th blue hair," cried Pinocchio, "open the door,
for pity's sake! Have compassion on a poor boy pursued by assas--"

But he could not finish the word, for he felt himself seized by the
collar and the same two horrible voices said to him threateningly:

"You shall not escape from us again!"

The puppet, seeing death staring him in the face, was taken with such a
violent fit of trembling that the joints of his wooden legs began to
creak, and the sovereigns hidden under his tongue to clink.

"Now, then," demanded the assassins, "will you open your mouth--yes or
no? Ah! no answer? Leave it to us: this time we will force you to open
it!"

And, drawing out two long, horrid knives as sharp as razors,
clash!--they attempted to stab him twice.

But the puppet, luckily for him, was made of very hard wood; the knives
therefore broke into a thousand pieces and the assassins were left with
the handles in their hands, staring at each other.

"I see what we must do," said one of them. "He must be hung! let us hang
him!"

"Let us hang him!" repeated the other.

Without loss of time they tied his arms behind him, passed a running
noose round his throat, and hung him to the branch of a tree called the
Big Oak.

They then sat down on the grass and waited for his last struggle. But at
the end of three hours the puppet's eyes were still open, his mouth
closed, and he was kicking more than ever.

Losing patience, they turned to Pinocchio and said in a bantering tone:

"Good-bye till tomorrow. Let us hope that when we return you will be
polite enough to allow yourself to be found quite dead, and with your
mouth wide open."

And they walked off.

In the meantime a tempestuous northerly wind began to blow and roar
angrily, and it beat the poor puppet from side to side, making him swing
violently, like the clatter of a bell ringing for a wedding. And the
swinging gave him atrocious spasms, and the running noose, becoming
still tighter round his throat, took away his breath.

Little by little his eyes began to grow dim, but although he felt that
death was near he still continued to hope that some charitable person
would come to his assistance before it was too late. But when, after
waiting and waiting, he found that no one came, absolutely no one, then
he remembered his poor father, and, thinking he was dying, he stammered
out:

"Oh, papa! papa! if only you were here!"

[Illustration: Four Rabbits as Black as Ink Entered Carr