Sting of the Scorpion Read Online Free PDF

collecting dead palm fronds and dry grass.
    “Look what I’ve found,” shouted Karoya. She picked up a dead branch that had fallen from one of the tamarisk trees. “We’ll be able to have a good fire tonight.”
    Wood was very precious in Egypt and they wouldn’t have dreamt of wasting it in a fire normally, but out in the desert it didn’t seem to matter.
    Karoya arranged some stones to make a fireplace. She laid a pile of grass and palm leaves in the fireplace and then she got out her fire-making tools. These consisted of three pieces of wood: a flat stick with a well dug into it, a smooth rod and a stick with a length of gut tied at each end like a small bow. She wrapped the string of the bow around the rod and placed the end of the rod in the well in the flat stick. Then she started pulling the bow back and forth so that the upright stick twirled at great speed. Hapu laid small pieces of dry grass near the well, waiting for the wood to get hot enough to burn the grass. Ramose picked up the dead tree branch and broke it across his knee. The crack echoed in the silence. A shrill sound suddenly came out of the trees.
    “Eigh! Eigh! Eigh!”
    The friends all spun round. Hapu screamed in terror. A small dark creature, covered from head to toe in black rags, appeared from among the trees. It was wielding a heavy stick. The creature ran straight at Ramose, knocked him to the ground and started hitting him with the stick.
    “It’s a demon,” yelled Hapu.
    Karoya rushed at the demon, trying to rescue her friend.
    “Stop!” she shouted.
    The creature turned with a whirl of tattered rags and set upon Karoya, scratching her with long, curved claws and growling like a tiger. Ramose jumped to his feet and grabbed the demon, pinning its arms behind its back. He was surprised at how easy it was. The creature’s arms were thin and frail. He pulled back the black rags wrapped around its head to get a better look at their attacker. To his surprise, he discovered it was an old woman—an ancient woman. She had a tangle of grey hair, milky-white eyes and a dark-brown face that was wrinkled like an old leather bag. She screamed out horrible sounds and feebly tried to escape from Ramose’s grasp.
    “It must be the spirit of someone who died in the desert,” said Hapu, looking at her fearfully.
    “I don’t think spirits can bash people,” said Ramose, rubbing the bump on his head.
    “Where did she come from?” asked Karoya, peering around in the growing darkness. “There’s no one else here.”
    “Where are your people?” Ramose asked the old woman. “Where are you from?”
    The woman didn’t seem to understand him. Hapu waved his hand in front of her eyes.
    “I think she’s blind,” he said.
    “I’ll keep an eye on her,” said Ramose. “You two see if you can find something to eat.”
    Since their last meal with the nomads two days before, they’d had nothing to eat but a few dried dates.
    “Hapu, can you climb up one of these palms and get some dates?”
    Hapu nodded and started to climb a date palm.
    “Dates,” said the old woman in an angry voice. “My dates.”
    The three friends stared at the wrinkled face. She had spoken in Egyptian.
    “We’re hungry,” said Karoya slowly. “Very hungry.”
    The old woman’s brow wrinkled even more than it was already. She reached up and touched Karoya’s face.
    “Children!” she exclaimed. She spoke with a heavy accent, and the word came slowly as if she was searching in a part of her mind she hadn’t used for a long time. “Come!” she said. “Come!”
    The woman led Karoya by the hand. It was almost dark now, but the old woman walked confidently through the trees as if it were broad daylight. Ramose and Hapu looked at each other, and then followed her.
    “I thought she was blind,” whispered Hapu.
    “She is, but she must know the oasis very well.”
    The woman led them away from the pool and through the grove of trees to a rocky outcrop. There was a