“Not I!” I answered him heartily.  “On the contrary, I would there were more like you.  Addio I and with this,” here I gave him the passage-money we had agreed upon, “accept my thanks.  I shall not forget your kindness; if you ever need a friend, send to me.”

“But,” he said, with a naive mingling of curiosity and timidity, “how can I do that if the signor does not tell me his name?”

I had thought of this during the past night.  I knew it would be necessary to take a different name, and I had resolved on adopting that of a school-friend, a boy to whom I had been profoundly attached in my earliest youth, and who had been drowned before my eyes while bathing in the Venetian Lido.  So I answered Andrea’s question at once and without effort.

“Ask for the Count Cesare Oliva,” I said.  “I shall return to Naples shortly, and should you seek me, you will find me there.”

The Sicilian doffed his cap and saluted me profoundly.

“I guessed well,” he remarked, smilingly, “that the Signor Conte’s hands were not those of a coral-fisher.  Oh, yes!  I know a gentleman when I see him—­though we Sicilians say we are all gentlemen.  It is a good boast, but alas! not always true!  A rivederci, signor!  Command me when you will—­I am your servant!”

Pressing his hand, I sprung lightly from the brig on to the quay.

“A rivederci!” I called to him.  “Again, and yet again, a thousand thanks!”

“Oh! tropp’ onore, signor—­tropp’ onore!” and thus I left him, standing still bareheaded on the deck of his little vessel, with a kindly light on his brown face like the reflection of a fadeless sunbeam.  Good-hearted, merry rogue!  His ideas of right and wrong were oddly mixed—­yet his lies were better than many truths told us by our candid friends—­and you may be certain the great Recording Angel knows the difference between a lie that saves and a truth that kills, and metes out Heaven’s reward or punishment accordingly.

My first care, when I found myself in the streets of Palermo, was to purchase clothes of the best material and make adapted to a gentleman’s wear.  I explained to the tailor whose shop I entered for this purpose that I had joined a party of coral-fishers for mere amusement, and had for the time adopted their costume.  He believed my story the more readily as I ordered him to make several more suits for me immediately, giving him the name of Count Cesare Oliva, and the address of the best hotel in the city.  He served me with obsequious humility, and allowed me the use of his private back-room, where I discarded my fisher garb for the dress of a gentleman--a ready-made suit that happened to fit me passably well.  Thus arrayed as became my station, I engaged rooms at the chief hotel of Palermo for some weeks—­weeks that were for me full of careful preparation for the task of vengeful retribution that lay before me.  One of my principal objects was to place the money