"Have a good look at it," Tchigorsky said curtly. "Is it dangerous?" Geoffrey asked. "One of the most deadly of winged insects," the Russian said. "It is a black bee from the forests near Lassa. There is a larger variety, whose sting produces the most horrible sufferings and death. This sort injects a poison which stops the action of the heart like prussic acid, but without the rigidity caused by that poison. The Lassa black bee invades other bees' nests and preys on their honey. They frighten the other bees, which make no attempt to drive them out, but go on working as usual. Then gradually the whole hive gets impregnated with that poison, and an ordinary brown bee becomes as dangerous as a black one. This is the bee that killed your dog." "Then the hives are already impregnated," Geoffrey cried. "Precisely. Half a dozen of these black bees have been introduced into the hives. Now, do you begin to understand the malignity of the plot? Your dog was not dead when, with my net, I caught this fellow--I expected to catch him." "And ran great risk in doing so." "Of course. It was a recreation compared with some of the risks I have run." "You are right there," Ralph said in his deep, croaking tones. "Look at the thing, Geoffrey." With a shudder Geoffrey took the box in his hand. There was nothing formidable about the insect under the glass lid. It had more anger and fury, more "devil" than the ordinary bee, but it was very little larger, of a deep, lustrous black, with orange eyes and purple gauzy wings. There was nothing weird about it. "Was it imported for the purpose?" Geoffrey asked. "Undoubtedly," Ralph replied. "Imported by the woman who calls herself Mrs. May. Before she came over to England she must have had this house described to her with the greatest minuteness. Otherwise she could not have so many instruments ready to her hand; she would never have thought of these bees, for instance. "If this scheme had not been discovered everybody in the house would have been stung before long, and every one assuredly would have died. Those black bees are exceedingly fierce, and do not hesitate to attack everybody and everything. Their sting is so sharp and so minute that it leaves no mark and no pain. Half an hour passes, and then the victim falls down and dies." Geoffrey regarded the specimen with new interest. He eyed it up and down as if examining a cobra through the glass sides of its prison house. Tchigorsky took the box and flattened the lid down until the insect within was no more than a red smash on the glass. A little later and the thing was pitched over the cliffs into the sea. "It is a dreadful business," Geoffrey said. "And, indeed, it seems almost hopeless to try to combat foes so ruthless, so resourceful, and so daring as ours. No sooner are we out of one horror than we are into another." "While life lasts there is always hope," said Tchigorsky.