THE THEFT OF THE MAGIC CLOAK.
When the soldiers of Queen Zixi ran away, they fled in so many different
directions that the bewildered queen could not keep track of them. Her
horse, taking fright, dashed up the mountain-side and tossed Zixi into a
lilac-bush, after which he ran off and left her.
One would think such a chain of misfortunes could not fail to daunt the
bravest. But Zixi had lived too many years to allow such trifles as
defeat and flight to ruin her nerves; so she calmly disentangled herself
from the lilac-bush and looked around to see where she was.
It was very quiet and peaceful on this part of the mountain-side. Her
glittering army had disappeared to the last man.
In the far distance she could see the spires and turreted palaces of the
city of Nole, and behind her was a thick grove of lilac-trees bearing
flowers in full bloom.
This lilac-grove gave Zixi an idea. She pushed aside some of the
branches and entered the cool, shadowy avenues between the trees.
The air was heavy with the scent of the violet flowers, and tiny
humming-birds were darting here and there to thrust their long bills
into the blossoms and draw out the honey for food. Butterflies there
were, too, and a few chipmunks perched high among the branches. But Zixi
walked on through the trees in deep thought, and presently she had laid
new plans.
For since the magic cloak was so hard to get she wanted it more than
ever.
By and by she gathered some bits of the lilac-bark, and dug some roots
from the ground. Next she caught six spotted butterflies, from the wings
of which she brushed off all the round, purple spots. Then she wandered
on until she came upon a little spring of water bubbling from the
ground, and filling a cup-shaped leaf of the tatti-plant from the
spring, she mixed her bark and roots and butterfly spots in the liquid
and boiled it carefully over a fire of twigs; for tatti-leaves will not
burn so long as there is water inside them.
When her magical compound was ready, Zixi muttered an incantation and
drank it in a single draught.
A few moments later the witch-queen had disappeared, and in her place
stood the likeness of a pretty young girl dressed in a simple white gown
with pink ribbons at the shoulders and a pink sash around her waist. Her
light-brown hair was gathered into two long braids that hung down her
back, and she had two big blue eyes that looked very innocent and sweet.
Besides these changes, both the nose and the mouth of the girl differed
in shape from those of Zixi; so that no one would have seen the
slightest resemblance between the two people, or between Miss Trust and
the girl who stood in the lilac-grove.
The transformed witch-queen gave a sweet, rippling laugh, and glanced at
her reflection in the still waters of the spring. And then the girlish
face frowned, for the image glaring up at her was that of a wrinkled,
toothless old hag.
“I really must have that cloak,” sighed the girl; and then she turned
and walked out of the lilac-grove and down the mountain-side toward the
city of Nole.
The Princess Fluff was playing tennis with her maids in a courtyard of
the royal palace, when Jikki came to say that a girl wished to speak
with her Highness.
“Send her here,” said Fluff.
So the witch-queen came to her, in the guise of the fair young girl; and
bowing in a humble manner before the princess, she said: “Please, your
Highness, may I be one of your maids?”
“Why, I have eight already!” answered Fluff, laughing.
“But my father and mother are both dead; and I have come all the way
from my castle to beg you to let me wait upon you,” said the girl,
looking at the little princess with a pleading expression in her blue
eyes.
“Who are you?” asked Fluff.
“I am daughter of the Lord Hurrydole, and my name is Adlena,” replied
the girl, which was not altogether a falsehood, because one of her
ancestors had borne the name Hurrydole, and Adlena was one of her own
names.
“Then, Adlena,” said Fluff, brightly, “you shall certainly be one of my
maids; for there is plenty of room in the palace, and the more girls I
have around me the happier I shall be.”
So Queen Zixi, under the name of Adlena, became an inmate of the king’s
palace; and it was not many days before she learned where the magic
cloak was kept. For the princess gave her a key to a drawer and told her
to get from it a blue silk scarf she wished to wear, and directly under
the scarf lay the fairy garment.
Adlena would have seized it at that moment had she dared; but Fluff was
in the same room, so she only said: “Please, princess, may I look at
that pretty cloak?”
“Of course,” answered Fluff; “but handle it carefully, for it was given
me by the fairies.”
So Adlena unfolded the cloak and looked at it very carefully, noting
exactly the manner in which it was woven. Then she folded it again,
arranged it in the drawer, and turned the key, which the princess
immediately attached to a chain which she always wore around her neck.
That night, when the witch-queen was safely locked in her own room and
could not be disturbed, she called about her a great many of those
invisible imps that serve the most skilful witches, commanding them to
weave for her a cloak in the exact likeness of the one given Princess
Fluff by the fairies.
Of course the imps had never seen the magic cloak; but Zixi described it
to them accurately, and before morning they had woven a garment so
closely resembling the original that the imitation was likely to deceive
any one.
Only one thing was missing, and that was the golden thread woven by
Queen Lulea herself, and which gave the cloak its magic powers.
Of course the imps of Zixi could not get this golden thread, nor could
they give any magical properties to the garment they had made at the
witch’s command; but they managed to give the cloak all of the many
brilliant colors of the original, and Zixi was quite satisfied.
The next day Adlena wore this cloak while she walked in the garden. Very
soon Princess Fluff saw her and ran after the girl, crying indignantly:
“See here! What do you mean by wearing my cloak? Take it off instantly!”
[Illustration: “‘WHICH IS MINE?’ SHE FINALLY ASKED, IN A STARTLED
VOICE.”]
“It isn’t your cloak. It is one of my own,” replied the girl, calmly.
“Nonsense! There can’t be two such cloaks in the world,” retorted Fluff.
“But there are,” persisted Adlena. “How could I get the one in your
drawer when the key is around your own neck?”
“I’m not sure I don’t know,” admitted the princess, beginning to be
puzzled. “But come with me into my rooms. If my fairy cloak is indeed in
the drawer, then I will believe you.”
So they went to the drawer, and of course found the magic cloak, as the
cunning Zixi had planned. Fluff pulled it out and held the two up
together to compare them; and they seemed to be exactly alike.
“I think yours is a little the longer,” said Adlena, and threw it over
the shoulders of the princess. “No, I think mine is the longer,” she
continued; and removing the magic cloak, put her own upon Fluff. They
seemed to be about the same length, but Adlena kept putting first one
and then the other upon the princess, until they were completely mixed,
and the child could not have told one from the other.
“Which is mine?” she finally asked, in a startled voice.
“This, of course,” answered Adlena, folding up the imitation cloak which
the imps had made, and putting it away in the drawer.
Fluff never suspected the trick, so Zixi carried away the magic cloak
she had thus cleverly stolen; and she was so delighted with the success
of her stratagem that she could have screamed aloud for pure joy.
As soon as she was alone and unobserved, the witch-queen slipped out of
the palace, and, carrying the magic cloak in a bundle under her arm, ran
down the streets of Nole and out through the gate in the wall and away
toward the mountain where the lilac-grove lay.
“At last!” she kept saying to herself. “At last I shall see my own
beautiful reflection in a mirror, instead of that horrid old hag!”
When she was safe in the grove she succeeded, by means of her
witchcraft, in transforming the girl Adlena back into the beautiful
woman known throughout the kingdom of Ix as Queen Zixi. And then she
lost no time in throwing the magic cloak over her shoulders.
“I wish,” she cried in a loud voice, “that my reflection in every mirror
will hereafter show the same face and form as that in which I appear to
exist in the sight of all mortals!”
Then she threw off the cloak and ran to the crystal spring, saying:
“Now, indeed, I shall at last see the lovely Queen Zixi!”
But as she bent over the spring, she gave a sudden shriek of
disappointed rage; for glaring up at her from the glassy surface of the
water was the same fearful hag she had always seen as the reflection of
her likeness!
The magic cloak would grant no wish to a person who had stolen it.
Zixi, more wretched than she had ever been before in her life, threw
herself down upon her face in the lilac-grove and wept for more than an
hour, which is an exceedingly long time for tears to run from one’s
eyes. And when she finally arose, two tiny brooks flowed from the spot
and wound through the lilac-trees—one to the right and one to the left.
Then, leaving the magic cloak—to possess which she had struggled so hard
and sinfully—lying unheeded upon the ground, the disappointed
witch-queen walked slowly away, and finally reached the bank of the
great river.
[Illustration: “SHE THREW OFF THE CLOAK AND RAN TO THE CRYSTAL SPRING.”]
Here she found a rugged old alligator who lay upon the bank, weeping
with such bitterness that the sight reminded Zixi of her own recent
outburst of sorrow.
“Why do you weep, friend?” she asked, for her experience as a witch had
long since taught her the language of the beasts and birds and reptiles.
“Because I cannot climb a tree,” answered the alligator.
“But why do you wish to climb a tree?” she questioned, surprised.
“Because I can’t,” returned the alligator, squeezing two more tears from
his eyes.
“But that is very foolish!” exclaimed the witch-queen, scornfully.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said the alligator. “It doesn’t strike me that it’s
much more foolish than the fancies some other people have.”
“Perhaps not,” replied Zixi, more gently, and walked away in deep
thought.
While she followed the river-bank, to find a ferry across, the dusk
fell, and presently a gray owl came out of a hollow in a tall tree and
sat upon a limb, wailing dismally.
Zixi stopped and looked at the bird.
“Why do you wail so loudly?” she asked.
[Illustration: “‘BECAUSE I CANNOT CLIMB A TREE,’ ANSWERED THE
ALLIGATOR.”]
“Because I cannot swim in the river like a fish,” answered the owl, and
it screeched so sadly that it made the queen shiver.
“Why do you wish to swim?” she inquired.
“Because I can’t,” said the owl, and buried its head under its wing with
a groan.
“But that is absurd!” cried Zixi, with impatience.
The owl had an ear out, and heard her. So it withdrew its head long
enough to retort:
“I don’t think it’s any more absurd than the longings of some other
folks.”
“Perhaps you are right,” said the queen, and hung her head as she walked
on.
By and by she found a ferryman with a boat, and he agreed to row her
across the river. In one end of the boat crouched a little girl, the
ferryman’s daughter, and she sobbed continually, so that the sound of
the child’s grief finally attracted Zixi’s attention.
“Why do you sob?” questioned the queen.
“Because I want to be a man,” replied the child, trying to stifle her
sobs.
“Why do you want to be a man?” asked Zixi, curiously.
“Because I’m a little girl,” was the reply.
This made Zixi angry.
“You’re a little fool!” she exclaimed loudly.
“There are other fools in the world,” said the child, and renewed her
sobs.
[Illustration: “‘WHY DO YOU SOB?’ QUESTIONED THE QUEEN.”]
Zixi did not reply, but she thought to herself:
“We are all alike—the alligator, the owl, the girl, and the powerful
Queen of Ix. We long for what we cannot have, yet desire it not so much
because it would benefit us, as because it is beyond our reach. If I
call the others fools, I must also call myself a fool for wishing to see
the reflection of a beautiful girl in my mirror when I know it is
impossible. So hereafter I shall strive to be contented with my lot.”
This was a wise resolution, and the witch-queen abided by it for many
years. She was not very bad, this Zixi; for it must be admitted that few
have the courage to acknowledge their faults and strive to correct them,
as she did.