It is mid-day. The Zouave has steam up and is ready to depart. Up
above on the balcony of the café Valentin, a group of officers aim the
telescope, and come one by one, in order of seniority, to look at
the lucky little ship which is going to France. It is the principle
entertainment of the general staff. Down below, the water of the
anchorage sparkles.... The breeches of the old Turkish cannons, mounted
along the quay, glisten in the sunshine.... Passengers arrive.... Baggage
is loaded onto tenders.
Tartarin does not have any baggage. He comes down from the Rue de
la Marine by the little market, full of bananas and water-melons,
accompanied by his friend Captain Barbassou.
Tartarin de Tarascon has left on the Moorish shore his arms, his
equipment and his illusions, and is preparing to sail back to Tarascon
with nothing in his pockets but his hands. Scarcely, however, had he set
foot in the captain’s launch, when a breathless creature scrambled down
from the square above and galloped towards him. It was the camel, the
faithful camel, which for twenty-four hours had been searching for its
master.
When Tartarin saw it, he changed colour and pretended not to know it;
but the camel was insistent. It frisked along the quay. It called to its
friend and regarded him with tender looks. “Take me away!” Its sad eyes
seemed to say, “Take me away with you, far away from this mock Arabia,
this ridiculous Orient, full of locomotives and stage coaches, where I
as a second-class dromadary do not know what will become of me. You are
the last Teur, I am the last camel, let us never part, Oh my Tartarin!”
“Is that your camel?” Asked the Captain.
“No!... No!... Not mine.” Replied Tartarin, who trembled at the thought of
entering Tarascon with this absurd escort; and shamelessly repudiating
the companion of his misfortunes he repelled with his foot the soil of
Algeria and pushed the boat out from the shore. The camel sniffed at the
water, flexed its joints and leapt headlong in behind the boat, where it
swam in convoy toward the Zouave, its hump floating on the water like a
gourd and it neck lying on the surface like the ram of a trireme.
The boat and the camel came alongside the Zouave at the same time. “I
don’t know what I should do about this dromadary.” Said the captain, “I
think I’ll take it on board and present it to the zoo at Marseille, I
can’t just leave it here.” So by means of block and tackle the wet camel
was hoisted onto the deck of the Zouave, which then set sail.
Tartarin spent most of the time in his cabin. Not that the sea was
rough or that the chechia had to much to suffer, but because whenever
he appeared on the deck the camel made such a ridiculous fuss of its
master. You never saw a camel so attached to anyone as this.
Hour by hour, when he looked through the porthole, Tartarin could see
the Algerian sky turn paler, until one morning, in a silvery mist, he
heard to his delight the bells of Marseilles. The Zouave had arrived.
Our man, who had no baggage, disembarked without a word and hurried
across Marseilles, fearing all the time that he might be followed by
the camel, and he did not breathe easily until he was seated in a
third-class railway carriage, on his way to Tarascon... a false sense of
security. They had not gone far from Marseilles when heads appeared at
windows and there were cries of astonishment, Tartarin looked out in
turn and what did he see but the inescapable camel coming down the line
behind the train with a remarkable turn of speed.
Tartarin resumed his seat and closed his eyes. After this disastrous
expedition he had counted on getting back home unrecognised, but the
presence of this confounded camel made it impossible. What a return
to make, Bon Dieu!... No money... No lions... Nothing but a camel!....
“Tarascon!... Tarascon!”... It was time to get out.
To Tartarin’s utter astonishment, the heroic chechia had barely
appeared in the doorway, when it was greeted by a great cry of “Vive
Tartarin!... Vive Tartarin!” Which shook the glass vault of the station
roof. “Vive Tartarin!... Hurrah for the lion killer!” Then came fanfares
and a choir. Tartarin could have died, he thought this was a hoax: but
no, all Tarascon was there, tossing their hats in the air and shouting
his praises. There stood the brave Commandant Bravida, Costecalde the
gunsmith, the President Ladevèze, the chemist and all the noble body of
hat shooters, who pressed round their chief and carried him all the way
down the steps.
How remarkable are the effects of the “mirage”. The skin of the blind
lion sent to the Commandant was the cause of all this tumult. At the
sight of this modest trophy, displayed at the club, Tarascon and beyond
Tarascon the whole of the Midi had worked themselves into a state of
excitement. “The Semaphore” had spoken. A complete scenario had been
invented. This was no longer one lion killed by Tartarin, it was ten
lions, twenty lions, a whole troop of lions. So Tartarin, when he
reached Marseilles was already famous, and an enthusiastic telegram had
warned his home town of his imminent arrival.
The excitement of the populace reached its peak when a fantastic animal,
covered in dust and sweat, stumbled down the station steps behind our
hero. For a moment they thought that the Tarasque had returned.
Tartarin reassured his fellow citizens, “It is my camel” He said, and
already under the influence of the Tarascon sun, that fine sun which
induces fanciful exaggeration, he stroked the camel’s hump and added,
“It is a noble creature, it saw me kill all my lions.” So saying,
he took the arm of the Commandant, who was blushing with pride, and
followed by his camel, surrounded by hat shooters and acclaimed by the
people, he proceeded peacefully toward the little house of the baobab;
and as he walked along he began the story of his great expedition.
“There was one particular evening,” He said, “When I was out in the
heart of the Sahara...”