At this moment a man pushed through the crowd.  He dismissed the negroes with a word and the women and children with a gesture.  He helped Tartarin to his feet, brushed him down and seated him, out of breath, on a bollard.  “Good heavens... prince...  Is it really you?” Said Tartarin, rubbing his ribs.  “Indeed yes my valiant friend... it is I. As soon as I received your letter I confided Baia to her brother, hired a post-chaise, came fifty leagues flat out and here I am just in time to save you from the brutality of these louts....  For God’s sake what have you been doing to get yourself dragged into a mess like this?” “What could you expect me to do, prince, when I saw this unfortunate lion with the begging bowl in its teeth, humiliated, enslaved, ridiculed, serving as a laughing stock for this unsavoury rabble...?” “But you are mistaken my noble friend.”  Said the prince, “This lion on the contrary is an object of respect and adoration.  It is a sacred beast, a member of a great convent of lions founded three centuries ago by Mahommed-ben-Aouda, a sort of wild fierce monastry where strange monks rear and tame hundreds of lions and send them throughout all north Africa, accompanied by mendicant brothers.  The alms which these brothers receive serve to maintain the monastry and its mosque, and if those two negroes were in such a rage just now, it is because they are convinced that if one sou, one single sou, of their takings is lost through any fault of theirs, the lion which that are leading will immediately devour them.”

On hearing this unlikely but plausible tale, Tartarin recovered his spirits.  “It seems evident after all,” He said “That in spite of what M. Bombonnel said, there are still lions in Algeria.”  “To be sure there are,” said the prince, “And tomorrow we shall begin to search the plains by the river Cheliff and you shall see.”  “What!... prince.  Do you mean to join in the hunt yourself?” “Of course” Said the prince “Do you think I would leave you to wander alone in the middle of Africa, among all those savage tribes, of whose language and customs you know nothing?  No!  No!  My dear Tartarin.  I shall not leave you again.  Wherever you go I shall accompany you.”  “Oh!... prince!... prince!” And Tartarin clasped the valiant Gregory in a warm embrace.

Chapter 27.

Very early the next morning the intrepid Tartarin and the no less intrepid prince Gregory, followed by half a dozen negro porters, left Milianah and descended towards the plain of the Chetiff by a steep pathway, delightfully shaded by jasmine, carobs and wild olives, between the hedges of little native gardens where a thousand bubbling springs trickled melodiously from rock to rock, a veritable Eden.

Carrying as much in the way of arms as the great Tartarin, the prince was further adorned by a magnificent and colourful kepi, covered with gold braid and decorated with oak leaves embroidered in silver thread, which gave his highness the appearance of a Mexican General, or a Middle-European Station-Master.  This fantastic kepi greatly intrigued Tartarin and he asked humbly for an explanation.