Explore "The Adventures of Maya the Bee" by Waldemar Bonsels on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The noise of battle awoke Maya out of a brief sleep. She jumped up and straightway wanted to dash out to help defend the city, but soon realized that she was too weak to be of any help.
A group of struggling combatants came rolling toward her. One of them was a strong young hornet, an officer, Maya judged by his badge, who was defending himself unaided against an overwhelming number of bees. The struggling knot drew nearer. To Maya's horror it left one dead bee after another in its wake. But numbers finally told against the giant: whole clusters of bees, ready to die rather than let go, hung to his arms and legs and feelers, and their stings were beginning to pierce between the rings of his breast. Maya saw him drop down exhausted. Without cry or complaint, fighting to the very end, neither suing for mercy nor reviling his opponents, he went down to his brigand's death.