The upshot of it was that he had to suffer much delay in Orleansville,
and was eventually fined one hundred pounds. How to pay this was a
problem which he solved by selling all his extensive outfit, bit by bit.
When his debts were paid, he had nothing but the lion's skin and the
camel. The former he dispatched to Major Bravida at Tarascon. Nobody
would buy the camel, and its master had to face all the journey back to
Algiers in short stages on foot.

_IV.--The Home-Coming of the Hero_

The camel showed a curious affection for him, and followed him as
faithfully as a dog. When, at the end of eight days' weary tramping, he
came at last to Algiers, he did all he could to lose the animal, and
hoped he had succeeded. He met the captain of the Zouave, who told him
that all Algiers had been laughing at the story of how he had killed the
blind lion, and he offered Tartarin a free passage home.

The Zouave was getting up steam next day as the dejected Tartarin had
just stepped into the captain's long-boat, when, lo! his faithful camel
came tearing down the quay and gazed affectionately at its friend.
Tartarin pretended not to notice it; but the animal seemed to implore
him with his eyes to be taken away. "You are the last Turk," it seemed
to say, "I am the last camel. Let us never part again, O my Tartarin!"

But the lion-hunter pretended to know nothing of this ship of the
desert.

As the boat pulled off to the Zouave, the camel jumped into the water
and swam after it, and was taken aboard. At last Tartarin had the joy of
hearing the Zouave cast anchor at Marseilles, and, having no luggage to
trouble him, he rushed off the boat at once and hastened through the
town to the railway station, hoping to get ahead of the camel.

He booked third class, and quickly hid himself in a carriage. Off went
the train. But it had not gone far when everybody was looking out of the
windows and laughing. Behind the train ran the camel--holding his own,
too!

What a humiliating home-coming! All his weapons of the chase left on
Moorish soil, not a lion with him, nothing but a silly camel!

"Tarascon! Tarascon!" shout the porters as the train slows up at the
station, and the hero gets out. He had hoped to slink home unobserved;
but, to his amazement, he is received with shouts of "Long live
Tartarin!" "Three cheers for the lion-slayer!" The people are waving
their caps in the air; it is no joke, they are serious. There is Major
Bravida,