,
of course! Well, old merriman, now you are going to Africa, how do you
like it?"

The cruellest part of it was that, from the retreat where he was
moaning, the hapless invalid could hear the passengers in the grand
saloon laughing, munching, singing, and playing at cards. On board the
Zouave the company was as jolly as numerous, composed of officers going
back to join their regiments, ladies from the Marseilles Alcazar Music
Hall, strolling-players, a rich Mussulman returning from Mecca, and a
very jocular Montenegrin prince, who favoured them with imitations
of the low comedians of Paris. Not one of these jokers felt the
sea-sickness, and their time was passed in quaffing champagne with the
steamer captain, a good fat born Marseillais, who had a wife and family
as well at Algiers as at home, and who answered to the merry name of
Barbassou.

Tartarin of Tarascon hated this pack of wretches; their mirthfulness
deepened his ails.

At length, on the third afternoon, there was such an extraordinary
hullabaloo on the deck that our hero was roused out of his long torpor.
The ship's bell was ringing and the seamen's heavy boots ran over the
planks.

"Go ahead! Stop her! Turn astern!" barked the hoarse voice of Captain
Barbassou; and then, "Stop her dead!"

There was an abrupt check of movement, a shock, and no more, save the
silent rolling of the boat from side to side like a balloon in the air.
This strange stillness alarmed the Tarasconian.

"Heaven ha' mercy upon us!" he yelled in a terrifying voice, as,
recovering his strength by magic, he bounded out of his berth, and
rushed upon deck with his arsenal.

II. "To arms! to arms"

ONLY the arrival, not a foundering.

The Zouave was just gliding into the roadstead--a fine one of black,
deep water, but dull and still, almost deserted. On elevated ground
ahead rose Algiers, the White City, with its little houses of a dead
cream-colour huddling against one another lest they slid into the sea.
It was like Meudon slope with a laundress's washing hung out to dry.
Over it a vast blue satin sky--and such a blue!

A little restored from his fright, the illustrious Tartarin gazed on
the landscape, and listened with respect to the Montenegrin prince, who
stood by his side, as he named the different parts of the capital, the
Kasbah, the upper town, and the Rue Bab-Azoon. A very finely-brought-up
prince was this Montenegrin; moreover, knowing Algeria thoroughly, and