About an Omnibus, a Moorish Beauty, and a Wreath of Jessamine.
COMMON people would have been discouraged by such a first adventure, but men of Tartarin's mettle do not easily get cast down.
"The lions are in the South, are they?" mused the hero."Very well, then.South I go."As soon as he had swallowed his last mouthful he jumped up, thanked his host, nodded good-bye to the old hag without any ill-will, dropped a final tear over the hapless Blackey, and quickly returned to Algiers, with the firm intention of packing up and starting that very day for the South.
The Mustapha highroad seemed, unfortunately, to have stretched since overnight; and what a sun and dust there were, and what a weight in that shelter-tent! Tartarin did not feel to have the courage to walk to the town, and he beckoned to the first omnibus coming along, and climbed in.
Oh, our poor Tartarin of Tarascon! how much better it would have been for his name and fame not to have stepped into that fatal ark on wheels, but to have continued on his road afoot, at the risk of falling suffocated beneath the burden of the atmosphere, the tent, and his heavy double-barrelled rifles.
When Tartarin got in the 'bus was full.At the end, with his nose in his prayer-book, sat a large and black-bearded vicar from town;facing him was a young Moorish merchant smoking coarse cigarettes, and a Maltese sailor and four or five Moorish women muffled up in white cloths, so that only their eyes could be spied.
These ladies had been to offer up prayers in the Abdel Kader cemetery; but this funereal visit did not seem to have much saddened them, for they could be heard chuckling and chattering between themselves under their coverings whilst munching pastry.
Tartarin fancied that they watched him narrowly.One in particular, seated over against him, had fixed her eyes upon his, and never took them off all the drive.Although the dame was veiled, the liveliness of the big black eyes, lengthened out by k'hol; a delightfully slender wrist loaded with gold bracelets, of which a glimpse was given from time to time among the folds; the sound of her voice, the graceful, almost childlike, movements of the head, all revealed that a young, pretty, and loveable creature bloomed underneath the veil The unfortunate Tartarin did not know where to shrink.The fond, mute gaze of these splendrous Oriental orbs agitated him, perturbed him, and made him feel like dying with flushes of heat and fits of cold shivers.
To finish him, the lady's slipper meddled in the onslaught: he felt the dainty thing wander and frisk about over his heavy hunting boots like a tiny red mouse.What could he do? Answer the glance and the pressure, of course.Ay, but what about the consequences? Aloving intrigue in the East is a terrible matter! With his romantic southern nature, the honest Tarasconian saw himself already falling into the grip of the eunuchs, to be decapitated, or better -- we mean, worse -- than that, sewn up in a leather sack and sunk in the sea with his head under his arm beside him.This somewhat cooled him.In the meantime the little slipper continued its proceedings, and the eyes, widely open opposite him like twin black velvet flowers, seemed to say:
"Come, cull us!"
The 'bus stopped on the Theatre place, at the mouth of the Rue Bab-Azoon.One by one, embedded in their voluminous trousers, and drawing their mufflers around them with wild grace, the Moorish women alighted.Tartarin's confrontatress was the last to rise, and in doing so her countenance skimmed so closely to our hero's that her breath enveloped him -- a veritable nosegay of youth and freshness, with an indescribable after-tang of musk, jessamine, and pastry.
The Tarasconian stood out no longer.Intoxicated with love, and ready for anything, he darted out after the beauty.At the rumpling sound of his belts and boots she turned, laid a finger on her veiled mouth, as who would say, " Hush!" and with the other hand quickly tossed him a little wreath of.sweet-scented jessamine flowers.
Tartarin of Tarascon stooped to pick it up; but as he was rather clumsy, and much overburdened with implements of war, the operation took rather long.When he did straighten up, with the jessamine garland upon his heart, the donatrix had vanished.
