Baum, L Frank - Oz 31 by Baum L Frank

Author:Baum, L Frank
Language: eng
Format: epub

CHAPTER 11

DOWN TO THE PRISONERS' PIT!

"Oh! Oh! Give me another hand, and I'll do my best to help you," sputtered Nifflepok as Handy Mandy ruthlessly continued to squeeze his fingers.

"We'll help ourselves, thank you," retorted the Goat Girl tartly. Then, relenting a little, she relaxed her hold, for she could not help pitying Nifflepok and all the subjects of this cruel King. "Where are these prison pits?" she asked impatiently, for she was anxious to be alone with Nox. "If you are going to lock us up, do hurry along with it."

"Yes, yes, absolutely yes!" moaned Nifflepok, glancing nervously over his shoulder to be sure the white Ox was not going to tread on his heels.

"You'll be there in no time, no time at all," he assured them earnestly.

"Step over here, please." Moving a sliding door in the wall of the corridor, the King's assistant waved them toward a smooth, wheelless silver carriage. It looked to Handy a lot like an old-fashioned sleigh, and as there were seats in front and a space in back large enough for the Ox, she

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let go Nifflepok's hand and quite willingly climbed aboard. Nox, grunting a little, stepped over the side and settled himself behind her.

"Well, goodbye," sniffed Nifflepok, rubbing his bruised fingers tenderly.

"You'll find everything you need below, not that you'll be needing anything," he added mournfully as he pulled out a silver switch. "Goodbye.

I'm sorry for you!" he shouted as the car with a lurch that almost loosened Handy's teeth shot down a sliding runway to the deep pits of darkness below.

Now you and I, who are used to scenic railways and have enjoyed the thrills of chute the chutes for years, would have been less startled by the wild, dizzy leaps, the swoops, curves and climbs, and the sickening drops of the Silver King's chariot. But neither the Goat Girl nor the Royal Ox had ever heard of a scenic railway, much less ridden in one, and the underground car of the Silver Monarch was more like a chute the chutes than anything else.

Sometimes the two travelers were in complete darkness, at other times they whirled by the narrow, well-lighted ledges of a queer cave city where the subjects of the Mountain King lived in cell-like apertures in the silver rock like the cliff dwellers of old. Then without warning the car would plunge to the work caverns below, past the gloomy shafts of the silver mines, or dart up to the living quarters and grottoes of the King himself, caves so lavishly furnished and glowing with jewels Handy let out little shrieks of astonishment. In the King's subterranean gardens, silver swallows bathed in the silver fountains, silver maples rustled their lacy branches in the lavender-scented breezes, silver-petalled flowers with jeweled centers grew as riotously as daisies and buttercups in the upstairs world.

The mountaineers themselves, working listlessly with pick and shovel in the mines or walking soberly

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