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On this name, and at the jolly southern accent, the Tarasconian lifted his head, and perceived, a couple of steps away, the honest tanned visage of Captain Barbassou, master of the Zouave, who was taking his absinthe at the door of a little coffee-house. "Hey! Lord love you, Barbassou!" said Tartarin, pulling up his mule.
Standing in the stern-sheets, making that terrifying face which had daunted his fellow-countrymen, the great Tarasconian feverishly fumbled with his hunting-knife haft; for, despite what Barbassou had told him, he was only half at ease as regarded the intention of these ebony-skinned porters, who so little resembled their honest mates of Tarascon.
"Throne of heaven!" ejaculated the Tarasconian, turning pale, as he rushed into the enclosure. Hapless Tartarin! what a sight awaited him! Beneath the arches of the little cloister, amongst bottles, pastry, scattered cushions, pipes, tambourines, and guitars, Baya was singing "Marco la Bella" with a ship captain's cap over one ear.
Pale and agitated, with his heart brimming over with love, the Tarasconian leaped out of his couch, and, as he hastily buttoned up his capacious nether garment, wanted to know how he should act. "Write straightway to the lady and ask for a tryst." "Do you mean to say she knows French?" queried the Tarasconian simpleton, with the disappointed mien of one who had believed thoroughly in the Orient.
A very finely-brought-up prince was this Montenegrin; moreover, knowing Algeria thoroughly, and fluently speaking Arabic. Hence Tartarin thought of cultivating his acquaintance. All at once, along the bulwark against which they were leaning, the Tarasconian perceived a row of large black hands clinging to it from over the side.
This kind of Algiers appeared to him as ugly and unbearable as a barracks at home, with its Zouaves in revelry, its music-halls crammed with officers, and its everlasting clank of metal sabre-sheaths under the arcades. The sum total is, that our Tarasconian was very happy.
Tartarin's confrontatress was the last to rise, and in doing so her countenance skimmed so closely to our hero's that her breath enveloped him a veritable nosegay of youth and freshness, with an indescribable after-tang of musk, jessamine, and pastry. The Tarasconian stood out no longer. Intoxicated with love, and ready for anything, he darted out after the beauty.
At the first outset Tartarin found this touching; such fidelity and devotion above proof went to his heart, all the more because the creature was accommodating, and fed himself on nothing. Nevertheless, after a few days, the Tarasconian was worried by having this glum companion perpetually at his heels, to remind him of his misadventures.
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