King, that the fat little man could not get out of his way.
    Thump-BANG! came the wooden heels, right against his round body, and the King flew 
into the air and fell upon the head of his captain, who let him drop flat upon the ground.
    "Well, well!" said the King, sitting up and looking surprised."Why didn't my magic 
belt work, I wonder?"
    "The creature is made of wood," replied the captain."Your magic will not work on 
wood, you know."
    "Ah, I'd forgotten that," said the King, getting up and limping to his throne."Very 
well, let the girl alone.She can't escape us, anyway."
    The warriors, who had been rather confused by these incidents, now formed their ranks 
again, and the Sawhorse pranced across the room to Dorothy and took a position beside the 
Hungry Tiger.
    At that moment the doors that led to the palace flew open and the people of Ev and 
the people of Oz were disclosed to view.They paused, astonished, at sight of the warriors 
and the angry Nome King, seated in their midst.
    "Surrender!" cried the King, in a loud voice."You are my prisoners."
    "Go 'long!" answered Billina, from the Scarecrow's shoulder."You promised me that if 
I guessed correctly my friends and I might depart in safety.And you always keep your 
promises."
    "I said you might leave the palace in safety," retorted the King; "and so you may, 
but you cannot leave my dominions.You are my prisoners, and I will hurl you all into my 
underground dungeons, where the volcanic fires glow and the molten lava flows in every 
direction, and the air is hotter than blue blazes."
    "That will be the end of me, all right," said the Scarecrow, sorrowfully."One small 
blaze, blue or green, is enough to reduce me to an ash-heap."
    "Do you surrender?" demanded the King.
    Billina whispered something in the Scarecrow's ear that made him smile and put his 
hands in his jacket pockets.
    "No!" returned Ozma, boldly answering the King.Then she said to her army:
    "Forward, my brave soldiers, and fight for your Ruler and yourselves, unto death!"
    "Pardon me, Most Royal Ozma," replied one of her generals; "but I find that I and my 
brother officers all suffer from heart disease, and the slightest excitement might kill 
us.If we fight we may get excited.
    Would it not be well for us to avoid this grave danger?"
    "Soldiers should not have heart disease," said Ozma.
    "Private soldiers are not, I believe, afflicted that way," declared another general, 
twirling his moustache thoughtfully."If your Royal Highness desires, we will order our 
private to attack yonder warriors."
    "Do so," replied Ozma.
    "For-ward-march!" cried all the generals, with one voice.
    "For-ward-march!" yelled the colonels."For-ward-march!" shouted the 
majors."For-ward-march!" commanded the captains.
    And at that the private leveled his spear and dashed furiously upon the foe.
    The captain of the Nomes was so surprised by this sudden onslaught that he forgot to 
command his warriors to fight, so that the ten men in the first row, who stood in front 
of the private's spear, fell over like so many toy soldiers.The spear could not go 
through their steel armor, however, so the warriors scrambled to their feet again, and by 
that time the private had knocked over another row of them.
    Then the captain brought down his battle-axe with such a strong blow that the 
private's spear was shattered and knocked from his grasp, and he was helpless to fight 
any longer.
    The Nome King had left his throne and pressed through his warriors to the front 
ranks, so he could see what was going on; but as he faced Ozma and her friends the 
Scarecrow, as if aroused to action by the valor of the private, drew one of Billina's 
eggs from his right jacket pocket and hurled it straight at the little monarch's head.
    It struck him squarely in his left eye, where the egg smashed and scattered, as eggs 
will, and covered his face and hair and beard with its sticky contents.
    "Help, help!" screamed the King, clawing with his fingers at the egg, in a struggle 
to remove it.
    "An egg! an egg!Run for your lives!" shouted the captain of the Nomes, in a voice of 
horror.
    And how they DID run!The warriors fairly tumbled over one another in their efforts to 
escape the fatal poison of that awful egg, and those who could not rush down the winding 
stair fell off the balcony into the great cavern beneath, knocking over those who stood 
below them.
    Even while the King was still yelling for help his throne room became emptied of 
every one of his warriors, and before the monarch had managed to clear the egg away from 
his left eye the Scarecrow threw the second egg against his right eye, where it smashed 
and blinded him entirely.
    The King was unable to flee because he could not see which way to run; so he stood 
still and howled and shouted and screamed in abject fear.
    While this was going on, Billina flew over to Dorothy, and perching herself upon the 
Lion's back the hen whispered eagerly to the girl:
    "Get his belt!Get the Nome King's jeweled belt!It unbuckles in the back.Quick, 
Dorothy-quick!"
    
    18.The Fate of the Tin Woodman
    
    Dorothy obeyed.She ran at once behind the Nome King, who was still trying to free his 
eyes from the egg, and in a twinkling she had unbuckled his splendid jeweled belt and 
carried it away with her to her place beside the Tiger and Lion, where, because she did 
not know what else to do with it, she fastened it around her own slim waist.
    Just then the Chief Steward rushed in with a sponge and a bowl of water, and began 
mopping away the broken eggs from his master's face. In a few minutes, and while all the 
party stood looking on, the King regained the use of his eyes, and the first thing he did 
was to glare wickedly upon the Scarecrow and exclaim:
    "I'll make you suffer for this, you hay-stuffed dummy!Don't you know eggs are poison 
to Nomes?"
    "Really," said the Scarecrow, "they DON'T seem to agree with you, although I wonder 
why."
    "They were strictly fresh and above suspicion," said Billina."You ought to be glad to 
get them."
    "I'll transform you all into scorpions!" cried the King, angrily, and began waving 
his arms and muttering magic words.
    But none of the people became scorpions, so the King stopped and looked at them in 
surprise.
    "What's wrong?" he asked.
    "Why, you are not wearing your magic belt," replied the Chief Steward, after looking 
the King over carefully."Where is it?What have you done with it?"
    The Nome King clapped his hand to his waist, and his rock colored face turned white