And he raised his red cap with so charming a candor that in my lonely and morose condition I was touched to the heart.  Silently I extended my hand—­he caught it with an air in which respect, sympathy, and entire friendliness were mingled.  And yet he overcharged me for my passage, you exclaim!  Ay—­but he would not have made me the object of impertinent curiosity for twenty times the money!  You cannot understand the existence of such conflicting elements in the Italian character?  No—­I dare say not.  The tendency of the calculating northerner under the same circumstances would have been to make as much out of me as possible by means of various small and contemptible items, and then to go with broadly honest countenance to the nearest police-station and describe my suspicious appearance and manner, thus exposing me to fresh expense besides personal annoyance.  With the rare tact that distinguishes the southern races the captain changed the conversation by a reference to the tobacco we were both enjoying.

“It is good, is it not?” he asked.

“Excellent!” I answered, as indeed it was.

His white teeth glittered in a smile of amusement.

“It should be of the finest quality—­for it is a present from one who will smoke nothing but the choice brands.  Ah, Dio! what a fine gentleman spoiled is Carmelo Neri!”

I could not repress a slight start of surprise.  What caprice of Fate associated me with this famous brigand?  I was actually smoking his tobacco, and I owed all my present wealth to his stolen treasures secreted in my family vault!

“You know the man, then?” I inquired with some curiosity.

“Know him?  As well as I know myself.  Let me see, it is two months—­ yes—­two months to-day since he was with me on board this very vessel.  It happened in this way—­I was at Gaeta—­he came to me and told me the gendarmes were after him.  He offered me more gold than I ever had in my life to take him to Termini, from whence he could get to one of his hiding-places in the Montemaggiore.  He brought Teresa with him; he found me alone on the brig, my men had gone ashore.  He said, ’Take us to Termini and I will give you so much; refuse and I will slit your throat.’  Ha! ha! ha!  That was good.  I laughed at him.  I put a chair for Teresa on deck, and gave her some big peaches.  I said, ’See, my Carmelo! what use is there in threats?  You will not kill me, and I shall not betray you.  You are a thief, and a bad thief—­by all the saints you are—­but I dare say you would not be much worse than the hotel-keepers, if you could only keep your hand off your knife.’ (For you know, signor, if you once enter a hotel you must pay almost a ransom before you can get out again!) Yes—­and I reasoned with Carmelo in this manner:  I told him, ’I do not want a large fortune for carrying you and Teresa across to Termini—­pay me the just passage and we shall part friends, if only for Teresa’s sake.’  Well, he was