[Illustration: THE LAST TO CEASE FROM PLAY WAS THE ROSE-CHAFER] 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. [Illustration: OUT FLEW THE BEES] 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. [Illustration: HOUR AFTER HOUR SHE TOILED] 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.