LOOKING on his hapless victim, Tartarin's first impulse was one of
vexation. There is such a wide gap between a lion and poor Jack!
His second feeling was one of pity. The poor bourriquot was so
pretty and looked so kindly. The hide on his still warm sides
heaved and fell like waves. Tartarin knelt down, and strove with
the end of his Algerian sash to stanch the blood; and all you can
imagine in the way of touchingness was offered by the picture of
this great man tending this little ass.

At the touch of the silky cloth the donkey, who had not
twopennyworth of life in him, opened his large grey eye and winked
his long ears two or three times, as much as to say, "Oh, thank
you!" before a final spasm shook it from head to tail, whereafter it
stirred no more.

"Noiraud! Blackey!" suddenly screamed a voice, choking with
anguish, as the branches in a thicket hard by moved at the same
time.

Tartarin had no more than enough time to rise and stand upon
guard. This was the female!

She rushed up, fearsome and roaring, under form of an old Alsatian
woman, her hair in a kerchief, armed with large red umbrella, and
calling for her ass, till all the echoes of Mustapha rang. It certainly
would have been better for Tartarin to have had to deal with a
lioness in fury than this old virago. In vain did the luckless
sportsman try to make her understand how the blunder had