Once upon a time, there was a young kitten named Mistoffelees who lived
with his widowed mother, Bombalurina. He seemed like a perfectly ordinary
kitten, until one took a closer look. By his side there hung an empty
scabbard, one which grew as he grew. There was a sword for the scabbard
that could always be found in the garden, sticking out of the ground. But
if one tried to slide it into the scabbard, it wouldn't fit. Everyday,
young Mistoffelees tried again to put the sword in the scabbard, and every
day he failed.
Finally, the day came when the sword fit into the scabbard quite easily, and Mistoffelees was overjoyed. He could hardly believe his eyes! But, pleased though he was, he daren't tell anyone of the occurrence. He couldn't even tell his mother, for she would blab the news to the neighbors without a second thought.
But in spite of his resolutions, he couldn't manage to hide the fact that something important had happened. When he walked into breakfast that morning, his tail was waving unusually jauntily in the air and Bombalurina asked if anything was the matter. Mistoffelees took great care to reveal nothing in his reply. "Oh, Mother, I had such a pleasant dream last night. But I can't tell it to anybody."
"You can tell me, Misto. I mean, come on, I'm your mother!"
"I can't even tell you, Mom. If I do, it won't come true, and I won't tell anyone till it does."
"You will tell me, I want to know now! I'll.I'll.I'll beat you till you tell me!" So she beat and beat her son, over and over, but it was no use. Neither words nor beatings could bring him to tell his dream to her.
When she finally stopped, poor Mistoffelees ran into the garden and cried his little heart out as he sat beside his precious sword. It was working around and around all by itself, so that no one but the kitten could catch hold of it unscathed. The moment Mistoffelees reached out his trembling paw, wet from wiping tears off his soft white cheek, he caught the sword and slid it into his scabbard.
For a long while, Mistoffelees sat sobbing to no one. King Alonzo was driving by and heard the noise. "Go and see who is crying so," he told one of his servants.
The servant returned in a few minutes, saying, "Your Majesty, a young boy is sobbing because his mother has beaten him."
"Bring him to me at once, and tell him it is the King who sends for him. Tell him I've never cried in my life and that I don't wish anyone else to, either."
Upon hearing the message, Mistoffelees dried his tears (or tried to) and went with the servant to the royal carriage.
"Will you be my son?" the King asked.
"Yes, but only if my mother will let me." So the King sent a servant to fetch the kittens' mother. He told her that if she gave him the boy, he would live with him in the palace and marry the Kings' prettiest daughter as soon as he was a full-grown tom.
Bombalurina's anger was quickly turned to joy and she gratefully kissed King Alonzos' paw. "I hope you will be more obedient to His Majesty than you were to me," she hissed and Mistoffelees shrank back in fright. When Bombalurina had gone back to her cottage, Mistoffelees asked the King if he could go back for something he had left behind. King Alonzo agreed and Misto promptly went to the garden to pluck his sword from the ground. Having put it back in his scabbard, he climbed into the coach and drove away with King Alonzo.
After they had been traveling for a while, the King spoke. "Why were you crying so bitterly in the garden when we came along?"
Mistoffelees began to sniffle softly. "Because Mother had been beating me." "Oh, and why did she?"
"Because I would not tell her my dream."
"And why didn't you tell it to her? That certainly would have saved you some trouble."
"I can't tell it to anyone until it comes true."
"Could you tell me?"
"No, not even you, Your Majesty."
"That's all right. I'm sure you will when we get home." King Alonzo smiled and talked to young Mistoffelees till they got home.
"Come here, daughters, I've brought you such a nice present!" Three lovely young Queens came down the large staircase and, upon seeing such a charming young kitten as Mistoffelees, proceeded to give him all their best toys. "Now, now, don't spoil him!" chuckled the King as he watched the children playing together. "He has a secret which he won't tell anybody."
"He will tell me," answered the eldest of the princesses, Electra. But Mistoffelees only shook his head.
"He will tell me!" said the second oldest princess, Etcetera. But Mistoffelees only shook his head, saying "Not I."
"He will tell me!!" cried Jemima, the youngest princess of all, who was also the prettiest.
Mistoffelees only said, "I will tell nobody till it comes true, and I will beat anybody who asks me."
King Alonzo was very sorry to hear such unpleasant words coming out of Mistoffelees' mouth. He loved him dearly, but he thought that it wouldn't do to keep anyone near him who would not do as he was bidden. So he commanded his servants to take Mistoffelees away and not let him enter the palace until he had come to his right senses.
As little Mistoffelees was led slowly off, his scabbard clanked by his side and his tail flicked to and fro, but he kept silent. He was very unhappy that he was treated this way when he had done nothing wrong. But the servants were kind to him, and their kittens brought him cream and salmon and all sorts of other nice things that cats commonly like to eat. Soon he was cheerful again and lived among them for a few years, until his seventeenth birthday arrived.
Meanwhile, the two eldest princesses had managed to wed powerful kings who ruled over great countries across the sea. Jemima, the youngest, was also old enough to be married, but she was very particular and stuck up her nose at every young prince who sought her hand.
One day, she was sitting by herself in the palace, feeling particularly bored and lonely. She became so bored that she began to wonder what the servants were doing and whether they were having a better time than she was in their quarters. Since King Alonzo was away at a Jellicle council meeting and the Queen was sick in bed, little Jemima hastily ran out of the castle, across the catnip gardens, and to the little row of houses where the servants lived. Outside one of them, she noticed a youth who was much more handsome than any prince she had ever seen. After a moment, she remembered him to be the little boy she had played with as a child.
"Tell me your secret and I will marry you," she said to him, but Mistoffelees only proceeded to give her the beating he had promised so long ago, when she had asked him the same question. Princess Jemima became very angry that he had hurt her and ran home at once to complain to her father.
"If he had a thousand lives, I would take them all." King Alonzo was furious that his daughter had been beat and swore to Mistoffelees' death.
That very day there was built a gallows outside the town. The people crowded around to see the execution of the young tom who had dared to beat the King's daughter.
Mistoffelees' paws were tied tightly behind his back as he was marched roughly through the crowd by the hangtom. As his sentence was being read by the judge amid the deathly silence of the previously jeering crowd, his sword hung, clanking by his side.
Just then a great noise was heard and a golden coach came rumbling over the cobblestones with a white flag waving from the window. It stopped underneath the gallows, and from it stepped Munkustrap, the King of the Magyars, the ruler of Hungary. He begged that the life of the young tom be spared.
But King Alonzo was reluctant. "Sir, he had beaten my daughter, who merely asked him to tell her his secret. I cannot pardon that."
"Give him to me. I'm sure he will tell me the secret. If not, I have a daughter who is like the Morning Star, and he is sure to tell it to her."
The sword clanked again, and King Alonzo said angrily, "Well, if you want him so much you can have him. Just never let me see his face again." And he signaled to the hangtom to let Mistoffelees free.
The cords were removed from the young tom's wrists and he took his seat in the golden coach beside King Munkustrap of the Magyars. Then the coachtom whipped up his horses, and they set out for Buda.
The King talked very pleasantly for a few miles, and when he thought that his new companion was comfortable with him, he asked about the secret that had brought him so much grief not to tell it. "That I cannot tell you," answered Mistoffelees, "until the day it comes true."
"You will tell my daughter, I am sure," smiled the King.
"I will tell nobody," he replied, and the sword clanked loudly.
The King said not another word about the secret, but he was confident that his daughter's beauty would cause him to tell his secret.
The journey to Buda was long, and it was several days before they arrived there. The beautiful Princess Roxanne happened to be picking roses in the garden when her father's coach drove up.
"Oh, what a handsome tom! Have you brought him from Fairyland?" she cried when they all stood upon the marble steps in front of the castle.
"I have brought him from the gallows," answered King Munkustrap, rather vexed at his daughter's words as never before had she consented to give attention to any tom.
"I don't care where you have brought him from," said the spoiled young Queen, "I shall marry him and nobody else, and we will live together till we die."
"You may tell another tale," replied the King, "when you ask him his secret. After all, he is no better than a servant."
"That is nothing to me," said Princess Roxanne, "for I love him. He will tell his secret to me and will always have a place in my heart."
But King Munkustrap shook his head and gave orders that Mistoffelees was to be lodged in the summerhouse.
One day, about a week later, the Princess put on her finest dress and went to pay him a visit. She looked so incredibly lovely that, at the sight of her coming his way, the book Mistoffelees held dropped from his paw and he stood up, speechless with wonder.
"Tell me," she whispered coaxingly in his quivering ear, "what is this wonderful secret? Just whisper it into my ear, and I will give you a kiss."
"My angel, be wise and ask no questions, if you wish to get safely back to your father's palace. I have kept my secret all these years and do not mean to give it up now."
However, Princess Roxanne was stubborn and would not listen to his warning. She only pressed him harder, till at last he slapped her face so hard that her nose bled. She shrieked with pain and rage and ran screaming back to the palace where her father was waiting to hear if she had succeeded.
When he saw her streaming with blood, he cried, "I will starve him to death, the son of a pollicle." Then he ordered all the masons and bricklayers in the town to come before him. The King said, "Build me a tower as fast as you can, and see that there is room inside only for a small stool and a small table, nothing else."
The toms set to work and managed to finish the tower in two hours. Then they started for the palace to inform the King that they had completed his task. As she saw them moving past, Princess Roxanne walked up to them and began to talk to one of the masons. She asked him if he would be so kind as to bore a hole in the tower large enough for food and water to pass through in an inconspicuous place.
"To be sure I can," he replied kindly, and in a few minutes the hole was bored.
At sunset, a large crowd assembled to watch Mistoffelees being led to the tower and, after his misdeeds had been proclaimed for all to hear, he was solemnly walled up. He would most certainly have starved to death if the Princess had not brought him food and drink every morning, passing it through the hole before anyone was awake. Every third day, King Munkustrap sent his old secretary to climb up to the window of the tower and look in upon Mistoffelees, just to see if he had passed away yet. But each day, the secretary could only report that the youth was doing well and looked well fed. The only explanation that the King could come up with was that there must have been some magic to do with it.
This state of affairs lasted a long time, till one day a messenger arrived from Macavity, the Sultan of Turkey, bearing a letter of bad news for the King along with three canes. "My master bids me say," said the messenger, bowing so low that his whiskers touched the ground, "that if you cannot tell which of these three canes grows nearest the root, which in the middle, and which at the top, he will declare war against you."
King Munkustrap was nearly frightened out of his fur when he heard this, and though he took the canes and examined them closely, he could see no difference between one or the other. He looked so sad that his daughter noticed and inquired the reason.
"Alas, my daughter, how can I help being sad?" he moaned. "The Sultan had sent me three canes and says that if I cannot tell him which of them grows near the root, which in the middle and which at the top, he will make war upon the country. And you know that his army is far greater than mine."
"Oh, do not despair, dear father," said she. "We shall be sure to find out the answer," and she quickly ran off to the tower and told Mistoffelees what had occurred.
After a few moments of thought, he replied, "Go to bed as usual, and when you wake, tell your father you have dreamed that the canes must be placed in warm water. After a little while, one of them will sink to the bottom; that is the one that grows nearest the root. The one which neither sinks nor comes to the surface is the cane that is cut from the middle, and the one that floats is cut from the top."
The next morning, the Princess told her father of her dream, and on her advice he cut tiny notches in each of the canes when he took them out of the water, so he might make no mistake when he handed them back to the messenger.
The Sultan, who could not imagine how the King had found out the answer to the puzzle, did not declare war against Buda that year.
But when one year had gone by, Macavity again wanted to pick a quarrel with the King of the Magyars, so he sent another messenger, this one bearing a letter and three foals. The letter told the King that he must say which foal had been born in the morning, which in midday, and which at twilight. If an answer were not ready in three days, war would be declared at once.
King Munkustrap's heart felt heavy as he read the message. He couldn't expect his daughter to find an answer this time. And if he could not find an answer, his condition would be even worse than before, for there was a plague that was quickly infiltrating the country, and it had already killed off many of his soldiers in his small army. At this thought, his entire figure withered in gloom, his ears drooped and his tail brushed the floor, so much so that the princess noticed and inquired what was the matter.
"I have just received another letter from the Sultan," he replied, "and he says that if I cannot tell him which of three foals he has sent was born in the morning, which at noon, and which in the evening, he will declare war upon our feeble country at once."
"Oh, do not worry, father, something is sure to happen in our favour." And with that she ran to the tower to consult Mistoffelees.
"Go home, idol of my heart, and when night comes, pretend to scream out in your sleep, so your father hears you. Tell him that you dreamed he was being taken away by the Turks - because he could not answer the question about the foals - when the lad whom he had walled up in the tower ran up and told them which foal had been born in the morning, which at noon and which in the evening."
So the princess did exactly as she had been told. No sooner had she finished than the King ordered the tower to be destroyed and the prisoner brought before him.
"I did not think you could have lived so long without food, and you have had plenty of time to repent your wicked conduct. So I will grant you pardon on the condition that you help me solve a terrible problem. Read this letter from Macavity; you will see that if I fail to answer his question about the foals, he shall contrive to crumble our weak nation and a dreadful war shall ensue. Please, tell me anything you can."
Mistoffelees took the letter and read it through. "Yes, I can help you. But first, you must bring me three troughs, all exactly alike. Into one you must put oats, into the next you must pour wheat, and the last must be filled with barley. The foal that eats the oats was foaled in the morning: the foal that eats the wheat at noon; and the foal which eats from the trough of barley was foaled in the evening."
King Munkustrap hurriedly followed the tom's directions and, marking the foals with a hurried paw, sent them back to Turkey, and there was no war that year. When the Sultan received the foals, marked correctly, he was enraged. Neither of his plots to get possession of Hungary had succeeded, so he sent his aunt Tantomile, who was a witch, to consult him about what he should do next.
"It is not the King who has answered your questions," she observed, "he is far to stupid to have done anything like that! The answer-er of the puzzles is a young tom, the son of a poor woman. If he lives, he will become the King of Hungary. Therefore, if you want the crown for yourself, you must find a way to bring him here and kill him. Of course, if you don't want to spend the blood of another, I could."
"No, please no, not the toads again. The idea is intriguing, but I'd much rather have something a bit more.permanent."
After the conversation was over, another letter was written to the King of Hungary, saying that if the youth in the palace was not sent to Turkey within three days, a large army would cross the border. King Munkustrap's heart was sorrowful as he read, because he was grateful to the lad for what he had done to help him. The young tom only laughed, bade the King fear nothing and to search the town instantly for two youths who looked exactly alike. Then he would dye his fur in such a way that would make him a replica of them. And the sword at his side clanked loudly.
After a long search, a pair of twins named Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer were found, so identical that even their own mother could not tell the difference between them. The youth painted on his face a mask that was a precise copy of their faces and, after he had finished, no one would have known one from the other two.
They set out for Macavity's palace, and as soon as they reached it, they were taken straight into his presence. He made a sign for them to come near; they all bowed low in greeting. He asked them about their journey; they answered his questions in unison, with the same words. If one sat down to supper, the others sat down at the same instant. When one got up, the others got up, too, as if there had been one body instead of three. If one's ear twitched, so did the others'. The Sultan could not detect any difference between them and told Tantomile that he could not be so cruel as to kill all three of them.
"Don't worry, you will see a difference tomorrow," replied the witch, "for one will have a cut on his sleeve. That is the youth you must kill." And one hour before midnight, when witches are invisible, she glided into the room where the three 'twins' were sleeping in the same bed. She took out a pair of scissors and cut a small piece out of Mistoffelees' coat sleeve and then crept silently from the room. But in the morning the youth saw the slit and marked the sleeves of his two companions in the same way, and all three went down to breakfast with the Sultan.
The old witch was standing in the window and pretended not to see them, but witches have eyes in the backs of their heads, and she knew at once that not one sleeve but three had been cut, and they were just as undistinguishable as before. After breakfast, the Sultan, who was getting tired of the whole affair and wanted to be alone to invent some other plan, told them they might return home. So, bowing together, they went.
Princess Roxanne welcomed Mistoffelees back joyfully, but the poor youth was not allowed to rest for very long, for soon enough yet another letter from the Sultan arrived. It said that he had discovered that the young tom was a very dangerous cat, and that he should be sent to Turkey at once. The young Queen burst into tears when Mistoffelees told her what was in the letter which her father had bade her carry to him.
"Do not weep, love of my heart, all will be well," he assured her. "I will start out at sunrise tomorrow."
So the next morning at sunrise, the youth set forth; and in a few days he reached the Sultan's palace. Tantomile was waiting for him at the gate to the city and whispered to him as he passed, "This is the last time you will ever enter it." But the sword clanked, and the lad did not even look at her.
As he crossed the threshold, fifteen armed soldiers from the Turkish army barred his way, with the Sultan in the lead. Instantly, the sword darted forth from it's scabbard of it's own accord and proceeded to cut off the heads of everyone but Macavity, then to glide quietly back into it's sheath. The witch, who had been watching the entire massacre, saw that as long as the youth had possession of the sword her schemes would be totally in vain. She tried to steal the sword that night, but it jumped out of its' scabbard and sliced off her nose, which was made of iron (as many witches noses are commonly made of). And in the morning, when the Sultan brought a great army to capture the lad and take away his sword, they were all cut to pieces while Mistoffelees remained unscathed.
Meanwhile Princess Roxanne was in despair because the days slipped by and the young tom did not return. She never rested until her father let her lead some troops against Macavity. Dressed in uniform, she rode proudly before them, but they had just left the town when they met Mistoffelees and his sword.
When he told them what he had done, they shouted for joy a shout that was heard all across the land and carried him back in triumph to the palace. There, King Munkustrap declared that the youth had shown himself worthy to become his son-in-law, and that he should marry the Princess and succeed to the throne at once, because he himself was getting old and the cares of government were becoming too much for him to handle. But Mistoffelees said that he first had to go and see his mother, and the King sent him in state, with a troop of soldiers as his bodyguards.
Bombalurina was frightened when she glanced upon the array that drew up before her little house. She was still more surprised when a handsome young tom, whom she did not know, dismounted and kissed her paw, saying: "Now, dear Mother, you shall hear my secret at last! I dreamed that I should become King of Hungary, and my dream has come true. When I was a kitten and you begged me to tell you, I had to keep silence or the Magyar King would have killed me. And if you had not beaten me, nothing would have happened that has happened, and I should not now be King of Hungary."
The End
Finally, the day came when the sword fit into the scabbard quite easily, and Mistoffelees was overjoyed. He could hardly believe his eyes! But, pleased though he was, he daren't tell anyone of the occurrence. He couldn't even tell his mother, for she would blab the news to the neighbors without a second thought.
But in spite of his resolutions, he couldn't manage to hide the fact that something important had happened. When he walked into breakfast that morning, his tail was waving unusually jauntily in the air and Bombalurina asked if anything was the matter. Mistoffelees took great care to reveal nothing in his reply. "Oh, Mother, I had such a pleasant dream last night. But I can't tell it to anybody."
"You can tell me, Misto. I mean, come on, I'm your mother!"
"I can't even tell you, Mom. If I do, it won't come true, and I won't tell anyone till it does."
"You will tell me, I want to know now! I'll.I'll.I'll beat you till you tell me!" So she beat and beat her son, over and over, but it was no use. Neither words nor beatings could bring him to tell his dream to her.
When she finally stopped, poor Mistoffelees ran into the garden and cried his little heart out as he sat beside his precious sword. It was working around and around all by itself, so that no one but the kitten could catch hold of it unscathed. The moment Mistoffelees reached out his trembling paw, wet from wiping tears off his soft white cheek, he caught the sword and slid it into his scabbard.
For a long while, Mistoffelees sat sobbing to no one. King Alonzo was driving by and heard the noise. "Go and see who is crying so," he told one of his servants.
The servant returned in a few minutes, saying, "Your Majesty, a young boy is sobbing because his mother has beaten him."
"Bring him to me at once, and tell him it is the King who sends for him. Tell him I've never cried in my life and that I don't wish anyone else to, either."
Upon hearing the message, Mistoffelees dried his tears (or tried to) and went with the servant to the royal carriage.
"Will you be my son?" the King asked.
"Yes, but only if my mother will let me." So the King sent a servant to fetch the kittens' mother. He told her that if she gave him the boy, he would live with him in the palace and marry the Kings' prettiest daughter as soon as he was a full-grown tom.
Bombalurina's anger was quickly turned to joy and she gratefully kissed King Alonzos' paw. "I hope you will be more obedient to His Majesty than you were to me," she hissed and Mistoffelees shrank back in fright. When Bombalurina had gone back to her cottage, Mistoffelees asked the King if he could go back for something he had left behind. King Alonzo agreed and Misto promptly went to the garden to pluck his sword from the ground. Having put it back in his scabbard, he climbed into the coach and drove away with King Alonzo.
After they had been traveling for a while, the King spoke. "Why were you crying so bitterly in the garden when we came along?"
Mistoffelees began to sniffle softly. "Because Mother had been beating me." "Oh, and why did she?"
"Because I would not tell her my dream."
"And why didn't you tell it to her? That certainly would have saved you some trouble."
"I can't tell it to anyone until it comes true."
"Could you tell me?"
"No, not even you, Your Majesty."
"That's all right. I'm sure you will when we get home." King Alonzo smiled and talked to young Mistoffelees till they got home.
"Come here, daughters, I've brought you such a nice present!" Three lovely young Queens came down the large staircase and, upon seeing such a charming young kitten as Mistoffelees, proceeded to give him all their best toys. "Now, now, don't spoil him!" chuckled the King as he watched the children playing together. "He has a secret which he won't tell anybody."
"He will tell me," answered the eldest of the princesses, Electra. But Mistoffelees only shook his head.
"He will tell me!" said the second oldest princess, Etcetera. But Mistoffelees only shook his head, saying "Not I."
"He will tell me!!" cried Jemima, the youngest princess of all, who was also the prettiest.
Mistoffelees only said, "I will tell nobody till it comes true, and I will beat anybody who asks me."
King Alonzo was very sorry to hear such unpleasant words coming out of Mistoffelees' mouth. He loved him dearly, but he thought that it wouldn't do to keep anyone near him who would not do as he was bidden. So he commanded his servants to take Mistoffelees away and not let him enter the palace until he had come to his right senses.
As little Mistoffelees was led slowly off, his scabbard clanked by his side and his tail flicked to and fro, but he kept silent. He was very unhappy that he was treated this way when he had done nothing wrong. But the servants were kind to him, and their kittens brought him cream and salmon and all sorts of other nice things that cats commonly like to eat. Soon he was cheerful again and lived among them for a few years, until his seventeenth birthday arrived.
Meanwhile, the two eldest princesses had managed to wed powerful kings who ruled over great countries across the sea. Jemima, the youngest, was also old enough to be married, but she was very particular and stuck up her nose at every young prince who sought her hand.
One day, she was sitting by herself in the palace, feeling particularly bored and lonely. She became so bored that she began to wonder what the servants were doing and whether they were having a better time than she was in their quarters. Since King Alonzo was away at a Jellicle council meeting and the Queen was sick in bed, little Jemima hastily ran out of the castle, across the catnip gardens, and to the little row of houses where the servants lived. Outside one of them, she noticed a youth who was much more handsome than any prince she had ever seen. After a moment, she remembered him to be the little boy she had played with as a child.
"Tell me your secret and I will marry you," she said to him, but Mistoffelees only proceeded to give her the beating he had promised so long ago, when she had asked him the same question. Princess Jemima became very angry that he had hurt her and ran home at once to complain to her father.
"If he had a thousand lives, I would take them all." King Alonzo was furious that his daughter had been beat and swore to Mistoffelees' death.
That very day there was built a gallows outside the town. The people crowded around to see the execution of the young tom who had dared to beat the King's daughter.
Mistoffelees' paws were tied tightly behind his back as he was marched roughly through the crowd by the hangtom. As his sentence was being read by the judge amid the deathly silence of the previously jeering crowd, his sword hung, clanking by his side.
Just then a great noise was heard and a golden coach came rumbling over the cobblestones with a white flag waving from the window. It stopped underneath the gallows, and from it stepped Munkustrap, the King of the Magyars, the ruler of Hungary. He begged that the life of the young tom be spared.
But King Alonzo was reluctant. "Sir, he had beaten my daughter, who merely asked him to tell her his secret. I cannot pardon that."
"Give him to me. I'm sure he will tell me the secret. If not, I have a daughter who is like the Morning Star, and he is sure to tell it to her."
The sword clanked again, and King Alonzo said angrily, "Well, if you want him so much you can have him. Just never let me see his face again." And he signaled to the hangtom to let Mistoffelees free.
The cords were removed from the young tom's wrists and he took his seat in the golden coach beside King Munkustrap of the Magyars. Then the coachtom whipped up his horses, and they set out for Buda.
The King talked very pleasantly for a few miles, and when he thought that his new companion was comfortable with him, he asked about the secret that had brought him so much grief not to tell it. "That I cannot tell you," answered Mistoffelees, "until the day it comes true."
"You will tell my daughter, I am sure," smiled the King.
"I will tell nobody," he replied, and the sword clanked loudly.
The King said not another word about the secret, but he was confident that his daughter's beauty would cause him to tell his secret.
The journey to Buda was long, and it was several days before they arrived there. The beautiful Princess Roxanne happened to be picking roses in the garden when her father's coach drove up.
"Oh, what a handsome tom! Have you brought him from Fairyland?" she cried when they all stood upon the marble steps in front of the castle.
"I have brought him from the gallows," answered King Munkustrap, rather vexed at his daughter's words as never before had she consented to give attention to any tom.
"I don't care where you have brought him from," said the spoiled young Queen, "I shall marry him and nobody else, and we will live together till we die."
"You may tell another tale," replied the King, "when you ask him his secret. After all, he is no better than a servant."
"That is nothing to me," said Princess Roxanne, "for I love him. He will tell his secret to me and will always have a place in my heart."
But King Munkustrap shook his head and gave orders that Mistoffelees was to be lodged in the summerhouse.
One day, about a week later, the Princess put on her finest dress and went to pay him a visit. She looked so incredibly lovely that, at the sight of her coming his way, the book Mistoffelees held dropped from his paw and he stood up, speechless with wonder.
"Tell me," she whispered coaxingly in his quivering ear, "what is this wonderful secret? Just whisper it into my ear, and I will give you a kiss."
"My angel, be wise and ask no questions, if you wish to get safely back to your father's palace. I have kept my secret all these years and do not mean to give it up now."
However, Princess Roxanne was stubborn and would not listen to his warning. She only pressed him harder, till at last he slapped her face so hard that her nose bled. She shrieked with pain and rage and ran screaming back to the palace where her father was waiting to hear if she had succeeded.
When he saw her streaming with blood, he cried, "I will starve him to death, the son of a pollicle." Then he ordered all the masons and bricklayers in the town to come before him. The King said, "Build me a tower as fast as you can, and see that there is room inside only for a small stool and a small table, nothing else."
The toms set to work and managed to finish the tower in two hours. Then they started for the palace to inform the King that they had completed his task. As she saw them moving past, Princess Roxanne walked up to them and began to talk to one of the masons. She asked him if he would be so kind as to bore a hole in the tower large enough for food and water to pass through in an inconspicuous place.
"To be sure I can," he replied kindly, and in a few minutes the hole was bored.
At sunset, a large crowd assembled to watch Mistoffelees being led to the tower and, after his misdeeds had been proclaimed for all to hear, he was solemnly walled up. He would most certainly have starved to death if the Princess had not brought him food and drink every morning, passing it through the hole before anyone was awake. Every third day, King Munkustrap sent his old secretary to climb up to the window of the tower and look in upon Mistoffelees, just to see if he had passed away yet. But each day, the secretary could only report that the youth was doing well and looked well fed. The only explanation that the King could come up with was that there must have been some magic to do with it.
This state of affairs lasted a long time, till one day a messenger arrived from Macavity, the Sultan of Turkey, bearing a letter of bad news for the King along with three canes. "My master bids me say," said the messenger, bowing so low that his whiskers touched the ground, "that if you cannot tell which of these three canes grows nearest the root, which in the middle, and which at the top, he will declare war against you."
King Munkustrap was nearly frightened out of his fur when he heard this, and though he took the canes and examined them closely, he could see no difference between one or the other. He looked so sad that his daughter noticed and inquired the reason.
"Alas, my daughter, how can I help being sad?" he moaned. "The Sultan had sent me three canes and says that if I cannot tell him which of them grows near the root, which in the middle and which at the top, he will make war upon the country. And you know that his army is far greater than mine."
"Oh, do not despair, dear father," said she. "We shall be sure to find out the answer," and she quickly ran off to the tower and told Mistoffelees what had occurred.
After a few moments of thought, he replied, "Go to bed as usual, and when you wake, tell your father you have dreamed that the canes must be placed in warm water. After a little while, one of them will sink to the bottom; that is the one that grows nearest the root. The one which neither sinks nor comes to the surface is the cane that is cut from the middle, and the one that floats is cut from the top."
The next morning, the Princess told her father of her dream, and on her advice he cut tiny notches in each of the canes when he took them out of the water, so he might make no mistake when he handed them back to the messenger.
The Sultan, who could not imagine how the King had found out the answer to the puzzle, did not declare war against Buda that year.
But when one year had gone by, Macavity again wanted to pick a quarrel with the King of the Magyars, so he sent another messenger, this one bearing a letter and three foals. The letter told the King that he must say which foal had been born in the morning, which in midday, and which at twilight. If an answer were not ready in three days, war would be declared at once.
King Munkustrap's heart felt heavy as he read the message. He couldn't expect his daughter to find an answer this time. And if he could not find an answer, his condition would be even worse than before, for there was a plague that was quickly infiltrating the country, and it had already killed off many of his soldiers in his small army. At this thought, his entire figure withered in gloom, his ears drooped and his tail brushed the floor, so much so that the princess noticed and inquired what was the matter.
"I have just received another letter from the Sultan," he replied, "and he says that if I cannot tell him which of three foals he has sent was born in the morning, which at noon, and which in the evening, he will declare war upon our feeble country at once."
"Oh, do not worry, father, something is sure to happen in our favour." And with that she ran to the tower to consult Mistoffelees.
"Go home, idol of my heart, and when night comes, pretend to scream out in your sleep, so your father hears you. Tell him that you dreamed he was being taken away by the Turks - because he could not answer the question about the foals - when the lad whom he had walled up in the tower ran up and told them which foal had been born in the morning, which at noon and which in the evening."
So the princess did exactly as she had been told. No sooner had she finished than the King ordered the tower to be destroyed and the prisoner brought before him.
"I did not think you could have lived so long without food, and you have had plenty of time to repent your wicked conduct. So I will grant you pardon on the condition that you help me solve a terrible problem. Read this letter from Macavity; you will see that if I fail to answer his question about the foals, he shall contrive to crumble our weak nation and a dreadful war shall ensue. Please, tell me anything you can."
Mistoffelees took the letter and read it through. "Yes, I can help you. But first, you must bring me three troughs, all exactly alike. Into one you must put oats, into the next you must pour wheat, and the last must be filled with barley. The foal that eats the oats was foaled in the morning: the foal that eats the wheat at noon; and the foal which eats from the trough of barley was foaled in the evening."
King Munkustrap hurriedly followed the tom's directions and, marking the foals with a hurried paw, sent them back to Turkey, and there was no war that year. When the Sultan received the foals, marked correctly, he was enraged. Neither of his plots to get possession of Hungary had succeeded, so he sent his aunt Tantomile, who was a witch, to consult him about what he should do next.
"It is not the King who has answered your questions," she observed, "he is far to stupid to have done anything like that! The answer-er of the puzzles is a young tom, the son of a poor woman. If he lives, he will become the King of Hungary. Therefore, if you want the crown for yourself, you must find a way to bring him here and kill him. Of course, if you don't want to spend the blood of another, I could."
"No, please no, not the toads again. The idea is intriguing, but I'd much rather have something a bit more.permanent."
After the conversation was over, another letter was written to the King of Hungary, saying that if the youth in the palace was not sent to Turkey within three days, a large army would cross the border. King Munkustrap's heart was sorrowful as he read, because he was grateful to the lad for what he had done to help him. The young tom only laughed, bade the King fear nothing and to search the town instantly for two youths who looked exactly alike. Then he would dye his fur in such a way that would make him a replica of them. And the sword at his side clanked loudly.
After a long search, a pair of twins named Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer were found, so identical that even their own mother could not tell the difference between them. The youth painted on his face a mask that was a precise copy of their faces and, after he had finished, no one would have known one from the other two.
They set out for Macavity's palace, and as soon as they reached it, they were taken straight into his presence. He made a sign for them to come near; they all bowed low in greeting. He asked them about their journey; they answered his questions in unison, with the same words. If one sat down to supper, the others sat down at the same instant. When one got up, the others got up, too, as if there had been one body instead of three. If one's ear twitched, so did the others'. The Sultan could not detect any difference between them and told Tantomile that he could not be so cruel as to kill all three of them.
"Don't worry, you will see a difference tomorrow," replied the witch, "for one will have a cut on his sleeve. That is the youth you must kill." And one hour before midnight, when witches are invisible, she glided into the room where the three 'twins' were sleeping in the same bed. She took out a pair of scissors and cut a small piece out of Mistoffelees' coat sleeve and then crept silently from the room. But in the morning the youth saw the slit and marked the sleeves of his two companions in the same way, and all three went down to breakfast with the Sultan.
The old witch was standing in the window and pretended not to see them, but witches have eyes in the backs of their heads, and she knew at once that not one sleeve but three had been cut, and they were just as undistinguishable as before. After breakfast, the Sultan, who was getting tired of the whole affair and wanted to be alone to invent some other plan, told them they might return home. So, bowing together, they went.
Princess Roxanne welcomed Mistoffelees back joyfully, but the poor youth was not allowed to rest for very long, for soon enough yet another letter from the Sultan arrived. It said that he had discovered that the young tom was a very dangerous cat, and that he should be sent to Turkey at once. The young Queen burst into tears when Mistoffelees told her what was in the letter which her father had bade her carry to him.
"Do not weep, love of my heart, all will be well," he assured her. "I will start out at sunrise tomorrow."
So the next morning at sunrise, the youth set forth; and in a few days he reached the Sultan's palace. Tantomile was waiting for him at the gate to the city and whispered to him as he passed, "This is the last time you will ever enter it." But the sword clanked, and the lad did not even look at her.
As he crossed the threshold, fifteen armed soldiers from the Turkish army barred his way, with the Sultan in the lead. Instantly, the sword darted forth from it's scabbard of it's own accord and proceeded to cut off the heads of everyone but Macavity, then to glide quietly back into it's sheath. The witch, who had been watching the entire massacre, saw that as long as the youth had possession of the sword her schemes would be totally in vain. She tried to steal the sword that night, but it jumped out of its' scabbard and sliced off her nose, which was made of iron (as many witches noses are commonly made of). And in the morning, when the Sultan brought a great army to capture the lad and take away his sword, they were all cut to pieces while Mistoffelees remained unscathed.
Meanwhile Princess Roxanne was in despair because the days slipped by and the young tom did not return. She never rested until her father let her lead some troops against Macavity. Dressed in uniform, she rode proudly before them, but they had just left the town when they met Mistoffelees and his sword.
When he told them what he had done, they shouted for joy a shout that was heard all across the land and carried him back in triumph to the palace. There, King Munkustrap declared that the youth had shown himself worthy to become his son-in-law, and that he should marry the Princess and succeed to the throne at once, because he himself was getting old and the cares of government were becoming too much for him to handle. But Mistoffelees said that he first had to go and see his mother, and the King sent him in state, with a troop of soldiers as his bodyguards.
Bombalurina was frightened when she glanced upon the array that drew up before her little house. She was still more surprised when a handsome young tom, whom she did not know, dismounted and kissed her paw, saying: "Now, dear Mother, you shall hear my secret at last! I dreamed that I should become King of Hungary, and my dream has come true. When I was a kitten and you begged me to tell you, I had to keep silence or the Magyar King would have killed me. And if you had not beaten me, nothing would have happened that has happened, and I should not now be King of Hungary."
The End