At first surprise glued him to the spot, but when he saw the pirates hurl themselves on the baggage, tear off the tarpaulin covers and begin to pillage the ship, our hero came to life. Drawing his hunting knife and shouting “Aux armes!... Aux armes!” To his fellow passengers, he prepared to lead an assault on the raiders. “Ques aco?... What’s the matter with you?” Said Captain Barbassou as he came off the bridge. “Ah!... There you are Captain.... Quick! Quick! Arm your men!” “Hé!... Do what? Why for God’s sake?” “But don’t you see?” “See what?” “There, in front of you... the pirates!” Captain Barbassou regarded him with astonishment..... At that moment a huge monster of a black man ran past carrying the medicine chest. “Wretch! Wait till I catch you!” Yelled Tartarin, starting forward with his knife held aloft. Barbassou caught him and held him by his sash. “Calm down for Chrissake.” He said, “These are not pirates, there have been no pirates for ages, these are stevedores.” “Stevedores?” “Hé! Yes, stevedores who have come to collect the baggage and take it ashore. Put away your cutlass, give me your ticket and follow that negro, an excellent fellow, who will take you ashore and even to your hotel if you wish.”
Somewhat confused Tartarin surrendered his ticket and following the negro he went down the gangplank into a large boat which was bobbing alongside the ferry. All his baggage was there, his trunks, cases of weapons and preserved food, as they took up all the room in the boat, there was no need to wait for other passengers. The negro climbed onto the baggage and squatted there with his arms wrapped round his knees. Another negro took the oars... the two of them regarded Tartarin, laughing and showing their white teeth.
Standing in the stern, wearing his fiercest expression, Tartarin nervously fingered the handle of his hunting knife, for in spite of what Barbassou had told him, he was only half reassured about the intentions of these ebony-skinned stevedores, who looked so different from honest longshoremen of Tarascon.
Three minutes later the boat reached land and Tartarin set foot on the little Barbary quay, where three hundred years earlier a galley-slave named Michael Cervantes, under the whip of an Algerian galley-master, had begun to plan the wonderful story of Don Quixote.
Chapter 14.
If by any chance the ghost of Micheal Cervantes was abroad on that bit of the Barbary coast, it must have been delighted at the arrival of this splendid specimen of a Frenchman from the Midi, in whom were combined the two heroes of his book, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.
It was a warm day. On the quay, bathed in sunshine, were five or six customs officers, some settlers awaiting news from France, some squatting Moors, smoking their long pipes, some Maltese fishermen, hauling in a large net, in the meshes of which thousands of sardines glittered like pieces of silver; but scarcely had Tartarin set foot there when the quay sprang into life and changed entirely its appearance.
A band of savages, more hideous even than the pirates of the boat, seemed to rise from the very cobble-stones to hurl themselves on the newcomer. Huge Arabs, naked beneath their long woolen garments, little Moors dressed in rags, Negroes, Tunisians, hotel waiters in white aprons, pushing and shouting, plucking at his clothes, fighting over his luggage; one grabbing his preserves another his medicine chest and, in a screeching babel of noise, throwing at his head the improbable names of hotels.... Deafened by this tumult, Tartarin ran hither and thither,struggling, fuming, and cursing after his baggage, and not knowing how to communicate with these barbarians, harangued them in French, Provencal and even what he could remember of Latin. It was a wasted effort, no one was listening.... Happily, however, a little man dressed in a tunic with a yellow collar and armed with a long cane arrived on the scene and dispersed the rabble with blows from his stick. He was an Algerian policeman. Very politely he arranged for Tartarin to go to the Hotel de l’Europe, and confided him to the care of some locals who led him away with all his baggage loaded on several barrows.
As he took his first steps in Algiers, Tartarin looked about him wide-eyed. He had imagined beforehand a fairylike Arabian city, something between Constantinople and Zanzibar... but here he was back in Tarascon. Some cafés some restaurants, wide streets, houses of four stories, a small tarmac square where a military band played Offenbach polkas, men seated on chairs, drinking beer and nibbling snacks, a few ladies, a sprinkling of tarts and soldiers, more soldiers, everywhere soldiers... and not a single “Teur” in sight except for him... so he found walking across the square a bit embarrassing. Everyone stared.... The military band stopped playing and the Offenbach polka came to a halt with one foot in the air.