"Only the perfectly good can go through witches’ fire!" said the bats wisely "It serves you right! You will just have to go on living outside in the rabbit holes!" and they went back to their caverns.
The younger bats sat down and cried.
The priest, the little wooden horse and Gobbolino looked at each other in perfect astonishment.
"If it is quite true that we can go through unhurt we might just be able to help them," said the little wooden horse, advancing very cautiously across the warm circle of the magic ring.
"And then we must go home!" said Gobbolino, who could hardly wait to put the Hurricane Mountains far behind him. But he too went forward to help his friend, and the priest did not hesitate to join them.
A dozen bats crowded on to the back of the little wooden horse. More clung to Gobbolino’s fur, hiding themselves in the ruff round his neck. The rest crept into the folds of the old priest’s cassock.
The little wooden horse put on his ear again.
Together they walked quietly back to the slopes of the mountain, the little bats squealing with joy and gratitude, and praising their rescuers at the tops of their voices.
There was ample room for double their number to live in the caves, which soon resounded to their chattering and squeaking and their noisy thanks.
The older bats were quite impressed; and sent a delegation to call on the rescuers.
"Thank you for helping our careless children!" they said politely. "It is more than they deserved; but now they can see for themselves that Good is more powerful than Evil. If we can do anything in our turn to help you, we will be glad to be of service."
Gobbolino and the little wooden horse remembered how the bats had flown them across the plain from the village; and longed to ask them to do it again. They were both tired and longing to go home; but the bats could hardly carry the priest as well as themselves, besides which Gobbolino could not put out of his mind the sad picture of the old witch waking to find herself alone in the cave at the top of the mountain.
Bad she might be, but she was also a lonely old woman, already deserted by her cat, and now about to be deserted all over again. Yet the old priest and also the little wooden horse had come so far to help him, how could he refuse to go home with them now?
For all he knew, the witch would take the most terrible vengeance on him for the breaking of her spell, and for bringing the priest into her territory. She might throw them all three down the mountainside, and that would be the end of them.
It was thinking of their possible fate that decided him to turn his back on the Hurricane Mountains, and to follow his friends once more across the magic circle and across the plain in the direction of the village.
18 ESCAPE
AS THEY WALKED ACROSS THE PLAIN all three companions became more and more silent.
Gobbolino and the little wooden horse had told their tale to the priest The priest had told them his. They were all deadly tired, and although Gobbolino had rested all night long in the cavern, it was he who lagged behind the most.
The priest was footsore. The wooden horse was exhausted by circling the stars, and it took all the courage they had to drag their feet one after the other towards the village. They hardly looked behind them as they trudged.
Morning was high in the sky. Breezes and billowing clouds played at shuttlecock over the plain. The spire of the church came nearer and nearer. And Gobbolino fell further and further behind.
The little wooden horse noticed it first, and trotted back to him.
"Are you so tired, my poor little friend?" he exclaimed. "Climb on my back, and I will carry you. I expect you are much lighter than the witch!"
To his surprise he saw that Gobbolino was crying. Great tears were filling his beautiful blue eyes and falling to the ground.
"Whatever is the matter?" said the little wooden horse, in surprise. "Surely we are well on our way home now, and so far as I can see nobody is coming after us! Don’t be afraid! Ride on my back, and think that this time tomorrow you will be in your own home, and what a welcome will be waiting for you! Can’t you imagine it?"
Gobbolino still sobbed quietly, though he cheered up a little as he thought of the children’s welcome awaiting him at the farm. It helped him not to dwell on the lonely old witch in her cave, with nobody, nobody left to love her! He knew he could never send her another cat to live in such squalor and be her slave. One had to be born to a life like that.
So he refused to ride, and mended his pace till at last they reached the village, and were clasped in the arms of the priests housekeeper, who could not make enough fuss of them, nor finish stuffing them with all the best food and cream she could find in the parsonage larder.
The priest himself was so exhausted by his double journey that he went to sleep in his chair beside the fire, having first been into the church to say a prayer of thankfulness that his part of the adventure was safely over. He did not care for travelling in witch country at all.
He invited Gobbolino and the little wooden horse to stay the night with him, which they were very glad to do, since the sun was setting and it was still a very long way to reach the stream and safety.
As darkness fell they could see strange lights surrounding the Hurricane Mountains, and tongues of fire flashing up and down again. It all appeared very awesome and rather frightening, but Gobbolino only wept great tears, while the little wooden horse was very solemn. Towards midnight the fires went out.
"All those tears!" said the priest, waking up. "Tell me, little cat, are you homesick for the old witch up there? Or is it for your family in the forest?"
Gobbolino shook his head, for he really did not know why he was crying.
In the morning his tears were dried, and as soon as it was light he and the little wooden horse said goodbye to their kind friends and set out on the last stage of their journey to the forest.
They were refreshed and well fed by the housekeeper, who could not stop comparing Gobbolino with his sister Sootica — "that vagabond cat!" as she described her.
Gobbolino, she decided, was a perfect prince of cats, and as good as he was handsome, while as for the little wooden horse, she had never seen such a fine and gentlemanly fellow in all her born days. She stood at the parsonage door beside the old priest, waving to them until her handkerchief became as small as a daisy on the grass of the plain.
The priest had blessed them before their journey, and they trotted along side by side feeling as fresh and as free as the morning itself The witch’s powers seemed so far behind them that they crossed the stream with hardly a thought that she could now no longer harm them.
Gobbolino rode on the horse’s saddle, and he swam them both across the water, laughing at the sparkling ripples, and pretending to chase the water rats that stood on their hind legs in the entrance to their burrows, most curious to see such a sight go by.
They clambered up the further bank shaking the drops of water from their feet and laughing in the sunshine.
"We will be in the forest before sundown," said the little wooden horse, "and I feel fresh enough to trot for a hundred miles! What about you, my friend?"
"Oh, a thousand miles if necessary!" replied Gobbolino, but he knew that his home was much nearer than that.
Already a distant whiff of pine needles came wafting on the breeze. Home scents and secrets were blotting out the bleak memories of the Hurricane Mountains. Their hearts bounded with happiness.
So it was with a quite unexpected jolt of dismay that a far-off yet familiar sound came to their ears.