Chapter Chapter 15 · I. The Passage--The Five Positions of the Fez--The Third Evening

. I. The Passage--The Five Positions of the Fez--The Third Evening

Out--Mercy upon us!

JOYFUL would I be, my dear readers, if I were a painter--a great artist,

I mean--in order to set under your eyes, at the head of this second

episode, the various positions taken by Tartarin’s red cap in the

three days’ passage it made on board of the Zouave, between France and

Algeria.

First would I show you it at the steaming out, upon deck, arrogant and

heroic as it was, forming a glory round that handsome Tarasconian head.

Next would I show you it at the harbour-mouth, when the bark began

to caper upon the waves; I would depict it for you all of a quake in

astonishment, and as though already experiencing the preliminary qualms

of sea-sickness. Then, in the Gulf of the Lion, proportionably to the

nearing the open sea, where the white caps heaved harder, I would make

you behold it wrestling with the tempest, and standing on end upon the

hero’s cranium, with its mighty mane of blue wool bristling out in the

spray and breeze. 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.

This was the fez--the fez so defiant at the sailing, now reduced to the

vulgar condition of a nightcap, and pulled down over the very ears of

the head of a pallid and convulsed sufferer.

How the people of Tarascon would have kicked themselves for having

constrained the great Tartarin to leave home, if they had but seen him

stretched in the bunk in the dull, wan gleam through the dead-light,

amid the sickly odour of cooking and wet wood--the heart-heaving perfume

of mail-boats; if they had but heard him gurgle at every turn of the

screw, wail for tea every five minutes, and swear at the steward in a

childish treble!

On my word of honour as a story-teller, the poor Turk would have made

a paste-board dummy pity him. Suddenly, overcome by the nausea, the

hapless victim had not even the power to undo the Algerian girdle-cloth,

or lay aside his armoury; the lumpy-handled hunting-sword pounded his

ribs, and the leather revolver-case made his thigh raw. To finish him

arose the taunts of Sancho-Tartarin, who never ceased to groan and

inveigh:

“Well, for the biggest kind of imbecile, you are the finest specimen! I

told you truly how it would be. Ha, ha! you were bound to go to Africa,

of course! Well, old merriman, now you are going to Africa, how do you

like it?”

The cruellest part of it was that, from the retreat where he was

moaning, the hapless invalid could hear the passengers in the grand

saloon laughing, munching, singing, and playing at cards. On board the

Zouave the company was as jolly as numerous, composed of officers going

back to join their regiments, ladies from the Marseilles Alcazar Music

Hall, strolling-players, a rich Mussulman returning from Mecca, and a

very jocular Montenegrin prince, who favoured them with imitations

of the low comedians of Paris. Not one of these jokers felt the

sea-sickness, and their time was passed in quaffing champagne with the

steamer captain, a good fat born Marseillais, who had a wife and family

as well at Algiers as at home, and who answered to the merry name of

Barbassou.

Tartarin of Tarascon hated this pack of wretches; their mirthfulness

deepened his ails.

At length, on the third afternoon, there was such an extraordinary

hullabaloo on the deck that our hero was roused out of his long torpor.

The ship’s bell was ringing and the seamen’s heavy boots ran over the

planks.

“Go ahead! Stop her! Turn astern!” barked the hoarse voice of Captain

Barbassou; and then, “Stop her dead!”

There was an abrupt check of movement, a shock, and no more, save the

silent rolling of the boat from side to side like a balloon in the air.

This strange stillness alarmed the Tarasconian.

“Heaven ha’ mercy upon us!” he yelled in a terrifying voice, as,

recovering his strength by magic, he bounded out of his berth, and

rushed upon deck with his arsenal.