In a moment the King returned to his throne and relighted his pipe,
and the rest of the little band of adventurers settled themselves for
another long wait. They were greatly disheartened by the failure of
their girl Ruler, and the knowledge that she was now an ornament in
the Nome King’s palace–a dreadful, creepy place in spite of all its
magnificence. Without their little leader they did not know what to
do next, and each one, down to the trembling private of the army,
began to fear he would soon be more ornamental than useful.

Suddenly the Nome King began laughing.

“Ha, ha, ha! He, he, he! Ho, ho, ho!”

“What’s happened?” asked the Scarecrow.

“Why, your friend, the Tin Woodman, has become the funniest thing you
can imagine,” replied the King, wiping the tears of merriment from his
eyes. “No one would ever believe he could make such an amusing
ornament. Next!”

They gazed at each other with sinking hearts. One of the generals
began to weep dolefully.

“What are you crying for?” asked the Scarecrow, indignant at such a
display of weakness.

“He owed me six weeks back pay,” said the general, “and I hate
to lose him.”

“Then you shall go and find him,” declared the Scarecrow.

“Me!” cried the general, greatly alarmed.

“Certainly. It is your duty to follow your commander. March!”

“I won’t,” said the general. “I’d like to, of course; but I just
simply WON’T.”

The Scarecrow looked enquiringly at the Nome King.

“Never mind,” said the jolly monarch. “If he doesn’t care to enter the
palace and make his guesses I’ll throw him into one of my fiery furnaces.”

“I’ll go!–of course I’m going,” yelled the general, as quick as scat.
“Where is the entrance–where is it? Let me go at once!”

So the Nome King escorted him into the palace, and again returned to
await the result. What the general did, no one can tell; but it was
not long before the King called for the next victim, and a colonel was
forced to try his fortune.

Thus, one after another, all of the twenty-six officers filed into the
palace and made their guesses– and became ornaments.

Meantime the King ordered refreshments to be served to those waiting,
and at his command a rudely shaped Nome entered, bearing a tray. This
Nome was not unlike the others that Dorothy had seen, but he wore a
heavy gold chain around his neck to show that he was the Chief Steward
of the Nome King, and he assumed an air of much importance, and even
told his majesty not to eat too much cake late at night, or he would
be ill.

Dorothy, however, was hungry, and she was not afraid of being ill; so
she ate several cakes and found them good, and also she drank a cup of
excellent coffee made of a richly flavored clay, browned in the
furnaces and then ground fine, and found it most refreshing and not at
all muddy.

Of all the party which had started upon this adventure, the little
Kansas girl was now left alone with the Scarecrow, Tiktok, and the
private for counsellors and companions. Of course the Cowardly Lion
and the Hungry Tiger were still there, but they, having also eaten
some of the cakes, had gone to sleep at one side of the cave, while
upon the other side stood the Sawhorse, motionless and silent, as
became a mere thing of wood. Billina had quietly walked around and
picked up the crumbs of cake which had been scattered, and now, as it
was long after bed-time, she tried to find some dark place in which to
go to sleep.

Presently the hen espied a hollow underneath the King’s rocky throne,
and crept into it unnoticed. She could still hear the chattering of
those around her, but it was almost dark underneath the throne, so
that soon she had fallen fast asleep.

“Next!” called the King, and the private, whose turn it was to enter
the fatal palace, shook hands with Dorothy and the Scarecrow and bade
them a sorrowful good-bye, and passed through the rocky portal.

They waited a long time, for the private was in no hurry to become an
ornament and made his guesses very slowly. The Nome King, who seemed
to know, by some magical power, all that took place in his beautiful
rooms of his palace, grew impatient finally and declared he would sit
up no longer.

“I love ornaments,” said he, “but I can wait until tomorrow to get
more of them; so, as soon as that stupid private is transformed, we
will all go to bed and leave the job to be finished in the morning.”

“Is it so very late?” asked Dorothy.

“Why, it is after midnight,” said the King, “and that strikes me as
being late enough. There is neither night nor day in my kingdom,
because it is under the earth’s surface, where the sun does not shine.
But we have to sleep, just the same as the up-stairs people do, and
for my part I’m going to bed in a few minutes.”

Indeed, it was not long after this that the private made his last
guess. Of course he guessed wrongly, and of course he at once became
an ornament. So the King was greatly pleased, and clapped his hands
to summon his Chief Steward.

“Show these guests to some of the sleeping apartments,” he commanded,
“and be quick about it, too, for I’m dreadfully sleepy myself.”

“You’ve no business to sit up so late,” replied the Steward, gruffly.
“You’ll be as cross as a griffin tomorrow morning.”

His Majesty made no answer to this remark, and the Chief Steward led
Dorothy through another doorway into a long hall, from which several
plain but comfortable sleeping rooms opened. The little girl was
given the first room, and the Scarecrow and Tiktok the next–although
they never slept–and the Lion and the Tiger the third. The Sawhorse
hobbled after the Steward into a fourth room, to stand stiffly in the
center of it until morning. Each night was rather a bore to the
Scarecrow, Tiktok and the Sawhorse; but they had learned from experience
to pass the time patiently and quietly, since all their friends who
were made of flesh had to sleep and did not like to be disturbed.

When the Chief Steward had left them alone the Scarecrow remarked, sadly:

“I am in great sorrow over the loss of my old comrade, the Tin
Woodman. We have had many dangerous adventures together, and escaped
them all, and now it grieves me to know he has become an ornament, and
is lost to me forever.”

“He was al-ways an or-na-ment to so-ci-e-ty,” said Tiktok.

“True; but now the Nome King laughs at him, and calls him the funniest
ornament in all the palace. It will hurt my poor friend’s pride to be
laughed at,” continued the Scarecrow, sadly.

“We will make rath-er ab-surd or-na-ments, our-selves, to-mor-row,”
observed the machine, in his monotonous voice.

Just then Dorothy ran into their room, in a state of great anxiety, crying:

“Where’s Billina? Have you seen Billina? Is she here?”

“No,” answered the Scarecrow.

“Then what has become of her?” asked the girl.

“Why, I thought she was with you,” said the Scarecrow. “Yet I do not
remember seeing the yellow hen since she picked up the crumbs of cake.”

“We must have left her in the room where the King’s throne is,”
decided Dorothy, and at once she turned and ran down the hall to the
door through which they had entered. But it was fast closed and
locked on the other side, and the heavy slab of rock proved to be so
thick that no sound could pass through it. So Dorothy was forced to
return to her chamber.

The Cowardly Lion stuck his head into her room to try to console the
girl for the loss of her feathered friend.

“The yellow hen is well able to take care of herself,” said he; “so
don’t worry about her, but try to get all the sleep you can. It has
been a long and weary day, and you need rest.”

“I’ll prob’ly get lots of rest tomorrow, when I become an orn’ment,”
said Dorothy, sleepily. But she lay down upon her couch, nevertheless,
and in spite of all her worries was soon in the land of dreams.