"I told you how it would be," the Queen said. "And, if you'll take my advice, you won't lose your temper so fearfully again. It might really make you ill."
But the King said nothing at all, being a little out of breath at having come so quickly up the tower steps. So the Queen flew gaily off again without saying "Good-bye."
But down at the base of the tower the courtiers, discovering that the King was nicely trapped, quietly shut the door and locked it. Then they gave a sigh of relief, and left him till he died. They had been long looking out for such an opportunity.
The Queen, however, knew nothing of that. She flew on for a time, being far too excited to remember her hunger; but at last it came back to her with redoubled force, and she determined to descend at the first house she came to and try to get some food somehow. But, by that time, the country had become sandy and dry, with only a few reeds bristling out over it here and there, and no signs of cultivation or even of houses.
"Now, whatever shall I do?" she said to herself, as she flew along so dose to the ground that the wind of her flight made the sand flit about in little clouds. "I'm so awfully hungry and—— Why, there is some sort of a building!—at least it looks like one."
And there, in a hollow among the sand-dunes, stood a funny little black erection, such as you might see upon a beach.
So the Queen alighted and walked towards the house. In front of the door a cat was sitting—a black cat. But not a magnificent creature with a glossy coat that sits on the rug in front of the drawing-room fire and only drinks cream, deeming mice too vulgar. This was a long-limbed, little creature, that looked half-starved and seemed as if its proper occupation would be stealing along, very lanky and grim in the moonlight, over the dunes to catch rabbits.
So the Queen stopped and looked at the cat, and the cat sat and looked at the Queen.
The black pupils of its yellow eyes dilated and diminished in a most composed manner.
"Poor pussy!" the Queen said, and bent to scratch its neck.