Glinda of Oz Page 11

  CHAPTER 11

  The Conquest of the Skeezers

  Queen Coo-ee-oh dropped the rope, tottered and fell headlong into thewater, sinking beneath the surface, while the Skeezers in thesubmarine were too bewildered to assist her and only stared at theripples in the water where she had disappeared. A moment later therearose to the surface a beautiful White Swan. This Swan was of largesize, very gracefully formed, and scattered all over its whitefeathers were tiny diamonds, so thickly placed that as the rays of themorning sun fell upon them the entire body of the Swan glistened likeone brilliant diamond. The head of the Diamond Swan had a bill ofpolished gold and its eyes were two sparkling amethysts.

  "Hooray!" cried the Su-dic, dancing up and down with wicked glee. "Mypoor wife, Rora, is avenged at last. You made her a Golden Pig,Coo-ee-oh, and now I have made you a Diamond Swan. Float on your lakeforever, if you like, for your web feet can do no more magic and youare as powerless as the Pig you made of my wife!"

  "Villain! Scoundrel!" croaked the Diamond Swan. "You will be punishedfor this. Oh, what a fool I was to let you enchant me!"

  "A fool you were, and a fool you are!" laughed the Su-dic, dancingmadly in his delight. And then he carelessly tipped over the othercopper vessel with his heel and its contents spilled on the sands andwere lost to the last drop.

  The Su-dic stopped short and looked at the overturned vessel with arueful countenance.

  "That's too bad--too bad!" he exclaimed sorrowfully. "I've lost allthe poison I had to kill the fishes with, and I can't make any morebecause only my wife knew the secret of it, and she is now a foolishPig and has forgotten all her magic."

  "Very well," said the Diamond Swan scornfully, as she floated upon thewater and swam gracefully here and there. "I'm glad to see you arefoiled. Your punishment is just beginning, for although you haveenchanted me and taken away my powers of sorcery you have still thethree magic fishes to deal with, and they'll destroy you in time, markmy words."

  The Su-dic stared at the Swan a moment. Then he yelled to his men:

  "Shoot her! Shoot the saucy bird!"

  They let fly some arrows at the Diamond Swan, but she dove under thewater and the missiles fell harmless. When Coo-ee-oh rose to thesurface she was far from the shore and she swiftly swam across thelake to where no arrows or spears could reach her.

  The Su-dic rubbed his chin and thought what to do next. Near byfloated the submarine in which the Queen had come, but the Skeezerswho were in it were puzzled what to do with themselves. Perhaps theywere not sorry their cruel mistress had been transformed into aDiamond Swan, but the transformation had left them quite helpless. Theunder-water boat was not operated by machinery, but by certain mysticwords uttered by Coo-ee-oh. They didn't know how to submerge it, orhow to make the water-tight shield cover them again, or how to makethe boat go back to the castle, or make it enter the little basementroom where it was usually kept. As a matter of fact, they were nowshut out of their village under the Great Dome and could not get backagain. So one of the men called to the Supreme Dictator of theFlatheads, saying:

  "Please make us prisoners and take us to your mountain, and feed andkeep us, for we have nowhere to go."

  Then the Su-dic laughed and answered:

  "Not so. I can't be bothered by caring for a lot of stupid Skeezers.Stay where you are, or go wherever you please, so long as you keepaway from our mountain." He turned to his men and added: "We haveconquered Queen Coo-ee-oh and made her a helpless swan. The Skeezersare under water and may stay there. So, having won the war, let us gohome again and make merry and feast, having after many years provedthe Flatheads to be greater and more powerful than the Skeezers."

  So the Flatheads marched away and passed through the row of palms andwent back to their mountain, where the Su-dic and a few of hisofficers feasted and all the others were forced to wait on them.

  "I'm sorry we couldn't have roast pig," said the Su-dic, "but as theonly pig we have is made of gold, we can't eat her. Also the GoldenPig happens to be my wife, and even were she not gold I am sure shewould be too tough to eat."