  "Pss-sst! Wait! Hold on a minute!" As they reached the huge double doors of the red castle, Randy tugged violently at Kabumpo's left ear, for the Elegant Elephant, all humped together, was preparing to bump through. "Let Thun break down the door," directed the young King firmly. "Thun is of metal and the glass will not cut him; then, as soon as there is an opening we can follow. Will you tell him, Planetty?" Randy looked fondly down at the earnest little Princess. "And as soon as we are inside," he went on hurriedly, "fling your staff at the first person I point out to you." "That I will," promised Planetty with a brief nod, and giving Thun his orders, she galloped the Thunder Colt straight at the glass doors. With a crash like the fall of a hundred trays of dishes, the glass doors shivered to bits. Rushing through the flying splinters, Kabumpo and Thun raced together into the palace. How well Randy remembered this cozy throne room, its transparent, red glass pillars and floors, its gay, red lacquered furniture, its tinkling curtains of strung rubies, and the long line of enormous red vases leading up to the throne. But instead of the jolly little Jinn, encased in his own shining jar, a long, lank black man in a red wig lounged on the seat of state. He was smoking a tenuous red pipe, and, as Kabumpo and Thun came to an abrupt halt before him, he blinked wickedly out from under his bushy red lashes. Besides the red-wigged imposter Randy noted with some relief, there was not another soul in sight. "Well," demanded Gludwig, insolently, "what do you hope to accomplish by this unwarranted intrusion?" Taking his pipe out of his mouth, he blew a cloud of villainous black smoke into the faces of his visitors. So thick and sulphurous were the fumes, Randy and Kabumpo were rendered speechless. While they choked and spluttered, Planetty, who did not seem aware of the smoke at all, gazed in wide-eyed delight around her. So THIS was a castle! "How nite, how netiful!" Lost in wonder and admiration, the little Princess forgot all about the stern purpose of their visit. "Off that throne! Off that throne, you wart!" rasped Kabumpo, clearing his throat with an ear-splitting trumpet. "What have you done with Jinnicky? 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 singeing 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 under side. "So that was the downfall, and this is debasement," grunted Kabumpo, sitting down furiously on an overturned wash-tub. "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 wash-tub. 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, nor of adorning the palace of Gludwig the Glubrious as the mere image of himself. |
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