第 二十九 章 · III. A Monastery of Lions.

. III. A Monastery of Lions.

AT Milianah, Tartarin of Tarascon alighted, leaving the stage-coach to

continue its way towards the South.

Two days’ rough jolting, two nights spent with eyes open to spy out of

window if there were not discoverable the dread figure of a lion in the

fields beyond the road--so much sleeplessness well deserved some hours

repose. Besides, if we must tell everything, since his misadventure with

Bombonnel, the outspoken Tartarin felt ill at ease, notwithstanding his

weapons, his terrifying visage, and his red cap, before the Orleansville

photographer and the two ladies fond of the military.

So he proceeded through the broad streets of Milianah, full of fine

trees and fountains; but whilst looking up a suitable hotel, the poor

fellow could not help musing over Bombonnel’s words. Suppose they were

true! Suppose there were no more lions in Algeria? What would be the

good then of so much running about and fatigue?

Suddenly, at the turn of a street, our hero found himself face to face

with--with what? Guess! “A donkey, of course!” A donkey? A splendid lion

this time, waiting before a coffee-house door, royally sitting up on his

hind-quarters, with his tawny mane gleaming in the sun.

“What possessed them to tell me that there were no more of them?”

exclaimed the Tarasconian, as he made a backward jump.

On hearing this outcry the lion lowered his head, and taking up in his

mouth a wooden bowl that was before him on the footway, humbly held it

out towards Tartarin, who was immovable with stupefaction. A passing

Arab tossed a copper into the bowl, and the lion wagged his tail.

Thereupon Tartarin understood it all. He saw what emotion had prevented

him previously perceiving: that the crowd was gathered around a poor

tame blind lion, and that two stalwart Negroes, armed with staves, were

marching him through the town as a Savoyard does a marmot.

The blood of Tarascon boiled over at once.

“Wretches that you are!” he roared in a voice of thunder, “thus to

debase such noble beasts!”

Springing to the lion, he wrenched the loathsome bowl from between his

royal jaws. The two Africans, believing they had a thief to contend

with, rushed upon the foreigner with uplifted cudgels. There was a

dreadful conflict: the blackamoors smiting, the women screaming, and the

youngsters laughing. An old Jew cobbler bleated out of the hollow of his

stall, “Dake him to the shustish of the beace!” The lion himself; in

his dark state, tried to roar as his hapless champion, after a desperate

struggle, rolled on the ground among the spilt pence and the sweepings.

At this juncture a man cleft the throng, made the Negroes stand back

with a word, and the women and urchins with a wave of the hand, lifted

up Tartarin, brushed him down, shook him into shape, and sat him

breathless upon a corner-post.

“What, prince, is it you?” said the good Tartarin, rubbing his ribs.

“Yes, indeed, it is I, my valiant friend. As soon as your letter was

received, I entrusted Baya to her brother, hired a post-chaise, flew

fifty leagues as fast as a horse could go, and here I am, just in time

to snatch you from the brutality of these ruffians. What have you done,

in the name of just Heaven, to bring this ugly trouble upon you?”

“What done, prince? It was too much for me to see this unfortunate lion

with a begging-bowl in his mouth, humiliated, conquered, buffeted about,

set up as a laughing-stock to all this Moslem rabble”--

“But you are wrong, my noble friend. On the contrary, this lion is an

object of respect and adoration. This is a sacred beast who belongs to a

great monastery of lions, founded three hundred years ago by Mahomet Ben

Aouda, a kind of fierce and forbidding La Trappe, full of roarings

and wild-beastly odours, where strange monks rear and feed lions by

hundreds, and send them out all over Northern Africa, accompanied by

begging brothers. The alms they receive serve for the maintenance of

the monastery and its mosques; and the two Negroes showed so much

displeasure just now because it was their conviction that the lion under

their charge would forthwith devour them if a single penny of their

collection were lost or stolen through any fault of theirs.”

On hearing this incredible and yet veracious story Tartarin of Tarascon

was delighted, and sniffed the air noisily. “What pleases me in this,”

he remarked, as the summing up of his opinion, “is that, whether

Monsieur Bombonnel likes it or not, there are still lions in Algeria.”--

“I should think there were!” ejaculated the prince enthusiastically.

“We will start to-morrow beating up the Shelliff Plain, and you will see

lions enough!”

“What, prince! have you an intention to go a-hunting, too?”

“Of course! Do you think I am going to leave you to march by yourself

into the heart of Africa, in the midst of ferocious tribes of whose

languages and usages you are ignorant! No, no, illustrious Tartarin,

I shall quit you no more. Go where you will, I shall make one of the

party.”

“O Prince! prince!”

The beaming Tartarin hugged the devoted Gregory to his breast at the

proud thought of his going to have a foreign prince to accompany him

in his hunting, after the example of Jules Gerard, Bombonnel, and other

famous lion-slayers.