"Where are they?"
Who paid any attention now to Pinocchio? All of them had drawn close to one another and had rushed to the edge of the road, their guns pointed, to examine the distant landscape. The mountain was very steep there and covered with thick vegetation. Down at the bottom, toward the plain, there seemed to be an unexpected rise ... after the steep descent a green stretch through which a river ran like a silver ribbon. Still farther, was a chain of low mountains, almost like a cloud on the edge of the peaceful horizon.
There was the roar of some more shots and the whistling of the shells, and a branch of a tree was splintered and fell.
Pinocchio, alone in the middle of the road, felt a creeping up and down his spine and experienced a trembling in his legs that shook like a palsied man's. The second time he heard a shell whistle he felt that he must find a hole in which to hide himself. He looked about him and caught sight near by of an enormous larch-tree which pointed directly toward the heavens. I don't know how to explain it, but the sight of it took away from Pinocchio the desire to hide himself under the ground and made him wish to climb toward the stars. He gave a spring and shinned up the big trunk in a flash. I bet you a plugged soldo against a lira that you would have done the same....
"I SEE THE SUET-EATERS"
"I see them! I see them!"
"Who?"
"Whom do you see?"