The sight of his weapons kept him in a perpetual state of furious agitation.

His rifles, his arrows and his spears rang out war-cries.

In the branches of the baobab the wind whispered enticingly of great voyages.
How often on these heavy summer afternoons, when he was alone, reading amongst his weaponry, did Tartarin jump to his feet and throwing down his book rush to the wall to arm himself, then, quite forgetting that he was in his own house at Tarascon, cry, brandishing a gun or a spear, "Let them all come"!!...

Them ?...

What them?
Tartarin did not quite know himself, "Them" was everything that attacked, that bit, that clawed.
"Them" was the Indian brave dancing round the stake to which his wretched prisoner was tied.