Chapter Chapter 33 · VII. Catastrophes upon Catastrophes.
. VII. Catastrophes upon Catastrophes.
ENTIRELY astonished was Tartarin before his Moorish dwelling when he
stopped.
Day was dying and the street deserted. Through the low pointed-arch
doorway 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 and
joyously:
“Do you like, Marco la Bella, to dance in the hall hung with bloom?”
“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. She had on no blue vest or bodice; indeed,
her only wear was a silvery gauze wrapper and full pink trousers. At
her feet, on a rug, surfeited with love and sweetmeats, Barbassou, the
infamous skipper Barbassou, was bursting with laughter at hearing her.
The apparition of Tartarin, haggard, thinned, dusty, his flaming
eyes, and the bristling up fez tassel, sharply interrupted this tender
Turkish-Marseillais orgie. Baya piped the low whine of a frightened
leveret, 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 she
does 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 a
pretty low-bred gesture!
The poor man, overwhelmed, let himself collapse upon a drum. His genuine
Moorish beauty not only knew French, but the French of Marseilles!
“I told you not to trust the Algerian girls,” observed Captain Barbassou
sententiously! “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 handsome
prison of Mustapha. The rogue let himself be caught with his hand in the
pocket. Anyways, this is not the first time he has been clapped into
the 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 peepers
jolly well skinned in this deuce of a country, or be exposed to very
disagreeable 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 to
Baya. That newspaper, the Akbar, told the yarn t’other day, and
all Algiers is laughing over it even now. It is so funny for that
steeplejack up aloft in his crow’s-nest to make declarations of love
under your very nose to the little beauty whilst singing out his
prayers, and making appointments with her between bits of the Koran.”
“Why, then, they’re all scamps in this country!” howled the unlucky
Tarasconian.
Barbassou snapped his fingers like a philosopher.
“My dear lad, you know, these new countries are ‘rum!’ But, anyhow, if
you’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 you
know that I was plucked out there in the desert?”
“What does that matter?” said the captain merrily. “The Zouave sails
tomorrow, 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 are
some bottles of fizz left, and half the pie. Sit you down and pitch in
without any grudge.”
After the minute’s wavering which self-respect commanded, the
Tarasconian chose his course manfully. Down he sat, and they touched
glasses. Baya, gliding down at that chink, sang the finale of “Marco la
Bella,” and the jollification was prolonged deep into the night.
About 3 A.M., with a light head but a heavy foot, our good Tarasconian
was returning from seeing his friend the captain off when, in passing
the mosque, the remembrance of his muezzin and his practical jokes made
him laugh, and instantly a capital idea of revenge flitted through his
brain.
The door was open. He entered, threaded long corridors hung with mats,
mounted and kept on mounting till he finally found himself in a little
oratory, where an openwork iron lantern swung from the ceiling, and
embroidered 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 he
whipped up in the orthodox manner, whilst awaiting the hour to call true
believers 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, as
he would have done with anything else. Tartarin donned them, and gravely
stepped out upon the minaret platform.
In the distance the sea shone. The white roofs glittered in the
moonbeams. On the sea breeze was heard the strumming of a few belated
guitars. The Tarasconian muezzin gathered himself up for the effort
during a space, and then, raising his arms, he set to chanting in a very
shrill 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 and
Provencal, flung his mirthful maledictions to the four quarters, sea,
town, plain and mountain, the clear, solemn voices of the other muezzins
answered him, taking up the strain from minaret to minaret, and the
believers of the upper town devoutly beat their bosoms.