Halima And The Scorpions | Page 4

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 once more with the cord.
Halima did not move, but she looked upon the scorpion that was black, and her red lips trembled. Then she closed her hand upon the hedgehog's foot that hung from her golden girdle, and shut her eyes beneath her ebon eyebrows.
"Set my brothers upon her!" said Ben-Abid.
The plunger of the wells sprang upon Halima, opened her scarlet bodice roughly, plunged his claw into her swelling bosom, and withdrew it--empty.
"Kiss her close, my brothers!" whispered Ben-Abid.
A long