Tartarin of Tarascon Read online

  The blood of Tarascon boiled over at once.

  "Wretches that you are!" he roared in a voice of thunder, "thus todebase such noble beasts!"

  Springing to the lion, he wrenched the loathsome bowl from between hisroyal jaws. The two Africans, believing they had a thief to contendwith, rushed upon the foreigner with uplifted cudgels. There was adreadful conflict: the blackamoors smiting, the women screaming, and theyoungsters laughing. An old Jew cobbler bleated out of the hollow of hisstall, "Dake him to the shustish of the beace!" The lion himself; inhis dark state, tried to roar as his hapless champion, after a desperatestruggle, rolled on the ground among the spilt pence and the sweepings.

  At this juncture a man cleft the throng, made the Negroes stand backwith a word, and the women and urchins with a wave of the hand, liftedup Tartarin, brushed him down, shook him into shape, and sat himbreathless upon a corner-post.

  "What, prince, is it you?" said the good Tartarin, rubbing his ribs.

  "Yes, indeed, it is I, my valiant friend. As soon as your letter wasreceived, I entrusted Baya to her brother, hired a post-chaise, flewfifty leagues as fast as a horse could go, and here I am, just in timeto snatch you from the brutality of these ruffians. What have you done,in the name of just Heaven, to bring this ugly trouble upon you?"

  "What done, prince? It was too much for me to see this unfortunate lionwith a begging-bowl in his mouth, humiliated, conquered, buffeted about,set up as a laughing-stock to all this Moslem rabble"--

  "But you are wrong, my noble friend. On the contrary, this lion is anobject of respect and adoration. This is a sacred beast who belongs to agreat monastery of lions, founded three hundred years ago by Mahomet BenAouda, a kind of fierce and forbidding La Trappe, full of roaringsand wild-beastly odours, where strange monks rear and feed lions byhundreds, and send them out all over Northern Africa, accompanied bybegging brothers. The alms they receive serve for the maintenance ofthe monastery and its mosques; and the two Negroes showed so muchdispleasure just now because it was their conviction that the lion undertheir charge would forthwith devour them if a single penny of theircollection were lost or stolen through any fault of theirs."

  On hearing this incredible and yet veracious story Tartarin of Tarasconwas delighted, and sniffed the air noisily. "What pleases me in this,"he remarked, as the summing up of his opinion, "is that, whetherMonsieur Bombonnel likes it or not, there are still lions in Algeria."--

  "I should think there were!" ejaculated the prince enthusiastically."We will start to-morrow beating up the Shelliff Plain, and you will seelions enough!"

  "What, prince! have you an intention to go a-hunting, too?"

  "Of course! Do you think I am going to leave you to march by yourselfinto the heart of Africa, in the midst of ferocious tribes of whoselanguages and usages you are ignorant! No, no, illustrious Tartarin,I shall quit you no more. Go where you will, I shall make one of theparty."

  "O Prince! prince!"

  The beaming Tartarin hugged the devoted Gregory to his breast at theproud thought of his going to have a foreign prince to accompany himin his hunting, after the example of Jules Gerard, Bombonnel, and otherfamous lion-slayers.

  IV. The Caravan on the March.

  LEAVING Milianah at the earliest hour next morning, the intrepidTartarin and the no less intrepid Prince Gregory descended towardsthe Shelliff Plain through a delightful gorge shaded with jessamine,carouba, tuyas, and wild olive-trees, between hedges of little nativegardens and thousands of merry, lively rills which scampered down fromrock to rock with a singing splash--a bit of landscape meet for theLebanon.

  As much loaded with arms as the great Tartarin, Prince Gregory had, overand above that, donned a queer but magnificent military cap, all coveredwith gold lace and a trimming of oak-leaves in silver cord, which gaveHis Highness the aspect of a Mexican general or a railway station-masteron the banks of the Danube.

  This plague of a cap much puzzled the beholder; and as he timidly cravedsome explanation, the prince gravely answered:

  "It is a kind of headgear indispensable for travel in Algeria."

  Whilst brightening up the peak with a sweep of his sleeve, he instructedhis simple companion in the important part which the military cap playsin the French connection with the Arabs, and the terror this article ofarmy insignia alone has the privilege of inspiring, so that the CivilService has been obliged to put all its employees in caps, from theextra-copyist to the receiver-general. To govern Algeria (the prince isstill speaking) there is no need of a strong head, or even of any headat all. A military cap does it alone, if showy and belaced, and shiningat the top of a non-human pole, like Gessler's.

  Thus chatting and philosophising, the caravan proceeded. The barefootedporters leaped from rock to rock with ape-like screams. The guncasesclanked, and the guns themselves flashed. The natives who were passing,salaamed to the ground before the magic cap. Up above, on the rampartsof Milianah, the head of the Arab Department, who was out for an airingwith his wife, hearing these unusual noises, and seeing the weaponsgleam between the branches, fancied there was a revolt, and ordered thedrawbridge to be raised, the general alarm to be sounded, and the wholetown put under a state of siege. A capital commencement for the caravan!

  Unfortunately, before the day ended, things went wrong. Of the blackluggage-bearers, one was doubled up with atrocious colics from havingeaten the diachylon out of the medicine-chest: another fell on theroadside dead drunk with camphorated brandy; the third, carrier ofthe travelling-album, deceived by the gilding on the clasps into thepersuasion that he was flying with the treasures of Mecca, ran off intothe Zaccar on his best legs.

  This required consideration. The caravan halted, and held a council inthe broken shadow of an old fig-tree.

  "It's my advice that we turn up Negro porters from this eveningforward," said the prince, trying without success to melt a cake ofcompressed meat in an improved patent triple-bottomed sauce-pan. "Thereis, haply, an Arab trader quite near here. The best thing to do is tostop there, and buy some donkeys."

  "No, no; no donkeys," quickly interrupted Tartarin, becoming quite redat memory of Noiraud. "How can you expect," he added, hypocrite that hewas, "that such little beasts could carry all our apparatus?"

  The prince smiled.

  "You are making a mistake, my illustrious friend. However weakly andmeagre the Algerian bourriquot may appear to you, he has solid loins. Hemust have them so to support all that he does. Just ask the Arabs. Harkto how they explain the French colonial organisation. 'On the top,' theysay, 'is Mossoo, the Governor, with a heavy club to rap the staff; thestaff, for revenge, canes the soldier; the soldier clubs the settler,and he hammers the Arab; the Arab smites the Negro, the Negro beatsthe Jew, and he takes it out of the donkey. The poor bourriquot havingnobody to belabour, arches up his back and bears it all.' You seeclearly now that he can bear your boxes."

  "All the same," remonstrated Tartarin, "it strikes me that jackasseswill not chime in nicely with the effect of our caravan. I wantsomething more Oriental. For instance, if we could only get a camel"--

  "As many as you like," said His Highness; and off they started for theArab mart.

  It was held a few miles away, on the banks of the Shelliff. There werefive or six thousand Arabs in tatters here, grovelling in the sunshineand noisily trafficking, amid jars of black olives, pots of honey, bagsof spices; and great heaps of cigars; huge fires were roasting wholesheep, basted with butter; in open air slaughter-houses stark nakedNegroes, with ruddy arms and their feet in gore, were cutting up kidshanging from crosspoles, with small knives.

  In one corner, under a tent patched with a thousand colours, a Moorishclerk of the market in spectacles scrawled in a large book. Here was acluster of men shouting with rage: it was a spinning-jenny game, set ona corn-measure, and Kabyles were ready to cut one another's throats overit. Yonder were laughs and contortions of delight: it was a Jew traderon a mule drowning in the Shelliff. Then there were dogs, scorpions,ravens, and flies--
rather flies than anything else.

  But a plentiful lack of camels abounded. They finally unearthed one,though, of which the M'zabites were trying to get rid--the real ship ofthe desert, the classical, standard camel, bald, woe-begone, with a longBedouin head, and its hump, become limp in consequence of unduly longfasts, hanging melancholically on one side.

  Tartarin considered it so handsome that he wanted the entire party toget upon it. Still his Oriental craze!

  The beast knelt down for them to strap on the boxes.

  The prince enthroned himself on the animal's neck. For the sake of thegreater majesty, Tartarin got them to hoist him on the top of the humpbetween two boxes, where, proud, and cosily settled down, he salutedthe whole market with a lofty wave of the hand, and gave the signal ofdeparture.

  Thunderation! if the people of Tarascon could only have seen him!

  The camel rose, straightened up its long knotty legs, and stepped out.

  Oh, stupor! At the end of a few strides Tartarin felt he was losingcolour, and the heroic chechia assumed one by one its former positionsin the days of sailing in the Zouave. This devil's own camel pitched andtossed like a frigate.

  "Prince! prince!" gasped Tartarin pallid as a ghost, as he clung to thedry tuft of the hump, "prince, let's get down. I find--I feel that Im-m-must get off; or I shall disgrace France."

  A deal of good that talk was--the camel was on the go, and nothing couldstop it. Behind it raced four thousand barefooted Arabs, waving theirhands and laughing like mad, so that they made six hundred thousandwhite teeth glitter in the sun.

  The great man of Tarascon had to resign himself to circumstances. Hesadly collapsed on the hump, where the fez took all the positions itfancied, and France was disgraced.

  V. The Night-watch in a Poison-tree Grove.

  SWEETLY picturesque as was their new steed, our lion-hunters had to giveit up, purely out of consideration for the red cap, of course. Sothey continued the journey on foot as before, the caravan tranquillyproceeding southwardly by short stages, the Tarasconian in the van, theMontenegrin in the rear, and the camel, with the weapons in their cases,in the ranks.

  The expedition lasted nearly a month.

  During that seeking for lions which he never found, the dreadfulTartarin roamed from douar to douar on the immense plain of theShelliff, through the odd but formidable French Algeria, where the oldOriental perfumes are complicated by a strong blend of absinthe and thebarracks, Abraham and "the Zouzou" mingled, something fairy-tale-likeand simply burlesque, like a page of the Old Testament related by TommyAtkins.

  A curious sight for those who have eyes that can see.

  A wild and corrupted people whom we are civilising by teaching them ourvices. The ferocious and uncontrolled authority of grotesque bashaws,who gravely use their grand cordons of the Legion of Honour ashandkerchiefs, and for a mere yea or nay order a man to be bastinadoed.It is the justice of the conscienceless, bespectacled cadis underthe palm-tree, Maw-worms of the Koran and Law, who dream languidly ofpromotion and sell their decrees, as Esau did his birthright, for a dishof lentils or sweetened kouskous. Drunken and libertine cadis are they,formerly servants to some General Yusuf or the like, who get intoxicatedon champagne, along with laundresses from Port Mahon, and fatten onroast mutton, whilst before their tents the whole tribe waste away withhunger, and fight with the harriers for the bones of the lordly feast.

  All around spread the plains in waste, burnt grass, leafless shrubs,thickets of cactus and mastic--"the Granary of France!"--a granary voidof grain, alas! and rich alone in vermin and jackals. Abandoned camps,frightened tribes fleeing from them and famine, they know not whither,and strewing the road with corpses. At long intervals French villages,with the dwellings in ruins, the fields untilled, the maddenedlocusts gnawing even the window-blinds, and all the settlers in thedrinking-places, absorbing absinthe and discussing projects of reformand the Constitution.

  This is what Tartarin might have seen had he given himself the trouble;but, wrapped up entirely in his leonine-hunger, the son of Tarascon wentstraight on, looking to neither right nor left, his eyes steadfastlyfixed on the imaginary monsters which never really appeared.

  As the shelter-tent was stubborn in not unfolding, and the compressedmeat-cakes would not dissolve, the caravan was obliged to stop, morn andeve, at tribal camps. Everywhere, thanks to the gorgeous cap of PrinceGregory, our hunters were welcomed with open arms. They lodged in theaghas' odd palaces, large white windowless farmhouses, where theyfound, pell-mell, narghilehs and mahogany furniture, Smyrna carpetsand moderator lamps, cedar coffers full of Turkish sequins, and Frenchstatuette-decked clocks in the Louis Philippe style.

  Everywhere, too, Tartarin was given splendrous galas, diffas, andfantasias, which, being interpreted, mean feasts and circuses. In hishonour whole goums blazed away powder, and floated their burnouses inthe sun. When the powder was burnt, the agha would come and hand in hisbill. This is what is called Arab hospitality.

  But always no lions, no more than on London Bridge.

  Nevertheless, the Tarasconian did not grow disheartened. Ever bravelydiving more deeply into the South, he spent the days in beating up thethickets, probing the dwarf-palms with the muzzle of his rifle, andsaying "Boh!" to every bush. And every evening, before lying down, hewent into ambush for two or three hours. Useless trouble, however, forthe lion did not show himself.

  One evening, though, going on six o'clock, as the caravan scrambledthrough a violet-hued mastic-grove, where fat quails tumbled about inthe grass, drowsy through the heat, Tartarin of Tarascon fancied heheard though afar and very vague, and thinned down by the breeze--thatwondrous roaring to which he had so often listened by Mitaine'sMenagerie at home.

  At first the hero feared he was dreaming; but in an instant further theroaring recommenced more distinct, although yet remote; and this timethe camel's hump shivered in terror, and made the tinned meats and armsin the cases rattle, whilst all the dogs in the camps were heard howlingin every corner of the horizon.

  Beyond doubt this was the lion.

  Quick, quick! to the ambush. There was not a minute to lose.

  Near at hand there happened to be an old marabout's, or saint's, tomb,with a white cupola, and the defunct's large yellow slippers placed in aniche over the door, and a mass of odd offerings--hems of blankets, goldthread, red hair--hung on the wall.

  Tartarin of Tarascon left his prince and his camel and went in search ofa good spot for lying in wait. Prince Gregory wanted to follow him, butthe Tarasconian refused, bent on confronting Leo alone. But still hebesought His Highness not to go too far away, and, as a measure offoresight, he entrusted him with his pocket-book, a good-sized one, fullof precious papers and bank-notes, which he feared would get torn by thelion's claws. This done, our hero looked up a good place.

  A hundred steps in front of the temple a little clump of rose-laurelshook in the twilight haze on the edge of a rivulet all but dried up.There it was that Tartarin went and ensconced himself, one knee on theground, according to the regular rule, his rifle in his hand, and hishuge hunting-knife stuck boldly before him in the sandy bank.

  Night fell.

  The rosy tint of nature changed into violet, and then into dark blue.A pretty pool of clear water gleamed like a hand-glass over theriver-pebbles; this was the watering-place of the wild animals.

  On the other slope the whitish trail was dimly to be discerned whichtheir heavy paws had traced in the brush--a mysterious path which madeone's flesh creep. Join to this sensation that from the vague swarmingsound in African forests, the swishing of branches, the velvety-pads ofroving creatures, the jackal's shrill yelp, and up in the sky, two orthree hundred feet aloft, vast flocks of cranes passing on with screamslike poor little children having their weasands slit. You will own thatthere were grounds for a man being moved.

  Tartarin was so, and even more than that, for the poor fellow's teethchattered, and on the cross-bar of his hunting-knife, planted uprightin the bank, as we repe
at, his rifle-barrel rattled like a pair ofcastanets. Do not ask too much of a man! There are times when one isnot in the mood; and, moreover, where would be the merit if heroes werenever afraid?

  Well, yes, Tartarin was afraid, and all the time, too, for the matterof that. Nevertheless, he held out for an hour; better, for two; butheroism has its limits. Nigh him, in the dry part of the rivulet-bed,the Tarasconian unexpectedly heard the sound of steps and of pebblesrolling. This time terror lifted him off the ground. He banged away bothbarrels at haphazard into the night, and retreated as fast as hislegs would carry him to the marabout's chapel-vault, leaving his knifestanding up in the sand like a cross commemorative of the grandest panicthat ever assailed the soul of a conqueror of hydras.

  "Help! this Way, prince; the lion is on me!"

  There was silence. "Prince, prince, are you there?"

  The prince was not there. On the white moonlit wall of the fane thecamel alone cast the queer-shaped shadow of his protuberance. PrinceGregory had cut and run with the wallet of bank-notes. His Highness hadbeen for the month past awaiting this opportunity.

  VI. Bagged him at Last.

  IT was not until early on the morrow of this adventurous and dramaticeve that our hero awoke, and acquired assurance doubly sure that theprince and the treasure had really gone off, without any prospectof return. When he saw himself alone in the little white tombhouse,betrayed, robbed, abandoned in the heart of savage Algeria, with aone-humped camel and some pocket-money as all his resources, then didthe representative of Tarascon for the first time doubt. He doubtedMontenegro, friendship, glory, and even lions; and the great manblubbered bitterly.