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.
"_I am the elf of the hammer, who
Must do whatever you ask me to_,"
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?"
"_Pick up the hammer and doubt no more--
Himself, the elf, will now open the 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."