Way for the Emperor!
"Here, give her water! Give her air! Stand back, everybody. Now, then,
what's the matter, child?" The Scarecrow bent solicitously over the
little girl who had rushed into the banquet hall screaming hysterically
about disappearances and white horses and fallen breathlessly into
the chair beside him. "Come, tell uncle all about it," begged the
Scarecrow, patting Dorothy clumsily on the head.
"Tell you!" choked poor Dorothy, twisting her best handkerchief into a
hard knot. "Do I have to tell you? Can't you see for yourselves that
Ozma is missing, that the Wizard and Jinnicky are gone, that Glinda and
the Tin Woodman, that the King and Queen of the Gillikens and the King
and Queen of the Munchkins have vanished entirely! And yet, here you
sit, singing and laughing as if nothing at all had happened. Can't you
understand that something dreadful has happened to Ozma and that a big,
fat, funny-looking man and a white horse are sitting on the throne of
Oz?"
"Ozma, Ozma--who's she?" murmured the banqueters, looking vaguely at
Dorothy and then at each other.
"She's feverish, that's what." Herby, the Medicine Man, leaned over to
touch Dorothy expertly on the forehead. "I'd advise you to go upstairs
and lie down, my dear."
"Yes, why don't you?" urged Bettsy Bobbin, coming over to put her arm
around Dorothy's waist. "I'll go up with you and lend you my very best
smelling salts."
"Lie down--with that big fat interloper on the throne of Oz!" wailed
Dorothy. Squirming out of Bettsy's embrace, she started indignantly
to her feet. "You must be crazy! Camy! Kabumpo! Snufferbux! Toto!
You--you'll believe me, won't you?" Hurrying over to the second table,
Dorothy looked pleadingly down the long board from the Hungry Tiger at
the head to the Cowardly Lion at the foot.
"There, there," mumbled Kabumpo, lifting Dorothy up in his trunk.
"Don't go on so, my dear, we all have these little funny spells. Here,
sit up on my back so you'll have a good view of the Emperor when he
arrives. Hi--there he comes now! Ray! Ray! Way for Skamperoo, Emperor
of Oz!" Waving Dorothy in his trunk as if she had been a flag, Kabumpo
plopped down on his knees and banged his big head three times on the
polished floor. From her precarious position Dorothy saw the same fat
imposter who had been in the throne room riding his white charger
pompously into the Banquet Hall, the horse nodding to the left and
right and grinning like a Cheshire Cat.
Cheers, bows and a loud burst of applause and music made his entry so
noisy Dorothy's angry protests and cries were entirely drowned out.
Disgusted, confused and completely bewildered by the behavior of Ozma's
subjects and her own best friends, Dorothy jerked away from Kabumpo
and darted through a long French window into the garden. What could
it mean? What could have happened? Had all her former memories of Oz
been a dream? No, no! Violently Dorothy decided against such an idea.
Rather was this fat emperor a dream--a maddening nightmare from which
she would presently awaken. Leaning dizzily against a golden faun set
near a crystal garden pool, Dorothy tried to find some reasonable
explanation of the whole dreadful mixup. And here, several minutes
later, Pigasus, the winged Pig, found her.
"Thought a little fly over the tree tops might help your head," grunted
Pigasus, looking unhappily down his pink snout. "Nothing like a little
fly for a headache, my girl!"
"My head's all right," answered Dorothy sullenly. "It's the rest of
you who have lost your heads or your senses. How in Oz you could stand
in there cheering that big, fat fraud, I'll never, never understand.
Piggins, Piggins, dear--" Dorothy bent coaxingly over him--"surely you
remember Ozma and the Wizard and Glinda." Instead of answering at once,
Pigasus stared thoughtfully at his reflection in the pool.
"Suppose you sit on my back and then we can talk without being heard,"
he suggested brightly. "Up in the air we can air our views in safety,
as it were."
"To tell the truth, I don't much care where I go now," sighed Dorothy,
seating herself disconsolately on the pig's broad back.
"Hey Hey, we're bewitched and enchanted, I knew it!
With you on my back, I can think and see through it!"
squealed Pigasus, and flapping his huge wings he soared high over the
flowering plum trees in Ozma's garden.
"Of course Ozma's Queen, not this big Skamperoo
The Ruler of Oz and the whole royal crew
Have been kidnapped--bewitched, or put out of the way--
We'll fly off for help and we'll start right away."
"Oh, Piggins!" Dorothy threw both arms round the pig's neck and almost
wept for joy:
"Oh Pigasus to think you remember them, too,
But where have they gone? What in Oz shall we do?"
"We'll find them, wherever they are they'll be found,
But we'd best make our plans with our feet on the ground,"
muttered Pigasus, looking below for a likely spot to land. There was
one disadvantage about Pigasus, though some did not regard it as such.
Like the winged horse Pegasus, whoever caught him and rode on his
back at once became a poet and unable to speak anything but rhymes.
The poetic pig could not only tell what they were thinking, but he
often spoke his own mind in verse as well. At times this grew terribly
tiresome, but except for his jingles, a more cheerful loyal little
fellow could not be found in the length or breadth of the country.
Raised and bred by the Red Jinn, he had been given to the Duke of
Dork. The Duke had given him to the Philadelphia boy, Peter, who in
the course of a voyage with Samuel Salt, the Pirate, had captured the
Duke's splendid castle boat. The capture had been quite a social and
friendly affair and the Duke had traded Pigasus for a Bananny Goat.
Peter had later brought the flying pig to the Emerald City, where he
was petted and admired by the whole court.
Now, slanting down into a quiet grove, Pigasus came to a gentle stop
and Dorothy tumbled jubilantly off his back.
"Oh, Pigasus, isn't it lucky you were in the Emerald City? Nobody else
can remember Ozma or the others at all."
"And I only remembered them because you sat on my back," confessed the
pig, twitching his nose thoughtfully. "It was my thought-reading gift
that did the trick, and I am more than ever convinced that we are
under some mischievous spell or enchantment. What I don't understand,
my dear, is how you yourself escaped or chanced to remember things as
they were. You know, before I came out here, it seemed perfectly right
and natural for that roly poly pudding of an Emperor to be sitting at
the head of the table. I knew no more about Ozma, or Glinda, or my
former master Jinnicky than a new-born baby. By the way, Jinnicky's
gone too, isn't he?"
"Yes," Dorothy shook her head sorrowfully, "and without him or the
Wizard to help we'll have a hard time, I guess. What shall we do first,
Piggins?"
"How about having a try at some of the Wizard's magic?" proposed the
pink pig, daringly, "then we might look in Ozma's magic picture and ask
it to show us where all of our missing friends are now."
"Now, why didn't I think of that myself?" cried Dorothy, and springing
up she started off on a run.
"Wait! Wait!" grunted Pigasus, pattering breathlessly after her.
"Remember, we must be very careful, my dear. No questions about Ozma,
no remarks that will arouse the anger of this scalawag Emperor, or
we'll both be clapped in a dungeon. We must pretend that we have
forgotten, too, and get away quietly later tonight."
This seemed so sensible a plan, Dorothy readily agreed to it, and
without attracting any attention at all they re-entered the palace and
hurried immediately to Ozma's small sitting room. But if they expected
the magic picture to solve their problem they were soon doomed to
disappointment. The picture was gone from its accustomed place and
the safe where Ozma kept her magic treasures and other valuables was
wide open and quite empty. A quick search of the Wizard's laboratory
proved equally discouraging. The Wizard's famous black bag was nowhere
in sight, the little hanging closet where he stored his transformation
powders and wishing pills was bare as the cupboard of old Mother
Hubbard.
"Whoever planned this thought of everything," wheezed Pigasus, sitting
heavily back on his haunches. "There is nothing here for us, Dorothy.
If I were you, I'd get a few things together and we'll leave right
away before anyone misses you." From the cheers, shouts, and hilarious
singing coming from the banquet hall it seemed probable that the
celebration would go on for hours. No one in that gay and foolish
company even thought of or missed the little girl and the pink pig
stealing so quietly through the dim halls of the palace.
"Ozma's palace," reflected Dorothy, looking resentfully over her
shoulder; but now it seemed strange, alien and completely unfriendly.
With a little shiver Dorothy drew her cloak more closely about her
and stepped resolutely out into the night. Pigasus pattered on ahead,
snorting a bit from sheer nervousness.
"Maybe we'd better fly," he grunted uneasily as Dorothy caught up with
him. "It's safer and it's faster, and the faster we get away from here
the better, I'm thinking."
"I've been thinking, too," answered Dorothy in a low voice, "perhaps
only the people in the Emerald City are under this forgetting spell,
Pigasus; perhaps if we fly to the Winkie Country, the Winkies will
remember their Emperor, the Tin Woodman, and will help us raise an
army so we can come back, conquer this old Skamperoo, and make him
tell where he has hidden all the proper rulers of Oz and the other
celebrities."
"That's the talk! That's the talk!" approved the pig, twinkling his
little blue eyes joyfully. "Up with you, up with you, my girl, but
remember, if you grow sleepy, let me know at once, so I can descend.
If you fall asleep, you might fall off my back, and think how I'd feel
then."
"Think how _I'd_ feel!" laughed Dorothy, her spirits lifting a bit at
the pink pig's comical conversation and enthusiastic seconding of her
plans. Seating herself carefully on his plump back, she quickly gave
the signal to start. Then up soared Pigasus, over the palace garden,
over the City Walls and away toward the East and the Yellow Lands of
the Winkies.
"Oh, I believe everything is going to be all right," thought Dorothy,
settling herself cozily between his wings.
"So do I," sniffed the pink pig, peering mischievously over his
shoulder.
"I forgot you could read
All the thoughts, Goodness Gracious!
Of those on your back,
Do you mind it Pigasus?"
"Not when they're nice thoughts like yours," puffed the little pig in
answer to Dorothy's surprised rhyme, and winking his eye jovially he
zoomed like a small pink Zeppelin through the sky.