Tartarin of Tarascon Page 7

  "Hey! Lord love you, Barbassou!" said Tartarin, pulling up his mule.

  Instead of continuing the dialogue, Barbassou stared at him for a spaceere he burst into a peal of such hilarity that Sidi Tart'ri sat backdumbfounded on his melons.

  "What a stunning turban, my poor Monsieur Tartarin! Is it true, whatthey say of your having turned Turk? How is little Baya? Is she stillsinging 'Marco la Bella'?"

  "Marco la Bella!" repeated the indignant Tartarin. "I'll have you toknow, captain, that the person you mention is an honourable Moorishlady, and one who does not know a word of French."

  "Baya does not know French! What lunatic asylum do you hail from, then?"

  The good captain broke into still heartier laughter; but, seeing thechops of poor Sidi Tart'ri fall he changed his course.

  "Howsoever, may happen it is not the same lass. Let's reckon that Ihave mixed 'em up. Still, mark you, Monsieur Tartarin, you will do well,nonetheless, to distrust Algerian Moors and Montenegrin princes."

  Tartarin rose in the stirrups, making a wry face.

  "The prince is my friend, captain."

  "Come, come, don't wax wrathy. Won't you have some bitters to sweetenyou? No? Haven't you anything to say to the folks at home, neither?Well, then, a pleasant journey. By the way, mate, I have some goodFrench 'bacco upon me, and if you would like to carry away a fewpipefuls, you have only to take some. Take it, won't you? It's yourbeastly Oriental 'baccoes that have befogged your brain."

  Upon this the captain went back to his absinthe, whilst the moodyTartarin trotted slowly on the road to his little house. Although hisgreat soul refused to credit anything, Barbassou's insinuations hadvexed him, and the familiar adjurations and home accent had awakenedvague remorse.

  He found nobody at home, Baya having gone out to the bath. The negressappeared sinister and the dwelling saddening. A prey to inexpressiblemelancholy, he went and sat down by the fountain to load a pipe withBarbassou's tobacco. It was wrapped up in a piece of the MarseillesSemaphore newspaper. On flattening it out, the name of his native placestruck his eyes.

  "Our Tarascon correspondent writes:--

  "The city is in distress. There has been no news for several months fromTartarin the lion-slayer, who set off to hunt the great feline tribein Africa. What can have become of our heroic fellow-countryman? Thosehardly dare ask who know, as we do, how hot-headed he was, and whatboldness and thirst for adventures were his. Has he, like many others,been smothered in the sands, or has he fallen under the murderous fangsof one of those monsters of the Atlas Range of which he had promised theskins to the municipality? What a dreadful state of uncertainty! It istrue some Negro traders, come to Beaucaire Fair, assert having met inthe middle of the deserts a European whose description agreed with his;he was proceeding towards Timbuctoo. May Heaven preserve our Tartarin!"

  When he read this, the son of Tarascon reddened, blanched, andshuddered. All Tarascon appeared unto him: the club, the cap-poppers,Costecalde's green arm-chair, and, hovering over all like a spreadeagle, the imposing moustaches of brave Commandant Bravida.

  At seeing himself here, as he was, cowardly lolling on a mat, whilst hisfriends believed him slaughtering wild beasts, Tartarin of Tarascon wasashamed of himself, and could have wept had he not been a hero.

  Suddenly he leaped up and thundered:

  "The lion, the lion! Down with him!"

  And dashing into the dusty lumber-hole where mouldered the shelter-tent,the medicine-chest, the potted meats, and the gun-cases, he dragged themout into the middle of the court.

  Sancho-Tartarin was no more: Quixote-Tartarin occupied the field ofactive life.

  Only the time to inspect his armament and stores, don his harness, getinto his heavy boots, scribble a couple of words to confide Baya tothe prince, and slip a few bank-notes sprinkled with tears intothe envelope, and then the dauntless Tarasconian rolled away in thestage-coach on the Blidah road, leaving the house to the negress,stupor-stricken before the pipe, the turban, and babooshes--all theMoslem shell of Sidi Tart'ri which sprawled piteously under the littlewhite trefoils of the gallery.

  EPISODE THE THIRD, AMONG THE LIONS

  I. What becomes of the Old Stage-coaches.

  COME to look closely at the vehicle, it was an old stage-coach allof the olden time, upholstered in faded deep blue cloth, with thoseenormous rough woollen balls which, after a few hours' journey, finallyestablish a raw spot in the small of your back.

  Tartarin of Tarascon had a corner of the inside, where he installedhimself most free-and-easily: and, preliminarily to inspiring the rankemanations of the great African felines, the hero had to content himselfwith that homely old odour of the stage-coach, oddly composed of athousand smells, of man and woman, horses and harness, eatables andmildewed straw.

  There was a little of everything inside--a Trappist monk, some Jewmerchants, two fast ladies going to join their regiment, the ThirdHussars, a photographic artist from Orleansville, and so on. But,however charming and varied was the company, the Tarasconian was not inthe mood for chatting; he remained quite thoughtful, with an arm in thearm-rest sling-strap and his guns between his knees. All churned up hiswits--the precipitate departure, Baya's eyes of jet, the terrible chasehe was about to undertake, to say nothing of this European coach; withits Noah's Ark aspect, rediscovered in the heart of Africa, vaguelyrecalling the Tarascon of his youth, with its races in the suburbs,jolly dinners on the river-side--a throng of memories, in short.

  Gradually night came on. The guard lit up the lamps. The rusty diligencedanced creakingly on its old springs; the horses trotted and their bellsjangled. From time to time in the boot arose a dreadful clank of iron:that was the war material.

  Tartarin of Tarascon, nearly overcome, dwelt a moment scanning thefellow-passengers, comically shaken by the jolts, and dancing beforehim like the shadows in galanty-shows, till his eyes grew cloudy and hismind befogged, and only vaguely he heard the wheels grind and the sidesof the conveyance squeak complainingly.

  Suddenly a voice called Tartarin by his name, the voice of an old fairygodmother, hoarse, broken, and cracked.

  "Monsieur Tartarin!" three times.

  "Who's calling me?"

  "It's I, Monsieur Tartarin. Don't you recognise me? I am the oldstage-coach who used to do the road betwixt Nimes and Tarascon twentyyear agone. How many times I have carried you and your friends when youwent to shoot at caps over Joncquieres or Bellegarde way! I did not knowyou again at the first, on account of your Turk's cap and the flesh youhave accumulated; but as soon as you began snoring--what a rascal isgood-luck!--I twigged you straight away."

  "All right, that's all right enough!" observed the Tarasconian, a shadevexed; but softening, he added, "But to the point, my poor old girl;whatever did you come out here for?"

  "Pooh! my good Monsieur Tartarin, I assure you I never came of myown free will. As soon as the Beaucaire railway was finished I wasconsidered good for nought, and shipped away into Algeria. And I am notthe only one either! Bless you, next to all the old stage-coaches ofFrance have been packed off like me. We were regarded as too much theconservative--'the slow-coaches'--d'ye see, and now we are hereleading the life of a dog. This is what you in France call the Algerianrailways."

  Here the ancient vehicle heaved a long-drawn sigh before proceeding. "Mywheels and linchpin! Monsieur Tartarin, how I regret my lovely Tarascon!That was the good time for me, when I was young!--You ought to have seenme starting off in the morning, washed with no stint of water and alla-shine, with my wheels freshly varnished, my lamps blazing like a braceof suns, and my boot always rubbed up with oil! It was indeed lovelywhen the postillion cracked his whip to the tune of 'Lagadigadeou, theTarasque! the Tarasque!' and the guard, his horn in its sling and lacedcap cocked well over one ear, chucking his little dog, always in a fury,upon the top, climbed up himself with a shout: 'Right-away!'

  "Then would my four horses dash off to the medley of bells, barks, andhorn-blasts, and the windows fly open for all Tarascon
to look withpride upon the royal mail coach dart over the king's highway.

  "What a splendid road that was, Monsieur Tartarin, broad and wellkept, with its mile-stones, its little heaps of road-metal at regulardistances, and its pretty clumps of vines and olive-trees on eitherhand! Then, again, the roadside inns so close together, and the changesof horses every five minutes! And what jolly, honest chaps my patronswere!--village mayors and parish priests going up to Nimes to see theirprefect or bishop, taffety-weavers returning openly from the Mazet,collegians out on holiday leave, peasants in worked smock-frocks, allfresh shaven for the occasion that morning; and up above, on the top,you gentlemen-sportsmen, always in high spirits, and singing each yourown family ballad to the stars as you came back in the dark.

  "Deary me! it's a change of times now! Lord knows what rubbish I amcarting here, come from nobody guesses where! They fill me with smalldeer, these negroes, Bedouin Arabs, swashbucklers, adventurers fromevery land, and ragged settlers who poison me with their pipes, and alljabbering a language that the Tower of Babel itself could make nothingof! And, furthermore, you should see how they treat me--I mean, how theynever treat me: never a brush or a wash. They begrudge me grease for myaxles. Instead of my good fat quiet horses of other days, little Arabponies, with the devil in their frames, who fight and bite, caperas they run like so many goats, and break my splatterboard all tosmithereens with their lashing out behind. Ouch! ouch! there they are atit again!

  "And such roads! Just here it is bearable, because we are near thegovernmental headquarters; but out a bit there's nothing, Monsieur--notthe ghost of a road at all. We get along as best we can over hill anddale, over dwarf palms and mastic-trees. Ne'er a fixed change of horses,the stopping being at the whim of the guard, now at one farm, again atanother.

  "Somewhiles this rogue goes a couple of leagues out of the way to havea glass of absinthe or champoreau with a chum. After which, 'Crack on,postillion!' to make up for the lost time. Though the sun be broilingand the dust scorching, we whip on! We catch in the scrub and spillover, but whip on! We swim rivers, we catch cold, we get swamped, wedrown, but whip! whip! whip! Then in the evening, streaming--a nicething for my age, with my rheumatics--I have to sleep in the open airof some caravanseral yard, open to all the winds. In the dead o' nightjackals and hyaenas come sniffing of my body; and the marauders whodon't like dews get into my compartment to keep warm.

  "Such is the life I lead, my poor Monsieur Tartarin, and that I shalllead to the day when--burnt up by the sun and rotted by the damp nightsuntil unable to do anything else, I shall fall in some spot of badroad, where the Arabs will boil their kouskous with the bones of my oldcarcass"--

  "Blidah! Blidah!" called out the guard as he opened the door.

  II. A little gentleman drops in and "drops upon" Tartarin.

  VAGUELY through the mud-dimmed glass Tartarin of Tarascon caught aglimpse of a second-rate but pretty town market-place, regular in shape,surrounded by colonnades and planted with orange-trees, in the midstof which what seemed toy leaden soldiers were going through the morningexercise in the clear roseate mist. The cafes were shedding theirshutters. In one corner there was a vegetable market. It was bewitching,but it did not smack of lions yet.

  "To the South! farther to the South!" muttered the good old desperado,sinking back in his corner.

  At this moment the door opened. A puff of fresh air rushed in, bearingupon its wings, in the perfume of the orange-blossoms, a little personin a brown frock-coat, old and dry, wrinkled and formal, his face nobigger than your fist, his neckcloth of black silk five fingers wide,a notary's letter-case, and umbrella--the very picture of a villagesolicitor.

  On perceiving the Tarasconian's warlike equipment, the little gentleman,who was seated over against him, appeared excessively surprised, and setto studying him with burdensome persistency.

  The horses were taken out and the fresh ones put in, whereupon the coachstarted off again. The little weasel still gazed at Tartarin, who in theend took snuff at it.

  "Does this astonish you?" he demanded, staring the little gentleman fullin the face in his turn.

  "Oh, dear, no! it only annoys me," responded the other, very tranquilly.

  And the fact is, that, with his shelter-tent, revolvers, pair of guns intheir cases, and hunting-knife, not to speak of his natural corpulence,Tartarin of Tarascon did take up a lot of room.

  The little gentleman's reply angered him.

  "Do you by any chance fancy that I am going lion-hunting with yourumbrella?" queried the great man haughtily.

  The little man looked at his umbrella, smiled blandly, and still withthe same lack of emotion, inquired:

  "Oho, then you are Monsieur"--

  "Tartarin of Tarascon, lion-killer!"

  In uttering these words the dauntless son of Tarascon shook the bluetassel of his fez like a mane.

  Through the vehicle was a spell of stupefaction.

  The Trappist brother crossed himself, the dubious women uttered littlescreams of affright, and the Orleansville photographer bent over towardsthe lion-slayer, already cherishing the unequalled honour of taking hislikeness.

  The little gentleman, though, was not awed.

  "Do you mean to say that you have killed many lions, Monsieur Tartarin?"he asked, very quietly.

  The Tarasconian received his charge in the handsomest manner.

  "Is it many have I killed, Monsieur? I wish you had only as many hairson your head as I have killed of them."

  All the coach laughed on observing three yellow bristles standing up onthe little gentleman's skull.

  In his turn, the Orleansville photographer struck in:

  "Yours must be a terrible profession, Monsieur Tartarin. You mustpass some ugly moments sometimes. I have heard that poor MonsieurBombonnel"--"Oh, yes, the panther-killer," said Tartarin, ratherdisdainfully.

  "Do you happen to be acquainted with him?" inquired the insignificantperson.

  "Eh! of course! Know him? Why, we have been out on the hunt over twentytimes together."

  The little gentleman smiled.

  "So you also hunt panthers, Monsieur Tartarin?" he asked.

  "Sometimes, just for pastime," said the fiery Tarasconian. "But," headded, as he tossed his head with a heroic movement that inflamedthe hearts of the two sweethearts of the regiment, "that's not worthlion-hunting."

  "When all's said and done," ventured the photographer, "a panther isnothing but a big cat."

  "Right you are!" said Tartarin, not sorry to abate the celebratedBombonnel's glory a little, particularly in the presence of ladies.

  Here the coach stopped. The conductor came to open the door, andaddressed the insignificant little gentleman most respectfully, saying:

  "We have arrived, Monsieur."

  The little gentleman got up, stepped out, and said, before the door wasclosed again:

  "Will you allow me to give you a bit of advice, Monsieur Tartarin?"

  "What is it, Monsieur?"

  "Faith! you wear the look of a good sort of fellow, so I would, ratherthan not, let you have it. Get you back quickly to Tarascon, MonsieurTartarin, for you are wasting your time here. There do remain a fewpanthers in the colony, but, out upon the big cats! they are too smallgame for you. As for lion-hunting, that's all over. There are none leftin Algeria, my friend Chassaing having lately knocked over the last."

  Upon which the little gentleman saluted, closed the door, and trottedaway chuckling, with his document-wallet and umbrella.

  "Guard," asked Tartarin, screwing up his face contemptuously, "who underthe sun is that poor little mannikin?"

  "What! don't you know him? Why, that there's Monsieur Bombonnel!"

  III. A Monastery of Lions.

  AT Milianah, Tartarin of Tarascon alighted, leaving the stage-coach tocontinue its way towards the South.

  Two days' rough jolting, two nights spent with eyes open to spy out ofwindow if there were not discoverable the dread figure of a lion in thefields beyond the road--s
o much sleeplessness well deserved some hoursrepose. Besides, if we must tell everything, since his misadventure withBombonnel, the outspoken Tartarin felt ill at ease, notwithstanding hisweapons, his terrifying visage, and his red cap, before the Orleansvillephotographer and the two ladies fond of the military.

  So he proceeded through the broad streets of Milianah, full of finetrees and fountains; but whilst looking up a suitable hotel, the poorfellow could not help musing over Bombonnel's words. Suppose they weretrue! Suppose there were no more lions in Algeria? What would be thegood then of so much running about and fatigue?

  Suddenly, at the turn of a street, our hero found himself face to facewith--with what? Guess! "A donkey, of course!" A donkey? A splendid lionthis time, waiting before a coffee-house door, royally sitting up on hishind-quarters, with his tawny mane gleaming in the sun.

  "What possessed them to tell me that there were no more of them?"exclaimed the Tarasconian, as he made a backward jump.

  On hearing this outcry the lion lowered his head, and taking up in hismouth a wooden bowl that was before him on the footway, humbly held itout towards Tartarin, who was immovable with stupefaction. A passingArab tossed a copper into the bowl, and the lion wagged his tail.Thereupon Tartarin understood it all. He saw what emotion had preventedhim previously perceiving: that the crowd was gathered around a poortame blind lion, and that two stalwart Negroes, armed with staves, weremarching him through the town as a Savoyard does a marmot.