Chapter VIII
THE PURSUIT
Poor Cecco wanted to take to the open country, but Jensina was all for the road. She was used to roads, she said, and felt at home on them.
“Are you afraid we can’t defend you?” Poor Cecco asked.
“It isn’t so much that,” said Jensina, pausing to brush the dust off her shoes, which, being painted directly on her feet, were extremely comfortable for walking. “It isn’t so much that, as that there’s more life going on along the road. It seems years since I saw a wagon or an automobile, and if we are going to bury ourselves in the wilderness again I might as well have stayed on my ash-heap, where at least there was comfort!”
It was plain that the incident of the rats had upset her more than she would admit. So the others took no notice of her snippiness, but walked along on either side of her, affecting to admire the scenery.
There was very little passing certainly on this road. It was wide and bare and empty, and extremely hot, the sun by now being high above them, and not a cloud in the sky. Even the weeds along the roadside hung their heads. But along the edge of the road, down in the ditch, ran a trickle of water. Not enough to launch a boat on, but there was plenty to cool their feet, and very soon Poor Cecco and Bulka had hopped down and were walking along in it, splashing merrily. It looked so cool that Jensina had to follow their example. Besides, as Poor Cecco said, in this way the rats would be unable to trace their footsteps.
Jensina, like many another young lady, recovered her spirits as soon as she felt she was getting her own way; she sang snatches of songs and dances, and was altogether a most cheerful companion. Once in a while, on the road above them, an automobile passed with a noise like thunder and the blowing of trumpets, and whenever this happened Jensina scrambled hastily up the side of the ditch, her legs working like a pair of compasses, but she was always too late to see anything but a vanishing cloud of dust.
“I shall walk on the edge of the road!” she called finally. “It is smoother up here, and one sees far more!”
So she walked along, tilting on her toes and turning her head from side to side as she went. But suddenly she came sliding in a great hurry down the side of the ditch again, very pale, her fingers on her lips.
“Sh-sh!” she whispered. “The rats are following us! I knew they would!”
“Where?” cried Poor Cecco. “Show me!”
Stealthily they all three climbed up the bank and peeped through the grasses. There, sure enough, coming at a steady pace along the road behind them, were two enormous rats. Even at that distance one could see their whiskers twitching and their eyes peering from side to side. At of them Bulka’s bites, which he had nearly forgotten about, began to smart again.
“We’ll keep quite still,” said Poor Cecco, “and perhaps they will pass by and not see us.”
So they lay down, as flat as they could, among the grasses, scarcely daring to breathe. But the rats must have known they were there. For as soon as they came within a few feet of where the three friends were in hiding they stopped short, puffing and blowing, and sat down in the road to consult.
“It’s no use,” said Jensina, “they must certainly have seen us. They are policemen rats.”
They were very fat rats, and elderly, They were hot and tired from coming so far along the dusty road. One of them, who was in quite a perspiration, began at once to mop his face and brush his whiskers, grumbling as he did so, and staring about him.
Jensina was watching them intently.
“I can’t hear what they are saying,” she whispered, “but at any rate they are not going to attack us now. The best thing is to go straight on, and pretend to take no notice of them.” And so saying, she rose to her feet, and humming a little tune, began to walk away. Bulka and Poor Cecco followed, looking back over their shoulders.
The two rats waited a little while. Then they too stood up, shook themselves, and resumed their steady trot.
“This is very mysterious,” said Poor Cecco to Bulka, “and I begin to think that Jensina knows rather more about it than she is willing to tell us!”
Seeing, however, that the rats made no effort to overtake them, but just trotted steadily along in the rear, he began to take courage.
“After all,” he said, “we are three and they are only two. Let us put a good face on the matter, and before nightfall we may yet manage to give them the slip.”
So they kept on their way, chatting together, and affecting to pay no attention to the rats, who followed at a little distance behind them—pad—pad—twitching their whiskers and looking neither to right nor left.
At noon they sat down to rest in the shade of a lofty burdock, making a meal off some wild strawberries which Jensina discovered by the roadside. Not far from them the two rats also waited, panting, and not ill-pleased at the opportunity to rest once more and mop their foreheads. They, however, having no strawberries, could only sit and suck their paws.
“They will soon get tired of this,” Poor Cecco said.
But the rats showed no sign of giving up the chase. All that afternoon they followed on their track, and when twilight fell, and Jensina glanced over her shoulder, it only to see four green glowing eyes in the distance, following like points of fire through the dusk.
The three friends called a halt to decide what should be done.
“We can’t spend the night on the road,” said Jensina. “At least,” she added, “not without a campfire.” For her gypsy instincts were still quite strong.
The chance of making a campfire, with no matches, seemed very slight, but in this they were luckier than they expected, for Poor Cecco, who had been sniffing the air eagerly, suddenly exclaimed: “I smell burning!”
Sure enough, on following him a short distance up the road they found, on a bare space of ground set about with juniper bushes, the remains of a fire which some passing tramp had lighted not long ago. The ashes were still warm, and by blowing on these Jensina, who understood such matters, soon had a nice little blaze started, while Poor Cecco and Bulka gathered twigs and straws for fresh fuel.
It was cheerful to gather round the fire and see the red sparks flying up into the air, and the smoke curling away overhead. The only trouble was, they had nothing to cook by it, and now that darkness had fallen no one felt brave enough to venture out of the circle of firelight to look for food. In fact, though they talked loudly to keep up their courage, they were all three very nervous, and at each sound of a crackling twig, or the rustle of grass in the distance, they looked at one another and drew closer to the blaze.
But presently their fire began to die down. Suddenly it gave a last little flicker, and went out. Now indeed they were in bad plight!
“This is getting beyond a joke!” said Poor Cecco. “I must study the situation!”
And he went and lay down by himself at a little distance, with his nose on his paws, thinking.
Jensina and Bulka sat in the long grasses and shivered. Bulka thought of Tubby and the toy-cupboard, and he began to feel very homesick. Big tears rolled down his nose, but he licked them up bravely as fast as they fell, so that Jensina should not see he was crying. The tears came so fast that he had to lick hard to keep up with them, and after a while this occupation in itself proved so exciting that he very nearly forgot his troubles, and when Poor Cecco returned he had just succeeded in catching the last tear of all on the tip of his red flannel tongue, while Jensina sat with her legs stretched straight out before her and her precious bundle on her lap.
