"Have we really conquered her?" asked the Scarecrow, quietly. "Look out of the window, and tell me what you see."
Tip ran to the window and looked out.
"The palace is surrounded by a double row of girl soldiers," he announced.
"I thought so," returned the Scarecrow. "We are as truly their prisoners as we were before the mice frightened them from the palace."
"My friend is right," said Nick Chopper, who had been polishing his breast with a bit of chamois-leather. "Jinjur is still the Queen, and we are her prisoners."
"But I hope she cannot get at us," exclaimed the Pumpkinhead, with a shiver of fear. "She threatened to make tarts of me, you know."
"Don't worry," said the Tin Woodman. "It cannot matter greatly. If you stay shut up here you will spoil in time, anyway. A good tart is far more admirable than a decayed intellect."
"Very true," agreed the Scarecrow.
"Oh, dear!" moaned Jack; "what an unhappy lot is mine! Why, dear father, did you not make me out of tin—or even out of straw—so that I would keep indefinitely."