Close to him, on the pretty verdant slope of Upper Mustapha, the
snowy villas glowed in the rosy rising sun: anybody would believe
himself in the neighbourhood of Marseilles, amongst its bastides
and bastidons.

The commonplace and kitchen-gardenish aspect of this sleep-steeped
country much astonished the poor man, and put him in bad humour.

"These folk are crazy," he reasoned, "to plant artichokes in the
prowling-ground of lions; for, in short, I have not been dreaming.
Lions have come here, and there's the proof"

What he called the proof was blood-spots left behind the beast in its
flight. Bending over this ruddy trail with his eye on the lookout
and his revolver in his fist, the valiant Tarasconian went from
artichoke to artichoke up to a little field of oats. In the trampled
grass was a pool of blood, and in the midst of the pool, lying on its
flank, with a large wound in the head, was a -- guess what?

"A lion, of course!"

Not a bit of it! An ass! -- one of those little donkeys so common in
Algeria, where they are called bourriquots.



VI.
Arrival of the Female -- A Terrible Combat --
"Game Fellows Meet Here!"