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You're no more a wizard than I am! You're as false and crooked as your wig!
Down with him! Down with him, Randy! Let him repent of his wickedness in
uttermost disgrace and debasement!"
"So my downfall is the little plan?" Speaking calmly but trembling with fury
at Kabumpo's taunting speech, Gludwig rose. At the same instant, Randy,
recovering his breath, called desperately.
"Now, Planetty, your staff! Throw it straight at him. Oh, quickly!"
Thun's hot breath was already singing Gludwig's ankles, and leaping over the
throne, he crouched down like a great black panther behind it. "Ha, ha!" he
shouted again. "My downfall and debasement, is it? Well, try a bit of
downfalling and debasement yourselves." Just as Planetty, taking careful
aim, hurled her gleaming staff, Gludwig pulled a tremendous lever in the
wall beside him. Instantly, the floor on the other side of the throne
dropped down, slanting Kabumpo, Thun and both riders into the dark, damp
and long-unused cellar of the castle.
"A trap door," raged the Elegant Elephant, coming down like a carload of
bricks.
"A trap floor, you mean," gasped Randy, picking himself up with a painful
grimace, for the jolt had sent him flying off the elephant. Thun had
retained his balance, and neither he nor Planetty seemed to mind the force
of their landing. As they gazed angrily upward, the floor of the throne
room swung noiselessly back into place, leaving the four prisoners to
contemplate the heavy glass beams and panels of its underside.
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"So that was the downfall, and this is debasement," grunted Kabumpo, sitting
down furiously on an overturned washtub. "Great Grump, I've never been so
humiliated in my life. Don't cry, Planetty," he begged gruffly, "we'll have
you out of here in a pig's whistle."
"It's not that, Bumpo dear." Planetty buried her face in Thun's cloudy mane
and sobbed bitterly. "It's my staff! It did not return after I flung it at
the red-wigged one, and without it I have nothing, NOTHING!"
"Good Gollopers!" Randy clapped his hand to his forehead as he realized the
awful significance of Planetty's disclosure. "The floor tilted too quickly
for it to return, and OH, KABUMPO!" he wailed, almost forgetting he was a
King and Warrior. "If Gludwig has that staff, what can we do? He can come
down here and petrify us any time he wants."
"We'll hide!" gulped Kabumpo, bounding off the washtub. With furious
concentration his small eyes roved round and round their gloomy prison.
"But you're so big," declared Randy, running over to comfort Planetty.
"I'll hide anyway!" said Kabumpo, who had no intention of spending the rest
of his life as an iron elephant, or of adorning the palace of Gludwig the
Glubrious as the mere image of himself.
CHAPTER 14
THE SLAVE OF THE MAGIC DINNER BELL
How thankful Randy and Kabumpo were now for the Thunder colt's fiery breath.
Otherwise they would have been in almost complete darkness, as scarcely any
light at all trickled down through the dark red glass of the cellar
windows. And there was small danger of his setting Jinnicky's castle on
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fire, for the basement, like the rest of the palace, was constructed of
thick plates and solid glass. But here below, the glass was not bright and
sparkling as it was above stairs. Cobwebs clung to the glass beams, dust
powdered the floors, and round the walls in boxes and barrels stood the old
or worn-out magic appliances of the Red Jinn. There was no furnace in the
cellar, for the castle was warmed in winter by a magic process of
Jinnicky's own invention; and there were no doors, not even a closet or
cupboard where any of them could hide. With Thun stepping ahead to act as a
torch, the others marched anxiously round the great, gloomy, vault-like
apartment.
"No place to hide, no provisions, nothing to eat or drink. NOTHING!"
exclaimed the Elegant Elephant, sinking down on the washtub. "That is,
nothing to do but wait for destruction," he concluded bitterly. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]