Borschtisov:
especially the beginning (23 pages) of In the Land of the Maharajah
A long time in coming, but I just came across a mention of
Cobras in my copy of Benoît Peeter's
Le Monde d'Hergé, which gives the figure of
25 pages having been published before the war interrupted its run.
Further research, which has taken place in the interval between the start of this thread and now (and to be found in Geoffroy Kursner's striking volume,
Hergé et la Presse), gives the dates for the run of
Jo et Zette au pays du Maharadjah in
Cœurs Vaillants as being from the 9th of April (spot on, Borschtisov!) to the 17th of September, 1939, a period of 24 weeks (by my arithmetic with a 1939 calendar) - so there were at least 24 pages, it would seem. A 25th page would have taken the story up to the last Sunday in September, so it could be that the episode was prepared, just not published?
It's also worth noting that, since Balthazar's comments above, the piece he quoted from Wikipedia no longer is there, as the article he links to has been updated, ammended and combined with other articles.
M. Kursner confirms Balthazar's theory that the mobilization of Belgium on the 3rd of September 1939 (and thus Hergé's period of active service) brought the series to a halt.
From
other reading on Wikipedia, I see that,
"From 1940 to 1942, Cœurs Vaillants
was prohibited in the Zone occupée (Occupied Zone)", so that would have put an end to it all anyway, as even if Hergé had waanted to continue with it after he demobbed, he would have lost the ability to have it appear in
Cœurs Vaillants.
Also interesting is a follow up message to the post quoted from the old Casterman forum, from Étienne Pollet, (grandson of publisher Louis Casterman, no less, and a trusted and respected Tintinologist) which talks about how much he would like the
Cœurs Vaillants pages to be reprinted. However, he points out some very prctical obstacles - firstly, the square format used would hamper inclusion in any collection that had to accomodate art of a different size, and secondly, the number of survivng issues is much smaller than that of
Le Petit Vingtième, and the story ran on the cover, so was prone to damage, thus making good copies in a fine condition required for reprinting very difficult to source.