"Who knows?" answered Hans. Then he charged her that she must never mention that it was to her they were going. He did not tell Bettina that had the letter in her dress been found they would have shot him without discussion, and so she gazed at him in wonder when, "God be praised! God be praised!" he said over and over.
A wagon was waiting at an inn where presently they stopped. It was all very queer and puzzled Bettina, for the driver said, "The Angel," and her grandfather said, "God bless her," and without more words he lifted her in and told her to lie down on the straw and go to sleep.
They drove the whole night and it was morning when her grandfather waked her and gave her some black bread and sausage. Then they alighted and trudged all day through the forest paths, keeping off the main roads, and as they walked Bettina saw the deer in great herds coming to the open places to feed on the hay which the foresters had tied about the pine trees for their dinners, and once she saw great, gleaming, yellow eyes in some bushes.
It was only a huge black cat, but Bettina was sure that it was Waterlinde, the mother of all the witches in Germany, and who, on Walpurgis night, leads the dance on the Brocken Mountain.
"Wait, grandfather, wait!" she cried. Then she ran back to the cat.
"Waterlinde! Waterlinde!" she called, "please ride on your broomstick and get Napoleon!"
The cat raised its tail, which grew monstrous from its anger.
"Hiss!" it said, "Hiss!" Then fled into the bushes.
But Bettina was joyful.
"It will get the Emperor," she said. "It promised. Oh, grandfather, how happy I am! Waterlinde will get Napoleon!"