Tartarin of Tarascon Page 4

  With his ears still ringing with the home applause, intoxicated by theglare of the heavens and the reek of the sea, Tartarin fairly beamed ashe stepped out with a lofty head, and between his guns on his shoulders,looking with all his eyes upon that wondrous, dazzling harbour ofMarseilles, which he saw for the first time. The poor fellow believed hewas dreaming. He fancied his name was Sinbad the Sailor, and that hewas roaming in one of those fantastic cities abundant in the "ArabianNights." As far as eye could reach there spread a forest of masts andspars, cris-crossing in every way.

  Flags of all countries floated--English, American, Russian, Swedish,Greek and Tunisian.

  The vessels lay alongside the wharves--ay, head on, so that theirbowsprits stuck up out over the strand like rows of bayonets. Over it,too, sprawled the mermaids, goddesses, madonnas, and other figure-headsin carved and painted wood which gave names to the ships--all worn bysea-water, split, mildewed, and dripping. Ever and anon, between thehulls, a patch of harbour like watered silk splashed with oil. In theintervals of the yards and booms, what seemed swarms of flies prettilyspotted the blue sky. These were the shipboys, hailing one another inall languages.

  On the waterside, amidst thick green or black rivulets coming downfrom the soap factories loaded with oil and soda, bustled a mass ofcustom-house officers, messengers, porters, and truckmen with theirbogheys, or trolleys, drawn by Corsican ponies.

  There were shops selling quaint articles, smoky shanties where sailorswere cooking their own queer messes, dealers in pipes, monkeys,parrots, ropes, sailcloth, fanciful curios, amongst which were mingledhiggledy-piggledy old culverins, huge gilded lanterns, worn-outpulley-blocks, rusty flukeless anchors, chafed cordage, batteredspeaking-trumpets, and marine glasses almost contemporary with the Ark.Sellers of mussels and clams squatted beside their heaps of shellfishand yawped their goods. Seamen rolled by with tar-pots, smokingsoup-bowls, and big baskets full of cuttlefish, from which they went towash the ink in the milky waters of the fountains.

  Everywhere a prodigious collection of all kinds of goods: silks,minerals, wood in stacks, lead in pigs, cloths, sugars, caruba woodlogs, colza seed, liquorice sticks, sugar-canes. The East and the Westcheek by jowl, even to pyramids of Dutch cheeses which the Genoese weredyeing red by contact with their hands.

  Yonder was the corn market: porters discharging sacks down the shootsof lofty elevators upon the pier, and loose grain rolling as a goldentorrent through a blonde dust. Men in red skullcaps were sifting it asthey caught it in large asses'-skin sieves, and loading it upon cartswhich took their millward way, followed by a regiment of women andyoungsters with wisps and gleaning baskets. Farther on, the dry docks,where large vessels were laid low on their sides till their yards dippedin the water; they were singed with thorn-bushes to free them of seaweed; there rose an odour of pitch, and the deafening clatter of thesheathers coppering the bottoms with broad sheets of yellow metal.

  At whiles a gap in between the masts, in which Tartarin could see thehaven mouth, where the vessels came and went: a British frigate off forMalta, dainty and thoroughly washed down, with the officer in primrosegloves, or a large home-port brig hauling out in the midst of uproar andoaths, whilst the fat captain, in a high silk hat and frockcoat, orderedthe operations in Provencal dialect. Other craft were making forth underall sail, and, still farther out, more were slowly looming up in thesunshine as if they were sailing in the air.

  All the time a frightful riot, the rumbling of carts, the "Haul all,haul away!" of the shipmen, oaths, songs, steamboat whistles, the buglesand drums in Forts Saint Jean and Saint Nicolas, the bells of the Major,the Accoules, and Saint Victor; with the mistral atop of all, catchingup the noises and clamour, and rolling them up together with a furiousshaking, till confounded with its own voice, which intoned a mad, wild,heroic melody like a grand charging tune--one that filled hearers with alonging to be off, and the farther the better--a craving for wings.

  It was to the sound of this splendid blast that the intrepid TartarinTarasco of Tarascon embarked for the land of lions.

  EPISODE THE SECOND, AMONG "THE TURKS"

  I. The Passage--The Five Positions of the Fez--The Third EveningOut--Mercy upon us!

  JOYFUL would I be, my dear readers, if I were a painter--a great artist,I mean--in order to set under your eyes, at the head of this secondepisode, the various positions taken by Tartarin's red cap in thethree days' passage it made on board of the Zouave, between France andAlgeria.

  First would I show you it at the steaming out, upon deck, arrogant andheroic as it was, forming a glory round that handsome Tarasconian head.Next would I show you it at the harbour-mouth, when the bark beganto caper upon the waves; I would depict it for you all of a quake inastonishment, and as though already experiencing the preliminary qualmsof sea-sickness. Then, in the Gulf of the Lion, proportionably to thenearing the open sea, where the white caps heaved harder, I would makeyou behold it wrestling with the tempest, and standing on end upon thehero's cranium, with its mighty mane of blue wool bristling out in thespray and breeze. Position Fourth: at six in the afternoon, with theCorsican coast in view; the unfortunate chechia hangs over the ship'sside, and lamentably stares down as though to plumb the depths ofocean. Finally and lastly, the Fifth Position: at the back of a narrowstate-room, in a box-bed so small it seemed one drawer in a nest ofthem, something shapeless rolled on the pillow with moans of desolation.This was the fez--the fez so defiant at the sailing, now reduced to thevulgar condition of a nightcap, and pulled down over the very ears ofthe head of a pallid and convulsed sufferer.

  How the people of Tarascon would have kicked themselves for havingconstrained the great Tartarin to leave home, if they had but seen himstretched in the bunk in the dull, wan gleam through the dead-light,amid the sickly odour of cooking and wet wood--the heart-heaving perfumeof mail-boats; if they had but heard him gurgle at every turn of thescrew, wail for tea every five minutes, and swear at the steward in achildish treble!

  On my word of honour as a story-teller, the poor Turk would have madea paste-board dummy pity him. Suddenly, overcome by the nausea, thehapless victim had not even the power to undo the Algerian girdle-cloth,or lay aside his armoury; the lumpy-handled hunting-sword pounded hisribs, and the leather revolver-case made his thigh raw. To finish himarose the taunts of Sancho-Tartarin, who never ceased to groan andinveigh:

  "Well, for the biggest kind of imbecile, you are the finest specimen! Itold you truly how it would be. Ha, ha! you were bound to go to Africa,of course! Well, old merriman, now you are going to Africa, how do youlike it?"

  The cruellest part of it was that, from the retreat where he wasmoaning, the hapless invalid could hear the passengers in the grandsaloon laughing, munching, singing, and playing at cards. On board theZouave the company was as jolly as numerous, composed of officers goingback to join their regiments, ladies from the Marseilles Alcazar MusicHall, strolling-players, a rich Mussulman returning from Mecca, and avery jocular Montenegrin prince, who favoured them with imitationsof the low comedians of Paris. Not one of these jokers felt thesea-sickness, and their time was passed in quaffing champagne with thesteamer captain, a good fat born Marseillais, who had a wife and familyas well at Algiers as at home, and who answered to the merry name ofBarbassou.

  Tartarin of Tarascon hated this pack of wretches; their mirthfulnessdeepened his ails.

  At length, on the third afternoon, there was such an extraordinaryhullabaloo on the deck that our hero was roused out of his long torpor.The ship's bell was ringing and the seamen's heavy boots ran over theplanks.

  "Go ahead! Stop her! Turn astern!" barked the hoarse voice of CaptainBarbassou; and then, "Stop her dead!"

  There was an abrupt check of movement, a shock, and no more, save thesilent rolling of the boat from side to side like a balloon in the air.This strange stillness alarmed the Tarasconian.

  "Heaven ha' mercy upon us!" he yelled in a terrifying voice, as,recovering his strength by magic, he bounded out of his berth, andrushed
upon deck with his arsenal.

  II. "To arms! to arms"

  ONLY the arrival, not a foundering.

  The Zouave was just gliding into the roadstead--a fine one of black,deep water, but dull and still, almost deserted. On elevated groundahead rose Algiers, the White City, with its little houses of a deadcream-colour huddling against one another lest they slid into the sea.It was like Meudon slope with a laundress's washing hung out to dry.Over it a vast blue satin sky--and such a blue!

  A little restored from his fright, the illustrious Tartarin gazed onthe landscape, and listened with respect to the Montenegrin prince, whostood by his side, as he named the different parts of the capital, theKasbah, the upper town, and the Rue Bab-Azoon. A very finely-brought-upprince was this Montenegrin; moreover, knowing Algeria thoroughly, andfluently speaking Arabic. Hence Tartarin thought of cultivating hisacquaintance.

  All at once, along the bulwark against which they were leaning, theTarasconian perceived a row of large black hands clinging to it fromover the side. Almost instantly a Negro's woolly head shot up beforehim, and, ere he had time to open his mouth, the deck was overwhelmedon every side by a hundred black or yellow desperadoes, half naked,hideous, and fearsome. Tartarin knew who these pirates were--"they," ofcourse, the celebrated "they" who had too often been hunted after by himin the by-ways of Tarascon. At last they had decided to meet him face toface. At the outset surprise nailed him to the spot. But when he sawthe outlaws fall upon the luggage, tear off the tarpaulin covering, andactually commence the pillage of the ship, then the hero awoke. Whippingout his hunting-sword, "To arms! to arms!" he roared to the passengers;and away he flew, the foremost of all, upon the buccaneers. "Quesaco? What's the stir? What's the matter with you?" exclaimed CaptainBarbassou, coming out of the 'tweendecks.

  "About time you did turn up, captain! Quick, quick, arm your men!"

  "Eh, what for? dash it all!"

  "Why, can't you see?"

  "See what?"

  "There, before you, the corsairs"

  Captain Barbassou stared, bewildered. At this juncture a tall blackamoortore by with our hero's medicine-chest upon his back.

  "You cut-throat! just wait for me!" yelled the Tarasconer as he ranafter, with the knife uplifted.

  But Barbassou caught him in the spring, and holding him by thewaist-sash, bade him be quiet.

  "Tron de ler! by the throne on high! they're no pirates. It's long sincethere were any pirates hereabout. Those dark porters are light porters.Ha, ha!"

  "P--p-porters?"

  "Rather, only come after the luggage to carry it ashore. So put upyour cook's galley knife, give me your ticket, and walk off behind thatnigger--an honest dog, who will see you to land, and even into a hotel,if you like."

  A little abashed, Tartarin handed over his ticket, and falling inbehind the representative of the Dark Continent, clambered down by thehanging-ladder into a big skiff dancing alongside. All his effects werealready there--boxes, trunks, gun-cases, tinned food,--so cramming upthe boat that there was no need to wait for any other passengers. TheAfrican scrambled upon the boxes, and squatted there like a baboon,with his knees clutched by his hands. Another Negro took the oars. Bothlaughingly eyed Tartarin, and showed their white teeth.

  Standing in the stern-sheets, making that terrifying face which haddaunted his fellow-countrymen, the great Tarasconian feverishly fumbledwith his hunting-knife haft; for, despite what Barbassou had toldhim, he was only half at ease as regarded the intention of theseebony-skinned porters, who so little resembled their honest mates ofTarascon.

  Five minutes afterwards the skiff landed Tartarin, and he set foot uponthe little Barbary wharf, where, three hundred years before, a Spanishgalley-slave yclept Miguel Cervantes devised, under the cane of theAlgerian taskmaster, a sublime romance which was to bear the title of"Don Quixote."

  III. An Invocation to Cervantes--The Disembarkation--Where are theTurks?--Not a sign of them--Disenchantment

  O MIGUEL CERVANTES SAAVEDRA, if what is asserted be true, to wit,that wherever great men have dwelt some emanation of their spiritswanderingly hovers until the end of ages, then what remained of youressence on the Barbary coast must have quivered with glee on beholdingTartarin of Tarascon disembark, that marvellous type of the FrenchSoutherner, in whom was embodied both heroes of your work, Don Quixoteand Sancho Panza.

  The air was sultry on this occasion. On the wharf, ablaze with sunshine,were half a dozen revenue officers, some Algerians expecting news fromFrance, several squatting Moors who drew at long pipes, and some Maltesemariners dragging large nets, between the meshes of which thousands ofsardines glittered like small silver coins.

  But hardly had Tartarin set foot on earth before the quay sprang intolife and changed its aspect. A horde of savages, still more hideous thanthe pirates upon the steamer, rose between the stones on the strand andrushed upon the new-comer. Tall Arabs were there, nude under woollenblankets, little Moors in tatters, Negroes, Tunisians, Port Mahonese,M'zabites, hotel servants in white aprons, all yelling and shouting,hooking on his clothes, fighting over his luggage, one carrying away theprovender, another his medicine-chest, and pelting him in one fantasticmedley with the names of preposterously-entitled hotels.

  Bewildered by all this tumult, poor Tartarin wandered to and fro, sworeand stormed, went mad, ran after his property, and not knowing howto make these barbarians understand him, speechified them in French,Provencal, and even in dog Latin: "Rosa, the rose; bonus, bona,bonum!"--all that he knew--but to no purpose. He was not heeded.Happily, like a god in Homer, intervened a little fellow in ayellow-collared tunic, and armed with a long running-footman's cane, whodispersed the whole riff-raff with cudgel-play. He was a policeman ofthe Algerian capital. Very politely, he suggested Tartarin should put upat the Hotel de l'Europe, and he confided him to its waiters, who cartedhim and his impedimenta thither in several barrows.

  At the first steps he took in Algiers, Tartarin of Tarascon opened hiseyes widely. Beforehand he had pictured it as an Oriental city--a fairyone, mythological, something between Constantinople and Zanzibar; butit was back into Tarascon he fell. Cafes, restaurants, wide streets,four-storey houses, a little market-place, macadamised, where theinfantry band played Offenbachian polkas, whilst fashionably cladgentlemen occupied chairs, drinking beer and eating pancakes, somebrilliant ladies, some shady ones, and soldiers--more soldiers--no endof soldiers, but not a solitary Turk, or, better to say, there was asolitary Turk, and that was he.

  Hence he felt a little abashed about crossing the square, for everybodylooked at him. The musicians stopped, the Offenbachian polka haltingwith one foot in the air.

  With both guns on his shoulders, and the revolver flapping on hiship, as fierce and stately as Robinson Crusoe, Tartarin gravely passedthrough the groups; but on arriving at the hotel his powers failedhim. All spun and mingled in his head: the departure from Tarascon, theharbour of Marseilles, the voyage, the Montenegrin prince, the corsairs.They had to help him up into a room and disarm and undress him. Theybegan to talk of sending for a medical adviser; but hardly was ourhero's head upon the pillow than he set to snoring, so loudly and soheartily that the landlord judged the succour of science useless, andeverybody considerately withdrew.

  IV. The First Lying in Wait.

  THREE o'clock was striking by the Government clock when Tartarin awoke.He had slept all the evening, night, and morning, and even a goodishpiece of the afternoon. It must be granted, though, that in the lastthree days the red fez had caught it pretty hot and lively!

  Our hero's first thought on opening his eyes was, "I am in the land ofthe lions!" And--well, why should we not say it?--at the idea that lionswere nigh hereabouts, within a couple of steps, almost at hand's reach,and that he would have to disentangle a snarled skein with them, ugh! adeadly chill struck him, and he dived intrepidly under the coverlet.

  But, before a moment was over, the outward gaiety, the blue sky, theglowing sun that streamed into the bedchamber, a nice little br
eakfastthat he ate in bed, his window wide open upon the sea, the wholeflavoured with an uncommonly good bottle of Crescia wine--it veryspeedily restored him his former pluckiness.

  "Let's out and at the lion!" he exclaimed, throwing off the clothes andbriskly dressing himself.

  His plan was as follows: he would go forth from the city without sayinga word to a soul, plunge into the great desert, await nightfall toambush himself, and bang away at the first lion who walked up. Thenwould he return to breakfast in the morning at the hotel, receive thefelicitations of the natives, and hire a cart to bring in the quarry.

  So he hurriedly armed himself, attached upright on his back theshelter-tent (which, when rolled up, left its centre pole sticking outa clear foot above his head), and descended to the street as stiffly asthough he had swallowed it. Not caring to ask the way of anybody, fromfear of letting out his project, he turned fairly to the right, andthreaded the Bab-Azoon arcade to the very end, where swarms of AlgerianJews watched him pass from their corner ambushes like so many spiders;crossing the Theatre place, he entered the outer ward, and lastly cameupon the dusty Mustapha highway.

  Upon this was a quaint conglomeration: omnibuses, hackney coaches,corricolos, the army service waggons, huge hay-carts drawn by bullocks,squads of Chasseurs d'Afrique, droves of microscopic asses, trucksof Alsatian emigrants, spahis in scarlet cloaks--all filed by in awhirlwind cloud of dust, amidst shouts, songs, and trumpetcalls, betweentwo rows of vile-looking booths, at the doors of which lanky Mahonnaiswomen might be seen doing their hair, drinking-dens filled withsoldiers, and shops of butchers and knackers.