Page:Nine Unlikely Tales.djvu/160

 He followed to the door, and saw the Cat springing along the passage down the stairs—he followed fast—then along another passage that passed the foot of the back stairs, and he saw that the back stairs were like a water-fall—water was running down in a torrent and meandering away down the brick passage and out into the faint new sunshine.

When the Mouse saw this stream, she thought, “I’m saved.” She never thought of wondering how a stream came to be running down the back stairs of the palace. When she came to think of it afterwards she always believed that the Great White Rat had managed it somehow. She never knew that it was really a great flood from the royal bathroom, where the royal housemaid, in her eagerness to run away from the witch, had left all the royal bath-taps full on.

The Mouse bounded across the stream—the Cat saw the danger, but she could not stop herself. She, too, crossed the stream, and as she crossed it she turned into the wicked fairy Malevola—cobwebs, and snakes, and newts, and bat’s-wings, and all.

The Prince put his hand to his head like one awakening from sleep, and the horrible fairy vanished suddenly and for ever.