Immediately three or four of the men began to dig a hole, while the unfortunate marionette, half dead with fright, tried to form some plan of escape.  The time passed.  The hole was dug, and the poor fellow could not think of any plan.  Run away!  But how?  And if they found out that he was alive would he not be cooked and eaten?  The marionette did not know what to do.

In the meantime two men had raised him from the ground and stood ready to throw him into the hole.  Then in spite of himself, the marionette began to shout at the top of his lungs:  “Stop!  Stop!  I will not be buried 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 the ground and started off in a great fright.  All the others followed their example.

“What funny people!” said Pinocchio.  “If I had known that they would all run away like this, I should not have been so uneasy.  However, I really do not know why I have come here.  If I only knew where to find diamonds and gold, it would not be so hard.  I might return home to my father, 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 too stupid to keep an idea in his head for more than a few seconds.  Another thought flashed across his mind, and he forgot his poor father.

“If these people run away, it means that they are afraid, and if they are afraid, it means that they have no courage.  Now then, I, being very brave, may in a short time come to rule over everything in Africa.  Perhaps — who knows! — I may become a king or an emperor!”

Pinocchio, you lazy dreamer, are you never going to learn wisdom?  Only a blockhead like you could be so foolish.  A wooden emperor, indeed!

26.  The Monkeys Stone The Marionette

Filled with these hopes and forgetting his fright, Pinocchio set boldly forth without the least alarm at the difficulties of the journey.  He was going merrily along, dreaming of all the great things he would do as emperor of Africa, when at a turn in the road there came flying after him a volley of stones.  Had any struck him he would have been killed.  Astonished and frightened at this strange turn of affairs, he glanced around, but saw no one.  He looked up at the trees, and then from right to left, but nobody was in sight.

“This is pleasant!” exclaimed the marionette.  “Have those pebbles fallen from the sky?” And he started to go on his way.

He had taken only a few steps, when a second discharge drove him to the shelter of a large tree.  Thence he looked carefully in the direction from which the stones continued to come.  To his surprise he discovered among the bushes and twigs a large number of monkeys.

“Well!  What is this?” cried the marionette.  “Those rogues must not be allowed to play such mean tricks.  I had better be on my guard.”