Halima And The Scorpions | Page 4

loud
voice. "Is it not true?"
"It is true," she answered, with a venomous smile of hatred. "And thou
hast said that the hedgehog's foot, blessed by the great marabout of
Tamacine, would avail naught against the deadly sickness of a
dancing-girl. Is it not true?"
"It is true," answered Ben-Abid.
"Thou art a liar!" cried Halima.
"And so art thou!" said Ben-Abid slowly.
A deep murmur rose from the crowd, which pressed more closely
beneath the terrace, staring up at the scarlet figure upon it.
"If I am a liar thou canst not prove it!" cried Halima furiously. "I spit
upon thee! I spit upon thee!"
And she bent down her feathered head from the terrace and spat
passionately in his face.
Ben-Abid only laughed aloud.

"I can prove that I have spoken the truth," he said. "But if I am indeed
the son of a scorpion, as thou sayest, let my brothers speak for me. Let
my brothers declare to all the Sahara that the truth is in my mouth.
Sadok, remove thy turban!"
The plunger of the wells, with a frantic gesture, lifted his turban and
discovered the three scorpions writhing upon his shaven head. Another,
and longer, murmur went up from the crowd. But some shrank back
and trembled, for the desert Arabs are much afraid of scorpions, which
cause many deaths in the Sahara.
"What is this?" cried Halima. "How can the scorpions speak for thee?"
"They shall speak well," said Ben-Abid. "Their voices cannot lie. Sleep
to-night in thy room with these my brothers. Irena and Boria, the
Golden Date and the Lotus Flower, shall watch beside thee. Guard in
thy hand, or in thy breast, the hedgehog's foot that thou sayest can
preserve from every ill. If, in the evening of to-morrow, thou dancest
before the soldiers, I will give thee fifty golden coins. But, if thou
dancest not, the city shall know whether Ben-Abid is a truth-teller, and
whether the blessings of the great marabout can rest upon such a
woman as thou art. If thou refusest thou art afraid, and thy fear proveth
that thou hast no faith in the magic treasure that dangles at thy girdle."
There was a moment of deep silence. Then, from the crowd burst forth
the cry of many voices:
"Put it to the proof! Ben-Abid speaks well. Put it to the proof, and may
Allah judge between them."
Beneath the caked pigments on her face Halima had gone pale.
"I will not," she began.
But the cries rose up again, and with them the shrill, twittering laughter
of her envious rivals.
"She has no faith in the marabout!" squawked one, who had a nose like

an eagle's beak.
"She is a liar!" piped another, shaking out her silken petticoats as a bird
shakes out its plumes.
And then the twitter of fierce laughter rose, shriek on shriek, and was
echoed more deeply by the crowd of watching men.
"Give me the scorpions!" cried Halima passionately. "I am not afraid!"
Her desert blood was up. Her fatalism--even in the women of the
Sahara it lurks--was awake. In that moment she was ready to die, to
silence the bitter laughter of her rivals. It sank away as Sadok grasped
the scorpions in his filthy claw, and leaped, gibbering in his beard,
upon the terrace.
"Wait!" cried Halima, as he came upon her, holding forth his handful of
writhing poison.
Her bosom heaved. Her lustrous eyes, heavy with kohl, shone like
those of a beast at bay.
Sadok stood still, with his naked arm outstretched.
"How shall I know that the son of a scorpion will pay me the fifty
golden coins? He is poor, though he speaks bravely. He is but a singer
in the café of the smokers of the hashish, and cannot buy even a new
garment for the close of the feast of Ramadan. How, then, shall I know
that the gold will hang from my breasts when to-morrow, at the falling
of the sun, I dance before the men of Toug--"
Ben-Abid put his hand beneath his burnous, and brought forth a bag
tied at the mouth with cord.
"They are here!" he said.
"The Jews! He has been to the Jews!" cried the desert men.
"Bring a lamp!" said Ben-Abid.

And while Irena and Boria, the Golden Date and the Lotus Flower, held
the lights, and the desert men crowded about him with the eyes of
wolves that are near to starving, he counted forth the money on the
terrace at Halima's feet. And she gazed down at the glittering pieces as
one that gazes upon a black fate.
"And now set my brothers upon the maiden," Ben-Abid said to Sadok,
gathering up the money, and casting it again into the bag, which he tied