The Equinox (Volume I, Number VI)

THE SCORPION THE CHILD. You are ugly, you black creature! LEDMIYA. Oh ! Oh I [She runs to LAYLAH and hides in thefolds ofher dress. LAYLAH What now? LEDMIYA. They are bringing in a corpse. LAYLAH. Oh my God—if Achmet lied! [The a’oor opens The corpse of SIDI OMAR is brought in by six eunuehs.] Ah 1 [Shegoes down hall] Lay him there Ι [She rena’s her weil,] Sidi Omar, these twenty years have I been wedded to thee and thou hast not known my heart! Leave me, that I may bewail him as is fitting. [All deþort but FATMA and LEDMIYA and the PIPE-SLAVES with their þrisonerj Fatma, do thou lament. I await tidings of the battle. Is there sign of a messenger? [FATMA goes to corpse ana’ mutter: over it. LEDMIYA [ut window]. There are many that make hither. Some bear the dead away—two, three, five, eight, oh 50 many! Some ride weary or wounded . . . LAYLAH. Some ride like messengers? LEDMIYA. No. Yes, one. Nο, he has fallen from his horse, and lies still, [Wailing without. LAYLAH. Go, bid those fools be quiet. Is there not enough woe in this house but that their shrieks should edge it? [LEDMIYA goes out. The waiting stoþs. Then suddenly it begins again more loudly thun before. FATMA. More death! More misery! [LEDMIYA returns, and goes again to window. 89