fallen, how unfortunate itwould have been! He would have gone straight into the deep mouth of anAfrican lion which was ready to devour him at one gulp.
"Oh, mercy!" cried the marionette. And the lion gave another dreadfulroar which seemed to say: "Mercy indeed! I have you now, you littlethief."
"Dear lion," pleaded Pinocchio, "have pity on a poor orphan lad who isnearly starving!"
The lion roared still louder. "Who has given you permission to takewhat belongs to another without having earned it by useful and honestwork? In this world he who does not work must starve."
"You are right, my dear lion, you are right. I am ready to pay to thelast cent for all the honey I eat, but please don't seem so angry or Ishall die of fear."
Then the lion stopped roaring, and sitting down upon the ground, helooked at the marionette as if to say: "Well, what are you going to doabout it? Are you coming down or not?"
"Listen, my dear lion," answered Pinocchio; "so long as you stay there,I shall not come down. If you want me to go away and leave the honey,remove yourself a hundred miles or so, and then I will obey you."
The lion did not move.
For almost an hour Pinocchio sat glued to the tree, not daring to eatthe honey or to come down to the waiting lion. The hot rays of the sunbeat upon him. He felt that he must die, for hunger, fear, and heatseemed ready to destroy him.
"Surely there must be away out of this," he thought. "That lion musthave in him some spark of kindness. He has made up his mind to keep mecompany, and perhaps it is my duty to thank him."
Then the marionette raised his hand to ask permission to speak. Itwould have been better had he kept still.
At this gesture the lion uttered a roar so loud that it shook the wholeforest. He began to lash the ground with his tail, sending up a cloudof dust that nearly choked the marionette, and repeating all the whilein lion language, "If you move hand or foot, you will die!"
Pinocchio sat still. Another hour passed in silence. Pinocchio stillsuffered from the heat and from hunger. Both honey and shade werewithin easy reach, and he could enjoy neither.
"What an obstinate beast!" he muttered. "How stupid he is to waitthere! There is enough room in the forest for us both."
But the lion did not move, and Pinocchio's suffering was great. He wassure now that he was going to die, and he looked sadly at those woodenlegs which had carried him through so many adventures. There was theshade, but he could not reach it. There was the honey that must not betouched.
"Eat! eat!" said the honey. "Come! come!" said the shade.
Fortunately a new character now arrived on the scene. A magnificentgiraffe came along through the bushes, eating the tender shoots as itapproached the spot.
Pinocchio saw the giraffe and recognized it at once from a picture ofone he had seen in school. The lion saw it also. What should he do?Continue to watch the marionette, or attack and carry off the giraffe?He decided to take the giraffe. As the animal raised its head to biteoff the leaves from a tall acacia, the lion leaped at its throat andkilled it. Seizing the body in his powerful jaws, the lion disappearedthrough the forest, and Pinocchio was left behind to have his fill ofhoney. He ate as he had never eaten before.
When he could eat no longer he came down from the tree, but how strangehe felt! His eyes were dim, and his head began to swim, while his legswent here and there in every direction. He could not even talk clearly.
"African honey plays jokes upon those who eat too much of it!" heseemed to hear some one say. He turned to see who it was that hadspoken to him, but no one was there. The next moment he fell heavily tothe ground as if he had been knocked down with a club.
"That is what happens to greedy boys!" continued the voice of thelittle bird who had shown him the honey, but Pinocchio lay fast asleep.
CHAPTER XXIVPINOCCHIO IS BROUGHT BEFORE THE KING
Pinocchio had slept for hours when he was aroused by strange sounds.Were these the voices of human beings.
"Yah! Yah! Hoi! Hoi! Uff! Uff!"
What could it possibly be? The marionette opened an eye, but quicklyshut it again when he saw a number of coal-black faces turned towardhim.
"What do these ugly people want of me?" he asked himself, as he laythere perfectly still.
When Pinocchio next opened his eyes he saw to his great surprise thatthe men had formed a circle about him. At their chief's command theybegan to dance. It was all so funny that Pinocchio could hardly keepfrom laughing. Then the chief made a sign, at which the savagesadvanced toward the marionette, took him up by his arms and legs, andstarted away with him.
"This is not so bad," thought the marionette.
After a time his bearers laid him gently upon the ground and commencedto examine him. Pinocchio decided to make believe he was dead.
For that reason he kept his eyes shut tightly and lay still.
Suddenly there was a great noise. He was startled. Opening one eye, hesaw approaching a chief followed by a crowd of attendants. Judging fromthe manner in which the new arrivals were received, they were personsof high rank. At their approach the savages knelt down, raised theirhands high in the air, and bent their foreheads to the ground.
A man stepped out from the ranks and came toward Pinocchio. He examinedthe marionette from head to foot, while all the others looked on insilence.
When the examination was over the marionette hoped to be left in peace,but another approached him and went through the same performance. Thencame a third, a fourth, a fifth, and so on.
Pinocchio was somewhat tired of this. As the last one came up hemuttered, "Now I shall see what they are going to do with me."
The man who had first examined Pinocchio now approached him again, andcalling the bearers, said, in a tongue which, curiously enough, themarionette understood, "Turn the little animal over!"
Upon hearing himself called an animal, Pinocchio was seized with a maddesire to give his tormentor a kick, but he thought better of it.
The bearers advanced, took the marionette by the shoulders, and rolledhim over.
"Easy! easy! this bed is not too soft," Pinocchio said to himself.
A second examination followed, and then another command, "Roll him overagain!"
"What do you take me for,--a top?" muttered the marionette in a burst ofrage. But he pricked up his ears when the man who had been rolling himover turned to another and said, "Your majesty!"
"Indeed!" thought Pinocchio, "we are not dealing with ordinary persons!We are beginning to know great people. Let me hear what he has to sayabout me to his black majesty," and the marionette listened with thedeepest attention.
"Your majesty, my knowledge of the noble art of cooking assures me thatthis creature"--and he gave Pinocchio a kick--"is an animal of an extinctrace. It has been turned into wood, carried by the water to the beach,and then brought here by the wind."
"Not so bad for a cook," thought Pinocchio. He felt half inclined tostrike out and hit the nose of the wise savage, who had again kneltdown to examine him.
"Your majesty," continued the cook, "this little animal is dead,because if it were not dead--"
"It would be alive," Pinocchio muttered. "What a beast! How stupid!"
"Because if it were not dead, it would not be so hard. To conclude, hadit not been made of wood, I could have cooked it for your majesty'sdinner."
Pinocchio said to himself: "Listen to this black rascal! Eaten alive!What kind of country have I fallen into? What vulgar people! It's luckyfor me that I am made of wood!"
His majesty then commanded that as the animal was not good to eat itshould be buried.
Immediately three or four of the men began to dig a hole, while theunfortunate marionette, half dead with fright, tried to form some planof escape. The time passed. The hole was dug, and the poor fellow couldnot think of any plan. Run away! But how? And if they found out that hewas alive would he not be cooked and eaten? The marionette did not knowwhat to do.
In the meantime two men had raised him from the ground and stood re
adyto throw him into the hole. Then in spite of himself, the marionettebegan to shout at the top of his lungs: "Stop! Stop! I will not beburied alive! Help! Help! My good Fatina!--Fatina!--my Fatina! Help!"
At the first shout the two men who were holding him let him fall to theground and started off in a great fright. All the others followed theirexample.
"What funny people!" said Pinocchio. "If I had known that they wouldall run away like this, I should not have been so uneasy. However, Ireally do not know why I have come here. If I only knew where to finddiamonds and gold, it would not be so hard. I might return home to myfather, for who knows how much he is suffering because I am not there!"
At that moment he would have given up the whole trip, but he was toostupid to keep an idea in his head for more than