thought of death.”
“What is death?” I asked of Crip.
“I don’t know, except that once when the bee-hawk caught me I felt myself
going away. It grew dark and I heard the hum of wings that were strange
and wonderful. Somehow you go to sleep and forget.”
“I have thought of death,” he went on. “I am old and battered, my days
are as the falling flowers when the frost is upon them, and the frost
soon will fall.”
I waited awhile in silence, but he spoke no more. Soon he lay in that
buzzing hive, asleep, and I was not long in following him to where the
golden honey dripped in the garden of dreams.
[Illustration: CHAPTER EIGHT