Cunora was eyeing her companion pretty sharply.  “Ye must take me for a simple one, to believe such imagining.”

Rolla became even more earnest.  “Yet it were more than imagining, Cunora; ’twere too vivid and impressive for only that.  As for the leaves, the blossoming swiftly spread until it covered every bit of the pile; and I tell thee that the bloom flowed as high as thy hand!  Moreover, after a moment or so, the thing faded and died out, just as flowers do at the end of the season; all that was left of the leaves was some black fragments, from which arose a bluish dust, like unto the cloud that ye and I saw in the sky one day.

“Then the stranger smiled again, and said something of which I cannot tell the meaning.  Once more he performed the miracle, and this time he contrived to spread the blossom from some leaves to the tip of a large piece of wood which he took from the ground.  ’Twas a wonderful sight!

“Nay, hear me further,” as Cunora threw herself, with a grunt of impatience, back on her bed; “there is a greater wonder to tell.

“Holding this big blooming stick in one hand, he gave me his other; and it seemed as though I floated through the air by his side.  Presently we came to the place where Corrus’s herd lay sleeping.  The angel smote one of the cows with the flat of his hand, so that it got upon its feet; and straightway the stranger thrust the flowing blossom into its face.

“The cow shrank back, Cunora!  ’Twas deadly afraid of that beautiful flower!”

“That is odd,” admitted Cunora.  She was getting interested.

“Then he took me by the hand again, and we floated once more through the air.  In a short time we arrived at the city of the masters. [Footnote:  Having no microscopes, the Sanusians could not know that the soldier bees were unsexed females; hence, “masters.”] Before I knew it, he had me standing before the door of one of their palaces.  I hung back, afraid lest we be discovered and punished; but he smiled again and spake so reassuringly that I fled not, but watched until the end.

“With his finger he tapped lightly on the front of the palace.  None of the masters heard him at first; so he tapped harder.  Presently one of them appeared, and flew at once before our faces.  Had it not been for the stranger’s firm grasp I should have fled.

“The master saw that the stranger was the offender, and buzzed angrily.  Another moment, and the master would surely have returned to the palace to inform the others; and then the stranger would have been punished with the Head Out punishment.  But instead the angel very deliberately moved the blooming stick near unto the master; and behold, it was helpless!  Down it fell to the ground, dazed; I could have picked it up, or killed it, without the slightest danger!

“Another master came out, and another, and another; and for each and all the flowing blossom was too much!  None would come near it wittingly; and such as the angel approached with it were stricken almost to death.