"We have three lines of trenches, fifteen hundred men ... two batteries placed on the Donkey's Saddle ... but you have Alpine troops and we can't get the better of you. So our colonel had marvelous plan—he had huge mine dug and thought to blow up Alpines to bust them all up. This morning we attacked on purpose. When Alpines came face to us, we go all back to retreat, but they not come to mined spot and didn't all bust up. But when Alpines enter first trench which we leave ... bum! 'Talian pigs all dead and Austrian soldiers shout hurrah for emperor. Did you hear little while ago lots of noise? I knows ... I knows what it was ... big mine blow up."
"And 'Talian pigs all killed, aren't they?" yelled the enraged Ciampanella. "And you think I am going to give you food? Not by a long shot. See what game I'm going to play with you. In the mean time pray to the god of all the Croats that what you have said may not be true, because if, instead of making war as real soldiers do, your side has committed such a despicable deed, you two shall pay for it, and as truly as my name is Ciampanella, chef of the mess, you'll pay for it dearly enough."
And shaking his lion head and jumping up in the air, waving his arms about violently, he took up a piece of rope and bound the prisoners tightly to a pole which supported the roof of the dugout.
"And now if you can eat these good gifts of God which I leave under your nose, you'll do well, I assure you.... Come, Pinocchio, we must take this news to the officer commanding our company, because I don't believe anything wrong has happened yet."
"And the prisoners?"
"They won't escape, I, Ciampanella, assure you. They are tied up like two pork sausages, and, besides, you know what we'll do? When the door is shut we'll put up against it one of the bombs that they make which go off almost without touching them. I know where some of them are hidden away. If they should succeed in loosening the rope and should try to get away they'll take a ride in the air. And now we'll wish the gentlemen good appetite and be off on our own affairs."
Five minutes later Ciampanella and Pinocchio were running across the snow through the dusk.
CHAPTER IX
How Pinocchio Complained Because He Was No Longer a Wooden Puppet