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!”

18.  The Fate of the Tin Woodman

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 bowl of water, and began mopping away the broken eggs from his master’s face.  In a few minutes, and while all the party stood looking on, the King regained the use of his eyes, and the first thing he did was to glare wickedly upon the Scarecrow and exclaim: 

“I’ll make you suffer for this, you hay-stuffed dummy!  Don’t you know eggs are poison to Nomes?”

“Really,” said the Scarecrow, “they don’t seem to agree with you, although I wonder why.”

“They were strictly fresh and above suspicion,” said Billina.  “You ought to be glad to get them.”

“I’ll transform you all into scorpions!” cried the King, angrily, and began waving his arms and muttering magic words.