side by side;
after them, soundlessly, pressed a throng of striped, armed,
gleaming warriors, awful to behold. Eight made their way into
the hive. Still no orders to attack from the queen. Was she dumb
with horror, had her voice failed her?

And the brigands, did they not see in the shadow, to right and
left, the soldiers drawn up in close, glittering ranks ready for
mortal combat...?

Now at last came the order from on high:

"In the name of eternal right, in the name of your queen, to the
defense of the realm!"

At that a droning roar went up. Never before had the city been
shaken by such a battle-cry. It threatened to burst the hive in
two. Where, an instant before, the hornets had been visible
singly, there were now buzzing heaps, thick, dark, rolling
knots. A young officer had scarcely awaited the end of the
queen's words. He wanted to be the first to attack. He was the
first to die. He had stood for some time ready to leap all
a-quiver with eagerness for battle, and at the first sound of
the order he rushed forward right into the clutches of the
foremost brigand. His delicately fine-pointed sting found its
way between the head and upper breast-ring of his opponent; he
heard the hornet give a yell of rage, saw him double up into a
glittering, gold-black ball. Then the bandit's fearful sting
leapt out and pierced 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.
Though the initial assault of the bees had confused and divided
them, yet the damage was not so great as might have seemed at
first. For the bees' stings did not penetrate their breastplates,
and their strength and gigantic size gave them an advantage of
which they were well aware. Their sharp, buzzing battle-cry
rose high above the battle-cry of the bees. It is a sound that
fills all creatures with horror, even human beings, who dread
this danger signal, and are careful not to enter into conflict
with hornets unprotected.

Those of the assailants who had already penetrated into the hive
quickly realized that they must make th