It was not long
before the bee "settled," and not only the cap, but the tumbler was
taken away. For the first time since the exhibition commenced, le
Bourdon spoke, addressing himself to Peter.
"If the tribeless chief will look sharply," he said, "he will soon
see the bee take flight. It is filling itself with honey, and the
moment it is loaded--look--look--it is about to rise--there, it is
up--see it circling around the stand, as if to take a look that it
may know it again--there it goes!"
There it did go, of a truth, and in a regular bee-line, or as
straight as an arrow. Of all that crowd, the bee-hunter and Margery
alone saw the insect in its flight. Most of those present lost sight
of it, while circling around the stand; but the instant it darted
away, to the remainder it seemed to vanish into air. Not so with le
Bourdon and Margery, however. The former saw it from habit; the
latter from a quick eye, intense attention, and the wish not to miss
anything that le Bourdon saw fit to do, for her information or
amusement. The animal flew in an air-line toward a point of wood
distant fully half a mile, and on the margin of the prairie.
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