moment's reflection, "these are jokers. They haven't killed anything
whatever," and he went his way.

Already the houses became scarcer, and so did the passengers.
Dark came on and objects were blurred, though Tartarin walked on
for half an hour more, when he stopped, for it was night. A
moonless night, too, but sprinkled with stars. On the highroad
there was nobody. The hero concluded that lions are not stage-
coaches, and would not of their own choice travel the main ways.
So he wheeled into the fields, where there were brambles and
ditches and bushes at every step, but he kept on nevertheless.

But suddenly he halted.

"I smell lions about here!" said our friend, sniffing right and left.



V.
Bang, bang!


CERTAINLY a great wilderness, bristling with odd plants of that
Oriental kind which look like wicked creatures. Under the feeble
starlight their magnified shadows barred the ground in every way.
On the right loomed up confusedly the heavy mass of a mountain --
perhaps the Atlas range. On the heart-hand, the invisible sea
hollowly rolling. The very spot to attract wild beasts.

With one gun laid before him and the other in his grasp, Tartarin of