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.
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