As if these were not enough, out of a hole came a crab larger than any of the others. He was rapidly coming nearer, but before long one of his claws was grasped by one lobster, the other by another. Without the least movement to fight, the crab just pulled off his claws, and quickly went back to his hole.
Pinocchio was thunderstruck. How could the crab do this so calmly? For the simple reason that the crab preferred losing his claws to being killed and eaten up. In a few months he would grow another set of claws as good as those he had lost. Yes, a crab can do that, children. Think of it!
“Oh, dear me!” thought Pinocchio, who was getting rather nervous by this time. “What is going to become of me? If only I had a shell as has a turtle I could hide away and be safe.
“Oh! what a splendid idea!” he suddenly burst out. “Why didn’t I think of it before? I shall have a shell to hide in!”
And without another word he slipped into the shell he had been looking at. In a moment nothing could be seen of him, not even his nose.
The crustaceans did not understand with what kind of a being they had to deal. So after examining the shell all over, they slowly disappeared into their holes.
With a great sigh of relief Pinocchio dared to stick his head out of the shell. Seeing his shoe lying on the ground, he quickly put his foot in it. It was not very pleasant to walk on the sand without a shoe.
“If I do not hurry and find Globicephalous, this house of safety may become a house of death,” Pinocchio began to think after may be able to walk around like a hermit crab. Let me see.”
Slowly the marionette stuck out first one leg, then another; then his arms came out, and lastly his head appeared. Holding the shell with both hands he tried to walk around.… Impossible. After a few steps he was exhausted.
“Too bad! It is so comfortable here! If only I had a horse! ‘Twould be like riding in a carriage!”
While he was thinking thus, he saw not far away four fish like the ones he had seen under the hammerhead. An idea flashed through his head.
“Oh, if I only could!… The horses!…” he whispered.
Trying very hard, he succeeded in dragging himself near them. The fish were very busy. They were looking for small crabs to eat, and paid no attention to him. Trembling in every limb, Pinocchio went on.
As soon as he was near them, he bent over slowly. How kind the little fish were! As soon as they felt the shell on their heads they stuck to it. Just what Pinocchio wanted! In a moment he felt himself rising in the air, or rather in the water. The remoras were strong and pulled him along swiftly.
“Hurrah! Here I am in a flying machine!” screamed Pinocchio, clapping his hands. “I feel like a prince, and not even a king has a carriage like mine! Hurrah!”
CHAPTER IX
Pinocchio forgot all his troubles, and was full of fun and mischief. Grasping a long thin seaweed and using it as a whip, he went gaily along.
“Up, up, my little horses! Trot, trot—gallop, gallop,” he sang at the top of his voice.
The fishes obeyed him well and in a short time they had gone a long way. Pinocchio soon became so bold that he whipped a dory which was passing by, pulled a horrible bullhead by the tail, and slapped a red mullet that was studying him with interest.
Meanwhile the horses ran and ran, wherever they wished. Soon Pinocchio saw that they were near the surface of the water.
“When I reach the top, I shall be able to see where I am. I will then swim to the coral reef and find Globicephalous,” he thought.
But on the surface of the water such a surprise was awaiting him that he forgot all about coral reefs or dolphins.
All around him mushrooms were hanging. They were of all shapes and sizes, and of a hundred beautiful colors. Some had round heads, which looked like soap bubbles. Some looked like inverted glass bells; others like brightly colored umbrellas. Still others seemed to be made of emeralds and sapphires. From all of them, long beautiful silvery threads hung down into the water. The waves moved them about, and the sun playing with them made them look like so many rainbows.
Pinocchio was amazed at so much beauty.
As far as eye could reach he could see only these beautiful objects. It was a sight to arouse wonder in any one.
“I wish some one were here to tell me what those wonderful things are!” he thought.
What so attracted Pinocchio were medusae. They also are animals belonging to the zoophytes.
These medusae have no solid parts and cannot live out of the water. If taken out and left in the sun they dry up and soon nothing is left of them. Some of them are as small as a penny, and others are very large.
“If I could only take one,” sighed Pinocchio, hanging way out of his shell in his efforts to touch them.
His four horses, as if to satisfy him, came near to the medusae in order to eat a few. The marionette tried to imitate them, but he had no sooner touched them than he let go very quickly.
“Oh, oh!” he cried, shaking his hands, “they prick like so many nettles.”
He did not know it, but he had used the right words. In fact, fishermen often call medusae sea nettles.
“My dear mushroom rainbows,” he said, bowing low, “you may be very beautiful, but you are not for me. Good-by.”
Just then the fishes reached the surface of the water. But they did not stay there long. A fearful storm was rising. Great black clouds hung low, almost touching the water.
The waves were white and ragged and lashed angrily. The medusae had disappeared. Very gladly Pinocchio cuddled in his shell, and very happy he was when he found himself again at the bottom of the sea.
There all was calm. For, strange to say, even though the most terrible tempest may rage on the sea, deep down in it the water is always calm.
“How lucky it is that I did not start to swim,” thought Pinocchio. “I should have been killed surely.”
On and on the fishes went. But finally they became tired and stopped near a rock. Here were some of the most beautiful shells imaginable.
After resting awhile the fish continued their journey. Pinocchio went along happily.
For a time he seemed to have forgotten what danger he was in. He let himself be carried along without a thought of the future.
The party was now passing through the midst of a great number of eels. Who does not know an eel? Even Pinocchio knew them.
He might, however, have very easily mistaken a common eel for a conger eel, or for a burbot, sometimes called ling. It was this ignorance of his which led him into trouble.
To him the eels were all alike. So he pulled the tail of one, pinched another’s round body, or shook a third one by the nose. The poor things turned and struggled. But this only afforded greater fun for Pinocchio.
But, oh! He had no sooner touched a large red eel’s tail, than he gave a scream of pain. His shouts of laughter were changed to moans, and in his struggles the marionette fell out of the shell and tumbled on the sand.
“Help! Help! I am dying! Some one has killed me!” howled Pinocchio, so loudly that he coiild have been heard a mile away.
“Who is howling so? What is happening down there?” a deep voice called.
Pinocchio heard nothing. He could only think of his pain, and scream. He made such a noise that even the deaf could hear him.
“Well, may I know what has happened?” called the same voice, nearer now. “Why, it is Mr. Pinocchio!”
The words were uttered by a large dolphin with a head as round as an electric light globe. That dolphin was Globicephalous.
“You mean I was Pinocchio. Now I am dead, so I am no longer Pinocchio.”
“Why, what has happened to you?”
All Pinocchio could do was to struggle on the sand.
“Well, will you tell me what the matter is
?”
“I can’t.… I don’t know.… I’m dead.”
“Who has hurt you?”
“Some one has killed me.”
“Who?”
“Fire ants! Oh! Oh!” screamed Pinocchio.|
But by this time the marionette was beginning to feel better. He opened his eyes and looked at the dolphin.
Well! did you ever see a jumping jack come suddenly out of his box when the box is opened? In just the same way did Pinocchio jump to his feet when he recognized Tursio’s servant. His pain was forgotten.
“Globicephalous! Oh, Globicephalous! How glad I am to see you!” he cried, and running up to the dolphin, he hugged him wildly. Or, at least, he tried to do so, for his wooden arms did not go very far around the dolphin’s neck.
“What happiness it is to find you once more!” Pinocchio kept saying. “I had almost lost hope of ever being with you again.”
“But will you tell me what was the matter with you?”
“Oh, have I not told you? I have been killed!”
“But by whom, pray?”
“By fire ants! Will you see if you can take them off? Oh, they are beginning again. There must be a million of them!”
“I don’t see any on you!”
“Then you must be blind! Hundreds of ants or mosquitoes must be on me. They have heated their stingers red hot, and now they are enjoying themselves by sticking them into me on all sides. Oh! Oh!”
Globicephalous turned the boy around. “I see nothing!” he said finally.
“But I feel everything! I am being bitten, cut, torn to pieces.”
“That’s queer! How did this pain begin?”
“Why, I was playing with some eels, and just as I touched a red one’s tail, why…”
“Oh, now I understand,” interrupted Globicephalous. “You touched an electric eel. Still, I don’t see how an electric eel comes to be around here. Usually they are found only in rivers. It must have been a lost one. All you can do is just to bear it. In an hour or so it will stop. You have had an electric shock, that’s all.”
“And that eel did it all?”
“Yes; that eel did it all, and the torpedoes can do it, too.”
“But I only touched the eel with a stick.”
“It doesn’t matter. The shock is very strong, so strong that sometimes it may even kill a fish.”
“You are right! The shock is strong!”
“Well, you will be all right. Now jump on my tail. We must return to the rock. Soon Mr. Tursio and Marsovino will be at the meeting place.”
“But are we not far away from that meeting place? I looked all over for it this morning.”
“Oh, no, we shall soon be there.”
Little by little the pain stopped, and Pinocchio thought no more of the eel. Or if he thought of it, it was only to resolve never to touch it again, not even with a stick.
CHAPTER X
“Good evening, Messrs. Cetaceans,” said Pinocchio, bowing low to Tursio and Marsovino as soon as he saw them coming.
“Why, where did you learn our family name? You called us fish once upon a time.”
“Globicephalous told me. I know now the difference between a fish and a cetacean.”
“You have taken lessons from a servant? Why, I thought you were ashamed even to be seen walking with one.”
Pinocchio was silent. He was beginning to learn manners.
“Well, Pinocchio, to-morrow morning you are to come with us to visit my friend Beluga. You may walk around a little now with Marsovino; but after your walk you are to go to sleep. I want you up early to-morrow.”
While the marionette was listening to Tursio he had noticed a bright red eel lying quietly among some weeds. The mood for mischief again seized him. He smiled to himself. Approaching Marsovino, he pulled him gently by the fin, and said to him smilingly:
“Come with me. I want to show you something. Look in those weeds. There is a beautiful electrical machine there.”
“An electrical machine!” Marsovino was full of interest. “Where is it?”
“Stick your nose among the weeds and you will see it.”
The dolphin did as he was told. Pinocchio laughed up his sleeve, and very quietly hid himself behind some friendly rocks.
“Oh!” suddenly screamed Marsovino, leaping backward. “An electrical machine! Why, it is an electric eel, you mean boy! That was an unkind joke, Pinocchio.”
Yes, that mischief maker, seeing the eel again, thought he would play a trick on the poor dolphin.
Tursio, hearing the screams, had come nearer.
“The electric eel! You poor boy! How you must suffer!”
“Luckily the eel was asleep, so I had no great shock.”
“Yes, luckily. When it is asleep, it does not hurt much.”
“But how did you ever get near him?”
“Why, Pinocchio—” and then he stopped. Why should he tell? But he was too late.
“Oh, that Pinocchio. Well, remember, marionette, usually one gets paid in his own coin. Now you look tired. Stop stretching yourself and go to sleep.”
“Very well, Mr. Tursio,” came meekly from Pinocchio. “But may I ask a favor of you?”
“What is it?”
“Seeing that we are near the island, may I sleep there tonight? I found a small cave there this morning, and it looked comfortable. May I, Mr. Tursio?”
“Why, surely, my boy.”
“Thank you. But will you please sleep near? I should feel better if I knew you were near.”
“Very well, my lion tamer.”
Globicephalous then took Pinocchio on his back and rose with him to the surface.
“I wonder what those two dolphins are talking about,” he thought, seeing Tursio and Marsovino whispering together.
Tursio seemed little pleased. Marsovino was begging for something. Finally the good old dolphin smiled an unwilling “yes” to his pupil.
“It may teach him a lesson,” Pinocchio heard Tursio say, and he wondered at the words. Soon he forgot all about them.
“Good-night,” he called, jumping on land and disappearing into the cave.
He gathered some seaweed and made a soft bed.
“This is very good,” he said, lying down. But soon he found out that he could not sleep.
He could not understand why. He was so tired, after two nights of sleeplessness, but still his eyes would not close. Everything around him was so quiet that he began to be frightened. He got up and looked out on the sea. It was as black as ink, oh! pitch-black.
“How horrible the sea is at night,” grumbled the marionette.
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he wished them in again. As if the waves had taken offense at his remark, they were suddenly turned into fire. It seemed as if millions of stars had fallen into the sea.
Pinocchio ran out of the cave. As far as eye could reach there was nothing but this fiery sea. The bright, shiny water rose and fell in silvery waves. Millions of sparks were thrown up into the air and fell back again.
“Oh! the sea is on fire,” shouted Pinocchio, and that 0-o-o-o-h was the longest that had as yet come from his mouth. “And then Mr. Tursio tells me he is not a wizard.”
He could hardly be blamed, poor ignorant little marionette. That scene certainly belonged more to fairyland than to real life.
It was the phosphorescence of the sea that attracted Pinocchio’s attention. Sometimes this is so wonderfully beautiful that seen once, it can never be forgotten.
Our wooden hero was so awe-struck at first that he could only stand and gaze at it. Finally he gathered courage, and went nearer and nearer the water. And when a wave touched his feet, he jumped back for fear of being burned. But he found the w
ater was just as cool as before.
“Why, this fire does not burn! How queer! What can it be?”
In his ignorance he could not answer, but I shall answer for him.
The phosphorescence of the sea is produced by millions of very tiny zoophytes, so small that they cannot be seen with the naked eye. These minute zoophytes have a sheen like fireflies. When they light up all together, they make the ocean look like a sea of molten gold.
While Pinocchio was still gazing, the fire went out just as quickly as it had come. The night was again as dark as ink. This was not much to the marionette’s taste, so he started back to his cave. Glancing toward the sea again, it seemed to him that the dolphins were not in the same place.
“I hope rU be able to sleep now,” he thought. “I am so tired.”
But he had hardly reached the mouth of the cave when, with a shriek, he turned and fled. Why?
An awful, a horrible monster was hanging at the mouth of the cave. It was more than a yard long, and with a mouth like an oven. On its head were two long horns; and its body was shining in the night, frightful in its shape and color. Can you imagine Pinocchio’s fright?
“A dragon!” he shrieked. “A dragon in my cave! Help! Help!”
Running madly toward the sea, he never stopped until he reached the dolphins.
“Globicephalous, for pity’s sake! Tursio! Marsovino! Help! Wake up! A demon is in my cave! Yes, come and see—his mouth wide open, ready to eat me up. If only you could see the size of his horns!”
But when the dolphins awoke and realized what was happening, they only laughed and laughed. Pinocchio could not understand. He looked from one to the other. Finally he said, “Well, I don’t see anything so funny. What is it?”
“Look at the brave boy! Look! Look!” called Marsovino, bursting with laughter.
“I thought you threw stones into a lion’s mouth,” shouted Globicephalous, making fun of the poor fellow.
“Lions are one thing, demons another,” explained Pinocchio, almost crying with shame.
The Pinocchio Megapack: 4 Classic Puppet Tales Page 17
