For so she called them in her mind, realising that there were religious fanatics whose half-crazy devotion seemed to lift them above the ordinary dangers to the body.  One of the musicians now took his turn, throwing his tomtom to the eater of glass, who had wakened from his trance.  He bowed and leaped; thrust spikes behind his eyes, through his cheeks, his lips, his arms; drove a long nail into his head with a wooden hammer; stood upon the sharp edge of an upturned sword blade.  With the spikes protruding from his face in all directions, and his eyes bulging out from them like balls, he spun in a maze of hair, barking like a dog.  The child regarded him with a still attention, and the incense fumes were cloudy in the court.  Then the last of the four men sprang up in the midst of a more passionate uproar from the tomtoms.  He wore a filthy burnous, and, with a shriek, he plunged his hand into its hood and threw some squirming things upon the floor.  They began to run, rearing stiff tails into the air.  He sank down, blew upon them, caught them, letting them set their tail weapons in his fingers, and lifting them thus, imbedded, high above the floor.  Then again he put them down, breathed upon each one, drew a circle round each with his forefinger.  His face had suddenly become intense, hypnotic.  The scorpions, as if mesmerised, remained utterly still, each in its place within its imaginary circle, that had become a cage; and their master bowed to the fetish of the tomtoms, leaped, grinned, and bowed again, undulating his body in a maze of hair.

Domini felt as if she, like the scorpions, had been mesmerised.  She, too, was surely bound in a circle, breathed upon by some arrogant breath of fanaticism, commanded by some horrid power.  She looked at the scorpions and felt a sort of pity for them.  From time to time the bowing fanatic glanced at them through his hair out of the corners of his eyes, licked his lips, shook his shoulders, and uttered a long howl, thrilling with the note of greed.  The tomtoms pulsed faster and faster, louder and louder, and all the men began to sing a fierce chant, the song surely of desert souls driven crazy by religion.  One of the scorpions moved slightly, reared its tail, began to run.  Instantly, as if at a signal, the dancer fell upon his knees, bent down his head, seized it in his teeth, munched it and swallowed it.  At the same moment with the uproar of the tomtoms there mingled a loud knocking on the door.

Hadj’s lips curled back from his pointed teeth and he looked dangerous.

“It is Batouch!” he snarled.

Domini got up.  Without a word, turning her back upon the court, she made her way out, still hearing the howl of the scorpion-eater, the roar of the tomtoms, and the knocking on the door.  Hadj followed her quickly, protesting.  At the door was the man with the pitted white face and the thick lips.  When he saw her he held out his hand.  She gave him some money, he opened the door, and she came out into the night by the triple palm tree.  Batouch stood there looking furious, with the bridles of two horses across his arm.  He began to speak in Arabic to Hadj, but she stopped him with an imperious gesture, gave Hadj his fee, and in a moment was in the saddle and cantering away into the dark.  She heard the gallop of Batouch’s horse coming up behind her and turned her head.