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: "Sacre! 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.