The sun had not yet risen before the falcon soared high into the air, the cat seated on his back, with his paws tightly clasping the bird’s neck.
‘You had better shut your eyes or you may get giddy,’ said the bird; and the cat, you had never before been off the ground except to climb a tree, did as she was bid.
All that day and all that night they flew, and in the morning they saw the ogre’s palace lying beneath them.
‘Dear me,’ said the cat, opening her eyes for the first time, ‘that looks to me very like a rat city down there, let us go down to it; they may be able to help us.’ So they alighted in some bushes in the heart of the rat city. The falcon remained where he was, but the cat lay down outside the principal gate, causing terrible excitement among the rats.
At length, seeing she did not move, one bolder than the rest put its head out of an upper window of the castle, and said, in a trembling voice:
‘Why have you come here? What do you want? If it is anything in our power, tell us, and we will do it.’
‘If you would have let me speak to you before, I would have told you that I come as a friend,’ replied the cat; ‘and I shall be greatly obliged if you would send four of the strongest and cunningest among you, to do me a service.’
‘Oh, we shall be delighted,’ answered the rat, much relieved. ‘But if you will inform me what it is you wish them to do I shall be better able to judge who is most fitted for the post.’
‘I thank you,’ said the cat. ‘Well, what they have to do is this: To-night they must burrow under the walls of the castle and go up to the room were an ogre lies asleep. Somewhere about him he has hidden a stone, on which are engraved strange signs. When they have found it they must take it from him without his waking, and bring it to me.’
‘Your orders shall be obeyed,’ replied the rat. And he went out to give his instructions.