And speaking of winged objects, Daniel now felt himself being tickled, and glanced down to find half a dozen honeybees had alighted on each one of his hands. As Daniel watched in empirical horror, one of them drove its stinger into the fleshy place between his thumb and index finger. He bit his lip and looked up to see whether letting go the ladder would lead to the immediate death of Wilkins. The answer: yes. Bees were now swarming all round – nuzzling the fringes of Daniel's hair, playing crack-the-whip through the ladder's rungs, and orbiting round Wilkins's body in a humming cloud.