“But I—­”

“Come along with us!”

“But I am innocent.”

“Come along with us!”

Before they left, the soldiers called some fishermen who were passing at that moment near the shore in their boat, and said to them: 

“We give this boy who has been wounded in the head in your charge.  Carry him to your house and nurse him.  Tomorrow we will come and see him.”

They then turned to Pinocchio and, having placed him between them, they said to him in a commanding voice: 

“Forward! and walk quickly, or it will be the worse for you.”

Without requiring it to be repeated, the puppet set out along the road leading to the village.  But the poor little devil hardly knew where he was.  He thought he must be dreaming, and what a dreadful dream!  He was beside himself.  He saw double; his legs shook; his tongue clung to the roof of his mouth, and he could not utter a word.  And yet, in the midst of his stupefaction and apathy, his heart was pierced by a cruel thorn—­the thought that he would pass under the windows of the good Fairy’s house between the soldiers.  He would rather have died.

They had already reached the village when a gust of wind blew Pinocchio’s cap off his head and carried it ten yards off.

“Will you permit me,” said the puppet to the soldiers, “to go and get my cap?”

“Go, then; but be quick about it.”

The puppet went and picked up his cap, but instead of putting it on his head he took it between his teeth and began to run as hard as he could towards the seashore.

The soldiers, thinking it would be difficult to overtake him, sent after him a large mastiff who had won the first prizes at all the dog races.  Pinocchio ran, but the dog ran faster.  The people came to their windows and crowded into the street in their anxiety to see the end of the desperate race.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXVIII

PINOCCHIO ESCAPES BEING FRIED LIKE A FISH

There came a moment in this desperate race—­a terrible moment—­when Pinocchio thought himself lost:  for Alidoro, the mastiff, had run so swiftly that he had nearly come up with him.

The puppet could hear the panting of the dreadful beast close behind him; there was not a hand’s breadth between them, he could even feel the dog’s hot breath.

Fortunately the shore was close and the sea but a few steps off.

As soon as he reached the sands the puppet made a wonderful leap—­a frog could have done no better—­and plunged into the water.

Alidoro, on the contrary, wished to stop himself, but, carried away by the impetus of the race, he also went into the sea.  The unfortunate dog could not swim, but he made great efforts to keep himself afloat with his paws; but the more he struggled the farther he sank head downwards under the water.