oy soldiers. The spear could not go through their steel armor,
however, so the warriors scrambled to their feet again, and by that time
the private had knocked over another row of them.

Then the captain brought down his battle-axe with such a strong blow
that the private's spear was shattered and knocked from his grasp, and
he was helpless to fight any longer.

The Nome King had left his throne and pressed through his warriors to
the front ranks, so he could see what was going on; but as he faced Ozma
and her friends the Scarecrow, as if aroused to action by the valor of
the private, drew one of Billina's eggs from his right jacket pocket and
hurled it straight at the little monarch's head.

It struck him squarely in his left eye, where the egg smashed and
scattered, as eggs will, and covered his face and hair and beard with
its sticky contents.

"Help, help!" screamed the King, clawing with his fingers at the egg, in
a struggle to remove it.

"An egg! an egg! Run for your lives!" shouted the captain of the Nomes,
in a voice of horror.

And how they _did_ run! The warriors fairly tumbled over one another in
their efforts to escape the fatal poison of that awful egg, and those
who could not rush down the winding stair fell off the balcony into the
great cavern beneath, knocking over those who stood below them.

Even while the King was still yelling for help his throne room became
emptied of every one of his warriors, and before the monarch had managed
to clear the egg away from his left eye the Scarecrow threw the second
egg against his right eye, where it smashed and blinded him entirely.
The King was unable to flee because he could not see which way to run;
so he stood still and howled and shouted and screamed in abject fear.

While this was going on, Billina flew over to Dorothy, and perching
herself upon the Lion's back the hen whispered eagerly to the girl:

"Get his belt! Get the Nome King's jeweled belt! It unbuckles in the
back. Quick, Dorothy--quick!"

The Fate of the Tin Woodman

[Illustration]

Dorothy obeyed. She ran at once behind the Nome King, who was still
trying to free his eyes from the egg, and in a twinkling she had
unbuckled his splendid jeweled belt and carried it away with her to her
place beside the Tiger and Lion, where, because she did not know what
else to do with it, she fastened it around her own slim waist.

Just then the Chief Steward rushed in with a sponge and a bo