"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.