Chương Chương 19 · V. Bang, bang!

. V. Bang, bang!

CERTAINLY a great wilderness, bristling with odd plants of that Oriental

kind which look like wicked creatures. Under the feeble starlight their

magnified shadows barred the ground in every way. On the right loomed up

confusedly the heavy mass of a mountain--perhaps the Atlas range. On the

heart-hand, the invisible sea hollowly rolling. The very spot to attract

wild beasts.

With one gun laid before him and the other in his grasp, Tartarin of

Tarascon went down on one knee and waited an hour, ay, a good couple,

and nothing turned up. Then he bethought him how, in his books, the

great lion-slayers never went out hunting without having a lamb or a

kid along with them, which they tied up a space before them, and set

bleating or baa-ing by jerking its foot with a string. Not having any

goat, the Tarasconer had the idea of employing an imitation, and he set

to crying in a tremulous voice:

“Baa-a-a!”

At first it was done very softly, because at bottom he was a little

alarmed lest the lion should hear him; but as nothing came, he baa-ed

more loudly. Still nothing. Losing patience, he resumed many times

running at the top of his voice, till the “Baa, baa, baa!” came out with

so much power that the goat began to be mistakable for a bull.

Unexpectedly, a few steps in front, some gigantic black thing appeared.

He was hushed. This thing lowered its head, sniffed the ground, bounded

up, rolled over, and darted off at the gallop, but returned and stopped

short. Who could doubt it was the lion? for now its four short legs

could plainly be seen, its formidable mane and its large eyes gleaming

in the gloom.

Up went his gun into position. Fire’s the word! and bang, bang! it

was done. And immediately there was a leap back and the drawing of the

hunting-knife. To the Tarasconian’s shot a terrible roaring replied.

“He’s got it!” cried our good Tartarin as, steadying himself on his

sturdy supporters, he prepared to receive the brute’s charge.

But it had more than its fill, and galloped off; howling. He did not

budge, for he expected to see the female mate appear, as the story-books

always lay it down she should.

Unhappily, no female came. After two or three hours’ waiting the

Tarasconian grew tired. The ground was damp, the night was getting cool,

and the sea-breeze pricked sharply.

“I have a good mind to take a nap till daylight,” he said to himself.

To avoid catching rheumatism, he had recourse to his patent tent. But

here’s where Old Nick interfered! This tent was of so very ingenious a

construction that he could not manage to open it. In vain did he toil

over it and perspire an hour through--the confounded apparatus would

not come unfolded. There are some umbrellas which amuse themselves under

torrential rains with just such tricks upon you. Fairly tired out

with the struggle, the victim dashed down the machine and lay upon it,

swearing like the regular Southron he was. “Tar, tar, rar, tar! tar,

rar, tar!”

“What on earth’s that?” wondered Tartarin, suddenly aroused.

It was the bugles of the Chasseurs d’Afrique sounding the turn-out in

the Mustapha barracks. The stupefied lion-slayer rubbed his eyes, for

he had believed himself out in the boundless wilderness; and do you know

where he really was?--in a field of artichokes, between a cabbage-garden

and a patch of beets. His Sahara grew kitchen vegetables.

Close to him, on the pretty verdant slope of Upper Mustapha, the snowy

villas glowed in the rosy rising sun: anybody would believe himself in

the neighbourhood of Marseilles, amongst its bastides and bastidons.

The commonplace and kitchen-gardenish aspect of this sleep-steeped

country much astonished the poor man, and put him in bad humour.

“These folk are crazy,” he reasoned, “to plant artichokes in the

prowling-ground of lions; for, in short, I have not been dreaming. Lions

have come here, and there’s the proof.”

What he called the proof was blood-spots left behind the beast in its

flight. Bending over this ruddy trail with his eye on the lookout and

his revolver in his fist, the valiant Tarasconian went from artichoke to

artichoke up to a little field of oats. In the trampled grass was a pool

of blood, and in the midst of the pool, lying on its flank, with a large

wound in the head, was a--guess what?

“A lion, of course!”

Not a bit of it! An ass!--one of those little donkeys so common in

Algeria, where they are called bourriquots.