Part 16 (1/2)

”You must know. Sir Serpent, that I am on my way home, where my father is waiting for me, and it is such a long time since I saw him last! Will you, therefore, allow me to continue my road?”

He waited for a sign in answer to this request, but there was none; in fact, the Serpent, who up to that moment had been sprightly and full of life, became motionless and almost rigid. He shut his eyes and his tail ceased smoking.

”Can he really be dead?” said Pinocchio, rubbing his hands with delight.

He determined to jump over him and reach the other side of the road.

But, just as he was going to leap, the Serpent raised himself suddenly on end, like a spring set in motion; and the puppet, drawing back, in his terror caught his feet and fell to the ground.

And he fell so awkwardly that his head stuck in the mud and his legs went into the air.

At the sight of the puppet kicking violently with his head in the mud, the Serpent went into convulsions of laughter, and laughed, and laughed, until he broke a blood-vessel in his chest and died. And that time he was really dead.

Pinocchio then set off running, in hopes that he should reach the Fairy's house before dark. But before long he began to suffer so dreadfully from hunger that he could not bear it, and he jumped into a field by the wayside, intending to pick some bunches of Muscatel grapes.

Oh, that he had never done it!

He had scarcely reached the vines when crack--his legs were caught between two cutting iron bars and he became so giddy with pain that stars of every color danced before his eyes.

The poor puppet had been taken in a trap put there to capture some big polecats which were the scourge of the poultry-yards in the neighborhood.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XXI

PINOCCHIO ACTS AS WATCH-DOG

Pinocchio began to cry and scream, but his tears and groans were useless, for there was not a house to be seen, and not a living soul pa.s.sed down the road.

At last night came on.

Partly from the pain of the trap, that cut his legs, and a little from fear at finding himself alone in the dark in the midst of the fields, the puppet was on the point of fainting. Just at that moment he saw a Firefly flitting over his head. He called to it and said:

”Oh, little Firefly, will you have pity on me and liberate me from this torture?”

”Poor boy!” said the Firefly, stopping and looking at him with compa.s.sion; ”but how could your legs have been caught by those sharp irons?”

”I came into the field to pick two bunches of these Muscatel grapes, and--”

”But were the grapes yours?”

”No.”

”Then who taught you to carry off other people's property?”

”I was so hungry.”

”Hunger, my boy, is not a good reason for appropriating what does not belong to us.”