had been wrapped in a fragment of paper torn from "The Semaphore" and
when he spread it out the name of his home town caught his eye.

"News from Tarascon," He read, "The town is in a state of alarm. Tartarin
the lion killer, who went to hunt the big cats in Africa, has not
been heard of for several months.... What has happened to our heroic
compatriot? One dare hardly ask oneself, knowing as we do his ardent
nature, his courage and love of adventure.... Has he, like so many
others, been swallowed up in the desert sands, or has he perhaps fallen
victim to the murderous teeth of those feline monsters, whose skins he
promised to the municipality.... A terrible incertitude! However, some
African merchants who came to the fair at Beaucaire, claim to have met,
in the heart of the desert, a white man whose description corresponds
with his and who was heading for Timbuctoo. May God preserve our
Tartarin!"

When he read this, Tartarin blushed and trembled. All Tarascon rose
before his eyes. The club. The hat hunters. The green armchair at
Costecalde's shop: and soaring above, like the extended wings of an
eagle, the formidable moustache of the brave Commandant Bravida. Then to
see himself squatting slothfully on his mat, while he was believed to be
engaged in slaying lions, filled him with shame. Suddenly he leaped to
his feet. "To the lions!... To the lions!" He cried, and hurrying to the
dusty corner where lay idle his bivouac tent, his medicine chest, his
preserved foods and his weapons, he dragged them into the middle of the
courtyard. Tartarin-Sancho had just perished, only Tartarin-Quixote was
left.

There was just time enough to inspect his equipment, to don his arms and
accoutrements, to put on his big boots, to write a few lines to prince
Gregory, confiding Baia to his care, to slip into an envelope some
banknotes, wet with tears, and the intrepid Tarasconais was in a
stage-coach, rolling down the road to Blidah, leaving the stupefied
negress in his house, gazing at the turban, the slippers and all the
muslim rig-out of Sidi Tart'ri, hanging discarded on the wall.

Chapter 24.

It was an ancient, old-fashioned stage-coach, upholstered in the old way
in heavy blue cloth, very faded, and with enormous pom-poms, which after
a few hours on the road dug uncomfortably into one's back. Tartarin had
an inside seat, where he installed himself as best he could, and where,
instead of the musky scent of the great cats