27. A Hundred Years Afterward

The Enchanted Island of Yew

by L. Frank Baum

About a hundred years after Prince Marvel enjoyed his strange
adventures in the Enchanted Island of Yew an odd thing happened.

A hidden mirror in a crumbling old castle of Dawna broke loose
from its fastenings and fell crashing on the stone pavement of the
deserted hall. And from amid the ruins rose the gigantic form of a
man. His hair and beard were a fiery red, and he gazed at the
desolation around him in absolute amazement.

It was the Red Rogue of Dawna, set free from his
imprisonment.

He wandered out and found strange scenes confronting him, for
during the hundred years a great change had taken place in the
Enchanted Island. Great cities had been built and great kingdoms
established. Civilization had won the people, and they no longer
robbed or fought or indulged in magical arts, but were busily
employed and leading respectable lives.

When the Red Rogue tried to tell folks who he was, they but
laughed at him, thinking the fellow crazy. He tried to get together
a band of thieves, as Wul-Takim had done in the old days, but none
would join him.

And so, forced to be honest against his will, the Rogue was
driven to earn a living by digging in the garden of a wealthy noble,
of whom he had never before heard.

But often he would pause in his labors and lean on his spade,
while thoughts of the old days of wild adventure passed through his
mind in rapid succession; and then the big man would shake his red
head with a puzzled air and mutter:

"I wonder who that Prince Marvel could have been! And I wonder
what ever became of him!"