imself face to face
with--with what? Guess! "A donkey, of course!" A donkey? A splendid lion
this time, waiting before a coffee-house door, royally sitting up on his
hind-quarters, with his tawny mane gleaming in the sun.

"What possessed them to tell me that there were no more of them?"
exclaimed the Tarasconian, as he made a backward jump.

On hearing this outcry the lion lowered his head, and taking up in his
mouth a wooden bowl that was before him on the footway, humbly held it
out towards Tartarin, who was immovable with stupefaction. A passing
Arab tossed a copper into the bowl, and the lion wagged his tail.
Thereupon Tartarin understood it all. He saw what emotion had prevented
him previously perceiving: that the crowd was gathered around a poor
tame blind lion, and that two stalwart Negroes, armed with staves, were
marching him through the town as a Savoyard does a marmot.

The blood of Tarascon boiled over at once.

"Wretches that you are!" he roared in a voice of thunder, "thus to
debase such noble beasts!"

Springing to the lion, he wrenched the loathsome bowl from between his
royal jaws. The two Africans, believing they had a thief to contend
with, rushed upon the foreigner with uplifted cudgels. There was a
dreadful conflict: the blackamoors smiting, the women screaming, and the
youngsters laughing. An old Jew cobbler bleated out of the hollow of his
stall, "Dake him to the shustish of the beace!" The lion himself; in
his dark state, tried to roar as his hapless champion, after a desperate
struggle, rolled on the ground among the spilt pence and the sweepings.

At this juncture a man cleft the throng, made the Negroes stand back
with a word, and the women and urchins with a wave of the hand, lifted
up Tartarin, brushed him down, shook him into shape, and sat him
breathless upon a corner-post.

"What, prince, is it you?" said the good Tartarin, rubbing his ribs.

"Yes, indeed, it is I, my valiant friend. As soon as your letter was
received, I entrusted Baya to her brother, hired a post-chaise, flew
fifty leagues as fast as a horse could go, and here I am, just in time
to snatch you from the brutality of these ruffians. What have you done,
in the name of just Heaven, to bring this ugly trouble upon you?"

"What done, prince? It was too much for me to see this unfortunate lion
with a begging-bowl in his mouth, humiliated, conquered, buffeted about,
set up as a laughing-stock to all this Moslem rabble"