Dorothy, firmly. "I'm not used to taking cast-off things, so I'll just
keep my own head."
"You refuse?" cried the Princess, with a frown.
"Of course I do," was the reply.
"Then," said Langwidere, "I shall lock you up in a tower until you
decide to obey me. Nanda," turning to her maid, "call my army."
Nanda rang a silver bell, and at once a big fat colonel in a bright red
uniform entered the room, followed by ten lean soldiers, who all looked
sad and discouraged and saluted the princess in a very melancholy
fashion.
"Carry that girl to the North Tower and lock her up!" cried the
Princess, pointing to Dorothy.
"To hear is to obey," answered the big red colonel, and caught the child
by her arm. But at that moment Tiktok raised his dinner-pail and pounded
it so forcibly against the colonel's head that the big officer sat down
upon the floor with a sudden bump, looking both dazed and very much
astonished.
"Help!" he shouted, and the ten lean soldiers sprang to assist their
leader.
There was great excitement for the next few moments, and Tiktok had
knocked down seven of the army, who were sprawling in every direction
upon the carpet, when suddenly the machine paused, with the dinner-pail
raised for another blow, and remained perfectly motionless.
"My ac-tion has run down," he called to Dorothy. "Wind me up, quick."
She tried to obey, but the big colonel had by this time managed to get
upon his feet again, so he grabbed fast hold of the girl and she was
helpless to escape.
"This is too bad," said the machine. "I ought to have run six hours
lon-ger, at least, but I sup-pose my long walk and my fight with the
Wheel-ers made me run down fast-er than us-u-al."
"Well, it can't be helped," said Dorothy, with a sigh.
"Will you exchange heads with me?" demanded the Princess.
"No, indeed!" cried Dorothy.
"Then lock her up," said Langwidere to her soldiers, and they led
Dorothy to a high tower at the north of the palace and locked her
securely within. The soldiers afterward tried to lift Tiktok, but they
found the machine so solid and heavy that they could not stir it. So
they left him standing in the center of the drawing-room.
"People will think I have a new statue," said Langwidere, "so it won't
matter in the least, and Nanda can keep him well polished."
"What shall we do with the hen?" asked the colonel, who had just
discovered Billina in the work-basket.
"Put her in the chicken-house," answered the Princess. "Some day I'll
have her fried for breakfast."
"She looks rather tough, Your Highness," said Nanda, doubtfully.
"That is a base slander!" cried Billina, struggling frantically in the
colonel's arms. "But the breed of chickens I come from is said to be
poison to all princesses."
"Then," remarked Langwidere, "I will not fry the hen, but keep her to
lay eggs; and if she doesn't do her duty I'll have her drowned in the
horse trough."
[Illustration]
Ozma of Oz to the Rescue
[Illustration]
Nanda brought Dorothy bread and water for her supper and she slept upon
a hard stone couch with a single pillow and a silken coverlet.
In the morning she leaned out of the window of her prison in the tower
to see if there was any way to escape. The room was not so very high up,
when compared with our modern buildings, but it was far enough above the
trees and farm houses to give her a good view of the surrounding
country.
To the east she saw the forest, with the sands beyond it and the ocean
beyond that. There was even a dark speck upon the shore that she
thought might be the chicken-coop in which she had arrived at this
singular country.
Then she looked to the north, and saw a deep but narrow valley lying
between two rocky mountains, and a third mountain that shut off the
valley at the further end.
Westward the fertile Land of Ev suddenly ended a little way from the
palace, and the girl could see miles and miles of sandy desert that
stretched farther than her eyes could reach. It was this desert, she
thought, with much interest, that alone separated her from the wonderful
Land of Oz, and she remembered sorrowfully that she had been told no one
had ever been able to cross this dangerous waste but herself. Once a
cyclone had carried her across it, and a magical pair of silver shoes
had carried her back again. But now she had neither a cyclone nor silver
shoes to assist her, and her condition was sad indeed. For she had
become the prisoner of a disagreeable princess who insisted that she
must exchange her head for another one that she was not used to, and
which might not fit her at all.
Really, there seemed no hope of help for her from her old friends in the
Land of Oz. Thoughtfully she gazed from her narrow window. On all the
desert not a living thing was stirring.
Wait, though! Something surely _was_ stirring on the desert--something
her eyes had not observed at first. Now it seemed like a cloud; now it
seemed like a spot of silver; now it seemed to be a mass of rainbow
colors that moved swiftly toward her.
What _could_ it be, she wondered?
Then, gradually, but in a brief space of time nevertheless, the vision
drew near enough to Dorothy to make out what it was.
A broad green carpet was unrolling itself upon the desert, while
advancing across the carpet was a wonderful procession that made the
girl open her eyes in amazement as she gazed.
First came a magnificent golden chariot, drawn by a great Lion and an
immense Tiger, who stood shoulder to shoulder and trotted along as
gracefully as a well-matched team of thoroughbred horses. And standing
upright within the chariot was a beautiful girl clothed in flowing robes
of silver gauze and wearing a jeweled diadem upon her dainty head. She
held in one hand the satin ribbons that guided her astonishing team, and
in the other an ivory wand that separated at the top into two prongs,
the prongs being tipped by the letters "O" and "Z", made of glistening
diamonds set closely together.
The girl seemed neither older nor larger than Dorothy herself, and at
once the prisoner in the tower guessed, that the lovely driver of the
chariot must be that Ozma of Oz of whom she had so lately heard from
Tiktok.
Following close behind the chariot Dorothy saw her old friend the
Scarecrow, riding calmly astride a wooden Saw-Horse, which pranced and
trotted as naturally as any meat horse could have done.
And then came Nick Chopper, the Tin Woodman, with his funnel-shaped cap
tipped carelessly over his left ear, his gleaming axe over his right
shoulder, and his whole body sparkling as brightly as it had ever done
in the old days when first she knew him.
The Tin Woodman was on foot, marching at the head of a company of
twenty-seven soldiers, of whom some were lean and some fat, some short
and some tall; but all the twenty-seven were dressed in handsome
uniforms of various designs and colors, no two being alike in any
respect.
Behind the soldiers the green carpet rolled itself up again, so that
there was always just enough of it for the procession to walk upon, in
order that their feet might not come in contact with the deadly,
life-destroying sands of the desert.
[Illustration: THE MAGIC CARPET]
Dorothy knew at once it was a magic carpet she beheld, and her heart
beat high with hope and joy as she realized she was soon to be rescued
and allowed to greet her dearly beloved friends of Oz--the Scarecrow,
the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion.
Indeed, the girl felt herself as good as rescued as soon as she
recognized those in the procession, for she well knew the courage and
loyalty of her old comrades, and also believed that any others who came
from their marvelous country would prove to be pleasant and reliable
acquaintances.
As soon as the last bit of desert was passed and all the procession,
from the beautiful and dainty Ozma to the last soldier, had reached the
grassy meadows of the Land of Ev, the magic carpet rolled itself
together and entirely disappeared.
Then the chariot driver turned her Lion and Tiger into a broad roadway
leading up to the palace, and the others followed, while Dorothy still
gazed from her tower window in eager excitement.
They came quite close to the front door of the palace and then halted,
the Scarecrow dismounting from his Saw-Horse to approach the sign
fastened to the door, that he might read what it said.
Dorothy, just above him, could keep silent no longer.
[Illustration]
"Here I am!" she shouted, as loudly as she could. "Here's Dorothy!"
"Dorothy who?" asked the Scarecrow, tipping his head to look upward
until he nearly lost his balance and tumbled over backward.
"Dorothy Gale, of course. Your friend from Kansas," she answered.
"Why, hello, Dorothy!" said the Scarecrow. "What in the world are you
doing up there?"
"Nothing," she called down, "because there's nothing to do. Save me, my
friend--save me!"
"You seem to be quite safe now," replied the Scarecrow.
"But I'm a prisoner. I'm locked in, so that I can't get out," she
pleaded.
"That's all right," said the Scarecrow. "You might be worse off, little
Dorothy. Just consider the matter. You can't get drowned, or be run over
by a Wheeler, or fall out of an apple-tree. Some folks would think they
were lucky to be up there."
"Well, I don't," declared the girl, "and I want to get down immed'i'tly
and see you and the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion."
"Very well," said the Scarecrow, nodding. "It shall be just as you say,
little friend. Who locked you up?"
"The princess Langwidere, who is a horrid creature," she answered.
At this Ozma, who had been listening carefully to the conversation,
called to Dorothy from her chariot, asking:
"Why did the Princess lock you up, my dear?"
"Because," exclaimed Dorothy, "I wouldn't let her have my head for her
collection, and take an old, cast-off head in exchange for it."
[Illustration: "SAVE ME, MY FRIEND--SAVE ME!"]
"I do not blame you," exclaimed Ozma, promptly. "I will see the Princess
at once, and oblige her to liberate you."
"Oh, thank you very, very much!" cried Dorothy, who as soon as she heard
the sweet voice of the girlish Ruler of Oz knew that she would soon
learn to love her dearly.
Ozma now drove her chariot around to the third door of the wing, upon
which the Tin Woodman boldly proceeded to knock.
As soon as the maid opened the door Ozma, bearing in her hand her ivory
wand, stepped into the hall and made her way at once to the
drawing-room, followed by all her company, except the Lion, and the
Tiger. And the twenty-seven soldiers made such a noise and a clatter
that the little maid Nanda ran away screaming to her mistress, whereupon
the Princess Langwidere, roused to great anger by this rude invasion of
her palace, came running into the drawing-room without any assistance
whatever.
There she stood before the slight and delicate form of the little girl
from Oz and cried out;--
"How dare you enter my palace unbidden? Leave this room at once, or I
will bind you and all your people in chains, and throw you into my
darkest dungeons!"
[Illustration]
"What a dangerous lady!" murmured the Scarecrow, in a soft voice.
"She seems a little nervous," replied the Tin Woodman.
But Ozma only smiled at the angry Princess.
"Sit down, please," she said, quietly. "I have traveled a long way to
see you, and you must listen to what I have to say."
"Must!" screamed the Princess, her black eyes flashing with fury--for
she still wore her No. 17 head. "Must, to _me_!"
"To be sure," said Ozma. "I am Ruler of the Land of Oz, and I am
powerful enough to destroy all your kingdom, if I so wish. Yet I did not
come here to do harm, but rather to free the royal family of Ev from the
thrall of the Noma King, the news having reached me that he is holding
the Queen and her children prisoners."
Hearing these words, Langwidere suddenly became quiet.
"I wish you could, indeed, free my aunt and her ten royal children,"
said she, eagerly. "For if they were restored to their proper forms and
station they could rule the Kingdom of Ev themselves, and that would
save me a lot of worry and trouble. At present there are at least ten
minutes every day that I must devote to affairs of state, and I would
like to be able to spend my whole time in admiring my beautiful heads."
"Then we will presently discuss this matter," said Ozma, "and try to
find a way to liberate your aunt and cousins. But first you must
liberate another prisoner--the little girl you have locked up in your
tower."
[Illustration: "WHAT A DANGEROUS LADY!" MURMURED THE SCARECROW]
"Of course," said Langwidere, readily. "I had forgotten all about her.
That was yesterday, you know, and a Princess cannot be expected to
remember today what she did yesterday. Come with me, and I will release
the prisoner at once."
So Ozma followed her, and they passed up the stairs that led to the room
in the tower.
While they were gone Ozma's followers remained in the drawing-room, and
the Scarecrow was leaning against a form that he had mistaken for a
copper statue when a harsh, metallic voice said suddenly in his ear:
"Get off my foot, please. You are scratch-ing my pol-ish."
"Oh, excuse me!" he replied, hastily drawing back. "Are you alive?"
"No," said Tiktok, "I am on-ly a ma-chine. But I can think and speak and
act, when I am pro-per-ly wound up. Just now my ac-tion is run down, and
Dor-o-thy has the key to it."
"That's all right," replied the Scarecrow. "Dorothy will soon be free,
and then she'll attend to your works. But it must be a great misfortune
not to be alive. I'm sorry for you."
"Why?" asked Tiktok.
"Because you have no brains, as I have," said the Scarecrow.
"Oh, yes, I have," returned Tiktok. "I am fit-ted with Smith & Tin-ker's
Improved Com-bi-na-tion Steel Brains. They are what make me think. What
sort of brains are you fit-ted with?"
"I don't know," admitted the Scarecrow. "They were given to me by the
great Wizard of Oz, and I didn't get a chance to examine them before he
put them in. But they work splendidly and my conscience is very active.
Have you a conscience?"
"No," said Tiktok.
"And no heart, I suppose?" added the Tin Woodman, who had been listening
with interest to this conversation.
"No," said Tiktok.
"Then," continued the Tin Woodman, "I regret to say that you are greatly
inferior to my friend the Scarecrow, and to myself. For we are both
alive, and he has brains which do not need to be wound up, while I have
an excellent heart that is continually beating in my bosom."
"I con-grat-u-late you," replied Tiktok. "I can-not help be-ing your
in-fer-i-or for I am a mere ma-chine. When I am wound up I do my du-ty
by go-ing just as my ma-chin-er-y is made to go. You have no i-de-a how
full of ma-chin-er-y I am."
"I can guess," said the Scarecrow, looking at the machine man curiously.
"Some day I'd like to take you apart and see just how you are made."
"Do not do that, I beg of you," said Tiktok; "for you could not put me
to-geth-er a-gain, and my use-ful-ness would be de-stroyed."
"Oh! are you useful?" asked the Scarecrow, surprised.
"Ve-ry," said Tiktok.
"In that case," the Scarecrow kindly promised, "I won't fool with your
interior at all. For I am a poor mechanic, and might mix you up."
"Thank you," said Tiktok.
Just then Ozma re-entered the room, leading Dorothy by the hand and
followed closely by the Princess Langwidere.
[Illustration]
The Hungry Tiger
[Illustration]
The first thing Dorothy did was to rush into the embrace of the
Scarecrow, whose painted face beamed with delight as he pressed her form
to his straw-padded bosom. Then the Tin Woodman embraced her--very
gently, for he knew his tin arms might hurt her if he squeezed too
roughly.
These greetings having been exchanged, Dorothy took the key to Tiktok
from her pocket and wound up the machine man's action, so that he could
bow properly when introduced to the rest of the company. While doing
this she told them now useful Tiktok had been to her, and both the
Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman shook hands with the machine once more and
thanked him for protecting their friend.
Then Dorothy asked: "Where is Billina?"
"I don't know," said the Scarecrow. "Who is Billina?"
"She's a yellow hen who is another friend of mine," answered the girl,
anxiously. "I wonder what has become of her?"
"She is in the chicken house, in the back yard," said the Princess. "My
drawing-room is no place for hens."
Without waiting to hear more Dorothy ran to get Billina, and just
outside the door she came upon the Cowardly Lion, still hitched to the
chariot beside the great Tiger. The Cowardly Lion had a big bow of blue
ribbon fastened to the long hair between his ears, and the Tiger wore a
bow of red ribbon on his tail, just in front of the bushy end.
In an instant Dorothy was hugging the huge Lion joyfully.
"I'm _so_ glad to see you again!" she cried.
"I am also glad to see you, Dorothy," said the Lion. "We've had some
fine adventures together, haven't we?"
"Yes, indeed," she replied. "How are you?"
"As cowardly as ever," the beast answered in a meek voice. "Every little
thing scares me and makes my heart beat fast. But let me introduce to
you a new friend of mine, the Hungry Tiger."
[Illustration]
"Oh! Are you hungry?" she asked, turning to the other beast, who was
just then yawning so widely that he displayed two rows of terrible teeth
and a mouth big enough to startle anyone.
"Dreadfully hungry," answered the Tiger, snapping his jaws together with
a fierce click.
"Then why don't you eat something?" she asked.
"It's no use," said the Tiger sadly. "I've tried that, but I always get
hungry again."
"Why, it is the same with me," said Dorothy. "Yet I keep on eating."
"But you eat harmless things, so it doesn't matter," replied the Tiger.
"For my part, I'm a savage beast, and have an appetite for all sorts of
poor little living creatures, from a chipmonk to fat babies."
"How dreadful!" said Dorothy.
"Isn't it, though?" returned the Hungry Tiger, licking his lips with his
long red tongue. "Fat babies! Don't they sound delicious? But I've never
eaten any, because my conscience tells me it is wrong. If I had no
conscience I would probably eat the babies and then get hungry again,
which would mean that I had sacrificed the poor babies for nothing. No;
hungry I was born, and hungry I shall die. But I'll not have any cruel
deeds on my conscience to be sorry for."
"I think you are a very good tiger," said Dorothy, patting the huge head
of the beast.
"In that you are mistaken," was the reply. "I am a good beast, perhaps,
but a disgracefully bad tiger. For it is the nature of tigers to be
cruel and ferocious, and in refusing to eat harmless living creatures I
am acting as no good tiger has ever before acted. That is why I left
the forest and joined my friend the Cowardly Lion."
[Illustration: THE HUNGRY TIGER]
"But the Lion is not really cowardly," said Dorothy. "I have seen him
act as bravely as can be."
"All a mistake, my dear," protested the Lion gravely. "To others I may
have seemed brave, at times, but I have never been in any danger that I
was not afraid."
"Nor I," said Dorothy, truthfully. "But I must go and set free Billina,
and then I will see you again."
She ran around to the back yard of the palace and soon found the chicken
house, being guided to it by a loud cackling and crowing and a
distracting hubbub of sounds such as chickens make when they are
excited.
Something seemed to be wrong in the chicken house, and when Dorothy
looked through the slats in the door she saw a group of hens and
roosters huddled in one corner and watching what appeared to be a
whirling ball of feathers. It bounded here and there about the chicken
house, and at first Dorothy could not tell what it was, while the
screeching of the chickens nearly deafened her.
But suddenly the bunch of feathers stopped whirling, and then, to her
amazement, the girl saw Billina crouching upon the prostrate form of a
speckled rooster. For an instant they both remained motionless, and then
the yellow hen shook her wings to settle the feathers and walked toward
the door with a strut of proud defiance and a cluck of victory, while
the speckled rooster limped away to the group of other chickens,
trailing his crumpled plumage in the dust as he went.
"Why, Billina!" cried Dorothy, in a shocked voice; "have you been
fighting?"
"I really think I have," retorted Billina. "Do you think I'd let that
speckled villain of a rooster lord it over _me_, and claim to run this
chicken house, as long as I'm able to peck and scratch? Not if my name
is Bill!"
"It isn't Bill, it's Billina; and you're talking slang, which is very
undig'n'fied," said Dorothy, reprovingly. "Come here, Billina, and I'll
let you out; for Ozma of Oz is here, and has set us free."
So the yellow hen came to the door, which Dorothy unlatched for her to
pass through, and the other chickens silently watched them from their
corner without offering to approach nearer.
The girl lifted her friend in her arms and exclaimed:
"Oh, Billina! how dreadful you look. You've lost a lot of feathers, and
one of your eyes is nearly pecked out, and your comb is bleeding!"
"That's nothing," said Billina. "Just look at the speckled rooster!
Didn't I do him up brown?"
Dorothy shook her head.
"I don't 'prove of this, at all," she said, carrying Billina away toward
the palace. "It isn't a good thing for you to 'sociate with those common
chickens. They would soon spoil your good manners, and you wouldn't be
respec'able any more."
"I didn't ask to associate with them," replied Billina. "It is that
cross old Princess who is to blame. But I was raised in the United
States, and I won't allow any one-horse chicken of the Land of Ev to run
over me and put on airs, as long as I can lift a claw in self-defense."
"Very well, Billina," said Dorothy. "We won't talk about it any more."
Soon they came to the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger to whom the
girl introduced the Yellow Hen.
"Glad to meet any friend of Dorothy's," said the Lion, politely. "To
judge by your present appearance, you are not a coward, as I am."
[Illustration: "WHY, BILLINA!" CRIED DOROTHY; "HAVE YOU BEEN FIGHTING?"]
"Your present appearance makes my mouth water," said the Tiger, looking
at Billina greedily. "My, my! how good you would taste if I could only
crunch you between my jaws. But don't worry. You would only appease my
appetite for a moment; so it isn't worth while to eat you."
"Thank you," said the hen, nestling closer in Dorothy's arms.
"Besides, it wouldn't be right," continued the Tiger, looking steadily
at Billina and clicking his jaws together.
"Of course not," cried Dorothy, hastily. "Billina is my friend, and you
mustn't ever eat her under any circ'mstances."
"I'll try to remember that," said the Tiger; "but I'm a little
absent-minded, at times."
Then Dorothy carried her pet into the drawing-room of the palace, where
Tiktok, being invited to do so by Ozma, had seated himself between the
Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman. Opposite to them sat Ozma herself and the
Princess Langwidere, and beside them there was a vacant chair for
Dorothy.
Around this important group was ranged the Army of Oz, and as Dorothy
looked at the handsome uniforms of the Twenty-Seven she said:
"Why, they seem to be all officers."
"They are, all except one," answered the Tin Woodman. "I have in my Army
eight Generals, six Colonels, seven Majors and five Captains, besides
one private for them to command. I'd like to promote the private, for I
believe no private should ever be in public life; and I've also noticed
that officers usually fight better and are more reliable than common
soldiers. Besides, the officers are more important looking, and lend
dignity to our army."
"No doubt you are right," said Dorothy, seating herself beside Ozma.
"And now," announced the girlish Ruler of Oz, "we will hold a solemn
conference to decide the best manner of liberating the royal family of
this fair Land of Ev from their long imprisonment."
[Illustration]
The Royal Family of Ev
[Illustration]
The Tin Woodman was the first to address the meeting.