preserved foods and his weapons, he dragged them into the middle of the
courtyard. Tartarin-Sancho had just perished, only Tartarin-Quixote was
left.

There was just time enough to inspect his equipment, to don his arms and
accoutrements, to put on his big boots, to write a few lines to prince
Gregory, confiding Baia to his care, to slip into an envelope some
banknotes, wet with tears, and the intrepid Tarasconais was in a
stage-coach, rolling down the road to Blidah, leaving the stupefied
negress in his house, gazing at the turban, the slippers and all the
muslim rig-out of Sidi Tart'ri, hanging discarded on the wall.




Chapter 24.

It was an ancient, old-fashioned stage-coach, upholstered in the old way
in heavy blue cloth, very faded, and with enormous pom-poms, which after
a few hours on the road dug uncomfortably into one's back. Tartarin had
an inside seat, where he installed himself as best he could, and where,
instead of the musky scent of the great cats, he could savour the ripe
perfume of the coach, compounded of a thousand odours of men, women,
horses, leather, food and damp straw.

The other passengers on the coach were a mixed lot. A Trappist monk,
some Jewish merchants, two Cocottes, returning to their unit, the third
Hussars, and a photographer from Orleansville.

No matter how charming and varied the company, Tartarin did not feel