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In the uncertain light, but for those slippers and the long-tasselled chechia on his head, one would not have taken him for anything but a European and a stranger. And one would have been right, almost.
However, he would not take to his bed, but remained in his study with a good fire at night, sleeping upon an ottoman or in an arm-chair, wrapped up in his monk's dress, and the head covered with an Algerian chechia.
Position Fourth: at six in the afternoon, with the Corsican coast in view; the unfortunate chechia hangs over the ship's side, and lamentably stares down as though to plumb the depths of ocean. Finally and lastly, the Fifth Position: at the back of a narrow state-room, in a box-bed so small it seemed one drawer in a nest of them, something shapeless rolled on the pillow with moans of desolation.
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 losing colour, and the heroic chechia assumed one by one its former positions in the days of sailing in the Zouave. This devil's own camel pitched and tossed like a frigate.
The arrival of Tartarin, haggard, thin, covered in dust, with blazing eyes and bristling chechia cut short this enjoyable Turco-Marseillaise orgy. Baia uttered a little cry, and like a startled leveret she bolted into the house, but Barbassou was not in the least put out and laughed more than ever: "He!... He!... Monsieur Tartarin. What did I tell you?
The one nearest to us was lying with his face to the ground and was still grasping his weapon. He was a handsome fellow, thin and dark. No wound was visible, but his face was strikingly pale under the red chéchia which had been pulled down over his ears. I looked at Wattrelot. The good fellow's eyes were filled with tears. "Come!" thought I, "we must not give way like this."
The camel pitched and rolled like a frigate in a rough sea and the chechia responded to the motion as it had on the Zouave. "Prince... prince" Murmured Tartarin, ashen-faced, and clutching the scanty hair of the hump, "Prince... let us get down, I feel... I feel I am going to disgrace France." But the camel was in full flight and nothing was going to stop it.
Not that the sea was rough or that the chechia had to much to suffer, but because whenever he appeared on the deck the camel made such a ridiculous fuss of its master. You never saw a camel so attached to anyone as this.
Hégisippe, defying the laws governing the absorption of alcohols, tossed off his absinthe in swashbuckler fashion, and rose. "Now I leave you. You have many things to talk about. My respectful compliments to Madame. Messieurs, au revoir." He shook hands, saluted and swaggered off, his chechia at the very back of his head, leaving half his shaven crown uncovered in front.
To Tartarin's utter astonishment, the heroic chechia had barely appeared in the doorway, when it was greeted by a great cry of "Vive Tartarin!... Vive Tartarin!" Which shook the glass vault of the station roof. "Vive Tartarin!... Hurrah for the lion killer!" Then came fanfares and a choir.
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