Just as the guard finished speaking, a commotion began on the other side of the platform, and Nuova saw a large black-and-yellow-striped creature with a long spear lunging fiercely toward the entrance of the hive. It was a Yellow Jacket. She knew it at once, because she had heard some of the nurse bees one day talking about these fierce black-and-yellow-banded robbers that sometimes fought their way into the hive to steal honey. The guard near Saggia and Beffa hurried across the platform brandishing her lance. But already three or four other guards had thrown themselves on the intruder and were beating it back, striking it viciously with their lances. The Yellow Jacket made a good fight, but the bee Amazons were too many for it. It was wounded, began to weaken, and soon was hustled back off the platform and on through the grass behind a near-by bush. The guard who had been talking with Saggia came back proudly to her, still brandishing her long lance. "That's the way we do it," she said. "And a Yellow Jacket is stronger than a Black Bee." "Yes," replied Saggia, wagging her old head wisely, "but not stronger than ten Black Bees, or a hundred, and that is the way _they_ come." As Saggia finished speaking, the guards who had driven the Yellow Jacket away returned boisterously, and joining all the other guards on the platform, formed in a line, and half-marching, half-dancing, went through some military maneuvers. While they were doing this, another lot of guards came out of the hive, and forming in a line opposite them, also went through the martial dance. At the end of it all the guards who had been outside marched into the hive, while the new ones remained outside on the platform. It was the "relief of the guard." All during the guards' dancing and marching, Nuova had stood still watching them intently. Neither Saggia nor Beffa had seen her yet. And she was afraid to speak to them for fear of being made to go back into the hive again. She had made up her mind to stay outside. It was all so much more beautiful and exciting out here. She had decided that she would not be a nurse or wax-maker or anything else inside the hive any longer. She wanted to be a forager and be free to go in and out as she liked, and to fly far out into the garden and spend long, sunshiny hours there. Just then, however, Saggia caught sight of her. It was, indeed, Beffa who saw her first. He quietly touched Saggia with one of his antennæ and waved the other in Nuova's direction. Saggia hurried over to her, looking anxiously around her to see if any other bees had noticed Nuova. "What are you doing out here?" whispered Saggia to her as she reached her side. "Who sent you out? It isn't time for a week yet for you to come outside."