In the Wicker Castle
CHAPTER 22
No sooner were the Wizard of Oz and his followers well within the castleentrance when the big gates swung to with a clang and heavy bars droppedacross them. They looked at one another uneasily, but no one cared tospeak of the incident. If they were indeed prisoners in the wickercastle it was evident they must find a way to escape, but their firstduty was to attend to the errand on which they had come and seek theRoyal Ozma, whom they believed to be a prisoner of the magician, andrescue her.
They found they had entered a square courtyard, from which an entranceled into the main building of the castle. No person had appeared togreet them, so far, although a gaudy peacock, perched upon the wall,cackled with laughter and said in its sharp, shrill voice: "Poor fools!Poor fools!"
"I hope the peacock is mistaken," remarked the Frogman, but no one elsepaid any attention to the bird. They were a little awed by the stillnessand loneliness of the place.
As they entered the doors of the castle, which stood invitingly open,these also closed behind them and huge bolts shot into place. Theanimals had all accompanied the party into the castle, because they feltit would be dangerous for them to separate. They were forced to follow azigzag passage, turning this way and that, until finally they entered agreat central hall, circular in form and with a high dome from which wassuspended an enormous chandelier.
The Wizard went first, and Dorothy, Betsy and Trot followed him, Totokeeping at the heels of his little mistress. Then came the Lion, theWoozy and the Sawhorse; then Cayke the Cookie Cook and Button-Bright;then the Lavender Bear carrying the Pink Bear, and finally the Frogmanand the Patchwork Girl, with Hank the Mule tagging behind. So it was theWizard who caught the first glimpse of the big domed hall, but theothers quickly followed and gathered in a wondering group just withinthe entrance.
Upon a raised platform at one side was a heavy table on which layGlinda's Great Book of Records; but the platform was firmly fastened tothe floor and the table was fastened to the platform and the Book waschained fast to the table--just as it had been when it was kept inGlinda's palace. On the wall over the table hung Ozma's Magic Picture.On a row of shelves at the opposite side of the hall stood all thechemicals and essences of magic and all the magical instruments that hadbeen stolen from Glinda and Ozma and the Wizard, with glass doorscovering the shelves so that no one could get at them.
And in a far corner sat Ugu the Shoemaker, his feet lazily extended, hisskinny hands clasped behind his head. He was leaning back at his easeand calmly smoking a long pipe. Around the magician was a sort of cage,seemingly made of golden bars set wide apart, and at his feet--alsowithin the cage--reposed the long-sought diamond-studded dishpan ofCayke the Cookie Cook.
Princess Ozma of Oz was nowhere to be seen.
"Well, well," said Ugu, when the invaders had stood in silence for amoment, staring about them, "this visit is an expected pleasure, Iassure you. I knew you were coming and I know why you are here. You arenot welcome, for I cannot use any of you to my advantage, but as youhave insisted on coming I hope you will make the afternoon call as briefas possible. It won't take long to transact your business with me. Youwill ask me for Ozma, and my reply will be that you may find her--if youcan."
"Sir," answered the Wizard, in a tone of rebuke, "you are a very wickedand cruel person. I suppose you imagine, because you have stolen thispoor woman's dishpan and all the best magic in Oz, that you are morepowerful than we are and will be able to triumph over us."
"Yes," said Ugu the Shoemaker, slowly filling his pipe with freshtobacco from a silver bowl that stood beside him, "that is exactly whatI imagine. It will do you no good to demand from me the girl who wasformerly the Ruler of Oz, because I will not tell you where I havehidden her--and you can't guess in a thousand years. Neither will Irestore to you any of the magic I have captured. I am not so foolish.But bear this in mind: I mean to be the Ruler of Oz myself, hereafter,so I advise you to be careful how you address your future Monarch."
"Ozma is still Ruler of Oz, wherever you may have hidden her," declaredthe Wizard. "And bear this in mind, miserable Shoemaker: We intend tofind her and to rescue her, in time, but our first duty and pleasurewill be to conquer you and then punish you for your misdeeds."
"Very well; go ahead and conquer," said Ugu. "I'd really like to see howyou can do it."
Now, although the little Wizard had spoken so boldly, he had at themoment no idea how they might conquer the magician. He had that morninggiven the Frogman, at his request, a dose of zosozo from his bottle, andthe Frogman had promised to fight a good fight if it was necessary; butthe Wizard knew that strength alone could not avail against magicalarts. The toy Bear King seemed to have some pretty good magic, however,and the Wizard depended to an extent on that. But something ought to bedone right away, and the Wizard didn't know what it was.
While he considered this perplexing question and the others stoodlooking at him as their leader, a queer thing happened. The floor of thegreat circular hall, on which they were standing, suddenly began to tip.Instead of being flat and level it became a slant, and the slant grewsteeper and steeper until none of the party could manage to stand uponit. Presently they all slid down to the wall, which was now under them,and then it became evident that the whole vast room was slowly turningupside down! Only Ugu the Shoemaker, kept in place by the bars of hisgolden cage, remained in his former position, and the wicked magicianseemed to enjoy the surprise of his victims immensely.
First, they all slid down to the wall back of them, but as the roomcontinued to turn over they next slid down the wall and found themselvesat the bottom of the great dome, bumping against the big chandelierwhich, like everything else, was now upside-down.
The turning movement now stopped and the room became stationary. Lookingfar up, they saw Ugu suspended in his cage at the very top, which hadonce been the floor.
"Ah," said he, grinning down at them, "the way to conquer is to act, andhe who acts promptly is sure to win. This makes a very good prison, fromwhich I am sure you cannot escape. Please amuse yourselves in any wayyou like, but I must beg you to excuse me, as I have business in anotherpart of my castle."
Saying this, he opened a trap door in the floor of his cage (which wasnow over his head) and climbed through it and disappeared from theirview. The diamond dishpan still remained in the cage, but the bars keptit from falling down on their heads.
"Well, I declare!" said the Patchwork Girl, seizing one of the bars ofthe chandelier and swinging from it, "we must peg one for the Shoemaker,for he has trapped us very cleverly."
"Get off my foot, please," said the Lion to the Sawhorse.
"And oblige me, Mr. Mule," remarked the Woozy, "by taking your tail outof my left eye."
"It's rather crowded down here," explained Dorothy, "because the dome isrounding and we have all slid into the middle of it. But let us keep asquiet as possible until we can think what's best to be done."
"Dear, dear!" wailed Cayke; "I wish I had my darling dishpan," and sheheld her arms longingly toward it.
"I wish I had the magic on those shelves up there," sighed the Wizard.
"Don't you s'pose we could get to it?" asked Trot anxiously.
"We'd have to fly," laughed the Patchwork Girl.
But the Wizard took the suggestion seriously, and so did the Frogman.They talked it over and soon planned an attempt to reach the shelveswhere the magical instruments were. First the Frogman lay against therounding dome and braced his foot on the stem of the chandelier; thenthe Wizard climbed over him and lay on the dome with his feet on theFrogman's shoulders; the Cookie Cook came next; then Button-Brightclimbed to the woman's shoulders; then Dorothy climbed up, and Betsy andTrot, and finally the Patchwork Girl, and all their lengths made a longline that reached far up the dome but not far enough for Scraps to touchthe shelves.
"Wait a minute; perhaps I can reach the magic," called the Bear King,and began scrambling up the bodies of the others. But when he came tothe C
ookie Cook his soft paws tickled her side so that she squirmed andupset the whole line. Down they came, tumbling in a heap against theanimals, and although no one was much hurt it was a bad mix-up and theFrogman, who was at the bottom, almost lost his temper before he couldget on his feet again.
Cayke positively refused to try what she called "the pyramid act" again,and as the Wizard was now convinced they could not reach the magic toolsin that manner the attempt was abandoned.
"But _something_ must be done," said the Wizard, and then he turned tothe Lavender Bear and asked: "Cannot Your Majesty's magic help us toescape from here?"
"My magic powers are limited," was the reply. "When I was stuffed, thefairies stood by and slyly dropped some magic into my stuffing.Therefore I can do any of the magic that's inside me, but nothing else.You, however, are a wizard, and a wizard should be able to do anything."
"Your Majesty forgets that my tools of magic have been stolen," said theWizard sadly, "and a wizard without tools is as helpless as a carpenterwithout a hammer or saw."
"Don't give up," pleaded Button-Bright, "'cause if we can't get out ofthis queer prison we'll all starve to death."
"Not I!" laughed the Patchwork Girl, now standing on top the chandelier,at the place that was meant to be the bottom of it.
"Don't talk of such dreadful things," said Trot, shuddering. "We camehere to capture the Shoemaker, didn't we?"
"And here we are, captured ourselves, and my darling dishpan up there inplain sight!" wailed the Cookie Cook, wiping her eyes on the tail of theFrogman's coat.
"Hush!" called the Lion, with a low, deep growl. "Give the Wizard timeto think."
"He has plenty of time," said Scraps. "What he needs is the Scarecrow'sbrains."
After all, it was little Dorothy who came to their rescue, and herability to save them was almost as much a surprise to the girl as it wasto her friends. Dorothy had been secretly testing the powers of herMagic Belt, which she had once captured from the Nome King, andexperimenting with it in various ways, ever since she had started onthis eventful journey. At different times she had stolen away from theothers of her party and in solitude had tried to find out what the MagicBelt could do and what it could not do. There were a lot of things itcould not do, she discovered, but she learned some things about the Beltwhich even her girl friends did not suspect she knew.
For one thing, she had remembered that when the Nome King owned it theMagic Belt used to perform transformations, and by thinking hard she hadfinally recalled the way in which such transformations had beenaccomplished. Better than this, however, was the discovery that theMagic Belt would grant its wearer one wish a day. All she need do wasclose her right eye and wiggle her left toe and then draw a long breathand make her wish. Yesterday she had wished in secret for a box ofcaramels, and instantly found the box beside her. To-day she had savedher daily wish, in case she might need it in an emergency, and the timehad now come when she must use the wish to enable her to escape with herfriends from the prison in which Ugu had caught them.
So, without telling anyone what she intended to do--for she had onlyused the wish once and could not be certain how powerful the Magic Beltmight be--Dorothy closed her right eye and wiggled her left big toe anddrew a long breath and wished with all her might. The next moment theroom began to revolve again, as slowly as before, and by degrees theyall slid to the side wall and down the wall to the floor--all butScraps, who was so astonished that she still clung to the chandelier.When the big hall was in its proper position again and the others stoodfirmly upon the floor of it, they looked far up to the dome and saw thePatchwork Girl swinging from the chandelier.
"Good gracious!" cried Dorothy. "How ever will you get down?"
"Won't the room keep turning?" asked Scraps.
"I hope not. I believe it has stopped for good," said Princess Dorothy.
"Then stand from under, so you won't get hurt!" shouted the PatchworkGirl, and as soon as they had obeyed this request she let go thechandelier and came tumbling down heels over head and twisting andturning in a very exciting manner. Plump! she fell on the tiled floorand they ran to her and rolled her and patted her into shape again.
The Lost Princess of Oz Page 23
