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Silver Princess in Oz

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<h2>CHAPTER 17 In the Red Jinn's Castle</h2> While Jinnicky and his friends had been having all these ups and downs and hair-raising experiences, Gludwig had passed an exceedingly pleasant and profitable evening. As his enemies had dropped into the cellar of the castle, the silver staff of Planetty missing him by a wide margin had fallen harmlessly at his feet. Gludwig's army had had much to say of this terrible weapon, and picking it up, he turned it gloatingly over and over in his hands. It is true that he had all of Jinnicky's treasures and possessions, but in his whole seven months in the castle he had not discovered a way to use any of the Red Jinn's magic, nor been able to cast a single spell or transformation. This had taken half the zest out of his victory. But here, he had a simple and easily managed magic weapon—or had he? Frowning suddenly, Gludwig wondered whether it only worked for the silver war maiden who had used it so disastrously against his men. Well, he would quickly find that out. Stepping to the door, he whistled for the huge hound that guarded the outer passageway. As it came bounding to his side he hurled the silver staff at its head. As the staff struck, the hound's progress was instantly arrested and instead of a live dog, he had a life-sized bronze with a look in the eyes that made even Gludwig turn away. But the staff did work! As it returned to his black hand, Gludwig hurried out of the throne room, rushing here and there about the castle to cast the staff again and again at his unsuspecting aids and servants. "Are you mad?" hissed Glubdo, coming upon his brother in the act of petrifying a small boot boy. "If you continue in this reckless fashion—who will do the work or wait upon us?" "Oh, I've only tried it on a dozen or so," said Gludwig, holding the staff jealously behind his back. "Mind you don't overstep your authority, brother, or I might be tempted to use it on you." Chuckling wickedly at Glubdo's shocked expression, Gludwig mounted to his own quarters and hastily throwing off his clothes, curled up in Jinnicky's sumptuous ruby trimmed four poster. He was too weary to descend to the cellar and deal with his enemies, and resolving to finish them off the first thing in the morning, the miserable imposter fell asleep, Planetty's magic staff clutched tightly in his hands. <div class="image-center"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus98.jpg" width-obs="500" height-obs="328" alt=""/></div> While he slumbered, strange things were happening below stairs, for just as the clock in the tower tolled two Ginger noiselessly set his royal passengers down in the deserted throne room and vanished away with a flashing smile. Snapping on a ruby lamp, the Red Jinn looked around him with a long sigh of content. Motioning for Kabumpo to place the sleeping Princess on his comfortable cushioned throne, he tiptoed about, touching one after another of his possessions. "Where do you suppose he is?" whispered Randy, treading close behind him. "I don't suppose, I know," Jinnicky whispered back. "Where would he be but in my own royal bed? Come along; we'll take him by surprise and the ears and throw him out of the window. Careful now, boys, step softly! Confound the black-hearted scoundrel! He's been using the silver staff." Sorrowfully the little Jinn paused before the statue of his favorite dog. "Never mind," comforted Randy. "When you find a way to restore Planetty she'll find a way to undo this mischief, and you know you still have Nina." "Yes," said Jinnicky, placing the Nonagon cat tenderly on a red cushion. "Come on, then, we'll creep up on him. Nobody's around, nobody's on guard, this should be easy." Stepping softly up the broad stair, Kabumpo as lightly as any of them, the three made their way to Jinnicky's vast bed room. "Leave him to me," begged the Elegant Elephant in a fierce whisper. "I'll wring his neck with my own trunk." "No, wait—I'll ring my dinner bell," puffed Jinnicky, "and have Ginger carry him to the other side of the Nonestic Ocean." "Even that wouldn't be far enough," muttered Randy, tiptoeing over to the bed. "If we just knew where he had hidden Planetty's staff we could turn him into a big brass monkey, for that's just what he looks like." "Ho! I do, do I?" The unexpected interruption made them all jump. Gludwig, wakened by Kabumpo's first whisper, had lain silently watching from beneath his long lashes. Now tossing back the silk covers, he sprang up, throwing the staff straight at Randy's heart. "Now let's see what you'll turn to," he panted savagely. Too startled to move or act, Kabumpo and Jinnicky watched in fascinated horror as the staff struck. And strike it did, but instead of petrifying Randy, the rod passed like a flash of lightning through the young King's body and returned to Gludwig's hand, leaving Randy live and lively as ever he was, lively enough in fact to leap forward, snatch the dangerous weapon and bring it down hard on his red-wigged head. With a thud that splintered Jinnicky's best bed, Gludwig fell back. "Hah! What did I tell you?" exclaimed Randy, and indeed the former holder of the castle in his petrified condition looked as much like a brass monkey as Randy had said he would. <div class="image-center"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus99.jpg" width-obs="500" height-obs="336" alt=""/></div> "Oh, my, mercy me! Oh, my! Oh, me!" With trembling fingers the Red Jinn began to feel Randy all over. "With my own eyes I saw that staff go through you, lad, yet here you are—no mark—no statue. I declare I, I'm—" With tears running down his nose, Jinnicky embraced Randy over and over. "Out of that bed with you!" screamed Kabumpo, "OUT!" And winding his trunk round the rigid Gludwig, he flung him violently out of the window. As the image fell with a resounding clunk into the vegetable garden below, the Elegant Elephant sank on his haunches and mopped his brow with one of the red silk bed sheets. "Never—never do I hope to live through such a moment again," he groaned, blowing his trunk explosively. "I thought you were frozen and done for, my boy—done for!" Rocking to and fro, Kabumpo blinked the tears out of his eyes. "I don't understand yet why I wasn't," admitted Randy, wriggling out of Jinnicky's grasp and touching the spot where the staff had struck him. "Someone or something was protecting you," declared the little Jinn, nodding his head like a mandarin. "Do you carry any charms or talismans against evil, my boy?" "Not a one." Turning out his pockets, Randy displayed a collection of knives, rubber bands, coins and the other odds and ends that a man usually stores in his pockets. Among the strange assortment were two small squat jars and on these Jinnicky pounced with a triumphant little crow. "Why, Randy Spandy Jack a Dandy, you have two bottles of my best weapon turning elixir! How did you happen to have them?" "Those?" Randy squinted down at the bottles in positive mystification. "Oh, I must have picked them up in the cellar—of course I did, I remember distinctly now." "Oh, glory be! Glory me! Har, har, har! Am I a good wizard or am I a good wizard? And to think you should have happened on the very thing you'd be needing." Jinnicky danced in exuberant circles. "Sh—hush! Somebody's coming." Crowding all his belongings back into his pocket, Randy turned in alarm. Half the courtiers and servants were crowded into the doorway. And when they saw Jinnicky and his friends instead of Gludwig in the Royal Apartment they began to back away in chagrin and embarrassment. "Oh, it's all right," Jinnicky waved airily. "You threw in your fortunes with the wrong man, that's all! You'll find Gludwig below in the cabbages. But I forgive you! I forgive you!" he added impulsively as his former mine workers began to stammer apologies and excuses. "Go back to your beds now, but see that breakfast is on time and hot and appetizing." With an impatient nod of his head, Jinnicky dismissed them and, looking very downcast and crest-fallen, they hurried away. <div class="image-center"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus100.jpg" width-obs="500" height-obs="282" alt=""/></div> It was a long time before the Red Jinn and his rescuers could bring themselves to retire. There was so much to talk of, to wonder over and to plan. But finally, even Randy acknowledged that he was sleepy, and confident that Jinnicky would find some way to help Planetty and Thun in the morning, he curled up on a small red sofa and fell into a peaceful slumber. As for Kabumpo, he stretched out on the floor and Jinnicky, not caring to occupy a bed so recently slept in by Gludwig, made himself comfortable on a bear rug beside the Elegant Elephant, enjoying the first real rest he had had in seven long months. <hr class="chap" /> <div class="image-center"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus101.jpg" width-obs="500" height-obs="343" alt=""/></div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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