For two or three months the Cat went on in this way, carrying game every
day to the Palace, and saying it was sent by the Marquis of Carabas.

At last the Cat happened to hear that the King was going to take a drive
on the banks of the river, with his daughter, the most beautiful
Princess in the world. He at once went to his master.

"Master," said he, "if you follow my advice, your fortune will be made.
Go and bathe in the river at a place I shall show you, and I will do the
rest."

"Very well," said the Miller's son, and he did as the Cat told him. When
he was in the water, the Cat took away his clothes and hid them, and
then ran to the road, just as the King's coach went by, calling out as
loudly as he could--

"Help, help! The Marquis of Carabas will be drowned."

The King looked out of the carriage window, and when he saw the Cat who
had brought him so many fine rabbits and partridges, he ordered his
bodyguards to fly at once to the rescue of the Marquis of Carabas.

Then the Cat came up to the carriage and told the King that while his
master was bathing some robbers had stolen all his clothes. The King
immediately ordered one of his own magnificent suits of clothes to be
taken to the Marquis; so when the Miller's son appeared before the
monarch and his daughter, he looked so handsome, and was so splendidly
attired, that the Princess fell in love with him on the spot.

The King was so struck with his appearance that he insisted upon his
getting into the carriage to take a drive with them.

The Cat, delighted with the way his plans were turning out, ran on
before. He reached a meadow where some peasants were making hay.

"Good people," said he, "if you do not tell the King, when he comes this
way, that the meadow you are mowing belongs to the Marquis of Carabas,
you shall all be chopped up into little pieces."

When the King came by, he stopped to ask the haymakers to whom the
meadow belonged.

"To the Marquis of Carabas, if it please Your Majesty," answered they,
trembling, for the Cat's threat had frightened them terribly.

The Cat, who continued to run before the carriage, now came to some
reapers.

"Good people," said he, "if you do not tell the King that all this corn
belongs to the Marquis of Carabas, you shall all be chopped up into
little pieces."

[Illustration]

The King again stopped to ask to whom the land belonged, and the
reapers, obedient to the Cat's command, answered--

"To th