He saluted me with a light yet graceful gesture.
“Eccellenza, anything I can do—command me.”
“It is a mere trifle,” I returned. “It is merely to take a small valise belonging to my friend, and to place it on board the ‘Rondinella’ under the care of the captain. Will you do this?”
“Most willingly. I will take it now if it so please you.”
“That is what I desire. Wait here and I will bring it to you.”
And leaving him for a minute or two, I went into my bedroom and took from a cupboard I always kept locked a common rough leather bag, which I had secretly packed myself, unknown to Vincenzo, with such things as I judged to be useful and necessary. Chief among them was a bulky roll of bank-notes. These amounted to nearly the whole of the remainder of the money I had placed in the bank at Palermo. I had withdrawn it by gradual degrees, leaving behind only a couple of thousand francs, for which I had no special need. I locked and strapped the valise; there was no name on it and it was scarcely any weight to carry. I took it to Andrea, who swung it easily in his right hand and said, smilingly:
“Your friend is not wealthy, eccellenza, if this is all his luggage!”
“You are right,” I answered, with a slight sigh; “he is truly very poor—beggared of everything that should be his through the treachery of those whom he has benefited.” I paused; Andrea was listening sympathetically. “That is why I have paid his passage-money, and have done my best to aid him.”
“Ah! you have the good heart, eccellenza,” murmured the Sicilian, thoughtfully. “Would there were more like you! Often when fortune gives a kick to a man, nothing will suit but that all who see him must kick him also. And thus the povero diavolo dies of so many kicks, often! This friend of yours is young, senza dubbio?”
“Yes, quite young, not yet thirty.”