His thoughts, his emotions, his passions, all were exaggerated andmonstrous. He talked, or rather roared, with such energy thatothers could but sit and listen, cowed with the mighty stream ofwords. His eyes blazed at you and held you at his mercy. He was aterrible and wonderful man. I thank God that he is dead!
“He came again and again. Yet I was aware that Gennaro wasno more happy than I was in his presence. My poor husbandwould sit pale and listless, listening to the endless raving uponpolitics and upon social questions which made up our visitor’sconversation. Gennaro said nothing, but I, who knew him so well,could read in his face some emotion which I had never seen therebefore. At first I thought that it was dislike. And then, gradually,I understood that it was more than dislike. It was fear—a deep,secret, shrinking fear. That night—the night that I read histerror—I put my arms round him and I implored him by his lovefor me and by all that he held dear to hold nothing from me, andto tell me why this huge man overshadowed him so.
“He told me, and my own heart grew cold as ice as I listened.
My poor Gennaro, in his wild and fiery days, when all the worldseemed against him and his mind was driven half mad by theinjustices of life, had joined a Neapolitan society, the Red Circle,which was allied to the old Carbonari. The oaths and secrets ofthis brotherhood were frightful, but once within its rule no escapewas possible. When we had fled to America Gennaro thought thathe had cast it all off forever. What was his horror one evening tomeet in the streets the very man who had initiated him in Naples,the giant Gorgiano, a man who had earned the name of ‘Death’
in the south of Italy, for he was red to the elbow in murder! Hehad come to New York to avoid the Italian police, and he hadalready planted a branch of this dreadful society in his new home.
All this Gennaro told me and showed me a summons which hehad received that very day, a Red Circle drawn upon the head ofit telling him that a lodge would be held upon a certain date, andthat his presence at it was required and ordered.
“That was bad enough, but worse was to come. I had noticed forsome time that when Gorgiano came to us, as he constantly did,in the evening, he spoke much to me; and even when his wordswere to my husband those terrible, glaring, wild-beast eyes of hiswere always turned upon me. One night his secret came out. I hadawakened what he called ‘love’ within him—the love of a brute—asavage. Gennaro had not yet returned when he came. He pushedhis way in, seized me in his mighty arms, hugged me in his bear’sembrace, covered me with kisses, and implored me to come awaywith him. I was struggling and screaming when Gennaro enteredand attacked him. He struck Gennaro senseless and fled from thehouse which he was never more to enter. It was a deadly enemythat we made that night.
“A few days later came the meeting. Gennaro returned from itwith a face which told me that something dreadful had occurred.
It was worse than we could have imagined possible. The fundsof the society were raised by blackmailing rich Italians andthreatening them with violence should they refuse the money.
It seems that Castalotte, our dear friend and benefactor, hadbeen approached. He had refused to yield to threats, and he hadhanded the notices to the police. It was resolved now that suchan example should be made of them as would prevent any othervictim from rebelling. At the meeting it was arranged that he andhis house should be blown up with dynamite. There was a drawingof lots as to who should carry out the deed. Gennaro saw ourenemy’s cruel face smiling at him as he dipped his hand in the bag.
No doubt it had been prearranged in some fashion, for it was thefatal disc with the Red Circle upon it, the mandate for murder,which lay upon his palm. He was to kill his best friend, or he wasto expose himself and me to the vengeance of his comrades. It waspart of their fiendish system to punish those whom they feared orhated by injuring not only their own persons but those whom theyloved, and it was the knowledge of this which hung as a terrorover my poor Gennaro’s head and drove him nearly crazy withapprehension.
“All that night we sat together, our arms round each other, eachstrengthening each for the troubles that lay before us. The very nextevening had been fixed for the attempt. By midday my husbandand I were on our way to London, but not before he had givenour benefactor full warning of his danger, and had also left suchinformation for the police as would safeguard his life for the future.
“The rest, gentlemen, you know for yourselves. We were surethat our enemies would be behind us like our own shadows.
Gorgiano had his private reasons for vengeance, but in any casewe knew how ruthless, cunning, and untiring he could be. BothItaly and America are full of stories of his dreadful powers. Ifever they were exerted it would be now. My darling made use ofthe few clear days which our start had given us in arranging fora refuge for me in such a fashion that no possible danger couldreach me. For his own part, he wished to be free that he mightcommunicate both with the American and with the Italian police.
I do not myself know where he lived, or how. All that I learnedwas through the columns of a newspaper. But once as I lookedthrough my window, I saw two Italians watching the house, and Iunderstood that in some way Gorgiano had found out our retreat.
Finally Gennaro told me, through the paper, that he would signalto me from a certain window, but when the signals came they werenothing but warnings, which were suddenly interrupted. It is veryclear to me now that he knew Gorgiano to be close upon him,and that, thank God! he was ready for him when he came. Andnow, gentleman, I would ask you whether we have anything to fearfrom the law, or whether any judge upon earth would condemn myGennaro for what he has done?”