In the adjacent country not a leaf moved. Only some night-birds flying
across the road from one hedge to the other brushed Pinocchio's nose
with their wings as they passed, which caused him so much terror that
springing back, he shouted: "Who goes there?" and the echo in the
surrounding hills repeated in the distance: "Who goes there? Who goes
there? Who goes there?"...
VIII
THE PUPPET FALLS AMONG ASSASSINS
He turned to look, and saw in the gloom two evil-looking black figures
completely enveloped in charcoal sacks. They were running after him on
tiptoe, and making great leaps like two phantoms.
"Here they are in reality!" he said to himself, and not knowing where
to hide his gold pieces he put them in his mouth precisely under his
tongue.
Then he tried to escape. But he had not gone a step when he felt
himself seized by the arm, and heard two sepulchral voices saying to
him:
"Your money or your life!"
Pinocchio, not being able to answer in words, owing to the money in
his mouth, made a thousand low bows and a thousand pantomimes. He
tried thus to make the two muffled figures, whose eyes were only
visible through the holes in their sacks, understand that he was
a poor puppet, and that he had not as much as a false penny in his
pocket.
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