Tartarin De Tarascon Part 3

Chapter 11.

On the first day of December 186-, in the clear bright winter suns.h.i.+ne of Provence, the startled inhabitants of Ma.r.s.eille witnessed the arrival of a Teur. Never had they seen one like this before, though G.o.d knows there is no shortage of Teurs in Ma.r.s.eille. The Teur, need I tell you, was none other than Tartarin de Tarascon, who was proceeding down the quay followed by his case of arms, his medicine chest and his preserved foods, in search of the embarkation point of the Compagnie Touache and the ferry-boat "Le Zouave" which was to carry him away.

His ears still ringing with the cheers of Tarascon and bemused by the brightness of the sky and the smell of the sea, Tartarin marched along, his rifles slung on his shoulders, gazing around in wonder at this marvellous port of Ma.r.s.eille, which he was seeing for the first time and which quite dazzled him. He almost felt that he was dreaming and that like Sinbad he was wandering in one of the fabulous cities of the Thousand and one Nights.

As far as the eye could see, there stretched a jumble of masts and yards, criss-crossing in all directions. The flags of a mult.i.tude of nations fluttering in the wind. The s.h.i.+ps level with the quay, their bowsprits projecting over the edge like a row of bayonets, and below them the carved and painted wooden figureheads of nymphs, G.o.ddesses and saintly virgins from which the s.h.i.+ps took their names. From time to time, between the hulls one could see a patch of sea, like a great sheet of cloth spattered with oil, while in the entanglement of yardarms a host of seagulls made pretty splashes of white against the blue sky.

On the quay, amid the streams which trickled from the soapworks, thick, green, streaked with black, full of oil and soda, there was a whole population of customs officers, s.h.i.+pping agents, and stevedores with trollies drawn by little Corsican ponies. There were shops selling strange sweetmeats. Smoke enshrouded huts where seamen were cooking.

There were merchants selling monkeys, parrots, rope, sailcloth and fantastic collections of bric-a-brac where, heaped up pell-mell, were old culverins, great gilded lanterns, old blocks and tackle, old rusting anchors, old rigging, old megaphones, old telescopes, dating from the time of Jean Bart.

There were women selling sh.e.l.lfish, crouched bawling beside their wares, sailors pa.s.sing, some with pots of tar, some with steaming pots of stew, others with baskets full of squid which they were taking to wash in the fresh water of the fountains. Everywhere prodigious heaps of merchandise of every kind. Silks, minerals, baulks of timber, ingots of lead, carobs, rape-seed, liquorice, sugar cane, great piles of dutch cheeses.

East and west hugger-mugger.

Here is the grain berth. Stevedores empty the sacks onto the quay from a scaffold, the grain pours down in a golden torrent raising a cloud of pale dust, and is loaded by men wearing red fezes into carts, which set off followed by a regiment of women and children with brushes and buckets for gleaning.

There is the careening basin. The huge vessels lie over on one side and are flamed with fires of brushwood to rid them of seaweed, while their yardarms soak in the water. There is a smell of pitch and the deafening hammering of s.h.i.+pwrights lining the hulls with sheets of copper.

Sometimes, between the masts, a gap opened and Tartarin could see the harbour mouth and the movement of s.h.i.+ps. An English frigate leaving for Malta, spruce and scrubbed, with officers in yellow gloves, or a big Ma.r.s.eilles brig, casting off amid shouting and cursing, with, in the bows, a fat captain in an overcoat and a top hat, supervising the manoeuvre in broad provencal. There were s.h.i.+ps outward bound, running before the wind with all sails set, there were others, far out at sea, beating their way in and seeming in the suns.h.i.+ne to be floating on air.

Then, all the time the most fearsome racket. The rumbling of cart wheels, the cries of the sailors, oaths, songs, the sirens of steam-boats, the drums and bugles of Fort St. Jean and Fort St. Nicolas, the bells of nearby churches and, up above, the mistral, which took all of these sounds, rolled them together, shook them up and mingled them with its own voice to make mad, wild, heroic music, like a great fanfare, urging one to set sail for distant lands, to spread one's wings and go. It was to the sound of this fine fanfare that Tartarin embarked for the country of lions.

Chapter 12.

I wish that I was a painter, a really good painter, so that I could present to you a picture of the different positions adopted by Tartarin's chechia during the three days of the pa.s.sage from France to Algeria.

I would show it to you first at the departure, proud and stately as it was then, crowning that n.o.ble Tarascon head. I would show it next when, having left the harbour, the Zouave began to lift on the swell. I would show it fluttering and astonished, as if feeling the first premonitions of distress.

Then, in the gulf of Lion, when the Zouave was further offsh.o.r.e and the sea a little rougher, I would present it at grips with the storm, clutching, bewildered, at the head of our hero, its long blue woollen ta.s.sel streaming in the spume and gusting wind.

The fourth position. Six in the evening. Off the coast of Corsica. The wretched chechia is leaning over the rail and sadly contemplating the depths of the ocean.

Fifth and last position. Down in a narrow cabin, in a little bed which has the appearance of a drawer in a commode, something formless and desolate rolls about, moaning, on the pillow. It is the chechia, the heroic chechia, now reduced to the vulgar status of a night-cap, and jammed down to the ears of a pallid and convulsing invalid.

Ah! If the townsfolk of Tarascon could have seen the great Tartarin, lying in his commode drawer, in the pale, dismal light which filtered through the porthole, amongst the stale smell of cooking and wet wood, the depressing odour of the ferry boat. If they had heard him groan at every turn of the propeller, ask for tea every five minutes, and complain to the steward in the weak voice of a child, would they have regretted having forced him to leave? On my word, the poor Tuer deserved pity. Overcome by sea-sickness, he had not the will even to loosen his sash or rid himself of his weapons. The hunting knife with the big handle dug into his ribs. His revolver bruised his leg, and the final straw was the nagging of Tartarin-Sancho, who never ceased whining and carping:--"Imbecile! Va! I warned you didn't I?.... But you had to go to Africa!.... Well now you're on your way, how do you like it?"

What was every bit as cruel was that, shut in his cabin, between his groans he could hear the other pa.s.sengers in the saloon, laughing, eating, singing, playing cards. The society in the Zouave was as cheerful as it was diverse. There were some officers on their way to rejoin their units, a bevy of tarts from Ma.r.s.eille, a rich Mahommedan merchant, returning from Mecca, some strolling players, a Montenegran prince, a great joker this, who did impersonations.... Not one of these people was sea-sick and they spent the time drinking champagne with the captain of the Zouave, a fat "Bon viveur" from Ma.r.s.eille, who had an establishment there and another in Algiers, and who rejoiced in the name of Barba.s.sou. Tartarin hated all these people. Their gaity redoubled his misery.

At last, in the afternoon of the third day, there was some unusual activity on board the s.h.i.+p, which roused our hero from his torpor. The bell in the bows rang out... the heavy boots of the sailors could be heard running on the deck... "Engine ahead!... engine astern!." Shouted the hoa.r.s.e voice of Captain Barba.s.sou. Then "Stop engine!"

The engine stopped, there was a little tremor and then nothing. The ferry lay rocking gently from side to side, like a balloon in the air.

This strange silence horrified Tartarin. "My G.o.d! We are sinking!" He cried in a voice of terror, and recovering his strength as if by magic, he rushed up onto the deck.

Chapter 13.

The Zouave was not sinking. She had just dropped her anchor in a fine anchorage of deep, dark water. Opposite, on the hillside, was Algiers, its little matt-white houses running down to the sea, huddled one against the other, like a pile of white was.h.i.+ng laid out on a river bank. Up above a great sky of satin blue... but oh!... So blue!

Tartarin, somewhat recovered from his fright, gazed at the landscape, while listening respectfully to the Montenegrin prince, who standing beside him, pointed out the different quarters of the town. The Casbah, the upper town, the Rue Bab-Azoum. Very well educated this prince of Montenegro. What is more he knew Algiers well and spoke Arabic. Tartarin had decided to cultivate his acquaintance when suddenly, along the rail on which they were leaning, he saw a row of big black hands grasping it from below. Almost immediately a curly black head appeared in front of him and before he could open his mouth the deck was invaded from all side by a swarm of pirates; black, yellow, half naked, hideous and terrible. Tartarin knew at once that it was "Them" The fearsome "Them"

who he had so often expected at night in the streets of Tarascon. Now they had arrived.

At first surprise glued him to the spot, but when he saw the pirates hurl themselves on the baggage, tear off the tarpaulin covers and begin to pillage the s.h.i.+p, our hero came to life. Drawing his hunting knife and shouting "Aux armes!... Aux armes!" To his fellow pa.s.sengers, he prepared to lead an a.s.sault on the raiders. "Ques aco?... What's the matter with you?" Said Captain Barba.s.sou as he came off the bridge.

"Ah!... There you are Captain.... Quick! Quick! Arm your men!" "He!... Do what? Why for G.o.d's sake?" "But don't you see?" "See what?" "There, in front of you... the pirates!" Captain Barba.s.sou regarded him with astonishment..... At that moment a huge monster of a black man ran past carrying the medicine chest. "Wretch! Wait till I catch you!" Yelled Tartarin, starting forward with his knife held aloft. Barba.s.sou caught him and held him by his sash. "Calm down for Chrissake." He said, "These are not pirates, there have been no pirates for ages, these are stevedores." "Stevedores?" "He! Yes, stevedores who have come to collect the baggage and take it ash.o.r.e. Put away your cutla.s.s, give me your ticket and follow that negro, an excellent fellow, who will take you ash.o.r.e and even to your hotel if you wish."

Somewhat confused Tartarin surrendered his ticket and following the negro he went down the gangplank into a large boat which was bobbing alongside the ferry. All his baggage was there, his trunks, cases of weapons and preserved food, as they took up all the room in the boat, there was no need to wait for other pa.s.sengers. The negro climbed onto the baggage and squatted there with his arms wrapped round his knees.

Another negro took the oars... the two of them regarded Tartarin, laughing and showing their white teeth.

Standing in the stern, wearing his fiercest expression, Tartarin nervously fingered the handle of his hunting knife, for in spite of what Barba.s.sou had told him, he was only half rea.s.sured about the intentions of these ebony-skinned stevedores, who looked so different from honest longsh.o.r.emen of Tarascon.

Three minutes later the boat reached land and Tartarin set foot on the little Barbary quay, where three hundred years earlier a galley-slave named Michael Cervantes, under the whip of an Algerian galley-master, had begun to plan the wonderful story of Don Quixote.

Chapter 14.

If by any chance the ghost of Micheal Cervantes was abroad on that bit of the Barbary coast, it must have been delighted at the arrival of this splendid specimen of a Frenchman from the Midi, in whom were combined the two heroes of his book, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.

It was a warm day. On the quay, bathed in suns.h.i.+ne, were five or six customs officers, some settlers awaiting news from France, some squatting Moors, smoking their long pipes, some Maltese fishermen, hauling in a large net, in the meshes of which thousands of sardines glittered like pieces of silver; but scarcely had Tartarin set foot there when the quay sprang into life and changed entirely its appearance.

A band of savages, more hideous even than the pirates of the boat, seemed to rise from the very cobble-stones to hurl themselves on the newcomer. Huge Arabs, naked beneath their long woolen garments, little Moors dressed in rags, Negroes, Tunisians, hotel waiters in white ap.r.o.ns, pus.h.i.+ng and shouting, plucking at his clothes, fighting over his luggage; one grabbing his preserves another his medicine chest and, in a screeching babel of noise, throwing at his head the improbable names of hotels.... Deafened by this tumult, Tartarin ran hither and thither,struggling, fuming, and cursing after his baggage, and not knowing how to communicate with these barbarians, harangued them in French, Provencal and even what he could remember of Latin. It was a wasted effort, no one was listening.... Happily, however, a little man dressed in a tunic with a yellow collar and armed with a long cane arrived on the scene and dispersed the rabble with blows from his stick.

He was an Algerian policeman. Very politely he arranged for Tartarin to go to the Hotel de l'Europe, and confided him to the care of some locals who led him away with all his baggage loaded on several barrows.

As he took his first steps in Algiers, Tartarin looked about him wide-eyed. He had imagined beforehand a fairylike Arabian city, something between Constantinople and Zanzibar... but here he was back in Tarascon. Some cafes some restaurants, wide streets, houses of four stories, a small tarmac square where a military band played Offenbach polkas, men seated on chairs, drinking beer and nibbling snacks, a few ladies, a sprinkling of tarts and soldiers, more soldiers, everywhere soldiers... and not a single "Teur" in sight except for him... so he found walking across the square a bit embarra.s.sing. Everyone stared.... The military band stopped playing and the Offenbach polka came to a halt with one foot in the air.

With his two rifles on his shoulders, his revolver by his side, unflinching and stately he pa.s.sed through the throng, but on reaching the hotel his strength deserted him. The departure from Tarascon. The harbour at Ma.r.s.eille. The crossing. The Montenegrin prince. The pirates, all whirled in confusion round his brain. He had to be taken up to his room, disarmed and undressed... there was even talk of sending for a doctor, but hardly had his head touched the pillow than he began to snore so loudly and vigorously that the hotel manager decided that medical a.s.sistance was not required, and everyone discreetly withdrew.

Chapter 15.

The bell of the government clock was sounding three when Tartarin awoke.

He had slept all evening, all night, all morning and even a good part of the afternoon. It has, of course, to be admitted that over the preceding three days the chechia had had a pretty rough time.

His first thought on waking was "Here I am, in lion country!" and it must be confessed that this notion that he was surrounded by lions and was about to go in pursuit of them produced a marked chill, and he buried himself safely under the bedclothes.

Soon, however, the gaiety of the scene outside, the sky so blue, the bright suns.h.i.+ne which flooded into his room through the large window which opened towards the sea, and a good meal which he had served in bed, washed down by a carafe of wine, quickly restored his courage. "To the lions! To the lions!" He cried, and throwing off the bed clothes he dressed himself hurriedly.

His plan of action was this. Leave town and go well out into the desert.

Wait until nightfall. Lie in hiding, and at the first lion that comes along... Pan! Pan!.... Return in the morning. Lunch at hotel. Receive the congratulations of the Algerians and hire a cart to go and collect the kill.

He armed himself hastily, strapped onto his back the bivouac tent, the pole of which stuck up above his head, and then, held rigid by this contraption, he went down to the street. He turned sharply to the right and walked to the end of the shopping arcade of Bab-Azoum, where a series of Algerian store-keepers watched him pa.s.s, concealed in corners of their dark boutiques like spiders. He went through the Place du theatre, through the suburbs and eventually reached the dusty main road to Mustapha.