HALIMA AND THE SCORPIONS

By Robert Hichens

Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers

Copyright, 1905

In travelling about the world one collects a number of those trifles ofall sorts, usually named "curiosities, " many of them worthless if itwere not for the memories they recall. The other day I was clearing outa bureau before going abroad, and in one of the drawers I came across ahedgehog's foot, set in silver, and hung upon a tarnished silver chain. I picked it up in the Sahara, and here is its history. 

*****

Mohammed El Aïd Ben Ali Tidjani, marabout of Tamacine, is a great man inthe Sahara Desert. His reputation for piety reaches as far as Tunisand Algiers, to the north of Africa, and to the uttermost parts of theSouthern Desert, even to the land of the Touaregs. He dwells in a sacredvillage of dried mud and brick, surrounded by a high wall, pierced withloopholes, and ornamented with gates made of palm wood, and covered withsheets of iron. In his mansion, above the entrance of which is written"L'Entrée de Sidi Laïd, " are clocks innumerable, musical boxes, tables, chairs, sofas, and even framed photographs. Negro servants bow beforehim, wives, brothers, children, and obsequious hangers-on of variousnationalities, black, bronze, and _café au lait_ in colour, offer himperpetual incense. Rich worshippers of the Prophet and the Prophet'spriests send him presents from afar; camels laden with barley, donkeysstaggering beneath sacks of grain, ostrich plumes, silver ornaments, perfumes, red-eyed doves, gazelles whose tiny hoofs are decorated withgold-leaf or painted in bright colours. The tributes laid before thetomb of Cheikh Sidi El Hadj Ali ben Sidi El Hadj Aïssa are, doubtless, his perquisites as guardian of the saint. He dresses in silks of thetints of the autumn leaf, and carries in his mighty hand a staff hungwith apple-green ribbons. And his smile is as the smile of the risingsun in an oleograph. 

This personage one day blessed the hedgehog's foot I at present possess, and endowed it solemnly with miraculous curative properties. It wouldcure, he declared, all the physical ills that can beset a woman. Thenhe gave it into the hands of a great Agha, who was about to take a wife, accepted a tribute of dates, a grandfather's clock from Paris, and agrinding organ of Barbary as a small acknowledgment of his generosity, and probably thought very little more about the matter. 

Now, in the course of time, it happened that the hedgehog's foot cameinto the possession of a dancing-girl of Touggourt, called Halima. HowHalima got hold of it I cannot say, nor does anyone in Touggourt exactlyknow, so far as I am aware. But, alas! even Aghas are sometimes human, and play pitch and toss with magical things. As Grand Dukes who go todisport themselves in Paris sometimes hie them incognito to the "Caféde la Sorcière, " so do Aghas flit occasionally to Touggourt, and appearupon the high benches of the great dancing-house of the Ouled Nails inthe outskirts of the city. And Halima was young and beautiful. Hereyes were large, and she wore a golden crown ornamented with very tallfeathers. And she danced the dance of the hands and the dance of thefainting fit with great perfection. And the wives of Aghas have to putup with a good deal. However it was, one evening Halima danced with thehedgehog's foot that had been blessed dangling from her jewelled girdle. And there was a great scandal in the city. 

For in the four quarters of Touggourt, the quarter of the Jews, of theforeigners, of the freed negroes, and of the citizens proper, it wasknown that the hedgehog's foot had been blessed and endowed with magicalpowers by the mighty marabout of Tamacine. 

Halima herself affirmed it, standing at the front door of her terraceddwelling in the court, while the other dancers gathered round, lookinglike a troop of macaws in their feathers and their finery. With a brazenpride she boasted that she possessed something worth more than uncutrubies, carpets from Bagdad, and silken petticoats sewn with sequins. And the Ouled Naïls could not gainsay her. Indeed, they turned theirhuge, kohl-tinted eyes upon the relic with envy, and stretched theirpainted hands towards it as if to a god in prayer. But Halima would letno one touch it, and presently, taking from her bosom her immense doorkey, she retired to enshrine the foot in her box, studded with hugebrass nails, such as stands by each dancer's bed. 

And the scandal was very great in the city that such a precious thingshould be between the hands of an Ouled Naïl, a girl of no repute, comethither in a palanquin on camel-back to earn her dowry, and who woulddepart into the sands of the south, laden with the gold wrung from thepockets of loose livers. 

Only Ben-Abid smiled gently when he heard of the matter. 

Ben-Abid belonged to the _Tribu des blancs_, and was the singer attachedto the café of the smokers of the hashish. He it was who struck eachevening a guitar made of goatskin backed by sand tortoise, and lifted uphis voice in the song "Lalia":

 "Ladham Pacha who has left the heart of his enemies trembling-- O Lalia! O Lalia! The love of women is no more sweet to me after thy love. 

 Thy hand is white, and thy bracelets are of the purest silver-- And I, Ladham Pacha, love thee, without thought of what will come. O Lalia! O Lalia!"

The assembled smokers breathed out under the black ceiling their deeprefrain of "Wur-ra-Wurra!" and Larbi, in his Zouave jacket and histight, pleated skirt, threw back his small head, exposing his long brownthroat, and danced like a tired phantom in a dream. 

Ben-Abid smiled, showing two rows of lustrous teeth. 

"Should Halima fall ill, the foot will not avail to cure her, " hemurmured. "Ben Ali Tidjani's blessing could never rest on an OuledNaïl, who, like a little viper of the sand, has stolen into the Agha'sbosom, and filled his veins with subtle poison. She deems she has atreasure; but let her beware: that which would protect a woman whowears the veil will do naught for a creature who shows her face to thestranger, and dances by night for the Zouaves and for the Spahis whopatrol the dunes. "

And he struck his long fingers upon the goatskin of his instrument, while Kouïdah, the boy who played upon the little glasses and shook thetambourine of reeds, slipped forth to tell in the city what Ben-Abid hadspoken. 

Halima was enraged when she heard of it, more especially as there werefound many to believe Ben-Abid's words. She stood before her room uponthe terrace, where Zouaves were playing cards with the dancers inthe sun, and she cursed him in a shrill voice, calling him son of ascorpion, and requesting that Allah would send great troubles uponhis relations, even upon his aged grandmother. That the miraculousreputation of her treasure should be thus scouted, and herself insulted, vexed her to the soul. 

"Let the son of a camel with a swollen tongue dare to come to me andrepeat what he has said!" she cried. "Let him come out from his lair inthe café of the hashish smokers, and, as Allah is great, I will spitin his face. The reviler of women! The son of a scorpion! Cursed behis------"

And then once more she desired evil to the grandmother of Ben-Abid, andto all his family. And the Zouaves and the dancers laughed over theircard games. Indeed, the other dancers were merry, and not ill-pleasedwith Ben-Abid's words. For even in the Sahara the women do not care thatone of them should be exalted above the rest. 

Now, in Touggourt gossip is carried from house to house, as the sandgrains are carried on the wind. Within an hour Ben-Abid heard that hisgrandmother had been cursed, and himself called son of a scorpion, byHalima. Kouïdah, the boy, ran on naked feet to tell him in the café ofthe hashish smokers. When he heard he smiled. 

"To-night I will go to the dancing-house, and speak with Halima, " hemurmured. And then he plucked the guitar of goatskin that was ever inhis hands, and sang softly of the joys of Ladham Pacha, half closing hiseyes, and swaying his head from side to side. 

And Kouïdah, the boy, ran back across the camel market to tell in thecourt of the dancers the words of Ben-Abid. 

That night, when the nomads lit their brushwood fires in the market;when the Kabyle bakers, in their striped turbans and their close-fittingjerseys of yellow and of red, ran to and fro bearing the trays of flat, new-made loaves; when the dwarfs beat on the ground with their staffs tosummon the mob to watch their antics; and the story-tellers put on theirglasses, and sat them down at their boards between the candles; Ben-Abidwent forth secretly from the hashish café wrapped in his burnous. Hesought out in the quarter of the freed negroes a certain man calledSadok, who dwelt alone. 

This Sadok was lean as a spectre, and had a skin like parchment. He wasa renowned plunger in desert wells, and could remain beneath the water, men said, for a space of four minutes. But he could also do anotherthing. He could eat scorpions. And this he would do for a small sumof money. Only, during the fast of Ramadan, between the rising and thegoing down of the sun, so long as a white thread could be distinguishedfrom a black, he would not eat even a scorpion, because the tasting offood by day in that time is forbidden by the Prophet. 

When Ben-Abid struck on his door Sadok came forth, gibbering in histangled beard, and half naked. 

"Oh, brother!" said Ben-Abid. "Here is money if thou canst find me threescorpions. One of them must be a black scorpion. "

Sadok shot out his filthy claw, and there was fire in his eyes. ButBen-Abid's fingers closed round the money paper. 

"First thou must find the scorpions, and then thou must carry them withthee to the court of the dancers, walking at my side. For, as Allahlives, I will not touch them. Afterwards thou shalt have the money. "

Sadok's soul drew the shutters across his eyes. Then he led the way bytortuous alleys to an old and ruined wall of a _zgag_, in which therewere as many holes as there are in a honeycomb. Here, as he knew, the scorpions loved to sleep. Thrusting his fingers here and there hepresently drew forth three writhing reptiles. And one of them was black. He held them out, with a cry, to Ben-Abid. 

"The money! The money!" he shrieked. 

But Ben-Abid shrank back, shuddering. 

"Thou must bring them to the dancers' court. Hide them well in thygarments that none may see them. Then thou shalt have the money. "

Sadok hid the scorpions upon his shaven head beneath his turban, andthey went by the dunes and the lonely ways to the café of the dancers. 

Already the pipers were playing, and many were assembled to see thewomen dance; but Ben-Abid and Sadok pushed through the throng, andpassed across the café to the inner court, which is open to the air, andsurrounded with earthen terraces on which, in tiers, open the rooms ofthe dancers, each with its own front door. This court is as a mightyrabbit warren, peopled with women instead of rabbits. Pale lightsgleamed in many doorways, for the dancers were dressing and paintingthemselves for the dances of the body, of the hands, of the poignard, and of the handkerchief. Their shrill voices cried one to another, theirheavy bracelets and necklets jingled, and the monstrous shadows oftheir crowned and feathered heads leaped and wavered on the yellowpatches of light that lay before their doors. 

"Where is Halima?" cried Ben-Abid in a loud voice. "Let Halima comeforth and spit in my face!"

At the sound of his call many women ran to their doors, some halfdressed, some fully attired, like Jezebels of the great desert. 

"It is Ben-Abid!" went up the cry of many voices. "It is Ben-Abid, wholaughs to scorn the power of the hedgehog's foot. It is the son of thecamel with the swollen tongue. Halima, Halima, the child of the scorpioncalls thee!"

Kouïdah, the boy, who was ever about, ran barefoot from the court intothe café to tell of the doings of Ben-Abid, and in a moment the peoplecrowded in, Zouaves and Spahis, Arabs and negroes, nomads from thesouth, gipsies, jugglers, and Jews. There were, too, some from Tamacine, and these were of all the most intent. 

"Where is Halima?" went up the cry. "Where is Halima?"

"Who calls me?" exclaimed the voice of a girl. 

And Halima came out of her door on the first terrace at the left, splendidly dressed for the dance in scarlet and gold, carrying twoscarlet handkerchiefs in her hands, and with the hedgehog's footdangling from her girdle of thin gold, studded with turquoises. 

Ben-Abid stood below in the court with Sadok by his side. The crowdpressed about him from behind. 

"Thou hast called me the son of a scorpion, Halima, " he said, in a loudvoice. "Is it not true?"

"It is true, " she answered, with a venomous smile of hatred. "And thouhast said that the hedgehog's foot, blessed by the great maraboutof Tamacine, would avail naught against the deadly sickness of adancing-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 beneaththe terrace, staring up at the scarlet figure upon it. 

"If I am a liar thou canst not prove it!" cried Halima furiously. "Ispit upon thee! I spit upon thee!"

And she bent down her feathered head from the terrace and spatpassionately in his face. 

Ben-Abid only laughed aloud. 

"I can prove that I have spoken the truth, " he said. "But if I amindeed the son of a scorpion, as thou sayest, let my brothers speak forme. Let my brothers declare to all the Sahara that the truth is in mymouth. Sadok, remove thy turban!"

The plunger of the wells, with a frantic gesture, lifted his turban anddiscovered the three scorpions writhing upon his shaven head. Another, and longer, murmur went up from the crowd. But some shrank back andtrembled, for the desert Arabs are much afraid of scorpions, which causemany 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. Sleepto-night in thy room with these my brothers. Irena and Boria, the GoldenDate and the Lotus Flower, shall watch beside thee. Guard in thy hand, or in thy breast, the hedgehog's foot that thou sayest can preservefrom every ill. If, in the evening of to-morrow, thou dancest before thesoldiers, 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 theblessings 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 nofaith in the magic treasure that dangles at thy girdle. "

There was a moment of deep silence. Then, from the crowd burst forth thecry of many voices:

"Put it to the proof! Ben-Abid speaks well. Put it to the proof, and mayAllah 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, twitteringlaughter of her envious rivals. 

"She has no faith in the marabout!" squawked one, who had a nose like aneagle's beak. 

"She is a liar!" piped another, shaking out her silken petticoats as abird shakes out its plumes. 

And then the twitter of fierce laughter rose, shriek on shriek, and wasechoed 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 Saharait lurks--was awake. In that moment she was ready to die, to silencethe bitter laughter of her rivals. It sank away as Sadok grasped thescorpions in his filthy claw, and leaped, gibbering in his beard, uponthe terrace. 

"Wait!" cried Halima, as he came upon her, holding forth his handful ofwrithing poison. 

Her bosom heaved. Her lustrous eyes, heavy with kohl, shone like thoseof 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 fiftygolden coins? He is poor, though he speaks bravely. He is but a singerin the café of the smokers of the hashish, and cannot buy even a newgarment for the close of the feast of Ramadan. How, then, shall I knowthat the gold will hang from my breasts when to-morrow, at the fallingof the sun, I dance before the men of Toug--"

Ben-Abid put his hand beneath his burnous, and brought forth a bag tiedat 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, heldthe lights, and the desert men crowded about him with the eyes of wolvesthat are near to starving, he counted forth the money on the terrace atHalima's feet. And she gazed down at the glittering pieces as one thatgazes 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 tiedonce 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'sfoot that hung from her golden girdle, and shut her eyes beneath herebon eyebrows. 

"Set my brothers upon her!" said Ben-Abid. 

The plunger of the wells sprang upon Halima, opened her scarletbodice roughly, plunged his claw into her swelling bosom, and withdrewit--empty. 

"Kiss her close, my brothers!" whispered Ben-Abid. 

A long murmur, like the growl of the tide upon a shingly beach, aroseonce more from the crowd. Halima turned about, and went slowly in at herlighted doorway, followed by Irena and Boria. The heavy door of palm wasshut behind them. The light was hidden. There was a great silence. Itwas broken by Sadok's voice screaming in his beard to Ben-Abid, "Mymoney! Give me my money!"

He snatched it with a howl, and went capering forth into the darkness. 

*****

When the next night fell upon the desert there was a great crowdassembled in the café of the dancers. The pipers blew into their pipes, and swayed upon their haunches, turning their glittering eyes to andfro to see what man had a mind to press a piece of money upon their wellgreased foreheads. The dancers came and went, promenading arm in armupon the earthen floor, or leaping with hands outstretched and fingersfluttering. The Kabyle attendant slipped here and there with the coffeecups, and the wreaths of smoke curled lightly upward towards the woodenroof. 

But Halima came not through the open doorway holding the scarlethandkerchiefs above her head. 

And presently, late in the night, they laid her body in a palanquin, andset the palanquin upon a running camel, and, while the dancers shrilledtheir lament amid the sands, they bore her away into the darkness of thedunes towards the south and the tents of her own people. 

The jackals laughed as she went by. 

But the hedgehog's foot was left lying upon the floor of her chamber. Not one of the dancers would touch it. 

That night I was in the café, and, hearing of all these things fromKouïdah, the boy, I went into the court, and gathered up the trinketwhich had brought a woman to the great silence. Next day I rode onhorseback to Tamacine, asked to see the marabout and told him all thestory. 

He listened, smiling like the rising sun in an oleograph, and twistingin his huge hands, that were tinted with the henna, the staff with theapple-green ribbons. 

When I came to the end I said:

"O, holy marabout, tell me one thing. "

"Allah is just. I listen. "

"If the scorpions had slept with a veiled woman who held the hedgehog'sfoot, how would it have been? Would the woman have died or lived?"

The marabout did not answer. He looked at me calmly, as at a childwho asks questions about the mysteries of life which only the old canunderstand. 

"These things, " he said at length, "are hidden from the unbeliever. Youare a Roumi. How, then, should you learn such matters?"

"But even the Roumi----"

"In the desert there are mysteries, " continued the marabout, "whicheven the faithful must not seek to penetrate. "

"Then it is useless to----"

"It is very useless. It is as useless as to try to count the grains ofthe sand. "

I said no more. 

Mohammed El Aïd Ben Ali Tidjani smiled once more, and beckoned to anegro attendant, who ran with a musical box, one of the gifts of thefaithful. 

"This comes from Paris, " he said, with a spreading complacence. 

Then there was within the box a sounding click, and there stole forth atinkling of Auber's music to _Masaniello_, "Come o'er the moonlit sea!"