He was in a vast, wild desert, bristling with bizarre plants. African
plants, which have the appearance of savage animals. In the faint light
from the stars their shadows spread over the ground in all directions.
On the right was the confused, looming mass of a mountain, the Atlas
perhaps, to the left could be heard the dull surge of the invisible sea.
An ideal spot to tempt wild animals!
Placing one rifle on the ground before him and taking the other in his
hands, Tartarin settled down and waited... he waited for an hour... two
hours.... Then he remembered that in his books the famous lion hunters
always used a kid as bait, which they tethered at some distance in front
of them and made to bleat by pulling on a string attached to its leg.
Lacking a kid, he had the idea of trying an imitation and began to bleat
in a goat-like manner, “Mé!... Mé!....” At first very quietly, because, in
the depths of his heart he was a little afraid that the lion might
hear him... then seeing that nothing happened he bleated more loudly,
“Mé!... Mé!... Mé!....” And then louder still, “MÉ!... MÉ!... MÉ!...”
Suddenly, a few paces in front of him, something black and gigantic
materialised. He shut up... the thing crouched, sniffed the ground,
leapt up, turned and ran off at a gallop... then it came back and stopped
short. It was a lion! There could be no doubt. Now one could see quite
clearly the four short legs, the formidable forequarters and two
huge eyes gleaming in the darkness.... Aim!... Fire!...
Pan!... Pan!.... Tartarin backed away, drawing his hunting knife
Following Tartarin’s shot there was a terrible outcry, “I’ve got him!”
Cried the good Tarasconais and prepared himself to receive a possible
attack, but the creature had had enough and it fled at top speed,
bellowing.... He, however, did not budge: he was waiting for the
female... as happened in all his books. Unfortunately the female failed
to turn up, and after two or three hours of waiting Tartarin became
tired. The ground was damp, the night was growing cool, there was a nip
in the breeze from the sea... “Perhaps I should have a nap while I wait
for daylight” he said to himself, and to provide some shelter he had
recourse to the bivouac tent. A difficulty now arose, the bivouac tent
was of such an ingenious design that he was quite unable to erect it. He
struggled and sweated for a long time, but there was no way in which he
could get the thing up, so at last he threw it on the ground and lay on
top of it, cursing it in Provencal.
Ta!... Ta!... Ta!... Tarata! “Ques aco?” said Tartarin, waking up with a
start. It was the trumpets of the Chasseurs d’Afrique sounding reveille
in the barracks at Mustapha. The lion killer rubbed his eyes in
amazement. He who had believed that he was in the middle of a
desert... do you know where he was?... In a field full of artichokes,
between a cauliflower and a swede... his Sahara was a vegetable patch.
Nearby, on the pretty green coast of upper Mustapha, white Algerian
villas gleamed in the dawn light, one might have been among the suburban
houses in the outskirts of Marseille. The bourgeois appearance of the
sleeping countryside greatly astonished Tartarin and put him in a bad
humour. “These people are crazy”, he said to himself, “To plant their
artichokes in an area infested by lions. For I was not dreaming, there
are lions here and there is the proof”.
The proof was a trail of blood which the fleeing beast had left behind
it. Following this blood-spoor, with watchful eye and revolver in hand,
the valiant Tarasconais went from artichoke to artichoke until he arrived
at a small field of oats.... In a patch of flattened grain was a pool
of blood and in the middle of the pool, lying on its side with a large
wound to its head, was... what?... a lion?... No Parbleu!... A donkey!
One of the tiny donkeys so common in Algeria, which there are called
“Bourriquots”.