great soul refused to credit anything, Barbassou's insinuations had
vexed him, and the familiar adjurations and home accent had
awakened vague remorse.

He found nobody at home, Baya having gone out to the bath. The
negress appeared sinister and the dwelling saddening. A prey to
inexpressible melancholy, he went and sat down by the fountain to
load a pipe with Barbassou's tobacco. It was wrapped up in a piece
of the Marseilles Semaphore newspaper. On flattening it out, the
name of his native place struck his eyes.

"Our Tarascon correspondent writes: --

"The city is in distress. There has been no news for several months
from Tartarin the lion-slayer, who set off to hunt the great feline
tribe in Africa. What can have become of our heroic fellow-
countryman? Those hardly dare ask who know, as we do, how hot-
headed he was, and what boldness and thirst for adventures were
his. Has he, like many others, been smothered in the sands, or has
he fallen under the murderous fangs of one of those monsters of the
Atlas Range of which be had promised the skins to the
municipality? What a dreadful state of uncertainty! It is true some
Negro traders, come to Beaucaire Fair, assert having met in the
middle of the deserts a European whose description agreed with
his; he was proceeding towards Timbuctoo. May Heaven preserve
our Tartarin!"

When he read this, the son of Tarascon reddened, blanched, and
shuddered. All Tarascon appeared unto him: the club, the cap-
poppers, Costecalde's green arm-chair, and, hovering over all like a