All at once, along the bulwark against which they were leaning, the Tarasconian perceived a row of large black hands clinging to it from over the side.  Almost instantly a Negro’s woolly head shot up before him, and, ere he had time to open his mouth, the deck was overwhelmed on every side by a hundred black or yellow desperadoes, half naked, hideous, and fearsome.  Tartarin knew who these pirates were —­ “they,” of course, the celebrated “they” who had too often been hunted after by him in the by-ways of Tarascon.  At last they had decided to meet him face to face.  At the outset surprise nailed him to the spot.  But when he saw the outlaws fall upon the luggage, tear off the tarpaulin covering, and actually commence the pillage of the ship, then the hero awoke.  Whipping out his hunting-sword, “To arms! to arms!” he roared to the passengers; and away he flew, the foremost of all, upon the buccaneers.  “Ques aco?  What’s the stir?  What’s the matter with you?” exclaimed Captain Barbassou, coming out of the ’tweendecks.

“About time you did turn up, captain!  Quick, quick, arm your men!”

“Eh, what for? dash it all!”

“Why, can’t you see?”

“See what?”

“There, before you, the corsairs”

Captain Barbassou stared, bewildered.  At this juncture a tall blackamoor tore by with our hero’s medicine-chest upon his back.

“You cut-throat! just wait for me!” yelled the Tarasconer as he ran after, with the knife uplifted.

But Barbassou caught him in the spring, and holding him by the waist-sash, bade him be quiet.

“Tron de ler! by the throne on high! they’re no pirates.  It’s long since there were any pirates hereabout.  Those dark porters are light porters.  Ha, ha!”

“P—­p-porters?”

“Rather, only come after the luggage to carry it ashore.  So put up your cook’s galley knife, give me your ticket, and walk off behind that nigger —­ an honest dog, who will see you to land, and even into a hotel, if you like.”

A little abashed, Tartarin handed over his ticket, and falling in behind the representative of the Dark Continent, clambered down by the hanging-ladder into a big skiff dancing alongside.  All his effects were already there —­ boxes, trunks, gun-cases, tinned food, —­ so cramming up the boat that there was no need to wait for any other passengers.  The African scrambled upon the boxes, and squatted there like a baboon, with his knees clutched by his hands.  Another Negro took the oars.  Both laughingly eyed Tartarin, and showed their white teeth.

Standing in the stern-sheets, making that terrifying face which had daunted his fellow-countrymen, the great Tarasconian feverishly fumbled with his hunting-knife haft; for, despite what Barbassou had told him, he was only half at ease as regarded the intention of these ebony-skinned porters, who so little resembled their honest mates of Tarascon.

Five minutes afterwards the skiff landed Tartarin, and he set foot upon the little Barbary wharf, where, three hundred years before, a Spanish galley-slave yclept Miguel Cervantes devised, under the cane of the Algerian taskmaster, a sublime romance which was to bear the title of “Don Quixote.”