[Illustration]
THE night passed without further adventure.
As soon as morning dawned, the four friends rose to the surface.
Our marionette was delighted to see the sun again. The pure morning
air, though, reminded him that he was hungry. The day before, if you
remember, he had eaten very little.
“I should like something to eat,” he said in a weak voice.
“Let us go to breakfast,” answered the dolphin. Gayly he dove into
the water, and led the party deep into the sea. After a short swim,
he stopped. But, unfortunately, the four friends found themselves
in a place where there were very few herring and salmon. These, you
know, are the dolphin’s favorite food.
The salmon is a fish that lives both in rivers and in seas. Like the
swallow, he looks for warm places in which to pass the winter. So, in
large numbers he migrates to the sea at that time of the year, and in
the spring he returns to the rivers.
“This morning our breakfast will be light,” observed Tursio,
swallowing three herring at once.
“I shall not eat anything. I don’t feel very well. Besides, salmon is
the only thing I can eat,” said Marsovino.
Tursio, wishing to please his pupil, started to swim toward two very
high rocks. They were so high that their tops stuck out of the water.
Very probably they were the base of an island in the middle of the
sea. But although he looked here, there, and everywhere, he could
find no salmon.
Globicephalous satisfied his hunger with three dozen herring and half
a bushel of smelts.
And Pinocchio? Pinocchio this time certainly did not suffer from lack
of food.
Tursio had shown him a large rock, attached to which were hundreds of
oysters. Some were of the size of a pinhead. Others were as large as
a boy’s cap, and these were two years old.
“Go and have your breakfast,” said Tursio.
“Must I eat those horrible-looking things?” asked Pinocchio.
“Open them and see what is inside,” was the reply.
[Illustration: “PINOCCHIO THIS TIME CERTAINLY DID NOT SUFFER FROM
LACK OF FOOD.”]
After Pinocchio had opened and eaten one, he no longer thought of the
looks of the oyster shells. He opened and ate so many, that it was
a wonder to Marsovino that so small a person could hold so much.
Suddenly Pinocchio noticed numberless tiny, tiny white specks coming
out of some oysters. To him they looked like grains of sand. But
when he saw the specks moving and trying hard to attach themselves
to rocks, he could not help crying out, “O look at the live sand,
Tursio.”
“Who told you it is live sand?” asked Tursio. “Those are the newborn
oysters, looking for a place on which to spend their lives. Where
those small grains hang, there the oysters will live, grow, and die.”
“If no one gets them before that,” added Globicephalous.
“And are all those little dots oysters?”
“Yes. All of them. And many of them come from a single oyster, for
an oyster gives forth almost two millions of eggs at a time. These
little things have so many enemies, however, that very seldom do more
than ten of the millions grow old.”
“Two millions! Then I may eat all I want to,” continued Pinocchio,
unmercifully tearing away the poor oysters, young and old.
“Look, Pinocchio,” here called Tursio, pointing to a small fish,
colored with brilliant blues and reds. “That is the stickleback. You
may have heard that this fish makes a nest, as do birds. Also that
the male, not the female, takes care of the eggs.”
“Surely I have,” answered Pinocchio, seriously.
The stickleback seemed to be very much excited. He moved around the
nest he had made and watched it anxiously. The cause for this was
soon evident. A second stickleback made its appearance from behind
the rocks. At once the two engaged in a terrific struggle. They bit
each other, used their tails as weapons, and charged each other
viciously. During the battle they changed color—to a beautiful blue
mottled with silver.
Pinocchio was struck with wonder. “Look! Look! One is wounded.... He
falls.... He dies!” he cried. “And look at the other. How quickly he
returns to the nest to guard the eggs!”
“But how is it,” here asked Marsovino, “that once I saw a stickleback
swallow one of his little ones?”
“If you had followed him, you would later have seen the small fish
come safely out of the large one’s mouth,” answered Tursio.
[Illustration: “‘LOOK! LOOK! ONE IS WOUNDED.’”]
“But why did the large one swallow the small one?” asked Pinocchio.
“Because the little one probably wanted to run away from the nest. It
was too soon, the little one was too young to take care of himself;
so the father took the only means he had to save the youngster from
an enemy,” patiently explained Tursio.
Just then a small fish attracted the dolphin’s attention.
“Boys,” he said, “do you see that tiny fish? It is called the pilot
fish. It is the shark’s most faithful friend. Wherever goes the
shark, there goes the pilot fish.”
“Now, Pinocchio,” he continued after a pause, “I shall leave you
with Globicephalous. Marsovino and I are going to pay a visit to the
dolphin Beluga, who is a great friend of mine. He usually lives in
the polar seas, but on account of his health, he has come to warmer
waters. We shall return this evening, if all be well. Meet us near
those two mountains which are so close together that they form a
gorge. You may take a walk with Globicephalous, but be sure to be at
that spot to-night.”
“I am ashamed to be seen with a servant,” began Pinocchio.
“You are a fine fellow,” answered Tursio, with sarcasm. “Do you
know what you should do? Buy a cloak of ignorance and a throne of
stupidity, and proclaim yourself King of False Pride of the Old and
the New World!”
[Illustration]
With this remark Tursio turned to his pupil, and the two swam away.