Stranica 170 [170]
OCR
152 PINOCCHIO You have done me a great service, and in this world what is given is returned. If an occasion offers I shall not forget it.” Pinocchio swam on, keeping always near the land. At last he thought that he had reached a safe place. Giving a look along the shore he saw amongst the rocks a kind of cave from which a cloud of smoke was ascending. " In that cave,” he said to himself, " there must be a fire. So much the better. I will go and dry and warm myself, and then? . . . and then we shall see.” Having taken this resolution he approached the rocks; but as he was going to climb up, he felt something under the water that rose higher and higher and carried him into the air. He tried to escape, but it was too late, for to his extreme surprise he found himself enclosed in a great net, together with a swarm of fish of every size and shape, who were flapping and struggling like so many despairing souls. At the same moment a fisherman came out of the cave; he was so ugly, so horribly ugly, that he looked like a sea monster. Instead of hair his head was covered with a thick bush of green grass, his skin was green, his eyes were green, his long beard that came down to the ground was also green. He had the
