This thought cooled his ardour a little, but the little slipper continued to tease and the he eyes opened very wide, like two black velvet flowers which seemed to say “Come and gather us!”

The omnibus stopped.  It had arrived at the Place du theatre, at the entrance to the Rue Bab Azoum.  One by one, enveloped in their billowing garments and drawing their veils about them with savage grace, the Moors dismounted.  Tartarin’s neighbour was the last to leave and as she rose to go her face was so close to that of our hero that their breaths mingled and he was aware of a bouquet of youth, jasmine, musk and pastries.

He could no longer resist.  Drunk with love and ready to face anything, he scrambled after the Moor...  At the sound of his clumsy footsteps she turned and put her finger to her lips, as if to say “Hush” and with the other hand she tossed him a little scented garland made of jasmine flowers.  Tartarin bent to pick it up, but as he was somewhat overweight and much encumbered by his weapons, the operation took a little time...  When he rose, the garland pressed to his heart, the little Moor had disappeared.

Chapter 19.

Sleep, lions of the Atlas!  Sleep tranquilly in your lairs amongst the aloes and the cactus!  It wil be some time before Tartarin de Tarascon comes to slaughter you.  At the moment his equipment, his arms, his medicine chest, the preserved food and the bivouac tent are piled up peacefully in a corner of room 36 in the Hotel de l’Europe.  Sleep without fear, great tawny lions!  The Tarasconais is searching for his Moor.

Since the events in the omnibus, the unhappy man seems to feel constantly on his feet the scurrying of the little red mouse, and the sea breeze which wafts across his face seems somehow perfumed by an amorous odour of patisserie and anise.  He must find his Dulcinea; but to find in a city of one hundred thousand inhabitants a person of whom one knows only the scent of their breath, the appearance of their slippers and the colour of their eyes is no light undertaking.  Only a lovesick Tarasconais would attempt such a task.  To make matters worse, it must be confessed that beneath their masks all Moorish ladies tend to look very much the same; and then they do not go out a great deal, and if one wants to see them one must go to the upper town, the Arab town, the town of the Teurs.

A real cut-throat place that upper town.  Little dark alley-ways, very narrow, climbing steeply between two rows of silent, mysterious houses whose roofs touch to make a tunnel.  Low doorways and small windows, opaque and barred, and then, to right and left, little shops within whose deep shade fierce “Teurs” with piratical faces, glittering eyes and gleaming teeth, smoke their hookahs and converse in low tones, as if planning some wicked deed....  To say that Tartarin walked through this fearsome township unmoved would be to lie.  He was on the