Tartarin of Tarascon Read online

  Whilst he was pensively seated on the sill of the sanctuary, holdinghis head between his hands and his gun between his legs, with thecamel mooning at him, the thicket over the way was divided, and thestupor-stricken Tartarin saw a gigantic lion appear not a dozen pacesoff. It thrust out its high head and emitted powerful roars, which madethe temple walls shake beneath their votive decorations, and even thesaint's slippers dance in their niche.

  The Tarasconian alone did not tremble.

  "At last you've come!" he shouted, jumping up and levelling the rifle.

  Bang, bang! went a brace of shells into its head.

  It was done. For a minute, on the fiery background of the African sky,there was a dreadful firework display of scattered brains, smokingblood, and tawny hair. When all fell, Tartarin perceived two colossalNegroes furiously running towards him, brandishing cudgels. They werehis two Negro acquaintances of Milianah!

  Oh, misery!

  This was the domesticated lion, the poor blind beggar of the MohammedMonastery, whom the Tarasconian's bullets had knocked over.

  This time, spite of Mahound, Tartarin escaped neatly. Drunk withfanatical fury, the two African collectors would have surely beaten himto pulp had not the god of chase and war sent him a delivering angelin the shape of the rural constable of the Orleansville commune. By abypath this garde champetre came up, his sword tucked under his arm.

  The sight of the municipal cap suddenly calmed the Negroes' choler.Peaceful and majestic, the officer with the brass badge drew up a reporton the affair, ordered the camel to be loaded with what remained of theking of beasts, and the plaintiffs as well as the delinquent to followhim, proceeding to Orleansville, where all was deposited with thelaw-courts receiver.

  There issued a long and alarming case!

  After the Algeria of the native tribes which he had overrun, Tartarin ofTarascon became thence acquainted with another Algeria, not less weirdand to be dreaded--the Algeria in the towns, surcharged with lawyers andtheir papers. He got to know the pettifogger who does business at theback of a cafe--the legal Bohemian with documents reeking of wormwoodbitters and white neckcloths spotted with champoreau; the ushers, theattorneys, all the locusts of stamped paper, meagre and famished, whoeat up the colonist body and boots--ay, to the very straps of them, andleave him peeled to the core like an Indian cornstalk, stripped leaf byleaf.

  Before all else it was necessary to ascertain whether the lion had beenkilled on the civil or the military territory. In the former case thematter regarded the Tribunal of Commerce; in the second, Tartarinwould be dealt with by the Council of War: and at the mere name theimpressionable Tarasconian saw himself shot at the foot of the rampartsor huddled up in a casemate-silo.

  The puzzle lay in the limitation of the two territories being very hazyin Algeria.

  At length, after a month's running about, entanglements, and waitingunder the sun in the yards of Arab Departmental offices, it wasestablished that, whereas the lion had been killed on the militaryterritory, on the other hand Tartarin was in the civil territory when heshot. So the case was decided in the civil courts, and our hero waslet off on paying two thousand five hundred francs damages, costs notincluded.

  How could he pay such a sum?

  The few piashtres escaped from the prince's sweep had long since gone inlegal documents and judicial libations. The unfortunate lion-destroyerwas therefore reduced to selling the store of guns by retail, rifle byrifle; so went the daggers, the Malay kreeses, and the life-preservers.A grocer purchased the preserved aliments; an apothecary what remainedof the medicaments. The big boots themselves walked off after theimproved tent to a dealer of curiosities, who elevated them to thedignity of "rarities from Cochin-China."

  When everything was paid up, only the lion's skin and the camel remainedto Tartarin. The hide he had carefully packed, to be sent to Tarasconto the address of brave Commandant Bravida, and, later on, we shallsee what came of this fabulous trophy. As for the camel, he reckoned onmaking use of him to get back to Algiers, not by riding on him, but byselling him to pay his coach-fare--the best way to employ a camel intravelling. Unhappily the beast was difficult to place, and no one wouldoffer a copper for him.

  Still Tartarin wanted to regain Algiers by hook or crook. He was inhaste again to behold Baya's blue bodice, his little snuggery and hisfountains, as well as to repose on the white trefoils of his littlecloister whilst awaiting money from France. So our hero did nothesitate; distressed but not downcast, he undertook to make the journeyafoot and penniless by short stages.

  In this enterprise the camel did not cast him off. The strange animalhad taken an unaccountable fancy for his master, and on seeing him leaveOrleansville, he set to striding steadfastly behind him, regulating hispace by this, and never quitting him by a yard.

  At the first outset Tartarin found this touching; such fidelity anddevotion above proof went to his heart, all the more because thecreature was accommodating, and fed himself on nothing. Nevertheless,after a few days, the Tarasconian was worried by having this glumcompanion perpetually at his heels, to remind him of his misadventures.Ire arising, he hated him for his sad aspect, hump and gait of a goosein harness. To tell the whole truth, he held him as his Old Man of theSea, and only pondered on how to shake him off; but the follower wouldnot be shaken off. Tartarin attempted to lose him, but the camel alwaysfound him; he tried to outrun him, but the camel ran faster. He badehim begone, and hurled stones at him. The camel stopped with amournful mien, but in a minute resumed the pursuit, and always ended byovertaking him. Tartarin had to resign himself.

  For all that, when, after eight full days of tramping, the dusty andharassed Tarasconian espied the first white housetops of Algiers glimmerfrom afar in the verdure, and when he got to the city gates on the noisyMustapha Avenue, amid the Zouaves, Biskris, and Mahonnais, all swarmingaround him and staring at him trudging by with his camel, overtaskedpatience escaped him.

  "No! no!" he growled, "it is not likely! I cannot enter Algiers withsuch an animal!"

  Profiting by a jam of vehicles, he turned off into the fields and jumpedinto a ditch. In a minute or so he saw over his head on the highwaythe camel flying off with long strides and stretching his neck with awistful air.

  Relieved of a great weight thereby, the hero sneaked out of his covert,and entered the town anew by a circuitous path which skirted the wall ofhis own little garden.

  VII. Catastrophes upon Catastrophes.

  ENTIRELY astonished was Tartarin before his Moorish dwelling when hestopped.

  Day was dying and the street deserted. Through the low pointed-archdoorway which the negress had forgotten to close, laughter was heard;and the clink of wine-glasses, the popping of champagne corks; and,floating over all the jolly uproar, a feminine voice singing clearly andjoyously:

  "Do you like, Marco la Bella, to dance in the hall hung with bloom?"

  "Throne of heaven!" ejaculated the Tarasconian, turning pale, as herushed into the enclosure.

  Hapless Tartarin! what a sight awaited him! Beneath the arches of thelittle cloister, amongst bottles, pastry, scattered cushions, pipes,tambourines, and guitars, Baya was singing "Marco la Bella" with a shipcaptain's cap over one ear. She had on no blue vest or bodice; indeed,her only wear was a silvery gauze wrapper and full pink trousers. Ather feet, on a rug, surfeited with love and sweetmeats, Barbassou, theinfamous skipper Barbassou, was bursting with laughter at hearing her.

  The apparition of Tartarin, haggard, thinned, dusty, his flamingeyes, and the bristling up fez tassel, sharply interrupted this tenderTurkish-Marseillais orgie. Baya piped the low whine of a frightenedleveret, and ran for safety into the house. But Barbassou did not wince;he only laughed the louder, saying:

  "Ha, ha, Monsieur Tartarin! What do you say to that now? You see shedoes know French."

  Tartarin of Tarascon advanced furiously, crying:

  "Captain!"

  "Digo-li que vengue, moun bon!--Tell him what's happened, old dear!"screamed the Moorish woman
, leaning over the first floor gallery with apretty low-bred gesture!

  The poor man, overwhelmed, let himself collapse upon a drum. His genuineMoorish beauty not only knew French, but the French of Marseilles!

  "I told you not to trust the Algerian girls," observed Captain Barbassousententiously! "They're as tricky as your Montenegrin prince."

  Tartarin lifted his head

  "Do you know where the prince is?"

  "Oh, he's not far off. He has gone to live five years in the handsomeprison of Mustapha. The rogue let himself be caught with his hand in thepocket. Anyways, this is not the first time he has been clapped intothe calaboose. His Highness has already done three years somewhere,and--stop a bit! I believe it was at Tarascon."

  "At Tarascon!" cried out her worthiest son, abruptly enlightened."That's how he only knew one part of the Town."

  "Hey? Of course. Tarascon--a jail bird's-eye view from the state prison.I tell you, my poor Monsieur Tartarin, you have to keep your peepersjolly well skinned in this deuce of a country, or be exposed to verydisagreeable things. For a sample, there's the muezzin's game with you."

  "What game? Which muezzin?"

  "Why your'n, of course! The chap across the way who is making up toBaya. That newspaper, the Akbar, told the yarn t'other day, andall Algiers is laughing over it even now. It is so funny for thatsteeplejack up aloft in his crow's-nest to make declarations of loveunder your very nose to the little beauty whilst singing out hisprayers, and making appointments with her between bits of the Koran."

  "Why, then, they're all scamps in this country!" howled the unluckyTarasconian.

  Barbassou snapped his fingers like a philosopher.

  "My dear lad, you know, these new countries are 'rum!' But, anyhow, ifyou'll believe me, you'd best cut back to Tarascon at full speed."

  "It's easy to say, 'Cut back.' Where's the money to come from? Don't youknow that I was plucked out there in the desert?"

  "What does that matter?" said the captain merrily. "The Zouave sailstomorrow, and if you like I will take you home. Does that suit you,mate? Ay? Then all goes well. You have only one thing to do. There aresome bottles of fizz left, and half the pie. Sit you down and pitch inwithout any grudge."

  After the minute's wavering which self-respect commanded, theTarasconian chose his course manfully. Down he sat, and they touchedglasses. Baya, gliding down at that chink, sang the finale of "Marco laBella," and the jollification was prolonged deep into the night.

  About 3 A.M., with a light head but a heavy foot, our good Tarasconianwas returning from seeing his friend the captain off when, in passingthe mosque, the remembrance of his muezzin and his practical jokes madehim laugh, and instantly a capital idea of revenge flitted through hisbrain.

  The door was open. He entered, threaded long corridors hung with mats,mounted and kept on mounting till he finally found himself in a littleoratory, where an openwork iron lantern swung from the ceiling, andembroidered an odd pattern in shadows upon the blanched walls.

  There sat the crier on a divan, in his large turban and white pelisse,with his Mostaganam pipe, and a bumper of absinthe before him, which hewhipped up in the orthodox manner, whilst awaiting the hour to call truebelievers to prayer. At view of Tartarin, he dropped his pipe in terror.

  "Not a word, knave!" said the Tarasconian, full of his project. "Quick!Off with turban and coat!"

  The Turkish priest-crier tremblingly handed over his outer garments, ashe would have done with anything else. Tartarin donned them, and gravelystepped out upon the minaret platform.

  In the distance the sea shone. The white roofs glittered in themoonbeams. On the sea breeze was heard the strumming of a few belatedguitars. The Tarasconian muezzin gathered himself up for the effortduring a space, and then, raising his arms, he set to chanting in a veryshrill voice:

  "La Allah il Allah! Mahomet is an old humbug! The Orient, the Koran,bashaws, lions, Moorish beauties--they are all not worth a fly's skip!There is nothing left but gammoners. Long live Tarascon!"

  Whilst the illustrious Tartarin, in his queer jumbling of Arabic andProvencal, flung his mirthful maledictions to the four quarters, sea,town, plain and mountain, the clear, solemn voices of the other muezzinsanswered him, taking up the strain from minaret to minaret, and thebelievers of the upper town devoutly beat their bosoms.

  VIII. Tarascon again!

  MID-DAY has come.

  The Zouave had her steam up, ready to go. Upon the balcony of theValentin Cafe, high above, the officers were levelling telescopes, and,with the colonel at their head, looking at the lucky little craft thatwas going back to France. This is the main distraction of the staff. Onthe lower level, the roads glittered. The old Turkish cannon breaches,stuck up along the waterside, blazed in the sun. The passengers hurried,Biskris and Mahonnais piled their luggage up in the wherries.

  Tartarin of Tarascon had no luggage. Here he comes down the Rue dela Marine through the little market, full of bananas and melons,accompanied by his friend Barbassou. The hapless Tarasconian left on theMoorish strand his gun-cases and his illusions, and now he had to sailfor Tarascon with his hands in his otherwise empty pockets. He hadbarely leaped into the captain's cutter before a breathless beast sliddown from the heights of the square and galloped towards him. It was thefaithful camel, who had been hunting after his master in Algiers duringthe last four-and-twenty hours.

  On seeing him, Tartarin changed countenance, and feigned not to knowhim, but the camel was not going to be put off. He scampered along thequay; he whinnied for his friend, and regarded him with affection.

  "Take me away," his sad eyes seemed to say, "take me away in your ship,far, far from this sham Arabia, this ridiculous Land of the East, fullof locomotives and stage coaches, where a camel is so sorely out ofkeeping that I do not know what will become of me. You are the last realTurk, and I am the last camel. Do not let us part, O my Tartarin!"

  "Is that camel yours?" the captain inquired.

  "Not a bit of it!" replied Tartarin, who shuddered at the idea ofentering Tarascon with that ridiculous escort; and, impudently denyingthe companion of his misfortunes, he spurned the Algerian soil with hisfoot, and gave the cutter the shoving-off start. The camel sniffed ofthe water, extended its neck, cracked its joints, and, jumping in behindthe row-boat at haphazard, he swam towards the Zouave with his humpbackfloating like a bladder, and his long neck projecting over the wave likethe beak of a galley.

  Cutter and camel came alongside the mail steamer together.

  "This dromedary regularly cuts me up," observed Captain Barbassou, quiteaffected. "I have a good mind to take him aboard and make a present ofhim to the Zoological Gardens at Marseilles."

  And so they hauled up the camel with many blocks and tackles upon thedeck, being increased in weight by the brine, and the Zouave started.

  Tartarin spent the two days of the crossing by himself in his stateroom,not because the sea was rough, or that the red fez had too much tosuffer, but because the deuced camel, as soon as his master appearedabove decks, showed him the most preposterous attentions. You never didsee a camel make such an exhibition of a man as this.

  From hour to hour, through the cabin portholes, where he stuck out hisnose now and then, Tartarin saw the Algerian blue sky pale away; untilone morning, in a silvery fog, he heard with delight Marseilles bellsringing out. The Zouave had arrived and cast anchor.

  Our man, having no luggage, got off without saying anything, hastilyslipped through Marseilles for fear he was still pursued by the camel,and never breathed till he was in a third-class carriage making forTarascon.

  Deceptive security!

  Hardly were they two leagues from the city before every head was stuckout of window. There were outcries and astonishment. Tartarin lookedin his turn, and what did he descry! the camel, reader, the inevitablecamel, racing along the line behind the train, and keeping up with it!The dismayed Tartarin drew back and shut his eyes.

  After this disastrous expedition of his he had reck
oned on slippinginto his house incognito. But the presence of this burdensome quadrupedrendered the thing impossible. What kind of a triumphal entry would hemake? Good heavens! not a sou, not a lion, nothing to show for it save acamel!

  "Tarascon! Tarascon!"

  He was obliged to get down.

  O amazement!

  Scarce had the hero's red fez popped out of the doorway before a loudshout of "Tartarin for ever!" made the glazed roof of the railwaystation tremble. "Long life to Tartarin, the lion-slayer!" And out burstthe windings of horns and the choruses of the local musical societies.

  Tartarin felt death had come: he believed in a hoax. But, no! allTarascon was there, waving their hats, all of the same way of thinking.Behold the brave Commandant Bravida, Costecalde the armourer, theChief Judge, the chemist, and the whole noble corps of cap-poppers, whopressed around their leader, and carried him in triumph out through thepassages.

  Singular effects of the mirage!--the hide of the blind lion sent toBravida was the cause of all this riot. With that humble fur exhibitedin the club-room, the Tarasconians, and, at the back of them, the wholeSouth of France, had grown exalted. The Semaphore newspaper had spokenof it. A drama had been invented. It was not merely a solitary lionwhich Tartarin had slain, but ten, nay, twenty--pooh! a herd of lionshad been made marmalade of. Hence, on disembarking at Marseilles,Tartarin was already celebrated without being aware of it, and anenthusiastic telegram had gone on before him by two hours to his nativeplace.