sperate struggle, rolled
on the ground among copper coins and road sweepings.

At this moment a man pushed through the crowd. He dismissed the negroes
with a word and the women and children with a gesture. He helped
Tartarin to his feet, brushed him down and seated him, out of breath,
on a bollard. "Good heavens... prince... Is it really you?" Said Tartarin,
rubbing his ribs. "Indeed yes my valiant friend... it is I. As soon as
I received your letter I confided Baia to her brother, hired a
post-chaise, came fifty leagues flat out and here I am just in time to
save you from the brutality of these louts.... For God's sake what have
you been doing to get yourself dragged into a mess like this?" "What
could you expect me to do, prince, when I saw this unfortunate lion with
the begging bowl in its teeth, humiliated, enslaved, ridiculed, serving
as a laughing stock for this unsavoury rabble...?" "But you are mistaken
my noble friend." Said the prince, "This lion on the contrary is an
object of respect and adoration. It is a sacred beast, a member of
a great convent of lions founded three centuries ago by
Mahommed-ben-Aouda, a sort of wild fierce monastry where strange monks
rear and tame hundreds of lions and send them throughout all north
Africa, accompanied by mendicant brothers. The alms which these brothers
receive serve to maintain the monastry and its mosque, and if those two
negroes were in such a rage just now, it is because they are convinced
that if one sou, one single sou, of their takings is lost through any
fault of theirs, the lion which that are leading will immediately devour
them."

On hearing this unlikely but plausible tale, Tartarin recovered his
spirits. "It seems evident after all," He said "That in spite of what M.
Bombonnel said, there are still lions in Algeria." "To be sure there are,"
said the prince, "And tomorrow we shall begin to search the plains by
the river Cheliff and you shall see." "What!... prince. Do you mean to
join in the hunt yourself?" "Of course" Said the prince "Do you think I
would leave you to wander alone in the middle of Africa, among all those
savage tribes, of whose language and customs you know nothing? No! No!
My dear Tartarin. I shall not leave you again. Wherever you go I shall
accompany you." "Oh!... prince!... prince!" And Tartarin clasped the
valiant Gregory in a warm embrace.

Chapter 27.

Very early the next morning the intrepid Tartarin and the no less
int