s of
various sorts, and send them to live in the forests and the jungles.
That is a splendid idea, you must admit, and it's so easy that we won't
have any trouble at all to carry it through to success."

"Will the beasts consent, do you think?" asked the boy.

"To be sure they will. We can get every beast in Oz on our
side--except a few who live in Ozma's palace, and they won't count."

4. Conspirators

Kiki Aru didn't know much about Oz and didn't know much about the
beasts who lived there, but the old Nome's plan seemed to him to be
quite reasonable. He had a faint suspicion that Ruggedo meant to get
the best of him in some way, and he resolved to keep a close watch on
his fellow-conspirator. As long as he kept to himself the secret word
of the transformations, Ruggedo would not dare to harm him, and he
promised himself that as soon as they had conquered Oz, he would
transform the old Nome into a marble statue and keep him in that form
forever.

Ruggedo, on his part, decided that he could, by careful watching and
listening, surprise the boy's secret, and when he had learned the magic
word he would transform Kiki Aru into a bundle of faggots and burn him
up and so be rid of him.

This is always the way with wicked people. They cannot be trusted even
by one another. Ruggedo thought he was fooling Kiki, and Kiki thought
he was fooling Ruggedo; so both were pleased.

"It's a long way across the Desert," remarked the boy, "and the sands
are hot and send up poisonous vapors. Let us wait until evening and
then fly across in the night when it will be cooler."

The former Nome King agreed to this, and the two spent the rest of that
day in talking over their plans. When evening came they paid the
inn-keeper and walked out to a little grove of trees that stood near by.

"Remain here for a few minutes and I'll soon be back," said Kiki, and
walking swiftly away, he left the Nome standing in the grove. Ruggedo
wondered where he had gone, but stood quietly in his place until, all
of a sudden, his form changed to that of a great eagle, and he uttered
a piercing cry of astonishment and flapped his wings in a sort of
panic. At once his eagle cry was answered from beyond the grove, and
another eagle, even larger and more powerful than the transformed
Ruggedo, came sailing through the trees and alighted beside him.

"Now we are ready for the start," said the voice of Kiki, coming from
the eagle.

Ruggedo r