Pinocchio, weary of the game, turned in anger toward them and shouted: “Give up shooting, stupid ones! Do you not see that you are wasting your time?”
They had already perceived that this was true, and they stopped shooting. A group braver than the rest now approached the marionette and surrounded him. One of them shouted, “Hoi! Hoi! Hoi!”
“Pinocchio!” answered the marionette.
“Yah! Yah! Yah!”
“Pinocchio!” the boy repeated. “Are you deaf?”
Then they began to shout in chorus: “Yah! Yah! Hoi! Hoi! Uff! Uff! Uff!”
And Pinocchio replied: “Yah! Yah! Hoi! Hoi! Uff! Uff! Uff!”
This conversation soon began to be wearisome, and Pinocchio tried to escape. It was too late. The Africans, quick as a flash, closed in about him and, seizing him by the legs, raised him from the ground, shouting: “Long live our emperor, Pinocchio the First! Long live our emperor, Pinocchio!”
Pinocchio had never dreamed of such a welcome.