The Island Queen - R. M. Ballantyne

There is no saying how long this state of things would have gone on, if it had not been for the exuberant spirits of Otto, who, under an impulse of maternal affection, sprang to his mother’s side with intent to embrace her, and unwittingly planted his foot on the cat’s tail.

Then, indeed, the convoluted outline came to an abrupt end; for, with a volcanic explosion, suggestive of thunder and lightning, inlaid with dynamite, the hapless creature sprang from the room, followed by a shriek from its mistress, and a roar of laughter from all the rest.

It is not certainly known where that cat spent the following fortnight. The only thing about it that remains on record is the fact that, at the end of that space of time, it returned to its old haunts, deeply humbled, and much reduced; that it gradually became accustomed to the new state of things, and even mounted the table, and sat blinking in its old position, and grew visibly fatter, while the old lady revived old times by stroking it, as she had been wont to, and communicating to it some of her thoughts and fancies.

“Ay, pussy,” she said, on one of these occasions when they chanced to be alone together, “little did you and I think, when we used to be sitting so comfortably here, that our darlings were being tossed about and starved in open boats on the stormy sea! Ah! pussy, pussy, we little knew—but ‘it’s all well that ends well,’ as a great writer that you know nothing about has said, and you and I can never, never be thankful enough for getting back, safe and sound, our dear old man, and our darling boys, and our—our little Pauline, the Island Queen.”

The End.