Long before they arrived they could hear the witch angrily calling for them. Her spirits and her vigour rose rapidly at the end of the day, and from a sad old woman she became almost the familiar and fierce old witch that Gobbolino used to know.
"Why have you been dawdling out there?" she demanded. "I could see you half an hour before you arrived! Didn’t you hear me calling for you? Why didn’t you come running? Tell me! Tell me!"
"I didn’t want to spill the milk, ma’am!" Gobbolino explained humbly.
"Pah!" said the witch, taking the jug and tipping a large mouthful down her throat. "You could have brought it back earlier in the day! Why you have even lost an ear racketing about on the mountain!" she said, turning to the little wooden horse. "Whoever heard of such carelessness? Now, you have had the whole day to gad about in the hills and tonight one of you shall come with me! Which of you is it to be? I think it shall be the little wooden horse! Yes, yes… it shall be the little wooden horse!"
"Oh, no, ma’am! No, ma’am!" pleaded the little wooden horse in a great fright, for the idea of riding on a broomstick with the precious spell-break still inside him was quite terrifying. He looked round the cavern to see where he could tip the liquid, and saw the pumpkin standing beside the spring.
While the witch fetched her broomstick he trotted into the corner, emptied the pumpkin and tried to pour the mixture in behind her back. Meanwhile Gobbolino managed to slip in between her legs and trip her up, but in getting to her feet she saw what the little wooden horse was doing, and thought, being rather blind, that he was trying to hide from her inside the pumpkin.
Stumbling across the cavern she caught him by the tail, and before he could prevent it half of the precious spell-break was spilled on the floor.
The witch could not see well enough to notice that the liquid was coloured with fruit juice and pale with goats’ milk. She poked at it with her stick, and then poked at the pumpkin, which promptly fell over and emptied out the remains.
"Well, well — we don’t need water while we have milk!" the witch said, limping out of reach of the mixture on the floor. She let go of the little wooden horse. Both he and Gobbolino were shedding tears of bitter disappointment, and now there was no mixture to make good use of them.
"Come along! Jump up behind me, Dobbin!" said the witch, going to the entrance of the cave and mounting her broomstick.
Very reluctantly the little wooden horse climbed up behind her, but the broomstick would not leave the ground.
"Get off, then!" the witch cried to him, but when he jumped thankfully to the ground the broomstick stayed lifeless and inert, though the witch shook it and cursed at it, and kicked it and finally flung it on to the ground.
Only Gobbolino had noticed that the end of the broomstick had been resting in a puddle of the nearly finished spell-break, the rest of which had now vanished into the cracks of the cavern floor, taking with it all the efforts of their long day’s work. Even the pumpkin lay upside down and was drained quite dry.
"If my broomstick will not carry me, perhaps my horse will!" shrieked the witch, leaping on to the back of the little wooden horse.
"Up! Up! Up!" she yelled at him. "Up to the stars, my horse! Away! Away!"
To the great surprise of the little wooden horse and the distress of Gobbolino he suddenly found himself rising in the air.
The witch was no great burden, being mostly skin and bone, and the feeling of flight was so delightful he hardly heard his friend’s cries.
In fact, it was the witch who was flying, clasping the little wooden horse so tightly with her knees that he felt he himself had wings, and although the effort she put into it was greater than riding on a broomstick, she rose valiantly above the summit of the mountain and sailed away to the north; quite heedless of Gobbolino's pitiful cries below.
The moon shone over the earth with a wide, white radiance, and below him the little wooden horse could overlook a great many miles of country spreading out on every side. He could see the river, and even the faraway forest across the plain, with the village and the church tower standing out clearly in the moonlight. Between the village and the Hurricane Mountains, far, far below them; and not very far out of the village itself; a small dot that might or might not be an animal; or a bird, or even a human being; was wending its way.
And suddenly the little wooden horse realized that the bat might indeed have delivered its message; and the moving dot might even be the old priest answering their plea and coming to help them! It was only an instinct; but it made him aware.
Too late! Too late! The little wooden horse groaned aloud as he thought of the wasted spell-break. It was true that the mixture as it stood had had some success in putting the witch’s broomstick out of action, even without the good man’s blessing, but what was the use of that when not a drop remained to challenge the magic of the witch’s circle?
The flying itself was wonderful.
When he had overcome his fears that the witch would let go of him, the little wooden horse began to enjoy the wild ride, the flashing past of countless stars, and, far away below, the small winking lights of towns and villages, the gleam of rivers, and the silver spread of the sea. For a witch that had such a dread of water they must have crossed a thousand streams.
What he did not know was that at such a height she might go where she pleased, but she could not descend to their level. Once she crossed a stream down on the earth her powers were done.
Round and round the night sky they whirled, and each time they came within sight of the plain the small black spot seemed to have moved a little nearer to the Hurricane Mountains.
…the little wooden horse began to enjoy the wild ride…
The little wooden horse felt sure now that it was the priest from the church, and his heart ached to think of the old man’s long journey on foot across the plain, by night, and all alone, when his journey was now quite useless. Why, oh why, could he not have sent back the little wooden ear with his blessing on it?
And then he thought: why should not he and Gobbolino make the spell-break again in the morning? But would the priest wait? There was no shelter on the plain outside the magic circle, and no human being could hide in a rabbit hole, like a bat. If the witch saw him he might be running a terrible risk. He did not think that witches cared for priests at all.
As they circled high above the mountains for the fifth time the little wooden horse noticed how the magic circle glowed at night with a fire that was quite invisible by day. It was really very beautiful, and he wished he could show it to Gobbolino waiting so sadly below. He wondered how many more times the witch would fly round the stars, and a dreadful fear crossed his mind that the priest might arrive before morning, quite unaware, and get frizzled up in crossing the magic circle. If only the messenger bat had thought to warn him!
To be sure, he was moving very slowly across the great, empty plain below, but every time he came in sight he was further from the village and nearer to the mountains.
The little wooden horse became agitated by the thought that he would not get back in time to warn the old man of his danger. Then he thought: surely the bats will tell him when he gets there? But bats are so empty-headed, they might not even think of it before it was too late to save his life.
The witch swooped and soared and made tremendous loops around the stars as if she were catching them in an invisible lasso.
"Are you enjoying yourself, my little horse?" she called out to him.