It must have been a door!” exclaimed Randy, jumping up as fast as he could. Kabumpo was lying on his back, his four feet sticking up in the air, grunting and sputtering with disgust.
“Doornation!” raged the Elegant Elephant, lurching
to his feet. As he did so, the metal door swung back into place and they found themselves shut up in a huge, iron-walled chamber. In the center of the rock floor a fire fountain threw sprays of sparks into the air and to the two cold and shivering adventurers the warmth seemed perfectly delicious.
“Wherever do you suppose we are, Kabumpo?” whispered Randy, looking fearfully around the great, grim, empty room.
“Ask me again in five minutes,” wheezed the Elegant Elephant, making for the fire fountain with long energetic strides. I’m going to get warm and dry. Then maybe I can think of something. At any rate, it’s better in here than outside.”
Randy wasn’t so sure, but following Kabumpo’s example he began drying himself at the fire fountain. They were both so busy turning round and round that neither noticed the opening of fifty round doors in the iron wall. And next instant with a roar that sounded like the explosion of fifty guns, the inhabitants of the cavern hurled themselves at the intruders. Snatching Randy up in his trunk, Kabumpo, trembling in every leg, saw fifty projectiles shaped like torpedoes coming straight at them.
Turning sideways and holding Randy so as to protect him by his own huge body Kabumpo shuddered
and closed his eyes. He could almost feel the horrid missiles piercing his elegant hide. This, then, was the end. Who now would rescue the royal family of Pumperdink or save the unhappy kingdom from the misrule of Faleero and Kettywig? This and a hundred other gloomy thoughts flashed through the Elegant Elephant’s mind as he awaited destruction. He was astonished at the time it was taking the torpedoes to reach and riddle him.
Finally, unable to bear the suspense any longer, he opened one eye and glanced wildly over his shoulder.
CHAPTER 6
Torpedora, the Glorious
IN a neat and precise row, fifty torpedoes stood upright before him. Not merely torpedoes, but torpedomen and women. They had strong, smooth iron-clad bodies with no legs or feet, but their fire arms were held close to their cylindrical sides, and their heads ended in sharp, dangerous-looking points. Their black and shining faces were neither cruel nor ferocious, and taking heart, Kabumpo set Randy down beside him. As he did so, the torpedo in the
center of the line hopped out.
“Speak!” commanded this curious being in a succession of explosions and sulphurous sputters. “Speak and explain yourselves before we simply explode with laughter,”
“Don’t explode!” begged the Elegant Elephant, backing away hastily. “Don’t explode and I’ll explain everything.”
“Do you-explode often?” asked Randy, as Kabumpo cast about in his mind for a good way to begin his explanations.
“Only once,” hissed the torpedoman at the end of the line, looking at the boy meaningfully; and the Elegant Elephant, fearing that Randy’s youth and inexperience might get them into serious trouble, hurriedly took the conversation into his own trunk.
“Whom have I the honor of addressing?” he began importantly with a gracious nod toward the line of torpedoes.
“Torpedora the Glorious of Torpedo Town!” shouted the iron men so lustily that their breath filled the cave with smoke and sulphur.
“Ah-hhh!: choked Kabumpo, tears pouring down both cheeks from the acrid smoke. He could just make out the iron petticoat and crown that distinguished Torpedora from her subjects. “We hereby
salute your Torpedojesty!” He raised his trunk impressively, for the Elegant Elephant had had great experience with royal personages. “We salute your Torpedojesty and crave the kind indulgence of your attention and the hospitality of your court.”
“Have we any of those,” rasped Torpedora to the torpedoman just behind her. She looked so worried that Randy had all he could do to keep from laughing.
“No, but we have a splendid assortment of torpedoughnuts,” answered the fellow, popping out his eyes at the Queen.
“Dodo, fetch the torpedoughnuts!” commanded her Majesty, smiling pleasantly at the Elegant Elephant. As Randy and Kabumpo watched curiously for these strange refreshments to appear, a small door in the west wall flew open and out shot Torpedodo, as quaint a bird as I’ve ever had the pleasure of describing. He, too, was torpedo-shaped, but smaller than the other inhabitants of Torpedo Town. Instead of fire arms, he had fire wings and claws and in one of these he carried an iron basket full of red hot iron rings, glowing like horseshoes that have just left the furnace. These he sulkily offered to the visitors, and when Kabumpo and the boy jumped away from him in real alarm, he dropped the basket on the floor and began shooting round and
round examining the two from every angle.
“Pray eat!” directed the Queen, graciously extending her fire arms. “You will find our doughnuts very strengthening.” Randy looked desperately at the Elegant Elephant, but Kabumpo seemed equal to any emergency.
“We only eat at night, your Highness,” murmured Kabumpo apologetically. “If we were to partake of food in the daytime we would be utterly destroyed. It is the way we are made,” he finished, with a sly look at Randy. The Queen seemed unconvinced, but without giving her time to argue the matter, Kabumpo plunged into a lively account of their adventures. He had just got to the disappearance of the royal family, when Torpedora interrupted him with an imperious gesture.
“Stop!” cried her Majesty in a threatening voice. “Where is this Pumperdink? Have you ever heard of such a kingdom, Dodo?”
“No, no! Absolutely no, no!” screeched the Dodo, in a raucous croak. “There is no such place, your Highness!” Settling himself in an iron swing just above the Queen’s head, he began to swing himself vigorously back and forth, emitting such villainous screams and screeches that Kabumpo could not make himself heard at all.
“Just leave out Pumperdink and go on from there sniffed the Queen, as Dodo finally left off screeching.
“If I leave out Pumperdink there’s use going on at all,” snapped Kabumpo, who had been rumbling like a volcano during Dodo’s ear-splitting racket
“Then why go on?” inquired Torpedora, showing a double row of small black teeth as she smiled sweetly at Kabumpo. “Stories make me so very tired and sleepy, especially stories that are not true. Ah, I have it!” The Queen clapped her hands gleefully. “I’ll keep you for riddles. Every day we will guess who you are and how you came here. It ought to last for days and days and then-” her Majesty gave Kabumpo a second dazzling smile “-and then we’ll riddle you through and through and sweep you into the fire fountain.”
“Well, won’t that be nice?” Randy edged closer to Kabumpo and looked with positive aversion at the iron Queen.
“It’s no use talking to these idiots,” snorted the Elegant Elephant temperishly. “I shan’t open my mouth again.” He gave a furious sniff, however, as the Queen, with a stiff little bow, excused herself.
“It’s high time I was torpedozing,” yawned her
Highness in a bored voice, and signaling wearily to her subjects she shot majestically into the air. Followed by the whole fifty and Torpedodo, she circled around the iron chamber and then with fifty-one little clicks they disappeared into the small metal compartments in the wall.
“Well, what,” gulped the Elegant Elephant, sitting down with a thump, “what do you think of that? Never have I been treated with such cast-iron impertinence, never-in my whole elephant life.”
“We’d better go while they are asleep,” breathed agreed Kabumpo, hot-footing it quickly after Randy. “If we stay here we’ll be riddled, and a nice thing that would be.”
“And I used to like riddles,” sighed Randy pensively. “But liking riddles and being riddled are not the same thing at all. How do you open this door, anyway?”
“Another riddle,” panted Kabumpo, hurling himself at the heavy struct
ure. But push and thump as he would the door refused to budge. As he paused to rest and mop his forehead, Torpedodo whizzed suddenly from his hole in the wall.
“That door only opens once in every hundred years,” jeered Dodo vindictively. “Ha, ha! You’ll have to wait a while!” And returning like a flash to his iron aperture he went in and slammed the door,
leaving Kabumpo and Randy too discouraged and exhausted even to speak. The air, which had seemed pleasantly warm when they were wet and shivering, was now so hot and crackling that they could hardly breathe and the terrible heat, added to their hunger, made it imperative for them to escape as soon as possible.
“I can’t stand-much-more-of-this!” panted Kabumpo, flapping his ears unhappily. “And say, I’d give my best suspenders for just one peanut.”
“Maybe there’s another door,” suggested Randy, but before they had gone halfway around the great room a storm came up, or rather down, and they were a hundred times more uncomfortable than before. Each rain drop was a torpedo that exploded spitefully when it struck the ground. After three had set fire to Randy’s hair and another had burned a hole in his coat, Kabumpo made the boy lie down and then stood carefully over him. Thus Randy was protected but the poor elephant was peppered with the stinging missiles and had to blow and beat himself constantly with his trunk to put out the tiny fires that the torpedoes started in his cloak. And when at last the storm abated his velvet robe was little more than a blackened mass of holes held together
by tiny threads of silk.
“Oh, well,” sighed Kabumpo resignedly, as Randy rolled out and looked at him in shocked silence, “I’ve always wanted a smoking jacket and now I’ve got one.”
Randy jumped to his feet and gave the big elephant a quick hug. “Kabumpo,” marvelled the boy softly, “you’re grand! I don’t see how you can joke when you’re all singed and scorched and we’re both liable to be riddled.”
“Humph!” sniffed Kabumpo grimly. “I’m too old to cry, so I may as well laugh. Now for that door. Ha!” Rubbing the cinders from his eyes, the Elegant Elephant marched determinedly along the north wall, feeling every inch of the way with his trunk. In the very center he came to a small iron ring.
“This may set off an alarm or blow us to bits,” grumbled the Elegant Elephant, “but anything’s better than this.” “Let me pull it” begged Randy, who wished to take his share of the danger and felt that so far Kabumpo had borne the brunt of their hardships. “Let me pull it.” And before Kabumpo could interfere he gave the iron ring a furious tug. A loud bell sounded in the west wall and as the two prisoners anxiously waited for something to happen, Dodo burst from his cell again and hurled himself downward.
“What do you want? Who told you to ring my bell? Don’t you know I must obey the bell ringer, no matter who he is?”
“Oh, Kabumpo, did you hear that?” squealed Randy, beginning to hop up and down with excitement. “Show us the way out of here,” he trumpeted fiercely. “quick before I wring your neck.” Dodo gave a frightened squeak at this terrible threat, and motioning for them to follow flew straight to the north wall and tapped twice on the panel with his fire claw. Without a sound it slid aside and without stopping to thank the rude creature or say good-bye to Torpedo Town, Kabumpo rushed through the opening.
“Be careful,” warned Randy, who was riding perilously between the Elegant Elephant’s ears. “Remember the river!”
“I’d like to drink a gallon of river right now,” puffed Kabumpo, fairly panting with thirst and exhaustion. “Why, I’d even jump in it.”
But there was no river on the other side of Torpedo Town, only a long, dim tunnel that seemed to slant gradually upward. But the air was cool and with a profound sigh of relief, Kabumpo began to climb the slight incline. They had gone possibly half a mile when they came to a turn in the tunnel and
found themselves facing an immense grey curtain. It billowed in and out and they could distinctly hear voices and footsteps on the other side. On the curtain itself, after some difficulty, they made out ten words. THIS IS STAIR WAY. STEP UP AND STATE YOUR BUSINESS.
“Well, that’s fair enough,” mumbled Kabumpo, after squinting thoughtfully at these instructions. So, parting the curtains with his trunk, he called in a loud voice:
“Way for the Elegant Elephant of Oz and Randy, the Gilliken, who seek the castle of the Red Jinn! Way for the Elegant Elephant of Oz!” Then, forgetting to step up, he fell forward on his knees, throwing Randy over his head.
CHAPTER 7
Stair Way
THERE was a short silence as Randy and Kabumpo fell through the curtain. Randy, the first to regain his feet saw an immense flight of irregular steps straggling upward. Each step was as low and flat and broad as a city street. Crooked little stone houses were built on the edges of each step and
a line of crooked and stooped people with eyes as large as plums turned to stare at the travelers. As Kabumpo and Randy stood uncertainly at the bottom of Stair Way a hoarse voice came booming down to them:
“Welcome to Stair Way! Come up! Keep moving! Look where you’re going! Go where you’re looking!”
“It’s the King,” fluttered a little Stare on the lowest tread. “Come, my stepchildren. Come to your stepmother. Keep moving, keep moving. Do as his Majesty commands.” At this, all the Stares, who had stopped to gaze at the newcomers, began to move upward, but over their shoulders they stared without winking at Kabumpo and Randy. It made the boy feel positively creepy, but the Elegant Elephant, with an indifferent shrug, cautiously started up the crowded steps.
“We have to go up anyway,” muttered Kabumpo, to show that it was not the King’s orders that influenced him. “Have you no children of your own, madam?” he inquired loftily of the crooked little Stare Lady who was anxiously shepherding a stoop shouldered boy and girl out of his path.
“We’re all step-relations here,” explained the little woman, rolling her huge purple eyes around at Kabumpo.
“Stepmothers, stepfathers, stepsisters, stepbrothers, stepchildren, step-”
“Step lively,” shouted the King’s voice again from the top of the stair, and old and young, little and big, began to crowd and push in an endeavor to reach the top.
“It’s a shame!” breathed Randy indignantly. “Must you keep doing this all the time?”
“What else is there to do?” asked the little stepmother who had first addressed them. “What else could one do in Stair Way but go up and down? That’s why we’re here, to step and stare, to stare and step. It’s beautiful!” she finished earnestly.
“Step by step one goes a long way,” said Kabumpo under his breath. “Ha, ha! But not for me.” We look you up, we look you down, For that is the rule in our beautiful town; Mid first we walk up and then we walk dawn, And keep moving all day; it’s the way In our town !” chanted the Stares, opening their eyes still wider and wider.
“How perfectly awful!” yawned Kabumpo, who was by this time so tired and hungry he could hardly keep his feet. “Well, why do you have houses if you keep moving up and down this way?”
“Oh, just to step in and out of,” beamed the stepmother.
“What do other people do with houses?” “Not much more than that, nowadays,” admitted the Elegant Elephant. “Say, are we almost at the
top?”
“Do you not see the castles?” exclaimed a step-uncle, raising his arm importantly. Randy, holding Kabumpo’s ear, stood up to have a look, but all he discovered were two enormous stepladders, one on each side of the top step of Stair Way Town. A bent and crooked King with a scepter that looked like a banister rail was scurrying up one ladder and a stooped and savage-looking Queen was backing awkwardly down the other.
“King Kumup and Queen Godown,” whispered the little stepmother, who was walking sedately beside Kabumpo.
“And do they really run up and down those ladders all day?” gasped Randy, watching the two sovereigns intently.
“Been doing it for years,” boasted the
step-uncle who was on the other side of the Elegant Elephant. But he had time for no more, for just then Kabumpo reached the top step and the Queen, jumping off her ladder and flashing her great purple eyes in a royal and dangerous fashion, bawled imperiously:
“Go down!” With frightened little bows the Stares turned and started obediently downward.
“Go down!” shouted her Majesty, again pointing a furious finger at Kabumpo. “I said GO DOWN
“I heard you,” observed the Elegant Elephant calmly regarding the crooked little Queen, “but, unfortunately, I have other plans.” Kabumpo swung his trunk unconcernedly.
“Other plans!” raged the Queen, opening her purple eyes so wide that Randy thought they would roll down her cheeks, while the King, who had reached the top of the ladder, brandished his scepter menacingly. “It’s against the law to stop on the stairs,” roared the King indignantly. “Move on! Move on, or we’ll take steps against you. Whoever stops on the stair is liable to be kicked down the whole flight!”
“Now I shouldn’t try that,” advised Kabumpo, with an amused wink around at Randy. Then, as the Queen actually gave him a feeble push and the King in his anger and excitement fell all the way down the ladder and landed on his head, the Elegant Elephant dodged between the sputtering sovereigns and plunged through the grey curtains just behind the step-castles.
“Imagine spending your life on the stairs,” exclaimed
Randy, looking curiously over his shoulder.
But Kabumpo had neither the time nor the inclination
to look back. Hurrying along the earthy passageway in which he now found himself he looked eagerly ahead for some signs of an outlet that would take them back to upper and outer Oz.
L. Frank Baum - Oz 26 Page 4