A battle between two scorpions would commence with much active skirmishing on both sides, each seeking to fasten its claws on the other.
Whenever one of the reptiles succeeded in getting a fair grip, its adversary would exhibit every disposition to surrender, apparently begging for its life. But all to no purpose, as no quarter would be given.
The champion would inflict the fatal sting; and the unfortunate individual receiving it would expire upon the instant.
After all the scorpions had been killed, except one, the Krooman himself finished the survivor with a blow of his stick.
When rebuked by Harry, for what the young Englishman regarded as an act of wanton cruelty, he answered that “it was the duty of every man to kill scorpions.”
In the afternoon the kafila reached a place called the Jews’ Leap. It was a narrow path along the side of a mountain, the base of which was washed by the sea.
The path was about half a mile long and not more than four or five feet broad. The right-hand side was bounded by a wall of rocks, in some places perpendicular and rising to a height of several hundred feet.
On the left-hand side was the Atlantic Ocean, about four hundred feet below the level of the path.
There was no hope for any one who should fall from this path—no hope but heaven.
Not a bush, tree, or any obstacle was seen to offer the slightest resistance to the downward course of a falling body.