"Welcome!" wheezed Mustafa, waving his scimitar. Panny, with an outraged glance at the Stone Man, climbed the nearest palm tree.
"I understand you wished to have me captured," growled the Cowardly Lion, trembling slightly, but resolved to go through with this disagreeable business.
"Don't say captured," cried Mustafa slyly. "Let us say that I wished to have my court honored by your cowardly and perfect presence. I understand you are a terrible fighter," he added, tugging at his whiskers joyfully.
"Shall I crush or crumble him?" asked Crunch, interrupting Mustafa's further remarks and ramblings. And then Mustafa for the first time became really aware of the Stone Man. The more he examined, the more horribly aware of him he became.
"Panny!" he shrilled, looking all around for his chief chamberlain, "Panny, call out the Guard!"
"Call them out yourself," chattered the trembling chamberlain, frightened out of his usual submissiveness. "I'll not stir from this tree." Crunch made a snatch at Mustafa, but the Cowardly Lion hastily intervened. Wicked though Mustafa had been, the kind-hearted lion was not going to stand by and see him crushed to a crumble. He motioned for Crunch to follow him a few steps aside and quite sulkily the Stone Man obeyed.
"This is my fight," puffed the Cowardly Lion. "Now be a good fellow and keep out of it till I need you."
"How long will it take?" grated Crunch, slightly mollified. To tell the truth, he wanted to think over the formula needed to change the Cowardly Lion. One of the magic words had slipped his stone memory.
"Oh, an hour or two," answered the lion uneasily, determined, if he could, to escape from both of these treacherous villains.
"All right, old fellow," Crunch smiled as he said this. He felt he could afford to be generous, for in a few hours the Cowardly Lion would belong to him for good. So he leaned stolidly against the enclosure, while the Cowardly Lion hurried after Mustafa, who was running in a cloud of sand toward his tent.