Dawn was breaking when, without any warning whatsoever, Pinocchio found his path barred by a deep pool full of water the color of muddy coffee.

What was there to do?  With a “One, two, three!” he jumped clear across it.  The Assassins jumped also, but not having measured their distance well—­splash!!!—­they fell right into the middle of the pool.  Pinocchio who heard the splash and felt it, too, cried out, laughing, but never stopping in his race: 

“A pleasant bath to you, signori!”

He thought they must surely be drowned and turned his head to see.  But there were the two somber figures still following him, though their black sacks were drenched and dripping with water.

CHAPTER 15

The Assassins chase Pinocchio, catch him, and hang him to the branch of a giant oak tree.

As he ran, the Marionette felt more and more certain that he would have to give himself up into the hands of his pursuers.  Suddenly he saw a little cottage gleaming white as the snow among the trees of the forest.

“If I have enough breath left with which to reach that little house, I may be saved,” he said to himself.

Not waiting another moment, he darted swiftly through the woods, the Assassins still after him.

After a hard race of almost an hour, tired and out of breath, Pinocchio finally reached the door of the cottage and knocked.  No one answered.

He knocked again, harder than before, for behind him he heard the steps and the labored breathing of his persecutors.  The same silence followed.

As knocking was of no use, Pinocchio, in despair, began to kick and bang against the door, as if he wanted to break it.  At the noise, a window opened and a lovely maiden looked out.  She had azure hair and a face white as wax.  Her eyes were closed and her hands crossed on her breast.  With a voice so weak that it hardly could be heard, she whispered: 

“No one lives in this house.  Everyone is dead.”

“Won’t you, at least, open the door for me?” cried Pinocchio in a beseeching voice.

“I also am dead.”

“Dead?  What are you doing at the window, then?”

“I am waiting for the coffin to take me away.”

After these words, the little girl disappeared and the window closed without a sound.

“Oh, Lovely Maiden with Azure Hair,” cried Pinocchio, “open, I beg of you.  Take pity on a poor boy who is being chased by two Assass—­”

He did not finish, for two powerful hands grasped him by the neck and the same two horrible voices growled threateningly:  “Now we have you!”

The Marionette, seeing death dancing before him, trembled so hard that the joints of his legs rattled and the coins tinkled under his tongue.

“Well,” the Assassins asked, “will you open your mouth now or not?  Ah!  You do not answer?  Very well, this time you shall open it.”