m 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.

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

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. Kouidah, the boy, ran on naked feet to tell him in the cafe 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 Kouidah, 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 cafe 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. Onl