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 realized that this time he had been out-
witted. He had thought Kiki would utter the magic
word in his presence, and so he would learn what it
was, but the boy had been too shrewd for that.

As the two eagles mounted high into the air and
began their flight across the great Desert that sep-
arates the Land of Oz from all the rest of the world,
the Nome said:

"When I was king of the Nomes I had a magic way
of working transformations that I thought was good,
but it could not compare with your secret word. I
had to have certain tools and make passes and say a
lot of mystic words before I could transform anybody."

"What became of your magic tools?" inquired Kiki.

"The Oz people took them all away from me — that
horrid girl, Dorothy, and that terrible fairy, Ozma,

-50-