[CHAPTER 19]
The Story of the Necklaces
Ozma's surprise and the astonishment of all the rest of that company around the Wizard's table can well be imagined.
"I didn't hear any thunder," snorted Highboy, lowering himself down to Bitty Bit's level. "Not a clap! And if we were at the bottom of Lightning Lake, what did we eat?"
"We didn't!" announced Jinnicky in a hollow voice, "what COULD we have eaten in such a place, you old fire-eater, you?" To have been enchanted and put out of existence for three whole days was an amazing experience, and as Dorothy and Bitty Bit, helped out now and then by Pigasus, explained all that had happened to the victims of Skamperoo's ambition and to themselves in the course of their journey of rescue, Ozma's face grew both grave and serious. It was disturbing to realize how easily Oz had been captured and the powerful Wizards and Glinda the Sorceress pushed aside. The Wizard of Oz himself seemed to feel the most discouraged and downcast of all to think he had been so easily overcome, and that his magic had not been strong enough to withstand the wicked spell of the invaders.
"I should have foreseen something like this, and been prepared," mourned the little man, mopping his head with a map of Oz which he happened to have in his pocket.
"Yes," sighed the Tin Woodman, feeling his joints anxiously to see whether they had been rusted by his three-day immersion in Lightning Lake, "we might have been prisoners in Thunder Mountain forever had it not been for Dorothy and Pigasus and this sagacious little Seer. But tell me, Dorothy, how was it that you alone, of all the people in the palace, remembered and missed us?"
"Well," confessed Dorothy, seating herself cautiously on Nick Chopper's tin knees, "it must have been the Wizard's wishing pill. You see, just as the Soldier's beard turned red, I found one in my pocket, and popping it into my mouth, wished that I might save Oz from any danger that threatened. It kept me from forgetting Ozma and all of you, and when I sat on Pigasus' back, he remembered, too, and we—"
"Did save Oz!" finished the little Wizard, bounding triumphantly to his feet and restored to instant cheerfulness by Dorothy's generous statement. "I tell you, I'll match my wishing powers with any wishing powers in the country!"