the best manner of liberating the royal family of
this fair Land of Ev from their long imprisonment."

[Illustration]

The Royal Family of Ev

[Illustration]

The Tin Woodman was the first to address the meeting.

"To begin with," said he, "word came to our noble and illustrous Ruler,
Ozma of Oz, that the wife and ten children--five boys and five girls--of
the former King of Ev, by name Evoldo, have been enslaved by the Nome
King and are held prisoners in his underground palace. Also that there
was no one in Ev powerful enough to release them. Naturally our Ozma
wished to undertake the adventure of liberating the poor prisoners; but
for a long time she could find no way to cross the great desert between
the two countries. Finally she went to a friendly sorceress of our land
named Glinda the Good, who heard the story and at once presented Ozma a
magic carpet, which would continually unroll beneath our feet and so
make a comfortable path for us to cross the desert. As soon as she had
received the carpet our gracious Ruler ordered me to assemble our army,
which I did. You behold in these bold warriors the pick of all the
finest soldiers of Oz; and, if we are obliged to fight the Nome King,
every officer as well as the private, will battle fiercely unto death."

Then Tiktok spoke.

"Why should you fight the Nome King?" he asked. "He has done no wrong."

"No wrong!" cried Dorothy. "Isn't it wrong to imprison a queen mother
and her ten children?"

"They were sold to the Nome King by King Ev-ol-do," replied Tiktok. "It
was the King of Ev who did wrong, and when he re-al-ized what he had
done he jumped in-to the sea and drowned him-self."

"This is news to me," said Ozma, thoughtfully. "I had supposed the Nome
King was all to blame in the matter. But, in any case, he must be made
to liberate the prisoners."

"My uncle Evoldo was a very wicked man," declared the Princess
Langwidere. "If he had drowned himself before he sold his family, no one
would have cared. But he sold them to the powerful Nome King in exchange
for a long life, and afterward destroyed the life by jumping into the
sea."

"Then," said Ozma, "he did not get the long life, and the Nome King must
give up the prisoners. Where are they confined?"

"No one knows, exactly," replied the Princess. "For the king, whose name
is Roquat of the Rocks, owns a splendid palace underneath the great
mountain which is at the north end of this kingdom, and