‘Well,’ said the King to him, ‘you shall know in the morning from my birds whether they know anything or not.’
Jack put up his horse in the stable, and then went to bed, after having something to eat. And when he got up in the morning, the King and he went on to some fields, and there the King made some funny noise, and there came all the fowls that were in all the world.[3] And the King asked them, Did they see the fine castle? and all the birds answered, ‘No.’
‘Well,’ said the king, ‘where is the great bird?’
They had to wait, then, for a long time for eagle to make his appearance, when at last he came all in a perspiration, after sending two little birds high up in the sky to whistle on him to make all the haste he possibly could. The King asked the great bird, Did he see the great castle?
And the bird said, ‘Yes, I came from there where it now is.’
‘Well,’ says the King, ‘this young gentleman has lost it, and you must go with him back to it. But stop till you get a bit of something to eat first.’
They killed a thief, and sent the best part of it to feed the eagle on his journey over the seas, and had to carry Jack on his back. Now, when they came in sight of the castle, they did not know what to do to get the little golden box. Well, the little mouse said to them, ‘Leave me down, and I will get the little box for you.’ So the mouse stole himself in the castle, and had a hold of the box; and when he was coming down the stairs, fell it down, and very near being caught. He came running out with it, laughing his best. [[215]]
‘Have you got it?’ Jack said to him.
He said, ‘Yes’; and off they went back again, and left the castle behind. As they were all of them (Jack, mouse, frog, and eagle) passing over the great sea, they fell to quarrelling about which it was that got the little box, till down it slipped into the water. (It was by them looking at it, and handing it from one hand to the other, that they dropped the little box in the bottom of the sea.)
‘Well, well,’ said the frog, ‘I knew as I would have to do something, so you had better let me go down in the water.’