“Why, there is my cloak! Where did you get it, Tillydib?”
“I found it in the garden,” answered the lord high purse-bearer; “but take it, if it is yours. And here is something to repay you for the loan of it;” and he poured into her hands a heap of glittering gold.
“Oh, thank you!” cried Fluff; and taking the precious cloak she dropped the gold into it and carried it to her room.
“I’ll never lend it again unless it is really necessary,” she said to herself. “It was very careless of Aunt Rivette to leave my fairy cloak in the garden.”
And then after carefully folding it and wrapping it up she locked it in a drawer, and hid the key where no one but herself could find it.
“THIS WAS THE MOMENT QUAVO HAD EAGERLY AWAITED.”
Chapter XI.
THE WITCH-QUEEN.
It is not very far from the kingdom of Noland to the kingdom of Ix. If you followed the steps of Quavo the minstrel, you would climb the sides of a steep mountain-range, and go down on the other side, and cross a broad and swift river, and pick your way through a dark forest. You would then have reached the land of Ix and would find an easy path into the big city.
But even before one came to the city he would see the high marble towers of Queen Zixi’s magnificent palace, and pause to wonder at its beauty.