Part 17

A meal, and then to work, thought Spinipes. It must be done by sunset. It must. It must.

From spray to spray she flitted. Flower after flower she robbed of its pale nectar. Bud after bud she nibbled. At last she found the food she sought, and, with her strength renewed, took flight. Upwards she soared; three times she circled round; then in a straight, unbroken course, whizzed to her shaft. Her pace was scarcely slackened as she entered. Her wings closed lengthways on her back, and, in a moment, she was at the bottom.

Something was there before her.

Something six legged, which kicked and squirmed and writhed. Something which coiled to a hard, slippery ball, and rolled away from capture.

There was no space for it to pass, and yet there seemed no holding it. At last she pinned it with her feet, and, backing, dragged it upwards to the light. It was a radiant jewel fly, a squat, short-waisted, dumpy thing made glorious by its colour. Gems sparkled on it head to tail, sapphire and ruby, emerald and topaz, and, as it struggled, fire of gold blazed and died down upon its jerking body. Instinctively she shook and worried it. Instinctively she flung it down the slope. Head over tail, tight-clenched, it spun, nor opened till it reached the grass below. Here it snapped out to shape again, took instant wing, and, with a glancing flight, regained the ledge.

"An excellent shaft, Madam; quite excellent. No doubt you made it for a special purpose. Now I----"

"Listen to me," said Spinipes, "and mark my every word. If you come near that shaft again--if you so much as touch it with your feet, I'll sting your prying life out."

She charged at it full swing and chased it off the ledge.

"An area sneak!" she muttered, as she dropt underground once more--"and over-dressed at that."

Below the walls showed signs of the encounter--it took ten minutes to repair their glazing. When this was done, she crept back to the entrance. It was high noon. A shimmery haze rose from the heated sand. The hum of work died fitfully away, as, one by one, the homing bees sought shade. The digger-wasps dived deep into their holes; the hunting spiders hid themselves. These were the last to cease from work; the last to cease from play was the rose-chafer.

Him the fierce blaze of heat impelled to bursts of clumsy flight. Across the pit and back again, and up and down the surface of the cliff, he whirred and swung at random. Soon even he grew listless, and crept within the shelter of the privet.

The change came with a catspaw breeze, which rippled from the valley, and, in its quiet passing, fanned the cliff.

It brought back life and energy.

Out flew the bees, a jostling, buzzing throng of them, see-sawing wildly up and down, swinging, reversing, wheeling. At length they towered and broke to work. Out crept the hunting spiders, zebra-coated; the fluttering, dancing, digger-wasps; the lightning-footed ants. Out, last of all, came Spinipes herself.

Her first care was her toilet. She combed her long antennæ out and nibbled at each foot. A circling flight to stretch her wings ended where it had started; and, in a moment, she had plunged below. Two minutes she stayed underground, then came up slowly backwards. Between her jaws was a clean-cut sand pellet. She placed it on the rim of the shaft opening, and, with deft touches from her lips, cemented it in station. She danced about it joyously, with fluttery wings, with airy, buoyant feet, moistened it here, kneaded it there. Once more she dived and dragged a second pellet up, and fixed this too upon the rim. So diving, digging, fixing, shaping, she raised a low ring-parapet.

Hour after hour she toiled, tier after tier she added, gluing each pellet firmly to the last, yet leaving open space between each junction. So rose a filagree tube of sand, so fragile that a touch would crumble it; so strong that it would bear four times her weight. Before a shadow reached the cliff, it was a half-inch high. But shadows meant an end to the day's work, and Spinipes crept down below and slept.

The morning sun had shone four hours before she stirred. She peered out round-eyed from her tower, and, twisting on the rim of it, hung for a while head-downwards. A flash of green and crimson light, and something settled under her. It was the Jewel Fly again.

"Fine progress, Madam, and a first-rate tower. I never saw a better."

No word said Spinipes, but straightway launched, and flew at her.

"Out, cuckoo-sneak!" she screamed. "Out! or I sting!"

The Jewel Fly dodged like a gnat, and vanished round the corner.

She certainly meant mischief.

The lowest chamber of the shaft now held a precious thing--a spindle-shaped gold egg, slung to the side-wall by a silken thread. Back darted Spinipes to look at it; and test the fine-spun sling again; and fuss with it; and feel that it was hers.

Then up to her look-out once more. This time she dropped down to the sand and sunned herself contentedly.

The Bees had long been working. Forward and back they passed unceasingly, now and again one towered, now and again one settled; but never did their labour-song, a droning, buzzing, humming chanty, weaken or gather strength. The Jewel Fly had vanished altogether, yet Spinipes still seemed to fear her coming. A full half hour she stayed on guard, and spent the time in adding to her tower, and rounding off its entrance, which, of its own weight, took a gentle down-curve. Then, after one last gaze upon her egg, she flew afield.

"Good hunting, sister!" said the Ophion Fly. She sat on the same leaf as yesterday.

"I want them now," said Spinipes.

"The're thousands of them, thousands," said the fly, "and most of them quite fat."