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"It was called the Powder of Life," was the answer; "and it was invented by a crooked Sorcerer who lived in the mountains of the North Country. A Witch named Mombi got some of this powder from the crooked Sorcerer and took it home with her. Ozma lived with the Witch then, for it was before she became our Princess, while Mombi had transformed her into the shape of a boy.
Well, while Mombi was gone to the crooked Sorcerer's, the boy made this pumpkin-headed man to amuse himself, and also with the hope of frightening the Witch with it when she returned. But Mombi was not scared, and she sprinkled the Pumpkinhead with her Magic Powder of Life, to see if the Powder would work.
Pipt nor old Mombi, nor anyone else who dealt in magic arts. It was Bini Aru's own secret. By its means, it was the simplest thing in the world to transform anyone into beast, bird or fish, or anything else, and back again, once you know how to pronounce the mystical word: "Pyrzqxgl." Bini Aru had used this secret many times, but not to cause evil or suffering to others.
"Was the witch, or fairy, or whatever she was, an old person, with wrinkled skin and half her teeth gone?" inquired the Tin Owl. "No," said Tommy Kwikstep. "Then she wasn't Old Mombi," remarked the transformed Emperor. "I'm not interested in who it wasn't, so much as I am in who it was," said the twenty-legged young man. "And, whatever or whomsoever she was, she has managed to keep out of my way."
Many years before you came here this Land was united under one Ruler, as it is now, and the Ruler's name was always 'Oz, which means in our language 'Great and Good'; or, if the Ruler happened to be a woman, her name was always 'Ozma. But once upon a time four Witches leagued together to depose the king and rule the four parts of the kingdom themselves; so when the Ruler, my grandfather, was hunting one day, one Wicked Witch named Mombi stole him and carried him away, keeping him a close prisoner.
Pipt's famous Powder of Life that enabled me to become the Ruler of Oz." "I've never heard that story," said the Shaggy Man, looking at Ozma questioningly. "Well, when I was a baby girl I was stolen by an old Witch named Mombi and transformed into a boy," began the girl Ruler.
Also she has a pretty blood-red heart, but it is made of stone a ruby, I think and so is rather hard and unfeeling. I think the next Glass Cat the Magician makes will have neither brains nor heart, for then it will not object to catching mice and may prove of some use to us." "What did old Mombi the Witch do with the Powder of Life your husband gave her?" asked the boy.
So you see had not old Mombi brought home the Powder of Life I might never have run away from her and become Ozma of Oz, nor would we have had Jack Pumpkinhead and the Sawhorse to comfort and amuse us." That story interested the Shaggy Man very much, as well as the others, who had often heard it before.
"You must know," said Margolotte, when they were all seated together on the broad window-seat, "that my husband foolishly gave away all the Powder of Life he first made to old Mombi the Witch, who used to live in the Country of the Gillikins, to the north of here. Mombi gave to Dr.
"Was the witch, or fairy, or whatever she was, an old person, with wrinkled skin, and half her teeth gone?" inquired the Tin Owl. "No," said Tommy Kwikstep. "Then she wasn't Old Mombi," remarked the transformed Emperor. "I'm not interested in who it wasn't, so much as I am in who it was," said the twenty-legged young man.
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