“But she can swim herself! Witches’ cats can swim!” protested the little wooden horse. “Witches may not be able to cross spring water, but their cats can! And I’m not going from here while you are still in danger!”
At the word “danger” Gobbolino shivered again, but he tried to disguise his fears.
“You must think of your dear old friends waiting for you!” he told the little wooden horse. “If anything happens to me you can explain it when you come to Uncle Peder and his wife, and they will tell the farmer and his family. Why, they may even take in my sister Sootica for my sake!”
But the little wooden horse would not hear of leaving the Hurricane Mountains without Gobbolino.
“We will think about it in the morning!” he said, still very troubled, and side by side they lay down to sleep until dawn.
They slept so long and so late after their adventures of the day before that they forgot to wake up in time to climb the peak and meet Sootica on her return from her excursion with the witch. In fact, daylight was streaming into the cave, and the little wooden horse was just congratulating himself that it was now too late to carry out Sootica’s horrid plan, when the cat herself tore into the cave, bursting with indignation.
“Ahl So you are still here!” she cried in triumph. “I thought you must be gone! Coward and humbug!” she spat at Gobbolino. “You said you had come to save me, and already you have left me to my fate!”
“Oh no, sister! Oh no! Indeed I have not!” cried Gobbolino, springing up and rubbing the sleep out of his beautiful blue eyes. “I am ready! I am ready!”
“Stop!” cried the little wooden horse, but Sootica pushed past him and collected some black mould from the rocks at the side of the cave.
“Give me your paw, brother!” she commanded, and in a minute or two Gobbolino’s paws were all as black as one another.
“Keep your eyes half shut,” she told him. “Look out through the slits as I do! My mistress has been asleep for half an hour already, the morning is well on its way. We have no time to lose. Follow me!”
The little wooden horse protested in vain. Gobbolino ran out of the cave after his sister Sootica, and together they galloped up the steep mountain path to the crest. The little wooden horse was not far behind them. But they had not gone far before the witch’s cat rounded on him:
“Go back! Go back!” she hissed. “Your wooden wheels make such a noise my mistress will wake up and hear you coming! You must stay a long way behind us, or else not come at all!”
Very crestfallen the little wooden horse fell back, turning his wooden wheels very carefully so as to make no noise at all. His heart ached unbearably to see his friend Gobbolino disappearing round a corner of the path far above his head, just one pace behind his sister Sootica. He dared not hurry, for fear of waking the witch, and it seemed to him that the two little cats had been gone for hours on end when suddenly Sootica appeared, coming towards him on the path just above his head.
[Êàðòèíêà: i_019.jpg]
Very crestfallen the little wooden horse fell back
She passed him like a streak of summer lightning, her eyes shining with green fire.
“I’m off!” she cried with a wild laugh of triumph. “And my brother has taken my place… all curled up by the side of my mistress the witch! I’ll meet you both on the far side of the stream, after midday! Don’t venture any higher up, my friend, if you value your life. If my mistress catches sight of you there’s no saying what she may do to the pair of you! At midday, with luck, my brother will join you in the cave below, and you can both follow me to the river! Be careful! Be very careful! Goodbye! Goodbye!”
She was gone, and the little wooden horse was left alone on the mountain path, terrified by the thought of what might happen to Gobbolino if either of them were seen by the witch.
He decided to do as Sootica suggested, and wait in the cave below until midday. It was not so long, after all, and yet it seemed a thousand years ahead.
10IN THE WITCH’S CAVE [Êàðòèíêà: i_020.jpg]
If IT SEEMED A LONG TIME to the little wooden horse it seemed ten times as long to Gobbolino, curled up in a dark corner of the witch’s cave beside the ugly old woman whose face he remembered so well. He shrank into the shadows among the cobwebs and dust, hoping she would not notice him if she woke up. Sootica had assured him that she would sleep till sunset, but his heart beat so loudly he was afraid it might rouse her, and the harder he tried to suppress it the louder it beat.
There next to her was the same cauldron he had been forced to stir, and beside which he had fallen asleep in the middle of making the witch’s most important spell. He wondered what the cauldron contained today.
There too were the spiders, and one or two lazy bats, hanging in the rocks above the cauldron. It was all so familiar he began to feel he had never left it, and yet how different it all was from his happy farmyard home!
He tried to imagine his sister Sootica at the farm, but he could not. It was much more natural to think of her in this shadowy cave beside the snoring witch. Gobbolino tried not to look at the witch, but her snoring made him very nervous, especially when it stopped for a little and then went on again.
He pictured Sootica tearing down the mountainside, past the little wooden horse, who he hoped was now starting for home, but he knew his loyal little friend was more likely to be waiting for him in the cave below.
He hoped Sootica would remember to stop and tell the bats that by evening their caves would be free for them. And suddenly he remembered how the bats had carried them to the mountain. Perhaps they would help them again! In gratitude for the caves they might even carry them back to the river! This thought was so hopeful and comforting that his heart actually settled down and began to beat less noisily but that only made the witch’s snores the louder.
Through the open doorway he could see the sun painting the crags with gold.
“When it reachesthat one…” Sootica had told him, pointing with her paw, “it will be midday, and I shall be safely across the river, so you can leave the cave and come after me. You will have arrived there yourself by the time my mistress wakes up, so you have nothing to fear!”
The long morning crawled by. Outside, Gobbolino could see that the view from the mountain top was very beautiful. The sun warmed the rocks below and beyond, slowly spreading a flush of colour higher and higher like the sweep of a gigantic paintbrush. Yet it moved so slowly Gobbolino wondered if it would ever reach the rock Sootica had pointed out to him, and allow him to go free.
What would happen, he asked himself, if he left the cave early, before the sun reached midday?
For one thing, the witch could easily awake early herself, and find her cat gone. Searching and calling, she might fly down the mountainside and overtake him, or she might soar very high into the sky on her broomstick and see, not only himself, but Sootica making her way to the river across the plain. And when she had pounced down on her cat, and brought her back to the cave the bats would be forbidden the caves below, and things would be just as bad as they had been before. What his own punishment would be Gobbolino did not dare to think. At the moment he was more concerned about Sootica and the bats.
One thing consoled him. The witch had nothing against the little wooden horse. She did not even know he was there, and provided he kept himself out of her sight he was quite safe, whether plodding home across the plain, or hiding in the cave where they had passed the night. Gobbolino preferred to think that he was on his way back to the forest, and that by nightfall they might be there together.