Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/128

 worn by the Bee Master and he had rubbed Madonna lily over his hands and hair and made himself intimately familiar with the cinnamon pink bed. There was a question in his mind, from what the child had said, as to whether the sensitive organs of the bee might not detect a faint odour of the dressings he wore and resent it as unfamiliar, but nothing of the kind had happened. He had been so near the Bee Master’s height and form; he had worn the familiar coat; he had practised frequently on “Highland Mary,” and the bees paid no attention whatever to him in so far as he had given them a chance. The isolated hives of the Black Germans he kept away from. Down in the depths of his soul he had a feeling that if he got near a hive of anything that was named Black German, he would very likely muster what remaining strength he had and kick it into the middle of the Pacific regardless of what might happen by way of retaliation.

When he hung the coat on the hook on which he had found it, his fingers struck something rough and warm which on examination proved to be a bathing suit of wool, a warm, heavy suit. Jamie took it down and fingered it eagerly and then he walked to the back porch and looked out over the blue waters of the sea. He held the bathing suit up to his shoulders and drew it around him, and wondered whether it would cover the bandages and what would happen if the dressings were soaked with salt water.

He was afraid that would not do, so he turned back regretfully and slowly hung the woollen bathing suit, not where it had been, but on the first hook nearest the cas-