26. How Ozma Refused to Fight for Her Kingdom

The Emerald City of Oz

by L. Frank Baum

Ozma was in her rose garden picking a bouquet when the party
arrived, and she greeted all her old and new friends as smilingly and
sweetly as ever.

Dorothy's eyes were full of tears as she kissed the lovely Ruler
of Oz, and she whispered to her:

"Oh, Ozma, Ozma! I'm so sorry!"

Ozma seemed surprised.

"Sorry for what, Dorothy?" she asked.

"For all your trouble about the Nome King," was the reply.

Ozma laughed with genuine amusement.

"Why, that has not troubled me a bit, dear Princess," she
replied. Then, looking around at the sad faces of her friends, she
added: "Have you all been worrying about this tunnel?"

"We have!" they exclaimed in a chorus.

"Well, perhaps it is more serious than I imagined," admitted the
fair Ruler; "but I haven't given the matter much thought. After
dinner we will all meet together and talk it over."

So they went to their rooms and prepared for dinner, and Dorothy
dressed herself in her prettiest gown and put on her coronet, for she
thought that this might be the last time she would ever appear as a
Princess of Oz.

The Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and Jack Pumpkinhead all sat at
the dinner table, although none of them was made so he could eat.
Usually they served to enliven the meal with their merry talk, but
to-night all seemed strangely silent and uneasy.

As soon as the dinner was finished Ozma led the company to her
own private room in which hung the Magic Picture. When they had
seated themselves the Scarecrow was the first to speak.

"Is the Nome King's tunnel finished, Ozma?" he asked.

"It was completed to-day," she replied. "They have built it
right under my palace grounds, and it ends in front of the Forbidden
Fountain. Nothing but a crust of earth remains to separate our
enemies from us, and when they march here, they will easily break
through this crust and rush upon us."

"Who will assist the Nome King?" inquired the Scarecrow.

"The Whimsies, the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms," she replied.
"I watched to-day in my Magic Picture the messengers whom the Nome
King sent to all these people to summon them to assemble in his great
caverns."

"Let us see what they are doing now," suggested the Tin
Woodman.

So Ozma wished to see the Nome King's cavern, and at once the
landscape faded from the Magic Picture and was replaced by the scene
then being enacted in the jeweled cavern of King Roquat.

A wild and startling scene it was which the Oz people beheld.

Before the Nome King stood the Chief of the Whimsies and the
Grand Gallipoot of the Growleywogs, surrounded by their most skillful
generals. Very fierce and powerful they looked, so that even the
Nome King and General Guph, who stood beside his master, seemed a bit
fearful in the presence of their allies.

Now a still more formidable creature entered the cavern. It was
the First and Foremost of the Phanfasms and he proudly sat down in
King Roquat's own throne and demanded the right to lead his forces
through the tunnel in advance of all the others. The First and
Foremost now appeared to all eyes in his hairy skin and the bear's
head. What his real form was even Roquat did not know.

Through the arches leading into the vast series of caverns that
lay beyond the throne room of King Roquat could be seen ranks upon
ranks of the invaders--thousands of Phanfasms, Growleywogs and
Whimsies standing in serried lines, while behind them were massed the
thousands upon thousands of General Guph's own army of Nomes.

"Listen!" whispered Ozma. "I think we can hear what they are
saying."

So they kept still and listened.

"Is all ready?" demanded the First and Foremost, haughtily.

"The tunnel is finally completed," replied General Guph.

"How long will it take us to march to the Emerald City?" asked
the Grand Gallipoot of the Growleywogs.

"If we start at midnight," replied the Nome King, "we shall
arrive at the Emerald City by daybreak. Then, while all the Oz
people are sleeping, we will capture them and make them our slaves.
After that we will destroy the city itself and march through the Land
of Oz, burning and devastating as we go."

"Good!" cried the First and Foremost. "When we get through with
Oz it will be a desert wilderness. Ozma shall be my slave."

"She shall be my slave!" shouted the Grand Gallipoot,
angrily.

"We'll decide that by and by," said King Roquat hastily. "Don't
let us quarrel now, friends. First let us conquer Oz, and then we
will divide the spoils of war in a satisfactory manner."

The First and Foremost smiled wickedly; but he only said:

"I and my Phanfasms go first, for nothing on earth can oppose
our power."

They all agreed to that, knowing the Phanfasms to be the
mightiest of the combined forces. King Roquat now invited them to
attend a banquet he had prepared, where they might occupy themselves
in eating and drinking until midnight arrived.

As they had now seen and heard all of the plot against them that
they cared to, Ozma allowed her Magic Picture to fade away. Then she
turned to her friends and said:

"Our enemies will be here sooner than I expected. What do you
advise me to do?"

"It is now too late to assemble our people," said the Tin
Woodman, despondently. "If you had allowed me to arm and drill my
Winkies, we might have put up a good fight and destroyed many of our
enemies before we were conquered."

"The Munchkins are good fighters, too," said Omby Amby; "and so
are the Gillikins."

"But I do not wish to fight," declared Ozma, firmly. "No one
has the right to destroy any living creatures, however evil they may
be, or to hurt them or make them unhappy. I will not fight, even to
save my kingdom." "The Nome King is not so particular," remarked
the Scarecrow. "He intends to destroy us all and ruin our beautiful
country."

"Because the Nome King intends to do evil is no excuse for my
doing the same," replied Ozma.

"Self-preservation is the first law of nature," quoted the
Shaggy Man.

"True," she said, readily. "I would like to discover a plan to
save ourselves without fighting."

That seemed a hopeless task to them, but realizing that Ozma was
determined not to fight, they tried to think of some means that might
promise escape.

"Couldn't we bribe our enemies, by giving them a lot of emeralds
and gold?" asked Jack Pumpkinhead.

"No, because they believe they are able to take everything we
have," replied the Ruler.

"I have thought of something," said Dorothy.

"What is it, dear?" asked Ozma.

"Let us use the Magic Belt to wish all of us in Kansas. We will
put some emeralds in our pockets, and can sell them in Topeka for
enough to pay off the mortgage on Uncle Henry's farm. Then we can
all live together and be happy."

"A clever idea!" exclaimed the Scarecrow.

"Kansas is a very good country. I've been there," said the
Shaggy Man.

"That seems to me an excellent plan," approved the Tin
Woodman.

"No!" said Ozma, decidedly. "Never will I desert my people and
leave them to so cruel a fate. I will use the Magic Belt to send the
rest of you to Kansas, if you wish, but if my beloved country must be
destroyed and my people enslaved I will remain and share their
fate."

"Quite right," asserted the Scarecrow, sighing. "I will remain
with you."

"And so will I," declared the Tin Woodman and the Shaggy Man and
Jack Pumpkinhead, in turn. Tiktok, the machine man, also said he
intended to stand by Ozma. "For," said he, "I should be of no use at
all in Kan-sas."

"For my part," announced Dorothy, gravely, "if the Ruler of Oz
must not desert her people, a Princess of Oz has no right to run
away, either. I'm willing to become a slave with the rest of you; so
all we can do with the Magic Belt is to use it to send Uncle Henry
and Aunt Em back to Kansas."

"I've been a slave all my life," Aunt Em replied, with
considerable cheerfulness, "and so has Henry. I guess we won't go
back to Kansas, anyway. I'd rather take my chances with the rest of
you."

Ozma smiled upon them all gratefully.

"There is no need to despair just yet," she said. "I'll get up
early to-morrow morning and be at the Forbidden Fountain when the
fierce warriors break through the crust of the earth. I will speak
to them pleasantly and perhaps they won't be so very bad, after
all."

"Why do they call it the Forbidden Fountain?" asked Dorothy,
thoughtfully.

"Don't you know, dear?" returned Ozma, surprised.

"No," said Dorothy. "Of course I've seen the fountain in the
palace grounds, ever since I first came to Oz; and I've read the sign
which says: 'All Persons are Forbidden to Drink at this Fountain.'
But I never knew why they were forbidden. The water seems clear and
sparkling and it bubbles up in a golden basin all the time."

"That water," declared Ozma, gravely, "is the most dangerous
thing in all the Land of Oz. It is the Water of Oblivion."

"What does that mean?" asked Dorothy.

"Whoever drinks at the Forbidden Fountain at once forgets
everything he has ever known," Ozma asserted.

"It wouldn't be a bad way to forget our troubles," suggested
Uncle Henry.

"That is true; but you would forget everything else, and become
as ignorant as a baby," returned Ozma.

"Does it make one crazy?" asked Dorothy.

"No; it only makes one forget," replied the girl Ruler. "It is
said that once--long, long ago--a wicked King ruled Oz, and made
himself and all his people very miserable and unhappy. So Glinda,
the Good Sorceress, placed this fountain here, and the King drank of
its water and forgot all his wickedness. His mind became innocent
and vacant, and when he learned the things of life again they were
all good things. But the people remembered how wicked their King had
been, and were still afraid of him. Therefore, he made them all
drink of the Water of Oblivion and forget everything they had known,
so that they became as simple and innocent as their King. After
that, they all grew wise together, and their wisdom was good, so that
peace and happiness reigned in the land. But for fear some one might
drink of the water again, and in an instant forget all he had
learned, the King put that sign upon the fountain, where it has
remained for many centuries up to this very day."

They had all listened intently to Ozma's story, and when she
finished speaking there was a long period of silence while all
thought upon the curious magical power of the Water of Oblivion.

Finally the Scarecrow's painted face took on a broad smile that
stretched the cloth as far as it would go.

"How thankful I am," he said, "that I have such an excellent
assortment of brains!"

"I gave you the best brains I ever mixed," declared the Wizard,
with an air of pride.

"You did, indeed!" agreed the Scarecrow, "and they work so
splendidly that they have found a way to save Oz--to save us all!"

"I'm glad to hear that," said the Wizard. "We never needed
saving more than we do just now."

"Do you mean to say you can save us from those awful Phanfasms,
and Growleywogs and Whimsies?" asked Dorothy eagerly.

"I'm sure of it, my dear," asserted the Scarecrow, still smiling
genially.

"Tell us how!" cried the Tin Woodman.

"Not now," said the Scarecrow. "You may all go to bed, and I
advise you to forget your worries just as completely as if you had
drunk of the Water of Oblivion in the Forbidden Fountain. I'm going
to stay here and tell my plan to Ozma alone, but if you will all be
at the Forbidden Fountain at daybreak, you'll see how easily we will
save the kingdom when our enemies break through the crust of earth
and come from the tunnel."

So they went away and let the Scarecrow and Ozma alone; but
Dorothy could not sleep a wink all night.

"He is only a Scarecrow," she said to herself, "and I'm not sure
that his mixed brains are as clever as he thinks they are."

But she knew that if the Scarecrow's plan failed they were all
lost; so she tried to have faith in him.