"To arms! to arms"
Only the arrival, not a foundering.
The Zouave was just gliding into the roadstead -- a fine one of black, deep water, but dull and still, almost deserted.On elevated ground ahead rose Algiers, the White City, with its little houses of a dead cream-colour huddling against one another lest they slid into the sea.It was like Meudon slope with a laundress's washing hung out to dry.Over it a vast blue satin sky -- and such a blue !
A little restored from his fright, the illustrious Tartarin gazed on the landscape, and listened with respect to the Montenegrin prince, who stood by his, side, as he named the different parts of the capital, the Kasbah, the upper town, and the Rue Bab-Azoon.Avery finely-brought-up prince was this Montenegrin; moreover, knowing Algeria thoroughly, and fluently speaking Arabic.Hence Tartarin thought of cultivating his acquaintance.
All at once, along the bulwark against which they were leaning, the Tarasconian perceived a row of large black hands clinging to it from over the side.Almost instantly a Negro's woolly head shot up before him, and, ere he had time to open his mouth, the deck was overwhelmed on every side by a hundred black or yellow desperadoes, half naked, hideous, and fearsome.Tartarin knew who these pirates were -- "they," of course, the celebrated "they" who had too often been hunted after by him in the by-ways of Tarascon.
At last they hid decided to meet him face to face.At the outset surprise nailed him to the spot.But when he saw the outlaws fall upon the luggage, tear off the tarpaulin covering, and actually commence the pillage of the ship, then the hero awoke.Whipping out his hunting-sword, "To arms! to arms !" he roared to the passengers; and away he flew, the foremost of all, upon the buccaneers."Ques aco? What's the stir? What's the matter with you?" exclaimed Captain Barbassou, coming out of the 'tweendecks.
"About time you did turn up, captain! Quick, quick, arm your men!""Eh, what for? dash it all!"
"Why, can't you see?"
"See what?"
"There, before you, the corsairs"
Captain Barbassou stared, bewildered.At this juncture a tall blackamoor tore by with our hero's medicine-chest upon his back.
"You cut-throat! just wait for me!" yelled the Tarasconer as he ran after, with the knife uplifted.
But Barbassou caught him in the spring, and holding him by the waist-sash, bade him be quiet.
"Tron de ler! by the throne on high! they're no pirates.It's long since there were any pirates hereabout Those dark porters are light porters.Ha, ha!""P--p-porters?"
"Rather, only come after the luggage to carry it ashore.So put up your cook's galley knife, give me your ticket, and walk off behind that nigger -- an honest dog, who will see you to land, and even into a hotel, if you like."A little abashed, Tartarin handed over his ticket, and falling in behind the representative of the Dark Continent, clambered down by the hanging-ladder into a big skiff dancing alongside.All his effects were already there -- boxes, trunks, gun-cases, tinned food, -- so cramming up the boat that there was no need to wait for any other passengers.The African scrambled upon the boxes, and squatted there like a baboon, with his knees clutched by his hands.
Another Negro took the oars.Both laughingly eyed Tartarin, and showed their white teeth.
Standing in the stern-sheets, making that terrifying face which had daunted his fellow-countrymen, the great Tarasconian feverishly fumbled with his hunting-knife haft; for, despite what Barbassou had told him, he was only half at ease as regarded the intention of these ebony-skinned porters, who so little resembled their honest mates of Tarascon.
Five minutes afterwards the skiff landed Tartarin, and he set foot upon the little Barbary wharf, where, three hundred years before, a Spanish galley-slave yclept Miguel Cervantes devised, under the cane of the Algerian taskmaster, a sublime romance which was to bear the title of "Don Quixote."
