CHAPTER IX
Pinocchioforgot 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.
“‘Up, Up, my Little Horses!’”
“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 medusæ. They also are animals belonging to the zoöphytes.
These medusæ 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 medusæ in order to eat a few. The marionette tried to imitate them, buthe 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 medusæ 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 medusæ 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 becarried 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 marionettefell 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 could 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?”
“‘Help! Help! I am Dying!’”
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 hadalmost 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.