"Why she's nothing but a little girl!" cried Handy, positively aghast at such a state of affairs. "How could a little mite like that rule a whole country and be so bossy?"
"Oh, hush!" begged Nox, rolling his eyes anxiously. "Mite or not, Ozma is a mighty powerful and important fairy."
"Well, we're pretty important ourselves," sniffed the Goat Girl, squinting at the poster with all her arms akimbo. "And besides," Handy lifted her chin defiantly, "we've broken the law already when we used your gold horn of plenty. 'Practice no magic.' Hoh! What does she expect us to do with good magic right at hand—starve? But, ho ho! We can get around that, old Toggins. After all, we are not practicing magic, we don't have to practice it—our magic is perfect, so put that in your pipe and smoke it Miss Ozma to Bozma." Snatching up a rock in each of her seven hands, Handy flung them hilariously over a clump of prune trees. (Yes, prunes already wrinkled grow in the Land of Oz.) There was an uncomfortable little silence after Handy's rash outburst, then a perfect tempest of shrieks and screeches.
"Now, see what you've done," gulped the Ox, switching his tail nervously. "Quick, quick, jump on my back and we'll rush by. These chaps look dangerous."
"Why, they have HOOK noses!" sputtered Handy, too startled to move, as a band of kilted Highlanders came racing down toward them. The noses of these singular Hill-men were long and thin, curving out and up far above their foreheads. On these hooks hung dangerous looking rings almost as large as barrel hoops. While Handy was wondering what they could be for, the nearest Hooker pulled a ring from his nose and flung it with all his might at her head.
"Up. UP!" bellowed Nox, pawing the ground in his agitation. "Are you going to stand there till you are pegged like a top?" The iron ring missed Handy by mere inches and grasping Nox's horn she pulled herself to his back. There were about sixty of the hook noses, and swinging to the left, Nox tried to skirt the war-like tribe, but they were too quick for him, and spreading out in a long line they began hurling their wicked whizzing weapons. One caught neatly on the horn of the Royal Ox, another hit Handy a horrid blow on the knee, and as Nox, snorting and furious turned to run, a dozen more came whanging down about their ears. Dodging left and right, Handy Mandy leaned forward and began to unscrew Nox's right horn.
"'Be good to us and we'll be good to you!' HOH! Like fun you will!" muttered the Goat Girl, catching six of the flying missiles in her clever hands and tossing them back with all her might. "Take that and these and them and THOSE!" Pulling off the Ox's horn with the only hand she had left, she added desperately, "I wish a barrel of molasses over the head of each Hook Nose in this band. Cats, Bats and Billy Goats! They've GOT me!" And they had, too, for just as Handy finished her wish, down flashed an iron ring pinioning her arms tightly to her sides. Still grasping the precious horn, Handy dug her heels into Nox.
"Hurt?" grunted the Ox, leaping forward.
"Not hurt, just hooked and humiliated, can't move a muscle," raged the Goat Girl. "But ha ha! Neither can they! LOOK!" Nox, who had been bellowing too hard to hear Handy's wish or miss his horn glanced back hurriedly.
"Why! What's come over them?" he wheezed in astonishment. "Who snuffed them out with barrels and what's that sticky fluid running all around?"
"Molasses," Handy told him with extreme satisfaction as she tried vainly to wriggle out of her ring. "I wished barrels of molasses on their heads and we'd better dash on while they're stopped and stuck with it."
"Then you've been breaking the law again," reproached Nox, dodging in and out and around their frantic enemies.
"Well, as between broken heads and broken laws, I choose the laws. Besides, look what they did to me!" exclaimed the Goat Girl indignantly. "I may never get this hoop off or be able to lift a hand again. Nice people you have in Oz, I must say."
"If you hadn't hit them with stones, they wouldn't have hit us with hoops," Nox reminded her sternly, at the same time breaking into a gallop to put as much distance as possible between himself and the troublesome Gillikins. A few had managed to lift the barrels from their heads, but most of them were rolling over and over on the ground, half choked with rage and molasses.
"When we stop I think I can help you," promised Nox, looking anxiously at Handy, who was now quite purple in the face from her struggles with the hoop. "Just forget it, can't you, and think of the interesting people we are meeting. I'll wager you have no hook noses on Mt. Mern!"
"I should say NOT!" sputtered the Goat Girl in disgust, and then realizing she was making no progress with the ring, sensibly gave up the attempt to free herself. Somewhat comforted by the thought that the Hook Noses were probably as uncomfortable as she was, Handy kept a sharp lookout for natives. If they ran into any more she wanted to be sure of seeing them first.
But the rocky hills and glades were entirely deserted and at every step the way became more mountainous and lonely. Nox, panting and wheezing from the long pull, slackened his pace to a walk. Handy Mandy with some difficulty managed to dismount, and the Ox slipping his horn under the offending ring, gently forced it upward till the Goat Girl was able to wiggle free. Then together they climbed up the flinty inclines—up and up till they came to a wide ledge and a sparkling waterfall. Here they had a drink without having to wish for one, Nox sticking his head right into the water and Handy cupping three pairs of her hands to hold enough to satisfy her thirst.
"Ho hum," sighed the Ox, "I wonder how much farther we'll have to go before we can find anyone who can direct us to this Silver Mountain? I'm sure I saw some castles when we were below."
"So did I," said Handy, screwing his right horn back with a businesslike flourish. "My—y, seems a long time since we started from Keretaria. Do you suppose they have missed us yet?"
"Probably," yawned the Ox, scratching his back against a rock, while Handy, suddenly deciding she needed another drink, stepped close to the waterfall. But instead of quenching her thirst, the Goat Girl spilled water all over her feet.
"Nox! Nox!" she screamed, jerking all her thumbs in his direction. "Come! Look here! There's a big hollow behind this waterfall—a high wall of rock with a door in it! I can see it!"
"Well," sniffed the Ox, rubbing his back luxuriously, "does it say 'come in'? Must we try every door we come to?"
"Yes," Handy Mandy told him firmly, "we must! Where there's a door there's bound to be a door-keeper or at least someone who might tell us where we are. Now then, I'll jump through the waterfall first and knock on the door. There wouldn't be room for you on the ledge until the door is open."
"Sounds risky!" objected the Royal Ox, putting back his ears. "What kind of people would live behind a waterfall? Ask yourself that." But the Goat Girl, without stopping to ask herself anything, had already plunged through the misty sheet of water, and gasping and spluttering was hammering on the door with all seven of her fists.
CHAPTER 9
The Magic Hammer
There was no answer to Handy's loud knocks, and pausing to catch her breath and blow on her fingers, the Goat Girl wondered what to try next. Then, in spite of Nox's warning bellow, she began to shove and push the wet planks with her shoulder. But that did no good either, so she felt in her pocket for something to use as a wedge. Almost at once her fingers closed on the silver hammer they had ploughed up in Keretaria. While the hammer would not do for a wedge, it would at least save her knuckles, so, lifting it high above her head, Handy Mandy brought it down with a resounding whack. A shower of silver sparks followed the hammer blow, and Nox, peering through the waterfall saw a gnarled and crooked elf with a purple beard dancing madly round the startled girl.
sang the elf between his high leaps and prances.
"Then open this door," directed Handy, spinning round in a circle herself to get a good look at the little fellow. "My—y, how funny Oz is! Magic horns, Topsies, Hook Noses and now you! Don't tell me a little body like you can really open this great heavy door?"
In a daze Handy Mandy picked up the hammer and put it back in her pocket, and Nox, thunderstruck by the whole proceeding thrust his head through the waterfall just in time to see the knobby little gnome push the door open with one thump of his brown fist. Quick as a flash Handy was on the other side.
"Come on! Come on!" she called hoarsely to Nox. "Can't you see it's closing? Oh mercy—ercy, do you want to leave me here all alone?"
"Yes!" snorted Nox in an exasperated voice, but jumping as he snorted. "I'd like nothing better." As he came to 'better,' he landed on the other side of the waterfall and skidded through the open door into the mountain. He had just time to tuck in his tail, when the door with an ominous creak slammed shut.
"Now, see what you've done!" gasped Nox, eyeing the gloomy interior with distaste and foreboding. "I—thought—you—were going to be a help to me and all—puff—splutter—you do is get me into trouble! What sort of place is this anyway?"
"A c-c-ave," quavered Handy, wrapping all her arms tightly round herself. "My—y, it's so high—igh, I can hardly see the top. Where's that elf?"
"Gone!" sighed the Ox, taking a cautious step forward. "But I expect he'll come back at the first tap of that hammer. All very puzzling if you ask me."
"Well, shall I call him back?" asked Handy uneasily. "It's kinda lonely in here and maybe Himself could tell us where we are."
"Better wait till we need him," advised the Ox. "After all, we know we are in a cave, seems to be of silver rock, too. Just cast your eye at those stalactites, m'lass."
"So that's what you call 'em," the Goat Girl glanced curiously up at the silver icicles hanging in jagged points from the ceiling. "We have caves on Mt. Mern, but nothing like this." She looked apprehensively round the silent cavern, from which a perfect honeycomb of passageways branched off in all directions. "A fine place to get lost, I'd call it," she shivered, moving as close as she could to her companion. "What makes this lavender light? I see no lamps."
"Jewels!" confided the Ox in a hushed voice. "See, there are hundreds of amethysts embedded in those rocks, each glowing like—"
"An eye!" finished Handy nervously. "And all watching us, I dare say. My—y, do you suppose anyone lives here? But they must—" Unwinding her arms, Handy suddenly began snapping all thirty-five of her fingers. "Nox, Nox!" she cried excitedly. "I've just thought of something!"
"Can't you think without shouting?" asked the Ox, flashing his eyes suspiciously from left to right.
"No," said Handy triumphantly, "for this is something to shout about. Look, old Toggins, if this is a silver cave, why wouldn't a Silver Mountain be on top? All we have to do is open that door and start climbing again."
"As I remember there was a sheer precipice back of the waterfall, how could we climb that? No, no! The best thing for us to do is to travel down one of the passageways and hope it will bring us out on the side of the mountain itself."
"Yes, but which one?" demanded the Goat Girl. "There are about a hundred it seems to me."
"Let's try that first one to the right," proposed the Ox judiciously. Their voices echoed and reverberated back and forth so uncannily in the big hollow cavern that almost without realizing it they began to talk in whispers and tread as softly as thieves in the night. Half-way to their destination they stopped, rigid with horror and consternation. Thumping footsteps were coming toward them from the labyrinth on the left.
"Someone does live here, after all," said the Goat Girl. "Someone who weighs a ton. Hark to that!"
"Watch yourself!" warned Nox, planting all four feet and making ready to charge if the cave dweller proved unfriendly.
"Oh, my aunt—a GIANT!" With a shrill scream Handy flung all her arms round Nox's neck and buried her face in his shoulder. Poor Nox, nearly strangled by the Goat Girl's embrace could neither move nor speak and could scarcely breathe. With rolling eyes and quaking legs he watched the monster approach. The Giant's body, almost ten times the size of a grizzly bear, was encased in a tight purple uniform with bells instead of buttons that jingled whenever he moved. He wore a huge silver helmet, and his neck, almost a foot long, kept darting up and down as he shot his head in this direction and that.
"Ho! THERE you are!" he roared, suddenly catching sight of the two travellers trembling together in the center of the cavern. "How dare you enter the cave of the King of the Silver Mountain without invitation or permission?"
"Then this really IS the Silver Mountain!" marveled Handy, twisting her apron nervously in her wooden fingers.
"Of course!" yelled the giant, thumping the floor with an enormous silver club. "And I, Snorpus the Mighty, am Keeper of the Hidden Door. I am OUTKEEPER for this whole mountain," he boasted truculently expanding his chest and looking complacently down at the two midgets at his feet. But something in his manner began to reassure the Goat Girl.
"I'll bet he's dumb as he's big," she confided hurriedly to Nox. Then raising her voice and all of her arms, she called up loudly, "Then you must indeed be strong and sturdy!"
"Oh, I AM!" bawled the Giant, twirling his silver moustache and fixing Handy for a moment with his glittering eye. "Snorpus the Door Keeper is strong as an OX!" There was something very peculiar about the eye of the Giant. It seemed to revolve on a moving belt, peering out as it passed through the four wide open lids set at intervals round the top of his head, so that half the time he was looking the other way.
"Did you ever see an ox?" inquired Handy politely as the eye of Snorpus again flashed by.
"No, but I'd like to," admitted the Giant, shooting his head out to the side.
"Well, this is an ox," cried Handy, tapping the anxious beast at her side with a rubber hand. "And if you are strong as an ox you are strong as Nox and nothing much can stop you."
"How strong is he?" asked Snorpus, lowering himself stiffly to one knee in order to get a look at what he had first supposed to be a small and insignificant animal.
"So strong," explained the Goat Girl impressively, as she pointed with all hands to the side of the cave, "that if he so much as bumped into that wall yonder, this whole cavern would collapse like a pack of cards."
"Then I hope he'll be very careful," faltered Snorpus, taking out a huge silk handkerchief to mop his forehead. "It would annoy the King frightfully if you destroyed his cavern, and I might even lose my head and position here."
"Oh, he'll be careful," promised Handy Mandy generously. "He, being an ox, and you being strong as an ox, makes us all friends, doesn't it?"
"I—I suppose so," muttered Snorpus, tapping his knee uncertainly with his club. "But just the same, I am still the outkeeper and must do my duty at all hazards. AT ALL HAZARDS!" he shouted, standing up to give himself courage and puffing out his cheeks like a porpoise.
"But you have done your duty," bellowed Nox in a voice even louder than the door keeper's. "If we were outside the mountain it would be your plain duty to keep us there, but since we are already inside, you have nothing more to do with us. Isn't that so?" Lowering his head, Nox made a little lunge at the Giant's shins. And backing away, Snorpus gave the pair several long puzzled looks.
"Well, then," he decided finally, "if I have nothing more to do with you, you had best come along to the King."
"That is exactly what we wish to do," answered the Goat Girl promptly.
"My, you are brave, aren't you?" The Giant's eye flashed for a moment in real admiration upon Handy Mandy, then, picking up his club, he began clumping away to the left.
"Now I wonder what he meant by that?" puffed Nox, for they both had to run to even keep the Giant in sight.
"I don't know," gasped Handy, "but never mind what he means. We still have your golden horn and the silver hammer and will manage somehow. But imagine getting right inside the Silver Mountain and never knowing it!"
"Yes, and we may go out the same way," predicted the Royal Ox gloomily, following the Giant down the wide glittering corridor. "I never did like these tunnely places or people."
CHAPTER 10
The King of the Silver Mountain
"I hear water," worried Handy as Snorpus suddenly vanished round a bend in the corridor. "Oh, dear—ear, I do hope we won't have to go swimming again."
"Then mind your manners!" warned the Royal Ox, giving his horns a little shake. "Remember it is safer to keep on the right side of Kings and Giants, and if we are to learn anything about Kerry we must be extremely patient and polite."
A loud gasp interrupted Nox's speech, for Handy Mandy, well in the lead, had also stepped round the bend. Hastening to catch up with her, the Ox, too, gave an involuntary exclamation of wonder and astonishment.
The silver corridor had brought them into a second cavern, smaller than the entrance cave, but so light and lacy, so bright and beautiful, for once Handy Mandy stood perfectly speechless. The silver sides of the dome-shaped grotto had been carved to show all the historical figures and characters of ancient Oz. Wizards, giants, knights, witches, huntsmen, robbers, kings, queens and their patient subjects marched in a splendid procession round the walls. Sparkling lavender sand covered the floor and a lake of shimmering quicksilver took up the entire center, lapping the shore with its swift soundless waves. On a small island of purest amethyst in the middle of this lake the King of the Silver Mountain reclined at ease. His back was toward the newcomers and he seemed lost in some deep and entirely satisfactory contemplation.
"A king, if I ever saw one," breathed Nox moistly in Handy's ear. With a wordless nod the Goat Girl agreed, for in this long, indolent yet majestic figure Handy felt she was seeing royalty for the first time. The unusual height of the silver monarch was at once apparent and his tight-fitting suit of deepest purple, without ornament save for his jeweled belt and sword, set off his handsome figure to the best advantage. His hair, of an astonishing thickness, was as silver as his cavern. When he turned his head, as he presently did at a little cough from Snorpus, Handy saw that his eyes were of a clear and piercing violet. Quietly and without hurry, the Silver King rose and, picking up his filigreed crown, set it firmly on his head. Then, retrieving a long-stemmed pipe from a crevice in the rock, he established himself in a seat carved from the amethyst and looked inquiringly across at his visitors.
"So," he whistled, his eyes sparkling with lively interest as they rested for a long moment on the Goat Girl. "Two very, VERY clever travellers."
"Why do you say that?" blurted out Handy, and was instantly overcome at her own boldness in speaking to so grand a person.
"The fact that you are here in this cavern proves you are clever," answered the King, leaning over to fill his pipe in the quicksilver lake. "You have opened the door in the mountain that does not open; passed the impassable guardian and keeper of that door—SNORPUS!!" The King's pleasant voice changed so quick and cruelly, Handy almost lost her balance. "What have you to say for yourself, you lazy Bozwokel?" roared His Majesty, his eyes flashing flinty sparks of purple. "I'll have you potted for this, potted and reduced to a smithering smith, do you hear?"
Poor Snorpus, who could not have helped hearing the King's booming sentence, dropped to his knees and began pleading, explaining and blubbering all in the same breath. Even Nox, startled as he was, tried to put in a good word for him. But the muttering monarch, paying no attention to any of them, had lifted his silver pipe to his lips and an enormous bubble was rising from the bowl. Handy, with chattering teeth, watched the bubble grow larger and larger, float off the pipe and hover over the unlucky head of the Giant. As Snorpus tried in vain to dodge, the bubble broke with the sound like a doomsday bell, enveloping him in a cloudy mist. When it cleared away, the Giant was indeed reduced, coming now scarcely to Handy's shoulder.
"How about it, shall we run?" whispered the Goat Girl as the King began to blow another bubble. "Boy, do I feel a draft!"
"But he's not mad at us!" answered the Ox, ducking nervously as the second bubble soared over their heads. "Wait! Be patient, remember the little King." As Nox finished speaking the bubble sailed off and away down one of the silver corridors leading away from the royal cavern. Presently they heard a bell ringing in the distance as the bubble broke, and before you could say Pop Robinson seventy silver-jacketed little bell boys came trotting into the cave.
"Take this poor failure to Nifflepok and see that he is potted," directed the King sternly, setting down his bubble pipe. "Have Timano guard the mountain door and see that I am not disturbed. Important matters have come up this morning, important matters!"
"Yes! Yes! Your Highness! It shall be done, Your Excellency!" mumbled the bell boys, pushing poor Snorpus ahead of them.
"Watch yourselves! Watch yourselves!" warned the little Giant as he was rudely hustled out of the royal presence.
"Now," smiled the Silver King, positively beaming upon his visitors, "now we can proceed with our conversation. Sorry to trouble you with this small matter, but discipline, as the old army officers will tell you, discipline must be maintained."
"Humph!" sniffed Handy Mandy under her breath, looking with dislike and disillusion at the royal figure on the rocks. "The Giant was right, you're a fellow who'll bear watching." Fortunately her words did not carry, and lazily glancing at them through his long purple lashes the Silver King continued his speech.
"Since you have so easily entered my mountain," he observed blandly, "I assume you have some powerful magic treasure or appliance in your possession. Am I right?" At the sudden forward lurch of the Royal Ox and Handy Mandy's surprised expression, the King gave a satisfied little nod. "Fine!" he chuckled, rubbing his hands together briskly. "And now, let us waste no more time. WHO sent you? WHAT have you to offer? As you doubtless know, the Wizard of Wutz pays well for magic treasures and formulas."
"Wizard!" choked Handy Mandy, carelessly clapping her iron hand to her forehead and knocking herself over backward. "Wizard!" she repeated, dazedly picking herself up. "But I thought you were a King?"
"I am both!" stated the owner of the cavern proudly. "I am King of the Silver Mountain and also the Wizard of Wutz, second in importance only to Glinda and the Wizard of Oz. And, ha! ha! it won't be long before I am the ONLY wizard, the sole, supreme and only Wizard of Oz! Not long! Not long!" Again the Silver King rubbed his hands exultantly together. "I have my secret agents in every Kingdom in this country and even in the Emerald City of Oz," he told them impressively. "I already have the Record Book of Glinda, the Good Sorceress, and many more of the magic treasures of Oz, and soon I will have them all—ALL! My agents are clever and I have trained them well."
"But I thought magic was against the law!" cried Nox with an outraged snort. "I understood no one was allowed to practice magic but Ozma, Glinda and the Wizard of Oz!"
"Then why are you here?" demanded Wutz sternly. "YOU have been practicing magic or you could not have entered this mountain. Come, now, let us stop all this nonsense and get down to silver tacks and business. What have you to offer? Who sent you—Three, Six, Nine, Five or Eleven?"
As you can imagine, this was perfect jargon to Nox and the Goat Girl, but Handy Mandy, convinced by this time that the Silver King was both sly and dangerous, resolved to fall in with his little supposition and see what would come of it.
"Nine sent us," she answered boldly, while Nox looked across at her in perfect stupefaction.
"You don't say! I rather thought you came from the Munchkin Country," mused the Wizard. "Something in the way the Ox talked, though you, yourself, are not a native Ozian?"
"No!" Handy said noncommittally, and rather pleased she had chosen Nine, since this number had something to do with the Munchkins.
"Did Nine say anything about the silver hammer?" asked the King, twinkling his eyes at the Goat Girl.
"He told us nothing," stated Handy quite truthfully, this time.
"That's Nine for you," fumed the King discontentedly. "He's the slowest and most unsatisfactory agent I have. Two years searching for that hammer and no report yet. I've a good notion to kick him out and put little King Kerry back on the throne. A bargain's a bargain and I've kept my part. Besides, I've got to have that hammer before I can make myself supreme ruler in Oz. Why, it's the second most important magic in the four Kingdoms!" At this surprising statement Handy pricked up her ears.
"What did you say about Kerry?" panted Nox, almost stepping into the quicksilver lake at mention of the little King.
"Nothing. I was talking about Nine," scowled the Wizard. "If that fellow does not show some action soon, I'll—I'll—" The King clenched his fists and looked so terribly angry that Handy was afraid he was going to blow bubbles again. But instead he glared across the lake and demanded impatiently, "Well, if you didn't bring the silver hammer, what did you bring?"
"A magic flower," explained the Goat Girl hurriedly, and before Nox could give away the fact that they did have the silver hammer. She could guess from the expression in his eye that he was about to offer the hammer in exchange for Kerry.
"A flower!" bawled Wutz, his face turning from red to purple. "My caves are full of flowers, frosted silver lilies, long-stemmed sterling roses, daisies and violets with jeweled centers. I can grow any kind of flower I wish. How dare you take up my time with a flower! PAH! Go back and tell Nine he had better look out—he's flirting with dismissal and destruction."
"But this flower saves you from injury when you fall," stammered Handy, heartily wishing she had never got herself into such a controversy.
"Fall!" sneered the Silver King, simply bounding off his throne. "I NEVER fall!" and had hardly finished speaking before he caught his toe on a jutting amethyst and pitched headlong to the rocks. Horrified, and without waiting for the irate monarch to regain his feet, Handy and Nox began to run toward one of the outgoing corridors, the Goat Girl colliding as she ran with a plump little dignitary in a jeweled robe and high hat.
"Your Highness! Your Highness!" puffed the little fat man, stopping long enough to glare at Handy Mandy. "At last our efforts are to be crowned with success! Five has but this moment arrived with—with—"
"With what?" demanded the King, springing lightly as a cat to his feet. "With a jug," exulted the little fat man, tossing his high hat into the air. "With a jug that was Rug and the magic picture of Queen Ozma herself."
"Ah, SPLENDID!" beamed the monarch, who could turn his smiles and rages on and off like electric lights. "That will be a lesson to those Emerald City-ites!" Then suddenly remembering Handy and Nox and his undignified fall, he shouted shrilly:
"Stop those imposters! Stop them, Nifflepok, and lock them up in the prison pits till I have time to demolish them. Hah! We'll pot the Ox's tongue, make soup of his tail, saddles and boots of his hide and use his head for a hat rack. As for that seven-armed monstrosity, she shall work in the polishing caves for the rest of her stupid life."
"I'll polish your nose first!" promised Handy, shaking all her fists at the King.
"Better come quiet," warned Nifflepok, looking so worried Handy felt a little sorry for him. "Wutz'll blow bubbles if you make him too mad, and that'll be much worse than being locked up, you know."
"Oh, let's go with the Little High-Hat," groaned Nox, blinking his eyes at Handy to remind her they still had his horns and the silver hammer. "For my part, I'd like a little peace and quiet."
"Take 'em away! Take 'em away!" ordered the King, stamping up and down his rocky island. "Send in Five! Send in Five at once!"
"Come along, then," said Nifflepok, being careful to keep out of the way of Nox's horns. "Come, give me your hand, maiden. Not that one! Not THAT one!" he howled dismally as the Goat Girl clasped his outstretched fingers in her iron hand. "Let go! Let go!"
"Let's go! Let's go!" chuckled Handy Mandy mischievously. And squealing with pain the little Minister hurried them down a long dim passageway.
CHAPTER 11
Down to the Prisoners' Pit!
"Oh! Oh! Give me another hand and I'll do my best to help you," sputtered Nifflepok, as Handy Mandy ruthlessly continued to squeeze his fingers.
"We'll help ourselves, thank you," retorted the Goat Girl tartly. Then relenting a little, she relaxed her hold, for she could not help pitying Nifflepok and all the subjects of this cruel King. "Where are these prison pits?" she asked impatiently, for she was anxious to be alone with Nox. "If you are going to lock us up, do hurry along with it."
"Yes, yes, absolutely yes!" moaned Nifflepok, glancing nervously over his shoulder to be sure the white Ox was not going to tread on his heels. "You'll be there in no time, no time at all," he assured them earnestly. "Step over here, please." Moving a sliding door in the wall of the corridor, the King's assistant waved them toward a smooth wheelless silver carriage. It looked to Handy a lot like an old-fashioned sleigh, and as there were seats in front and a space in back large enough for the Ox, she let go Nifflepok's hand and quite willingly climbed aboard. Nox, grunting a little, stepped over the side and settled himself behind her.
"Well, goodbye," sniffed Nifflepok, rubbing his bruised fingers tenderly. "You'll find everything you need below, not that you'll be needing anything," he added mournfully as he pulled out a silver switch. "Goodbye, I'm sorry for you!" he shouted as the car with a lurch that almost loosened Handy's teeth shot down a sliding runway to the deep pits of darkness below.
Now, you and I, who are used to scenic railways and have enjoyed the thrills of chute the chutes for years, would have been less startled by the wild dizzy leaps, the swoops, curves and climbs, and the sickening drops of the Silver King's chariot. But neither the Goat Girl nor the Royal Ox had ever heard of a scenic railway, much less ridden in one, and the underground car of the Silver Monarch was more like a chute the chutes than anything else. Sometimes the two travellers were in complete darkness, at other times they whirled by the narrow, well-lighted ledges of a queer cave city, where the subjects of the Mountain King lived in cell-like apertures in the silver rock like the cliff dwellers of old. Then without warning the car would plunge to the work caverns below, past the gloomy shafts of the silver mines, or dart up to the living quarters and grottos of the King himself, caves so lavishly furnished and glowing with jewels, Handy let out little shrieks of astonishment. In the King's subterranean gardens, silver swallows bathed in the silver fountains, silver maples rustled their lacy branches in the lavender-scented breezes, silver-petalled flowers with jeweled centers grew as riotously as daisies and buttercups in the upstairs world.
The mountaineers themselves, working listless with pick and shovel in the mines, or walking soberly along the ledges beside their little cliff dwellings, seemed undersized and unhappy to the Goat Girl. Not that she caught more than a flying glimpse of them as the silver car tore by. In fact, she was so frantically busy holding on to the front rail of the car with all her various hands and catching her breath after each dizzy swoop, that her mind was in a perfect whirl. The groans and snorts of Nox were far from reassuring, but afraid to look back lest she herself be flung out, Handy clung desperately to the rail wondering when the wild ride would end and where under the mountain the silver car was taking them. The last words of Nifflepok rang unpleasantly in her ears and as they raced by a cave marked "Potters Den" the Goat Girl positively shuddered. Here, set out in vast silver pots and buried to their chins in the silver earth, were scores of the King's pale-faced prisoners. A grim-looking gardener was watering them from a milk can, and from the hungry way they lapped up the few drops that fell to them, Handy concluded that this was probably their only food.
"First I shot over a mountain, and now I'm shooting through one!" moaned the distracted Goat Girl, trying to collect her spinning thoughts and faculties. "Oh, my—y, we're going to pot for sure. Oh, this time we are really done for!"
Then all at once Handy's good common sense began to assert itself. And as their strange chariot with a sudden increase of speed and power again dashed down into the darkness, she snatched the precious blue flower from her pocket and at the exact moment the silver car turned over and flung them into space, Handy began pulling the petals from the flower and letting them drift down ahead of her own rapidly falling body. It was just light enough for her to see Nox, with bristling horns and quivering nostrils, fall past, when she herself started to turn so many and such dizzy somersaults she lost all count of time and distance.
CHAPTER 12
Prisoners of the Wizard
What seemed to be hours later, though in reality it was only a few moments, the two luckless prisoners found themselves side by side on a heap of soft blue flower petals. They were in a small circular pit with one amethyst burning dimly in the grating that covered the top. The Goat Girl had no recollection of her final landing and gazing up at the grilled ceiling wondered dully how they had come through without being cut to pieces.
"It tilted," wheezed the Royal Ox, answering the unspoken question in Handy's eyes, "just tilted and slid us down. A fortunate thing you kept that magic flower, m'lass. Ha—rumph!" Weakly and still trembling in every limb, Nox tried to rise, but his legs gave way beneath him and for a good fifteen minutes he and the Goat Girl rested on the flower petals saying never a word. The tapping of footsteps in the corridor brought Handy quickly to her feet and as Nox managed to heave himself upright, the blue petals vanished, leaving only a tiny flower on the floor. Handy had just time to stuff it into her pocket when an invisible door in the side of the pit opened and twelve depressed workmen in silver cloth caps and overalls stepped inside. They carried brooms, mops and dust pans and stood staring in dismay at the seven-armed Goat Girl and angry-looking Ox.
"We—we were sent to brush up!" stuttered the first workman, touching his cap uneasily. "But—there—seems—"
"To be nothing to brush!" finished Handy sarcastically. "Sorry to disappoint you. Now get OUT!" ordered the Goat Girl furiously, and seizing buckets, brooms and mops from their nerveless fingers, Handy pummeled them left and right with her seven hands.
"Get out and don't come back till Christmas," she panted, as the workmen, tumbling over one another, clawed open the door and banged it to behind them. The knob was on the other side of the pit and not even the edges of the door were now visible.
"What a place!" groaned Handy Mandy, leaning dejectedly against the side of their prison. "What a King! And he looked so nice!" grieved the Goat Girl, sliding down to a sitting position and holding her head in all of her hands.
"Never mind," said the Ox, settling on the floor beside her. "He hasn't gotten the best of us yet. It was pretty clever of you to remember that flower, but what I can't understand, is why you did not tell him at once that we did have this silver hammer he is so anxious to possess? Then we could have traded the hammer for the release of Kerry."
"I don't trust him," answered the Goat Girl somberly. "Why I wouldn't trust that Wizard as far as a goat can butt. Didn't you hear him say the hammer was the second most important magic in Oz? Didn't you hear him say he was stealing and planning to steal the best magic from all the four Kingdoms to make himself supreme ruler of Oz? Well, now that Five has brought him this jug-a-rug or whatever it is and Ozma's own magic picture he's probably well on the way to realizing his ambitions. But he's not going to get our silver hammer. I found it, and I'm going to keep it, for it's far safer with me than with him. Do you suppose we're going to help an old Bozzywog like that? What good would it do to put Kerry back on his throne if Wutz is to be Ruler of Oz? He'd probably pot all the Kings and keep everything for himself."
"Very probably," agreed Nox, wagging his head mournfully. "But what are we to do? Are we an army to fight a mountain full of silver moles and minions, are we magicians to risk our necks with this wizard? Besides," Nox's face grew thin and anxious, "if Wutz has treated Kerry the way he has treated us, the boy needs us right now and this very minute."
"But didn't you hear him say he'd put Kerry back on the throne if Nine did not soon find the hammer?" put in Handy patiently. "That proves the little King is still here, and safe. Of course we must find him and get him out of this miserable mountain, but we're not going to give Wutz our hammer or any help at all, and he can put that in his silver pipe and blow bubbles till he bursts," said Handy vindictively. "Now the thing to do is to rest and eat, and then set ourselves to find the way out of this pit and this mountain. Wutz and Nifflepok think we're all swept away by this time. Besides, they'll be too busy talking with Five to bother us. So first to eat and then to think!" proposed Handy in a businesslike manner.
"Perhaps you're right," sighed the Ox, "but I'll not have an easy moment till we're out of this magic mountain. That ride!" Nox lashed his tail and rolled his eyes at the mere thought of their dash down the underground railway. "Did you ever experience anything like it in your life?"
"Well," grinned Handy, "it's one way of seeing the country, I suppose. But let's not look back, old Toggins, let's look ahead. Remember we still have the Dwarf of the Hammer on our side and when we are ready to leave he'll surely show us the way."
"Not before I put a few gores in that Wizard's pants and plans," rumbled Nox belligerently. "I'll teach him to take liberties with the Royal Ox of Keretaria."
"Hi—yigh! That's the old Oz spirit!" cheered Handy, reaching out to touch his golden horn. "Horn, dear, just serve two dinners, and no fooling." Unscrewing Nox's horn of plenty as she spoke, the Goat Girl held it quietly in her wooden hand. And there was certainly no fooling about the two splendid dinners the horn delivered in answer to Handy's wish. Never had she eaten a more appetizing repast and half of the prison pit was taken up by the fresh hay, fruit and grains brought to satisfy the hunger of the Royal Ox. So, forgetting for a time their awful danger and their disagreeable imprisonment, the two adventurers refreshed themselves, and after the dishes and containers had disappeared, settled down to evolve some plan to outwit the Wizard of Wutz.
CHAPTER 13
In the Emerald City of Oz
Ten days before the Goat Girl left Mt. Mern, a weary and footsore pilgrim arrived in the Emerald City. At least, he gave that impression to all who saw him shuffling with his long staff and beggar's cup along the shining streets of the capital. The man's head was clean shaven and his small cap, coarse belted robe and sandals marked him as a monk of some old and ancient order. He nodded gently to each person he passed, and seemed, in spite of his many years and wrinkles, innocent and harmless as a child. The splendor and magnificence of the capital astonished and bewildered the old gentleman and in a sort of stupefied disbelief he stared at the emerald studded streets and houses, and gazed up at the lofty peaks and spires of the royal palace. And this was not strange, for of all the fairy cities out of the world, the Emerald City of Oz is the most dazzling and beautiful. But its citizens are kindly and simple, for all that, and many stopped to drop emeralds in the pilgrim's cup and ask him if there was anything else that he needed. To all he mumbled in a strange and indistinguishable tongue and seeing that he was bound for the palace, and sure that Ozma herself would know best how to deal with him, the Emerald City-ites let him go his way unmolested.
The afternoon was warm and pleasant, and Ozma and some of her favorites were having a lazy game of croquet in the royal garden. The click of the gold mallets as they tapped the gold balls presently attracted the attention of the old wayfarer, who paused to peer curiously over the hedge. The simple summer dresses of the girls in the garden seemed out of all keeping with their majestic surroundings. Except for Ozma's frock, which was longer, the emerald crown on her dark curls, and the golden circlets worn by her three companions, they might have been any four little girls playing croquet in a garden. But all around were the unmistakable signs of rank and royalty. At ease under a lime tree stood a tall soldier with green whiskers leaning on his gun. Three footmen in satin uniforms stood stiffly beside an emerald topped tea table, ready at a moment's notice to serve Ozade and frosted cake. On a gold bench nearby, a straw stuffed scarecrow was quietly reading the paper, and walking arm in arm down a little path talking composedly together were an energetic little man with a bald head and a curious fellow who seemed to be constructed entirely of copper. To all who are familiar with the quaint and merry folk at Ozma's court, there would be nothing odd about a live scarecrow or a mechanical man, and most of us would have recognized Ozma's companions at once as Dorothy, Betsy and Trot, three mortal girls who long ago came to live in the royal palace.
It was Dorothy who had discovered the Scarecrow on her first visit to Oz, lifting him down from his pole and traveling in his gay and carefree company all the way to the Emerald City. In those days the Wizard of Oz had been ruler of the country, he himself having flown in a balloon from Omaha. Astonished by the circus tricks of this little fellow, the Ozians believing him to be a real wizard, made him their sovereign, and under his wise rule and direction, built the now famous City of Emeralds. The sight of Dorothy had made the humbug wizard homesick, and after presenting the Scarecrow with a fine set of brains, he flew off to America in a balloon of his own construction, leaving the straw man to rule in his place. Afterward, when Ozma was disenchanted and proved to be the rightful ruler of Oz, the Scarecrow had cheerfully resigned. But he still spends most of his time in the palace and is one of Ozma's most trusted friends and counselors. Later the Wizard himself returned to Oz and this time took up the study of magic with such zeal and earnestness he was soon famous from one end of the country to the other. This made him exceedingly valuable to the young fairy ruler, and he, like the Scarecrow, is an old and honored member of Ozma's cabinet.
It was the Wizard who was now talking so earnestly to Tik Tok. The Metal Man was another of Dorothy's discoveries. She met Tik Tok on her second visit to Oz and brought him to the Emerald City for safe keeping. Tik Tok, made by the firm of Smith and Tinker, is a completely mechanical man and a loyal and dependable citizen when he is properly wound up and oiled. Betsy and Trot, like Dorothy, arrived more or less by wind, wave and accident in the Land of Oz. They liked it so well and proved so gay and amusing, Ozma begged them to stay with her and Dorothy in the green castle and help rule the many merry Kingdoms that make up her wonderful empire. This they were only too happy to do, so here they are, Princesses in their own right and living in the most gorgeous City out of the world.