“For what?”
“The Magic Cat’s-eye. I’ve guarded it some thousands of years. I knew there would be a use for it at last. He may be saved yet, if some one should love him well enough to die for him.”
“I do that,” said the little Kitchen-Maid, and took the Cat’s-eye in her hands.
“Swallow it,” said the White Rat, “and you’ll turn into a mouse.”
The little maid swallowed it at once, and, behold! she was a little mouse.
“What am I to do?” she asked.
“I can’t tell you,” said the Great White Rat, “but Love will tell you.”
So the little Kitchen-Maid, in the form of the mouse, ran up one of the horse’s legs, and held tight on to the saddle with all her little claws.
And as the great horse galloped back towards the palace in the moonlight, she thought and thought, and at last she said to herself—
“The witch is in cat’s shape, and she must have cat nature, so she will run after a mouse. She will run after me, and if I can lead her to a running stream she will leap across it, and then she will have to take her own shape again. That must be what the Great White Rat meant me to do. And if the Cat catches me—well, at least if I can’t save my Prince I can die for him.”