r the girl to carry but the kitten, which she held
close to her bosom and tried to comfort, for its little heart was still
beating rapidly.

Some of the Mangaboos discovered them as soon as they left the House of
the Sorcerer; but when they started toward the mountain the vegetable
people allowed them to proceed without interference, yet followed in a
crowd behind them so that they could not go back again.

Before long they neared the Black Pit, where a busy swarm of Mangaboos,
headed by their Princess, was engaged in piling up glass rocks before
the entrance.

"Stop, I command you!" cried the Wizard, in an angry tone, and at once
began pulling down the rocks to liberate Jim and the piglets. Instead
of opposing him in this they stood back in silence until he had made a
good-sized hole in the barrier, when by order of the Princess they all
sprang forward and thrust out their sharp thorns.

Dorothy hopped inside the opening to escape being pricked, and Zeb and
the Wizard, after enduring a few stabs from the thorns, were glad to
follow her. At once the Mangaboos began piling up the rocks of glass
again, and as the little man realized that they were all about to be
entombed in the mountain he said to the children:

"My dears, what shall we do? Jump out and fight?"

"What's the use?" replied Dorothy. "I'd as soon die here as live much
longer among these cruel and heartless people."

"That's the way I feel about it," remarked Zeb, rubbing his wounds.
"I've had enough of the Mangaboos."

"All right," said the Wizard; "I'm with you, whatever you decide. But
we can't live long in this cavern, that's certain."

Noticing that the light was growing dim he picked up his nine piglets,
patted each one lovingly on its fat little head, and placed them
carefully in his inside pocket.

Zeb struck a match and lighted one of the lanterns. The rays of the
colored suns were now shut out from them forever, for the last chinks
had been filled up in the wall that separated their prison from the
Land of the Mangaboos.

"How big is this hole?" asked Dorothy.

"I'll explore it and see," replied the boy.

So he carried the lantern back for quite a distance, while Dorothy and
the Wizard followed at his side. The cavern did not come to an end, as
they had expected it would, but slanted upward through the great glass
mountain, running in a direction that promised to lead them to the side
opposite the Mangaboo country.

"It isn'