The Young Queens 
must be done, hour by hour, to meet the 
attacks of a foiled instinct, and conduct 
two opposite forces to a successful issue. 
They are fully aware that if the young 
queens should escape who now clamour 
for birth, they would fall into the hands 
of their elder sister, by this time irresistible, 
who would destroy them one by one. The 
workers therefore will pile on fresh layers 
of wax in proportion as the prisoner reduces, 
from within, the walls of her tower; and 
the impatient princess will ardently persist 
in her labour, little suspecting that she has 
to deal with an enchanted obstacle that 
rises ever afresh from its ruin. She hears 
the war-cry of her rival; and already aware 
of her royal duty and destiny, although 
she has not yet looked upon life, nor knows 
what a hive may be, she answers the chal- 
lenge from within the depths of her prison. 
But her cry is different; it is stifled and 
hollow, for it has to traverse the walls of 
a tomb; and, when night is falling, and 
noises are hushed, and high over all there 
reigns the silence of the stars, the apiarist 
who nears these marvellous cities and stands, 
211 
