“Late?” said Sootica, staring. “Why, it is barely sundown! My mistress and I never stir before the sun has set. Whatever should we do by daylight? Come, you can help me light the cauldron and prepare the evening meal.”
Gobbolino obligingly blew sparks out of his whiskers until the fire began to smoke and the cauldron to bubble.
“You can be quite useful, I see!” said Sootica agreeably, casting some herbs into the mixture. “Now I think all is ready, and if you will call your mistress I will call mine, for we are ready to dine.”
“I don’t know where my mistress is gone to!” said Gobbolino. “I can’t see her anywhere outside, and the donkey is not to be found either.”
“What?” screamed his little sister Sootica. “Mistress! Mistress! Do you hear that? Gobbolino says his mistress is gone and the donkey too. When did you find that out, Gobbolino?”
“Why, early this morning when I awoke!” said Gobbolino, quite frightened at the angry glances of his sister and her mistress the witch, who had bounced out of her corner and was standing over him in a threatening attitude.
“Why didn’t you go after her, you dunderhead?” she said in a fury.
“Why! I expected her to come back again at any moment!” said Gobbolino, wringing his paws and crying. “I waited all day long, but she never came! How could I tell she did not mean to return?”
“Blockhead! Numbskull!” cried the witch. “Do you mean to say you have been sitting outside the whole day long without saying a word about it? Don’t you know she meant to get rid of you? Don’t you know she meant to leave you behind so that she would not be plagued with you any longer?”
“Oh, no! No! No!” sobbed Gobbolino. “Indeed I never thought of that, ma’am! I am very sorry to have been so foolish, but such a thought never entered my head!”
“Send him after her!” said Sootica.
“She will be a thousand leagues away by now,” said the witch. “She may have been a poor witch, but she knew a trick or two, and she wouldn’t be caught that way – not she! No – such a poor cat as this is not worth keeping. I shall throw him down the mountainside!”
“Oh, no! No! No!” sobbed Gobbolino, while his little sister Sootica, although rather more composed, pleaded:
“Pray, mistress, think again. He is my bloodbrother and although I am very ashamed of him, I do not wish to see him die. Perhaps if we were to keep him a little while, mistress, you might teach him better ways, for you are very clever, and, after all, if you do not succeed, there is plenty of time to throw him down the mountain by and by.”
“True enough,” said the witch rather less fiercely. “Well, take your soup and let us get to work.”
As Sootica shared her bowl of soup with him, Gobbolino thanked her gratefully for saving his life.
“Don’t thank me!” said Sootica tartly. “Try to be a better cat, and worthy of our mother Grimalkin, for if you do not succeed, my mistress will certainly throw you down the mountainside and nothing that I can do will save you then.”
“I will try, sister,” said Gobbolino meekly.
After their meal the witch gave Gobbolino a bundle of spells to disentangle, so mixed and muddled, like a tangle of giant cobwebs, that he did not know where to begin or end.
“See, it goes like this – and this!” said Sootica, deftly dividing them with her paws, but Gobbolino fumbled and snatched at the spells, tearing and knotting them, until they were in as fine a muddle as before.
The witch and Sootica left him at it when they set out on their broomstick some time later.
Gobbolino toiled a little longer and then fell asleep, utterly weary, beside the tangle of spells.
His sister and the witch returned at dawn. The witch went straight to bed, but Sootica trotted to his side and woke him up.
“Brother! Brother! Wake up! Where are the spells? Don’t you know my mistress will throw you down the mountainside if they are not ready by sunset?”
“I can’t do it! Indeed I cannot!” sobbed Gobbolino, sitting up while the tears sprang to his beautiful blue eyes. “My goodness, what shall I do? What shall I do?”
“Don’t cry, brother. I will help you this time, just for once!” said Sootica, and with a few deft twists of her paw the spells fell apart and lay in neat piles upon the cavern floor. “There, that is how it is done! Thus! – and thus! – and thus! Now you will know for another time! Goodnight, brother, and try to be a better cat, or my mistress will certainly throw you down the mountainside!”
“Yes, sister!” replied Gobbolino meekly, as he too curled up and slept again.
The next night the witch set Gobbolino to catch a hundred lizards for her in the rocks round the cavern. She wanted to make a very strong kind of spell, and in order to make it she must have a hundred lizards first.
So while she and Sootica flew away on the broomstick Gobbolino trotted out among the rocks, but although he saw thousands of lizards, green, scarlet, and blue ones, all frisking about in the moonlight, he could not catch a single one.
They knew all the tricks he had learned as a kitten, for they had not lived in witch-country for nothing.
When he turned himself into a piece of cheese they laughed at him and squealed like mice. When he changed into a fly they mocked and danced about the rocks like a thousand bluebottles. When he became invisible they held their sides and told him just exactly where he was hiding. Not one would come within a paw’s length of him.
At last, tired out, Gobbolino crept into the cavern and fell asleep, and there his sister Sootica found him when she returned at sunrise with her mistress the witch, who went straight to sleep, wrapped in her cloak in the corner.
“Brother! Brother! Wake up, brother!” cried Sootica, shaking the sleeping Gobbolino with her paw. “Where are the hundred lizards my mistress wanted? Don’t you know she will throw you down the mountainside if she does not have them by sundown?”
“Oh, I couldn’t catch them, sister, indeed I could not!” sobbed Gobbolino, waking up in a hurry. “I tried and tried! They mocked and laughed at me, and would not come near me! I never even caught one, sister, and oh, my goodness, whatever is to become of me?”
“Don’t cry, brother! I will help you, just this once!” said his sister Sootica, trotting out into the daylight with Gobbolino at her heels.
Out on the rocks she sat upright looking at the sun and admiring her shadow and very soon the lizards peeped out in their thousands to look at her.
“I can see you all,” said Sootica sedately. “I came out to look at you and to catch a hundred of you, if I can, for my mistress to put in her spell.”
“Oh, you can’t catch us!” said the lizards, wriggling with delight. “Your stupid brother has been at it all day, and he hasn’t so much as touched our tails!”
“Catch you indeed!” said Sootica with great contempt. “Why, I should not even try! For one thing, I do not expect there are fifty of you, far less a hundred, that are fine enough for what my mistress requires!”
This made the lizards very indignant.
“Fine enough?” they chattered. “Why, look at me! – and me! – and me! – and me!” and they came scuttling out of their holes to show Sootica how fine and handsome they were.
“Why, yes!” she said. “You will do – and you! – and you! – and you!” So saying she scooped up the first hundred that showed themselves in her paw, and stalked with them into the cavern.
“Why, how clever you are, sister!” said Gobbolino admiringly, trotting at Sootica’s heels. “I played all the tricks I knew upon them, but they would not come near me!”
“Ah! You would never catch such lizards as these by witches’ tricks,” said Sootica wisely. “They live too near our cavern and are always in and out – they pick up everything. Go to bed now, brother, and try to be a better cat. Good-day to you.”