loyal heart he refused to believe any of the insinuations made by the
Captain, they had upset him, and his rough oaths and country accent had
combined to awake in him a vague feeling of remorse. When he reached
home, Baia had gone to the baths, the negress seemed to him ugly, the
house dismal, and prey to an indefinable melancholy, he went and sat by
the fountain and filled his pipe with Barbassou's tobacco. The tobacco
had been wrapped in a fragment of paper torn from "The Semaphore" and
when he spread it out the name of his home town caught his eye.

"News from Tarascon," He read, "The town is in a state of alarm. Tartarin
the lion killer, who went to hunt the big cats in Africa, has not
been heard of for several months.... What has happened to our heroic
compatriot? One dare hardly ask oneself, knowing as we do his ardent
nature, his courage and love of adventure.... Has he, like so many
others, been swallowed up in the desert sands, or has he perhaps fallen
victim to the murderous teeth of those feline monsters, whose skins he
promised to the municipality.... A terrible incertitude! However, some
African merchants who came to the fair at Beaucaire, claim to have met,
in the heart of the desert, a white man whose description corresponds
with his and who was heading for Timbuctoo. May God preserve our
Tartarin!"

When he read this, Tartarin blushed and trembled. All Tarascon rose
before his eyes. The club. The hat hunters. The green armchair at
Costecalde's shop: and soaring above, like the extended wings of an
eagle, the formidable moustache of the brave Commandant Bravida. Then to
see himself squatting slothfully on his mat, while he was believed to be
engaged in slaying lions, filled him with shame. Suddenly he leaped to
his feet. "To the lions!... To the lions!" He cried, and hurrying to the
dusty corner where lay idle his bivouac tent, his medicine chest, his