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Updated: May 20, 2025
"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 café 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.
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.
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 café 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.
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.
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.
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.
Ben-Abid belonged to the Tribu des blancs, and was the singer attached to the café of the smokers of the hashish. He it was who struck each evening a guitar made of goatskin backed by sand tortoise, and lifted up his 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.
Halima turned about, and went slowly in at her lighted doorway, followed by Irena and Boria. The heavy door of palm was shut behind them. The light was hidden. There was a great silence. It was broken by Sadok's voice screaming in his beard to Ben-Abid, "My money! Give me my money!" He snatched it with a howl, and went capering forth into the darkness.
"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.
"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 murmur, like the growl of the tide upon a shingly beach, arose once more from the crowd.
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