now! The prince had waited a whole month for such a chance!

In the morning he realised that he had been robbed by a thief who
pretended to be a prince. And here he was in the heart of savage Africa
with a little pocket money only, much useless luggage, a camel, and not
a single lion-skin for all his trouble.

Sitting on one of the desert-tombs erected over pious Mohammedans, the
great man fell to weeping bitterly. But, even as he wept the bushes were
pushed aside a little in front of him, and a huge lion presented itself.
To his honour, be it said, Tartarin never moved a muscle, but, breathing
a fervent "At last!" he leapt to his feet, and, levelling his rifle,
planted two explosive bullets in the lion's head. All was over in a
moment, for he had nearly blown the king of beasts to pieces! But in
another moment he saw two tall, enraged negroes bearing down upon him.
He had seen them before at Milianah, and this was their poor blind lion!
Fortunately for Tartarin, he was not so deeply in the desert as he had
thought, but merely outside the town of Orleansville, and a policeman
now came up, attracted by the firing, and took full particulars.

The upshot of it was that he had to suffer much delay in Orleansville,
and was eventually fined one hundred pounds. How to pay this was a
problem which he solved by selling all his extensive outfit, bit by bit.
When his debts were paid, he had nothing but the lion's skin and the
camel. The former he dispatched to Major Bravida at Tarascon. Nobody
would buy the camel, and its master had to face all the journey back to
Algiers in short stages on foot.


_IV.--The Home-Coming of the Hero_