But, abject wretch that he was, he had a certain power for evil; it did not spring from him, the villainy of other men had invested him with it. The Neapolitan police lent him its dastardly and odious assistance when he requested it. He had caused many innocent victims to be exiled, ruined, or cast into dungeons, and he might very well have seized Michel without having recourse to the brigands of the mountain. But he wished to be able to surrender him, at need, for a heavy ransom, and he wished to have the terms of ransom discussed by avowed brigands, whose interest it would be not to betray him. His whole rôle consisted in seeking out the _bravi_ and saying to them: "I have discovered a love intrigue which is worth something. Do the job, and we will divide the profits." But herein again he had been gulled. A shrewd _bravo_, who _worked_ in the city under the Piccinino's direction, and who would not have presumed to do anything without consulting him, had deceived the abbé by inviting him to a rendezvous at which he had not seen the real Piccinino, who was present, however, behind a partition. The Piccinino had thereupon threatened to break the head of the first of the two accomplices who should say a word or take a step without orders from him, and they knew that he was a man to keep his word. Indeed, the young adventurer governed his band with such extraordinary skill, with a mixture of gentleness and despotism so well blended, that his father had not been so loved and dreaded as he was, although, to be sure, he had acted upon a larger scale and his enterprises had been more extensive. He could be perfectly at ease, therefore; his secrets would not have been revealed under torture, and he was able to gratify the caprice which he frequently had, of carrying out entirely alone, without a confidant and without assistance, an undertaking in which he had no need of using main force, but only of craft and strategy. That is why the Piccinino, sure of the success of his plan, which was of the simplest, chose to blend with it, on his own account, poetic, strange, and romantic incidents, or real passions, according to his whim. His vivid imagination and his cold nature involved him constantly in contradictory enterprises, from which he was always able to extricate himself, thanks to his great intelligence and his self-control. He had always sailed his craft so skilfully that, outside of his accomplices and the very small number of his intimate friends, no one could have proved that the famous captain, Piccinino, natural son of the _Destatore_, and the placid villager Carmelo Tomabene were one and the same man. The latter also was supposed to be a son of Castro-Reale; but there were so many others in the mountains who prided themselves upon that perilous origin! [Footnote 8: It is a double woolen _surtout_, of several different colors inside and out. It is worn as a protection against the sun's heat as well as against the cold.]