Every wash and slap of the waves sent the battered old hull of the
Blunderoo nearer to shore and, at last, with a tired groan, it stuck
its nose into the sand and, listing over sideways, came to a creaky
stop.
“Have you the cloak?” asked Peter, one leg already over the rail.
Ruggedo held up the small gray package, but looked doubtfully at the
foaming waves below.
“How are we going to get to the beach?” he frowned uneasily.
“Lived here all your life and can’t swim?” exclaimed Peter. “Great
goldfish! Come on, I’ll help you,” he added impatiently, as the gnome
continued to stare uncertainly down at the water. Hurrying down the
ladder, Peter dropped easily into the sea, and after a good bit of
coaxing, Ruggedo slipped in after him. Taking a firm hold on the
gnome’s long whiskers and with Ruggedo sputtering and sizzling like a
hot coal in a dish pan, Peter struck out for shore. It was soon shallow
enough for them to wade and in exactly three minutes from the time the
Blunderoo grounded, they stood on the barren shores of Ev.
Forgetting his discomfort, for gnomes like water about as much as
cats, the metal monarch began to run as fast as his crooked legs would
carry him toward a group of little hills. Looking round without much
enthusiasm at the dreary waste of sand and cactus, Peter followed more
slowly. His only plan was to keep a sharp watch over Ruggedo and, as
soon as the cloak was repaired, to take it away from him and fly to the
Emerald City.
“I do hope Ozma can transport the treasure to Philadelphia with me,”
sighed Peter, quickening his steps as Ruggedo disappeared behind a
particularly large rock. He half expected the gnome would try to slip
away from him but, to tell the truth, Ruggedo was more kindly disposed
toward Peter than toward any mortal he had ever met. He admired Peter’s
courage and felt that his good fortune was largely due to the boy’s
enterprise and spirit. Besides, Ruggedo wished to show off his immense
dominions and treasure caves, so, as Peter rounded the rock, he took
his hand and pressed a hidden spring in the crevice. Instantly a huge
door swung inward and they found themselves in a long, dim tunnel.
“I wonder if Kaliko still thinks he is King!” wheezed Ruggedo,
pattering along ahead of Peter. Kaliko had been appointed to rule in
Ruggedo’s place and had been promoted from Royal Chamberlain to King of
the Gnomes. “Ha! Ha!” laughed Ruggedo maliciously. “He’ll be as pleased
as a Gundersnutch when he sees me back!”
Peter answered nothing to this, for he was too interested in the
underground world in which he found himself to pay much attention
to the old gnome’s remarks. As they proceeded, a perfect network of
passageways opened from the main tunnel, the sides, walls and ceilings
gleaming with sparkling jewels. Thousands of gnomes with pick axes were
busily at work digging out the gems and they did not even look up as
Peter and Ruggedo passed them. Blazing rubies and emeralds set in tall
stands lighted up the strange caverns and Peter’s heart began to pound
with excitement as the passageway broadened out into a richly carpeted
hallway. Presently they found themselves before a grilled golden door
with a diamond knob. Without pausing, Ruggedo turned the knob, opened
the door and simply rushed into his former throne room. On a huge round
ruby, hollowed out to form a seat, a thin, nervous gnome sat reading
a silver sheet about as thick as our morning papers. It was the Gnome
Man’s Daily, and as Peter and Ruggedo burst noisily into the royal
chamber, he dropped the silver sheet and looked up with an exclamation
of alarm.
“You!” gasped Kaliko, as if he could not believe his own senses.
“Who else?” snickered Ruggedo, winking at Peter. “I’ll thank you for my
crown, you robber. Take it right off your Kalikoko. Quick now! Hand it
over!”
“Ozma will never consent to this,” stammered Kaliko, holding to the
crown with both hands.
“Ozma has nothing to do with me now,” announced Ruggedo calmly. “I have
magic stronger than Ozma’s and if you don’t hop off that throne, I’ll
turn you to a ball and bounce you off!”
Peter listened in amazement to Ruggedo’s boasts, but Kaliko seemed to
believe every word. With quaking knees, he descended the steps of the
throne and held out the crown to his former master.
[Illustration]
“Ha! Ha!” roared Ruggedo, snatching the crown and clapping it jauntily
on the back of his head. “You’re enough to make an alligator laugh,
Kaliko. So brave! So kingly! But don’t stand there gibbering like a
dunce. If you are no longer King, you are still Royal Chamberlain, and
this is Peter, future general of my armies!” Tripping merrily up the
steps of the throne, Ruggedo waved toward the little boy. “We will
shortly make a journey to the Emerald City,” he announced grandly,
“but right now we desire refreshment. Lunch for two,” he commanded,
putting his finger tips together and leaning back comfortably. “And, by
the way,” he added as an afterthought, “there is a pirate ship on the
beach. Have it unloaded and the treasure stored in the silver grotto.
Then order me a dozen new suits and send in the Royal Wizard.”
At each command, Kaliko bowed meekly, and as Ruggedo picked up the ruby
scepter lying on the arm of the throne, he ducked and ran out the door,
for Ruggedo, as a mere matter of habit, had flung the scepter after him.
“A blockhead!” sniffed Ruggedo contemptuously, “but didn’t I manage him
well?”
“He’s not very brave,” admitted Peter, sitting on the edge of the
crystal rocking chair, “but how are you going to get along without any
magic? Suppose the gnomes don’t want you back again?”
“One thing at a time! One thing at a time!” beamed Ruggedo, in such a
fine humor at his unexpected turn of luck, he felt almost pleasant.
“Let’s not worry till we have to, General.” Peter couldn’t help smiling
at his new title and, surveying himself in the long mirror, wondered
how he would look in a gnome uniform. But at this juncture they were
interrupted by the entrance of the Royal Wizard. He looked frightened
and anxious, and Peter could see from his manner that the old Gnome
King was no great favorite with his former subjects.
“Well, Potaroo!” grinned Ruggedo, taking up the pipe Kaliko had been
smoking, “what have you been inventing in my absence?”
“Flying dishes,” croaked the magician, looking curiously at Peter.
“They do away with extra servants, fly backward and forward with the
food and wash and dry themselves as well.”
“Very good!” puffed Ruggedo, complacently. “Well, here’s another little
job for you.” Drawing out the cloak, he handed it down to the wizened
old gnome. “Just mend this,” ordered Ruggedo carelessly, “and have it
back by three o’clock.” Spreading the cloak across his knees, Potaroo
examined it carefully all over. Then backing away from the throne he
shook his head.
[Illustration]
“That, your Majesty, is impossible,” he muttered uneasily. “This cloak
cannot be mended by gnome magic.”
“No magic at all?” gasped Peter, disappointed beyond words, while
Ruggedo glared angrily.
“I command you to mend it!” screamed the hot-tempered little King,
looking angrily around for something to throw at the wizard.
“That makes no difference,” quavered Potaroo, backing still farther.
“This cloak cannot be mended properly anywhere but in the Kingdom of
Patch.”
“And where is Patch?” demanded Ruggedo, emitting a perfect cloud of
pipe smoke.
“In the Winkie Country of Oz, just below the Kingdom of Ann of
Oogaboo,” exclaimed Potaroo, looking longingly over his shoulder at the
door.
“Very well,” snapped Ruggedo disagreeably, “you may go, but next time
your magic fails to work you’ll be turned to a door mat. A door mat,
do you understand? Hah! Hah! A door mat to stand under my feet. See!”
Ruggedo laughed wickedly, and the poor wizard, mumbling his sorrow,
rushed from the throne room.
“Rubyation!” blustered Ruggedo, as the door closed on Potaroo. “Now
we’ll have to go to Patch.”
“Well, isn’t that on the way to the Emerald City?” inquired Peter, very
much amused by all that had happened.
“Yes,” acknowledged Ruggedo, “I suppose it is, but here comes lunch!
Ah! I’m hungry enough to eat a billy goat stuffed with soldier
buttons!”
Preceded by two gnomes carrying a huge golden tray, Kaliko came
stepping timidly into the room. Ruggedo had the usual gnome fare of
ground rocks, pebble pie and muddy coffee; but for Peter, Kaliko had
brought a small steak, fried potatoes and ice cream. After the hard sea
biscuit, this tasted perfectly delicious, and Peter, not knowing what
strange adventures lay ahead, ate every scrap. Ruggedo, too, enjoyed
his luncheon and amused himself by throwing the dishes at Kaliko as he
finished with them. Peter wondered why the flying dishes were not in
use, but feeling sorry for the old wizard decided not to ask.
“You may now pack us up a lunch,” announced Ruggedo, as he swallowed
the last of his coffee. “We’re starting for the Emerald City almost at
once.”
“How are you going to cross the desert?” inquired Kaliko. Angry as he
was at the old Gnome King, he could not help feeling curious about his
plans.
“Magic! Old Cauliflower! Magic! How do you suppose I got off the
island?” wheezed Ruggedo haughtily. “Don’t stand there stuttering.
Fetch me a new suit and hurry along with the lunch.”
Shrugging his thin shoulders, and turning up his eyes, Kaliko did as
he was told, and in less than an hour Peter and the Gnome King were
wending their way over the rocky hills of Ev. Ruggedo had the magic
cloak tucked carefully under his arm and Peter carried a small basket
of provisions.
[Illustration]
“How _are_ we going to cross this desert?” asked Peter, looking with
interest down toward the beach where the gnomes were busily at work
unloading the treasure from the Blunderoo.
“I don’t know,” confessed Ruggedo quite frankly, “but if Kaliko had
discovered I had not magic enough to cross the desert, he would have
roused the gnomes and kicked us out of the kingdom.”
“Is there no other way to Oz?” sighed Peter. He was growing a little
anxious about ever reaching Philadelphia in time for the baseball game.
“Nope!” puffed the Gnome King, trudging along sturdily. “The Deadly
Desert surrounds the whole country. It’s supposed to keep people out of
Oz,” he finished with a malicious wink. “But it has been crossed before
and can be crossed again, though I’m sure I don’t know how.”
The entrance of the Gnome King’s caverns was quite near the edge of the
Deadly Desert, so it was not long before they reached this dangerous
expanse of burning sand and sat down on a boulder to try and devise
some means of crossing over.
“Can’t you think of anything?” snapped Ruggedo, as Peter sat kicking
his heels against the boulder. “If this silly old cloak weren’t torn,
I’d skim across in no time. A skudge on those pesky pirates anyway!
Sa--ay?” Opening his eyes very wide, Ruggedo thrust his face close to
Peter’s. “What else was in that casket?”
“Only a couple of onions and an emerald,” answered Peter listlessly.
“Let’s see ’em!” Bounding off the boulder, the Gnome King held out his
hand. Peter produced the strangely marked stone first.
“Command it to carry us across the desert,” advised the Gnome King,
after trying unsuccessfully to decipher the markings on the sorcerer’s
stone. So Peter closed his eyes and commanded the emerald to carry them
across the desert. They waited for several minutes, then, when nothing
happened, Peter opened the ivory box and showed Ruggedo the two magic
bulbs.
“In case of extreme danger, plant these.” Ruggedo read these directions
with a puzzled frown, then snapping his fingers began to skip with
excitement. “Why don’t you plant ’em?” he squealed impatiently. “Plant
’em, General! Plant ’em!”
“But we’re not in extreme danger,” objected Peter reasonably enough.
[Illustration]
“We’re not!” yelled Ruggedo, tugging at his beard. “Why, boy, you
don’t know what extreme danger is. We have to cross that desert, don’t
we? Well, just put one foot on that sand and you’ll go up like a puff
of smoke. Don’t you call that extreme danger?” Peter argued a while
longer, then, as Ruggedo insisted and there really seemed nothing else
to do, he scooped out two holes in the ground at his feet, dropped
in the magic roots and covered them with mud and sand. Stepping back
a few paces, they waited eagerly for what would happen. First came a
sharp explosion. Then two great green plants burst through the surface
of the earth. They were about three times the size of Peter and, as
he watched, the outer leaves opened downward, disclosing round plush
seats within. Peter looked questioningly over at Ruggedo, but the
gnome, being more experienced than Peter in magic, had jumped into one
plant and seated himself on the plush cushion. A little doubtfully,
Peter jumped into the other.
[Illustration]
“Just like an elevator,” thought Peter, as the bulb grew rapidly
upward, shooting higher and higher on its long, pliant stem. “But I
don’t see what good growing up will do,” he muttered, peering giddily
out between the green leaves. Whether he saw or not, the stem of the
bulb continued to grow. Clouds flew by with dazzling swiftness. Peter
was all prepared to bump his head on the ceiling of the sky when the
long stem began to arch downward. Suppose it broke and dropped him on
the burning sands of the deadly desert! With a violent shudder, Peter
closed his eyes, and as he did, the stem with a final spurt turned the
strange elevator in which Peter was riding completely upside down, and
out fell the little boy, heels over eyebrows.
Ruggedo had been served in the same manner but, none the worse for
their tumble, they picked themselves up and began looking around. They
had fallen in a sunny peach orchard. In the distance they could see the
shimmering sand of the dangerous desert, while not far away stood a
small, yellow, dome-shaped cottage.
“We’ll go there,” declared Ruggedo, tucking the magic cloak more
carefully under his arm. “We’ll go there, General, and inquire the way
to the Kingdom of Patch. But remember to say nothing of the plans to
capture my belt. We’re in the enemy’s country now!”
Still dazed from the surprising way in which they had crossed the
desert, Peter looked around him with delight. It did not look like the
enemy’s country to Peter and, picking up a large, luscious peach, he
decided then and there that he was going to like the Marvelous Land of
Oz.
Peter thought that even the Wizard of Oz, himself, would be interested
in the wonderful elevator plants, and decided to tell him all about
them when he got to the Emerald City.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]