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. 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!” Kouïdah, the boy, who was ever about, ran barefoot from the court into the café 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.