บทที่ บทที่ 21 · VII. About an Omnibus, a Moorish Beauty, and a Wreath of Jessamine.

. VII. About an Omnibus, a Moorish Beauty, and a Wreath of Jessamine.

COMMON people would have been discouraged by such a first adventure, but

men of Tartarin’s mettle do not easily get cast down.

“The lions are in the South, are they?” mused the hero. “Very well,

then. South I go.”

As soon as he had swallowed his last mouthful he jumped up, thanked his

host, nodded good-bye to the old hag without any ill-will, dropped a

final tear over the hapless Blackey, and quickly returned to Algiers,

with the firm intention of packing up and starting that very day for the

South.

The Mustapha highroad seemed, unfortunately, to have stretched since

overnight; and what a sun and dust there were, and what a weight in that

shelter-tent! Tartarin did not feel to have the courage to walk to the

town, and he beckoned to the first omnibus coming along, and climbed in.

Oh, our poor Tartarin of Tarascon! how much better it would have been

for his name and fame not to have stepped into that fatal ark on

wheels, but to have continued on his road afoot, at the risk of falling

suffocated beneath the burden of the atmosphere, the tent, and his heavy

double-barrelled rifles.

When Tartarin got in the ‘bus was full. At the end, with his nose in his

prayer-book, sat a large and black-bearded vicar from town; facing him

was a young Moorish merchant smoking coarse cigarettes, and a Maltese

sailor and four or five Moorish women muffled up in white cloths, so

that only their eyes could be spied.

These ladies had been to offer up prayers in the Abdel Kader cemetery;

but this funereal visit did not seem to have much saddened them, for

they could be heard chuckling and chattering between themselves under

their coverings whilst munching pastry. Tartarin fancied that they

watched him narrowly. One in particular, seated over against him, had

fixed her eyes upon his, and never took them off all the drive. Although

the dame was veiled, the liveliness of the big black eyes, lengthened

out by k’hol; a delightfully slender wrist loaded with gold bracelets,

of which a glimpse was given from time to time among the folds; the

sound of her voice, the graceful, almost childlike, movements of the

head, all revealed that a young, pretty, and loveable creature bloomed

underneath the veil. The unfortunate Tartarin did not know where to

shrink. The fond, mute gaze of these splendrous Oriental orbs agitated

him, perturbed him, and made him feel like dying with flushes of heat

and fits of cold shivers.

To finish him, the lady’s slipper meddled in the onslaught: he felt the

dainty thing wander and frisk about over his heavy hunting boots like a

tiny red mouse. What could he do? Answer the glance and the pressure,

of course. Ay, but what about the consequences? A loving intrigue in the

East is a terrible matter! With his romantic southern nature, the honest

Tarasconian saw himself already falling into the grip of the eunuchs,

to be decapitated, or better--we mean, worse--than that, sewn up in a

leather sack and sunk in the sea with his head under his arm beside him.

This somewhat cooled him. In the meantime the little slipper continued

its proceedings, and the eyes, widely open opposite him like twin black

velvet flowers, seemed to say:

“Come, cull us!”

The ‘bus stopped on the Theatre place, at the mouth of the Rue

Bab-Azoon. One by one, embedded in their voluminous trousers, and

drawing their mufflers around them with wild grace, the Moorish women

alighted. 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 rumpling sound of

his belts and boots she turned, laid a finger on her veiled mouth, as

one who would say, “Hush!” and with the other hand quickly tossed him a

little wreath of sweet-scented jessamine flowers. Tartarin of

Tarascon stooped to pick it up; but as he was rather clumsy, and much

overburdened with implements of war, the operation took rather long.

When he did straighten up, with the jessamine garland upon his heart,

the donatrix had vanished.