Kerry looked up at her so pleadingly, Handy, against all her inclinations and better judgment, pulled out the silver hammer again. "The hammer will be better than the ball," she reasoned quickly, "for the ball only seems to help Keretarians. Now then!" Lifting the hammer in her iron hand, the Goat Girl brought it down sharply on the wizard's marble table. Silver sparks flew up in every direction and out of the very middle of the shower stepped the yawning dwarf.
"Say, I'm trying to take a nap," grumbled Himself, stretching his arms up sleepily. "What do you fellows want now?"
"We want to go to the Emerald City of Oz and save Ozma from Wutz and the Gnome King!" explained Handy in one breathless sentence.
"My! All that?" Stifling another yawn, Himself grinned mischievously at the Goat Girl. "Then stand in line, please." So Handy placed herself in front of the Royal Ox and Kerry stepped behind him, and the dwarf, seizing the hammer, brought it down with a terrible blow just behind the little King. And what a blow it was you can readily understand, when I tell you that its force carried the three travelers clear out of the Silver King's Mountain and all the way to the Emerald City itself. Flying along for a moment beside them, Himself slipped the hammer back in the Goat Girl's hand, and then with another tremendous yawn, disappeared.
CHAPTER 20
Just in Time!
In Ozma's palace in the Emerald City, everything was very quiet and still. Not surprising when you consider that the wizard of Wutz had blown his patent stupefying powder down all the chimneys before he and Ruggedo dared to enter. Then, mooring the silver bubble to one of the castle spires, the two conspirators had slipped through an open window and proceeded without delay or interference to the private sitting room of the absent ruler. There Ruggedo with a spiteful laugh, thrust his head right into the mouths of the Hungry Tiger and Cowardly Lion. Rigid and helpless they sat before Ozma's safe, motionless and completely stupefied, as were all of Ozma's other faithful servants and retainers. Reducing the safe to a heap of green ashes was the work of but a moment, then, pulling the Gnome King's belt from the sparkling heap of treasures, Wutz sprang to his feet.
"Quick! How does it work?" he cried, clasping the belt round his thin waist. "We'll not have a second's safety till Ozma, Glinda, the Wizard of Oz and all those girl Princesses are out of the way."