Read Ebook: Halima And The Scorpions 1905 by Hichens Robert

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HALIMA AND THE SCORPIONS

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

This personage one day blessed the hedgehog's foot I at present possess, and endowed it solemnly with miraculous curative properties. It would cure, he declared, all the physical ills that can beset a woman. Then he 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 a grinding 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 came into the possession of a dancing-girl of Touggourt, called Halima. How Halima got hold of it I cannot say, nor does anyone in Touggourt exactly know, 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 to disport themselves in Paris sometimes hie them incognito to the "Caf? de la Sorci?re," so do Aghas flit occasionally to Touggourt, and appear upon the high benches of the great dancing-house of the Ouled Nails in the outskirts of the city. And Halima was young and beautiful. Her eyes were large, and she wore a golden crown ornamented with very tall feathers. And she danced the dance of the hands and the dance of the fainting fit with great perfection. And the wives of Aghas have to put up with a good deal. However it was, one evening Halima danced with the hedgehog'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 the foreigners, of the freed negroes, and of the citizens proper, it was known that the hedgehog's foot had been blessed and endowed with magical powers by the mighty marabout of Tamacine.

Halima herself affirmed it, standing at the front door of her terraced dwelling in the court, while the other dancers gathered round, looking like a troop of macaws in their feathers and their finery. With a brazen pride she boasted that she possessed something worth more than uncut rubies, carpets from Bagdad, and silken petticoats sewn with sequins. And the Ouled Na?ls could not gainsay her. Indeed, they turned their huge, kohl-tinted eyes upon the relic with envy, and stretched their painted hands towards it as if to a god in prayer. But Halima would let no one touch it, and presently, taking from her bosom her immense door key, she retired to enshrine the foot in her box, studded with huge brass nails, such as stands by each dancer's bed.

And the scandal was very great in the city that such a precious thing should be between the hands of an Ouled Na?l, a girl of no repute, come thither in a palanquin on camel-back to earn her dowry, and who would depart into the sands of the south, laden with the gold wrung from the pockets of loose livers.

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

"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 deep refrain of "Wur-ra-Wurra!" and Larbi, in his Zouave jacket and his tight, pleated skirt, threw back his small head, exposing his long brown throat, 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," he murmured. "Ben Ali Tidjani's blessing could never rest on an Ouled Na?l, who, like a little viper of the sand, has stolen into the Agha's bosom, and filled his veins with subtle poison. She deems she has a treasure; but let her beware: that which would protect a woman who wears the veil will do naught for a creature who shows her face to the stranger, and dances by night for the Zouaves and for the Spahis who patrol the dunes."

And he struck his long fingers upon the goatskin of his instrument, while Kou?dah, the boy who played upon the little glasses and shook the tambourine of reeds, slipped forth to tell in the city what Ben-Abid had spoken.

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

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

Now, in Touggourt gossip is carried from house to house, as the sand grains are carried on the wind. Within an hour Ben-Abid heard that his grandmother had been cursed, and himself called son of a scorpion, by Halima. Kou?dah, the boy, ran on naked feet to tell him in the caf? of the hashish smokers. When he heard he smiled.

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

And Kou?dah, the boy, ran back across the camel market to tell in the court 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-fitting jerseys 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 to summon the mob to watch their antics; and the story-tellers put on their glasses, and sat them down at their boards between the candles; Ben-Abid went forth secretly from the hashish caf? wrapped in his burnous. He sought out in the quarter of the freed negroes a certain man called Sadok, who dwelt alone.

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

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

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

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

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

"The money! The money!" he shrieked.

But Ben-Abid shrank back, shuddering.

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

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

Already the pipers were playing, and many were assembled to see the women dance; but Ben-Abid and Sadok pushed through the throng, and passed across the caf? to the inner court, which is open to the air, and surrounded with earthen terraces on which, in tiers, open the rooms of the dancers, each with its own front door. This court is as a mighty rabbit warren, peopled with women instead of rabbits. Pale lights gleamed in many doorways, for the dancers were dressing and painting themselves for the dances of the body, of the hands, of the poignard, and of the handkerchief. Their shrill voices cried one to another, their heavy bracelets and necklets jingled, and the monstrous shadows of their crowned and feathered heads leaped and wavered on the yellow patches of light that lay before their doors.

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

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

"It is Ben-Abid!" went up the cry of many voices. "It is Ben-Abid, who laughs to scorn the power of the hedgehog's foot. It is the son of the camel with the swollen tongue. Halima, Halima, the child of the scorpion calls thee!"

Kou?dah, the boy, who was ever about, ran barefoot from the court into the caf? to tell of the doings of Ben-Abid, and in a moment the people crowded in, Zouaves and Spahis, Arabs and negroes, nomads from the south, 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 two scarlet handkerchiefs in her hands, and with the hedgehog's foot dangling from her girdle of thin gold, studded with turquoises.

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

"Thou hast called me the son of a scorpion, Halima," he said, in a 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."

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