"Save me!" panted Atmos, rolling his eyes wildly from side to side. "Save me! Can't you see I'm expiring?"
"But what can I do?" sobbed Ozma, in a panic.
"Tie something round my neck," directed the airman desperately. "Keep the air in my head."
Snatching the ribbon from her curls, Ozma hastened to do as he suggested, shivering a little as she pulled the ribbon tight.
"I'd like to know how this happened," moaned Atmos, as the little fairy tied the ribbon in a neat bow under his poor, wrinkled chin.
"It was my fault," confessed Ozma, covering her face so she could not see him. "I stuck you with a pin. You wouldn't let me go and I couldn't leave Oz for all those years. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I'm so sorry!" and remorseful tears began to trickle through her fingers and drop on the airman's nose.
"Punctured—by—a—Princess!" puffed Atmos, as if he could not get the idea through his head at all. "Well, who would have thought it? She looked so harmless, and sweet, too. I think I should be the one to cry," he observed presently, and as the little fairy's sobs grew more and more violent, he lifted his head and regarded her with positive alarm.
"Don't cry like that," begged Atmos uncomfortably. "It didn't hurt, you know, and I have expired in the cause of high skyence. That's a great honor, besides I should not have carried you off. Don't cry," he begged, trying frantically to rise. But the more he coaxed and blamed himself, the harder Ozma wept, so that neither of them heard the approaching steps of a stranger.