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“Will you count it, sir?”

With the palms of his hands Asabri answered that he would not. Inwardly, it was as if he had been made of smiles; but he showed them a stern countenance when he said:

“One thing! Before I touch this money, is there blood on it?”

“High hands only,” said the sullen brigand; but the youngest protested.

“Indeed, yes,” he said, “there is blood upon it. Look, see, and behold!”

He bared a breast on which the skin was fine and satiny like a woman’s, and they saw in the firelight the cicatrice of a newly healed wound.

“A few drops of mine,” he said proudly. “May they bring the money luck.”

“One thing more,” said Asabri; “I have said that I will mend your fortunes. What sum apiece would make you comfortable for the rest of your days and teach you to see the evil in your present manner of life?”

“If the money were to be doubled,” said the sullen brigand, “then each of us could have what he most desires.”

“And what is that?” asked the banker.

“For me,” said the sullen brigand, “there is a certain piece of land upon which are grapes, figs, and olives.”

The second brigand said: “I am a waterman by birth and by longing. If I could purchase a certain barge upon which I have long had an eye, I should do well and honestly in the world, and happily.”

“And you? What do you want?” Asabri smiled paternally in the face of the youngest brigand.

This one showed his beautiful teeth a moment, and drew the rags together over his scarred breast.

“I am nineteen years of age,” he said, and his eyes glistened. “There is a girl, sir, in my village. Her eyes are like velvet; her skin is smooth as custard. She is very beautiful. If I could go to her father with a certain sum of money, he would not ask where I had gotten it–that is why I have robbed on the highway. He would merely stretch forth his hands and roll his fat eyes heavenward, and say: ‘Bless you, my children.'”

“But the girl,” said Asabri.

“It is wonderful,” said the youngest brigand, “how she loves me. And when I told her that I was going upon the road to earn the moneys necessary for our happiness, she said that she would climb down from her window at night and come with me. But,” he concluded unctuously, “I pointed out to her that from sin springs nothing but unhappiness.”

“We formed a fellowship, we three,” said the second brigand, “and swore an oath: to take from the world so much as would make us happy, and no more.”

“My friends,” said Asabri, “there are worse brigands than yourselves living in palaces.”

The fog had lifted, and it was beginning to grow light. Asabri gathered up the heavy bag of money and prepared to depart.

“How long,” said the sullen brigand, “with all respect, before your own fortunes will be mended, sir, and ours?”

“You are quite sure you know nothing of stocks?”

“Nothing, excellency.”

“Then listen. They shall be mended to-day. To-morrow come to my bank—-“

“Oh, sir, we dare not show our faces in Rome.”

“Very well, then; to-morrow at ten sharp I shall leave Rome in a motor-car. Watch for me along the Appian Way.”

He shook them by their brown, grimy hands, mounted the impatient Biddy, and was gone–blissfully smiling.

Upon reaching Rome he rode to his palace and assured Luigi the valet that all was well. Then he bathed, changed, breakfasted, napped, and drove to the hospital of Our Lady in Emergencies. He saw the superior and gave her the leather bag containing the brigands’ savings.

“For my sins,” he said. “I have told lies half the night.”

Then he drove to his great banking house and sent for the cashier.

“Make me up,” said he, “three portable parcels of fifty thousand lire each.”

The next day at ten he left Rome in a black and beauteous motor-car, and drove slowly along the Appian Way. He had left his mechanic behind, and was prepared to renew his tires and his youth. Packed away, he had luncheon and champagne enough for four; and he had not forgotten to bring along the three parcels of money.