Tartarin Of Tarascon Part 9

To sum up, this Signor Gregory was a very genial aristocrat. Whilst sipping the rosy Crescia juice he patiently listened to Tartarin's expatiating on his lovely Moor, and he even promised to find her speedily, as he had full knowledge of the native ladies.

They drank hard and lengthily in toasts to "The ladies of Algiers" and "The freedom of Montenegro!"

Outside, upon the terrace, heaved the sea, and its rollers slapped the strand in the darkness with much the sound of wet sails flapping. The air was warm, and the sky full of stars.

In the plane-trees a nightingale was piping.

It was Tartarin who paid the piper.

X. "Tell me your father's name, and I will tell you the name of that flower."

PRINCES of Montenegro are the ones to find the love-bird.

On the morrow early after this evening at the Platanes, Prince Gregory was in the Tarasconian's bedroom.

"Quick! Dress yourself quickly! Your Moorish beauty is found, Her name is Baya. She's scarce twenty--as pretty as a love, and already a widow."

"A widow! What a slice of luck!" joyfully exclaimed Tartarin, who dreaded Oriental husbands.

"Ay, but woefully closely guarded by her brother."

"Oh, the mischief!"

"A savage chap who vends pipes in the Orleans bazaar."

Here fell a silence.

"A fig for that!" proceeded the prince; "you are not the man to be daunted by such a trifle; and, anyhow, this old corsair can be pacified, I daresay, by having some pipes bought of him. But be quick! On with your courting suit, you lucky dog!"

Pale and agitated, with his heart br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with love, the Tarasconian leaped out of his couch, and, as he hastily b.u.t.toned up his capacious nether garment, wanted to know how he should act.

"Write straightway to the lady and ask for a tryst."

"Do you mean to say she knows French?" queried the Tarasconian simpleton, with the disappointed mien of one who had believed thoroughly in the Orient.

"Not one word of it," rejoined the prince imperturbably; "but you can dictate the billet-doux, and I will translate it bit by bit."

"O prince, how kind you are!"

The lover began striding up and down the bedroom in silent meditation.

Naturally a man does not write to a Moorish girl in Algiers in the same way as to a seamstress of Beaucaire. It was a very lucky thing that our hero had in mind his numerous readings, which allowed him, by amalgamating the Red Indian eloquence of Gustave Aimard's Apaches with Lamartine's rhetorical flourishes in the "Voyage en Orient," and some reminiscences of the "Song of Songs," to compose the most Eastern letter that you could expect to see. It opened with:

"Like unto the ostrich upon the sandy waste"--

and concluded by:

"Tell me your father's name, and I will tell you the name of that flower."

To this missive the romantic Tartarin would have much liked to join an emblematic bouquet of flowers in the Eastern fas.h.i.+on; but Prince Gregory thought it better to purchase some pipes at the brother's, which could not fail to soften his wild temper, and would certainly please the lady a very great deal, as she was much of a smoker.

"Let's be off at once to buy them!" said Tartarin, full of ardour.

"No, no! Let me go alone. I can get them cheaper."

"Eh, what? Would you save me the trouble? O prince, prince, you do me proud!"

Quite abashed, the good-hearted fellow offered his purse to the obliging Montenegrin, urging him to overlook nothing by which the lady would be gratified.

Unfortunately the suit, albeit capitally commenced, did not progress as rapidly as might have been antic.i.p.ated. It appeared that the Moorish beauty was very deeply affected by Tartarin's eloquence, and, for that matter, three-parts won beforehand, so that she wished nothing better than to receive him; but that brother of hers had qualms, and to lull them it was necessary to buy pipes by the dozens; nay, the gross--well, we had best say by the s.h.i.+pload at once.

"What the plague can Baya do with all these pipes?" poor Tartarin wanted to know more than once; but he paid the bills all the same, and without n.i.g.g.ardliness.

At length, after having purchased a mountainous stack of pipes and poured forth lakes of Oriental poesy, an interview was arranged. I have no need to tell you with what throbbings of the heart the Tarasconian prepared himself; with what carefulness he trimmed, brilliantined, and perfumed his rough cap-popper's beard, and how he did not forget--for everything must be thought of--to slip a spiky life-preserver and two or three six-shooters into his pockets.

The ever-obliging prince was coming to this first meeting in the office of interpreter.

The lady dwelt in the upper part of the town. Before her doorway a boy Moor of fourteen or less was smoking cigarettes; this was the brother in question, the celebrated Ali. On seeing the pair of visitors arrive, he gave a double knock on the postern gate and delicately glided away.

The door opened. A negress appeared, who conducted the gentlemen, without uttering a word, across the narrow inner courtyard into a small cool room, where the lady awaited them, reclining on a low ottoman. At first glance she appeared smaller and stouter than the Moorish damsel met in the omnibus by the Tarasconian. In fact, was it really the same?

But the doubt merely flashed through Tartarin's brain like a stroke of lightning.

The dame was so pretty thus, with her feet bare, and plump fingers, fine and pink, loaded with rings. Under her bodice of gilded cloth and the folds of her flower-patterned dress was suggested a lovable creature, rather blessed materially, rounded everywhere, and nice enough to eat.

The amber mouthpiece of a narghileh smoked at her lips, and enveloped her wholly in a halo of light-coloured smoke.

On entering, the Tarasconian laid a hand on his heart and bowed as Moorlike as possible, whilst rolling his large impa.s.sioned eyes.

Baya gazed on him for a moment without making any answer; but then, dropping her pipe-stem, she threw her head back, hid it in her hands, and they could only see her white neck rippling with a wild laugh like a bag full of pearls.

XI. Sidi Tart'ri Ben Tart'ri.

SHOULD you ever drop into the coffee-houses of the Algerian upper town after dark, even at this day, you would still hear the natives chatting among themselves, with many a wink and slight laugh, of one Sidi Tart'ri Ben Tart'ri, a rich and good-humoured European, who dwelt, a few years back, in that neighbourhood, with a buxom witch of local origin, named Baya.

This Sidi Tart'ri, who has left such a merry memory around the Kasbah, is no other than our Tartarin, as will be guessed.

How could you expect things otherwise? In the lives of heroes, of saints, too, it happens the same way--there are moments of blindness, perturbation, and weakness. The ill.u.s.trious Tarasconian was no more exempt from this than another, and that is the reason during two months that, oblivious of fame and lions, he revelled in Oriental amorousness, and dozed, like Hannibal at Capua, in the delights of Algiers the white.

The good fellow took a pretty little house in the native style in the heart of the Arab town, with inner courtyard, banana-trees, cool verandahs, and fountains. He dwelt, afar from noise, in company with the Moorish charmer, a thorough woman to the manner born, who pulled at her hubble-bubble all day when she was not eating.

Stretched out on a divan in front of him, Baya would drone him monotonous tunes with a guitar in her fist; or else, to distract her lord and master, favour him with the Bee Dance, holding a hand-gla.s.s up, in which she reflected her white teeth and the faces she made.

As the Esmeralda did not know a word of French, and Tartarin none in Arabic, the conversation died away sometimes, and the Tarasconian had plenty of leisure to do penance for the gush of language of which he had been guilty in the shop of Bezuquet the chemist or that of Costecalde the gunmaker.