"Four years ago I took you into my service through pity; I have paid you well, excused all your faults, your intoxication, your passion for gambling; I have not dismissed you, although you have deserved it a hundred times; and now, when for the first time you can be useful to me, you have not the courage. I wished to try you. What I said was only a jest. To-morrow, Julio, you will leave my service. You are a liar and a coward."
"Do not condemn me so severely, signor," said the servant, in a supplicating tone of voice. "I am willing to risk my life a thousand times for you; but to lie in wait for an unknown man and kill him deliberately—this is an infamous crime of which I am not capable."
"Hypocrite!" exclaimed Simon Turchi; "you speak as though I were ignorant of your past history. If a price is set upon your head in the city of Lucca, if at this moment you are under sentence of death, is it not because you assassinated or helped to assassinate the Judge Voltaï?"
These words struck Julio with terror. He replied, humbly:
"Signor, I have already told you that in this affair I was more unfortunate than guilty. I was upon the spot where the murder was committed, and I was arrested with those who gave the fatal blow. Believe me, I knew nothing of their designs. I do not deny that in a contest or quarrel I spare no one; but up to this moment my dagger has never shed blood without provocation."
Simon fixed his eyes upon his servant, and said in a menacing tone: "Suppose, in order to avenge myself for thy base ingratitude, I should make known to the superintendent of Lucca who is the man I have in my service? Suppose I were to tell him that the real name of Julio Julii is Pietro Mostajo? Who would be bound hand and foot and sent in the hold of a ship of war to expiate his crimes upon a scaffold in Italy?"
Julio turned pale and trembled. He moved restlessly upon his chair, and complained in a low voice of the false accusations and injustice of men; but his master eyed all his movements in a scornful manner, until at last the servant, disconcerted, exclaimed impulsively:
"Tell me what to do; I am ready!"
"Will you accomplish my orders with unwavering will and without hesitation?"
"I must do so, since you compel me to it! But fear nothing; my decision is made."