Chapter Twenty Seven. The Origin of the Vendetta.

There are few institutions or customs more difficult for the Anglo-Saxon to understand than the vendetta, or blood feud. Southern blood and gipsy blood are hot, fierce, and passionate to an extent inconceivable to those of the north. The “dour” Scotchman may be vindictive, but he is not guilty of the vendetta, which pursues its revenge for an injury or insult through the generations, until one or other of the parties has completed the vengeance. The cause of the vendetta is frequently slight, and it is safe to assert that women are frequently the prime cause of the “blood feud.”

That Raife Remington should have been pursued by the malevolent Malsano on account of an indiscretion of his father in his youthful days, would seem incredible to the northerner living in these enlightened days.

By an extraordinary coincidence, the causes that led to the series of calamities that destroyed the career of the handsome and otherwise brilliant young baronet, dated from a visit paid by his father to Egypt, the land of antiquity and mystery.

Raife’s father, Sir Henry Remington, in the days of his youth, paid a visit, with his college friend, Mr Mountjoy, to Egypt. They were the wild, joyous days of youth, and adventure took them at night to a section of Alexandria, which, at that time, was dangerous to strangers. There remain to-day in most southern and eastern towns and cities, certain quarters where the hated “feringhee” or foreigner, can only intrude with grave risk to himself.

In a house of questionable repute, Sir Henry and Mr Mountjoy encountered an Oriental girl. With the impetuosity of youth, Sir Henry was immediately enamoured of this beautiful gipsy, with the large, oval, lustrous eyes, the olive skin tinged with a colour that alternated between a rosy pink, and a flush of scarlet.

Seated apart in the reeking apartment, lit by oil lamps, where a midnight entertainment was in full swing, this lovely gipsy and young Sir Henry courted one another with the play of eyes instead of words, for neither could understand the language of the other. The sensuous beauty of the girl enthralled the young English aristocrat, and the blood in his veins, already heated by the unwonted liquors that he had consumed, coursed rapidly. The girl’s responsive glances told him plainly that his advances were not unwelcome. Around the girl’s neck was a silver chain of fine and delicate workmanship. Attached to the chain was a small Egyptian charm, in the form of a statuette of the goddess Isis, wearing on her head the royal sign, the orb of the sun, supported by cobras on either side. On the back, from head to foot, were inscribed the tiny hieroglyphics, which recorded certain cryptic words associated with the worship of that mythical deity of thousands of years ago. Sir Henry noticed the trinket, and, raising it in his hands, examined it. The gipsy snatched it away with angry gesture, a fierce light entering her large oval eyes, whilst the rosy pink that had suffused her olive cheeks swelled to the flush of scarlet that betrayed her savage nature.

The azure blue of a young, handsome Anglo-Saxon’s eyes, that look steadfastly, fearlessly, yet passionately, into the dark and sparkling depths of an untutored gipsy girl, are a proper antidote to that girl’s flash of anger. Sir Henry gazed at her, and the girl’s eyes fell beneath his searching, passionate gaze.

With an impulse, as rapid as was her sudden rage, she took the chain and charm from her neck, and, with a motion signifying secrecy, handed it to him. Sir Henry kissed it, and, in doing so, kissed her hand.

At intervals around this central, circular apartment, were several doorways, covered by rich and heavy curtains, of that rare oriental colour, which our manufacturers strive, with mixed success, to imitate, at prices that suit the varying purses of a bank clerk or a greengrocer, a stockbroker or an art student.

Before each doorway stood two huge Nubian Arabs, robed in kaftans of yellow ochre-coloured silk, and wearing fezes of that deep, luscious red, the colour of which does not find a name in the student’s paint box. The dark skins of their countenances were marked by the long slashes, which formed the cicatrices on each left cheek, and denoted their tribal marks. Scarlet slippers contrasted vividly with the dark brown of their huge sinewy legs. Stolidly and impassively they stood sentinels at these doorways, which led to passages, open to the sky between high walls of mud and plaster, above which the stars twinkled brilliantly in the deep-blue unfathomable vault above. The illimitable space, and all that is unknown of eternity, suggested that these stars were a countless myriad of eyes, looking down on this weird collection of humanity.

Gambling in various forms was one of the allurements of the place, whilst music, more or less barbaric, and Oriental dancing added to the supposed attractions. The whole scene would appear as a page from the Arabian Nights, with the added incongruity of a few people in European costume.

At one of these doorways appeared a tall, swarthy woman, of lighter colour than any of these Arabs, yet betraying her southern blood. She was accompanied by a weak but good-looking young man, and a tall, dark man, with extraordinary eyes and a sinister appearance. The woman nudged the sinister man, and both saw Sir Henry kiss the girl’s hand. The trio crossed the apartment, and the woman seized the gipsy girl roughly by the hair, and hauled her through one of the doorways, whilst the two dusky Nubians held the curtains aside. The hitherto impassive blacks momentarily relapsed, and their stolid faces were lightened by a broad smile, revealing glittering white teeth, and their yellowish white eyeballs rolled in a fiendish manner.

Who shall say what was the fate of the beautiful gipsy girl, who had lightly parted with the treasured talisman of the goddess Isis to the blue-eyed and fair-haired English aristocrat? The English were at that time, in Egypt, the most hated of all feringhees.

Thus, in a gay and innocent spirit of youthful courtship, commenced the feud, the vendetta, that was to lead to such a tragic influence on two generations of the “Reymingtounes.”

From this apparently trivial incident there followed the events that led to the murder of Sir Henry, and the degradation of his son, pursued and attacked by the unrelenting hatred of the denizens of this Oriental inferno.

In harsh but cultured tones, with a slight foreign accent, the sinister man said to Sir Henry:

“Return to me, at once, the charm that young woman handed to you.”

Sir Henry reclined on the richly-covered divan among the silken cushions, and leisurely surveyed the two men who confronted him. Slowly, and with the aggravated drawl of the period, he said: “By what right do you make that request?”

The retort came fiercely.

“Give me the charm at once, or it will be the worse for you, sir.”

“I shall do nothing of the kind,” and, rising from the divan, Sir Henry displayed the full six feet of his athletic frame, asking: “What do you propose to do?”

With an oath, the sinister man with the weird eyes, muttered: “Sacré! These Englishmen, with all their arrogant pride, are curs!”

He said no more for a while, for Sir Henry’s straight left shot between those mysterious eyes and the sinister man fell back on the floor senseless. The debauched but still good-looking Englishman exclaimed weakly: “Oh, I say! That won’t do, you know.”

Two of the Nubians rushed from their sentinel posts, and a white-bearded old Arab, who appeared to spring from nowhere, gesticulated wildly. Sir Henry was seized from behind—but for the briefest while.

The art of boxing may be world-wide in its present application, but the English taught the world this and many other sports. At the period under consideration offence and defence were mostly conducted with lethal weapons. The rapidity of a straight left, followed by a swift upper cut, therefore had its advantage at the outset of a contest. Two burly Nubians lay sprawling, from the process, over the body of the sinister white man. The debauched Englishman, knowing more of the game, and realising his own incapacity against this young giant, skirmished at a safe distance in the rear.

The game was too hot to last long, for “the English arrogant pride” to which the sinister white man had alluded, would not allow Sir Henry to run away. Instead, he drawled: “Are there any more?”

Yes, indeed, there were many more, and this time he was more securely seized, and the struggle appeared hopeless. These Orientals and debauched Europeans hunted in packs. An Englishman on a spree needs only a companion to join in the fun, and does not want a bodyguard.

Sir Henry was tiring, and almost overpowered, when the thought of his chum, Mountjoy, flashed through the brain that lay behind his bruised and half-battered head. For the first time in that inferno, there rose from lusty lungs, a hearty “Yoicks! Tally ho?” the musical call of the English hunting field.

The effect was immediate. Through one of those curtained doorways, past a Nubian who had been left in charge by those more actively engaged in the fray, there rushed a whirling ball of lithe humanity, charging for his goal as he had never charged before on the Rugby football field.

It was Mountjoy, late half-back of his school—Marlborough.

Staggered by the impetus of this fierce and sudden onslaught, the Nubians relaxed their hold on Sir Henry for a moment. “Back to back, Harry,” called Mountjoy. “Now, then, both together! There may be some more of our fellows here!”

Then their two voices rose in approximate unison, “Yoicks! Tally ho!” and the unequal fight began again.

At this period the tactics of boxing were unfamiliar and quite disconcerting for a while.

“Make for the door, Harry,” shouted Mountjoy, and bit by bit they reached the exit, as, in response to a “view hallo” two more Englishmen rushed through to the rescue.

The mixed gang of Arabs, Nubians, and European scallawags did not want to kill at first, but these reinforcements of hated “Ingleesi” struck panic into them, and, in a flash, four or five knives were buried into these last two men, who had so bravely responded to the call of their countrymen in these hideous surroundings.

During the lull, Sir Henry and Mountjoy staggered through the exit, and fell to the ground unconscious, some distance away from the scene, to which they had been lured from their hotel by a wily denizen of the quarter—“to see some fun.” As they lay there, safe from further molestation from the satellites of the “casino,” for these people did not pursue their victims beyond their own portals, a lithe figure crept stealthily up to them. It was Thomas Tempest, the father of Gilda, the man who had skirmished safely in the rear during the fierce fight. Bending over Sir Henry, he felt in his pockets and extracted the talisman of the goddess Isis. He would have taken more, but footsteps on the plank walk scared him, and he faded away into the darkness.

The man with the weird eyes, whom Sir Henry had knocked senseless, was Doctor Malsano, then in early middle age. The gipsy girl was his daughter, and the gipsy woman was his wife. Gilda Tempest had no relationship to him. Her father, Thomas Tempest, had fallen low in the social scale, and was entirely under the influence and control of Malsano, who utilised his services for his own ends and profit. He proved to be the means of carrying out the first portion of the vendetta, by shooting Sir Henry at the time of the burglary at Aldborough Park. The bitterness of the feud was increased by the youthful folly of Sir Henry, who, in a spirit of devilment, and with the aid of a native, succeeded in meeting the gipsy girl again. The gipsy mother discovered them, and there was a frenzied scene of rage, the woman cursing the young man with all the fierceness of her race.

Sir Henry treated the matter lightly, until, years afterwards, he was made aware of the fact that the incident had not closed, and that vengeance was on his track. The woman, on her death-bed, had extracted a willing vow from her husband, Malsano, that he would continue the vendetta to the bitter end.

The tortuous workings of the mind of this abnormal man led him to carry out his purpose in his own strange way. In his fiendish efforts, he had dragged down a girl, Gilda Tempest, the daughter of another victim of his criminal nature. Noble by nature, and beautiful by disposition, this handsome young woman was doomed to a life of degradation and crime. Her last act was to sacrifice her life for the man she loved with the strange passion of a warm nature.