"Afraid?" replied Julio, with a light laugh; "why should I be afraid?"
"True, true," murmured Simon, "since I alone shall shed his blood."
"But," continued Julio, "if I have no cause for personal fear, would not love for my master fill me with painful thoughts? Signor, you are playing for dangerous stakes."
"Who will know what has taken place here?"
"Who? Is there not an eye above which sees all? And whilst here, in the deepest secrecy, you immolate a human being to your thirst for vengeance, will not God hear the cry of agony of the Signor Geronimo?"
Julio saw, with a secret joy, that his words made his master tremble, although he tried to dissemble his feelings under an assumed insensibility.
"What a good joke!" replied Simon; "Pietro Mostajo talking of God! My precautions are too well taken; when the cellar will be the depository of the secret, there will be none to tell it."
"Do you think so, signor? When has such a murder ever remained concealed? It is not surprising that I bowed my head in thought. In imagination I saw such terrible things that I dare not tell them to you. Tears still fill my eyes at the thought."
"What did you see?" asked Turchi, with increasing anxiety.
"What did I see? The bailiff and his attendants. They bound a man's hand's behind his back; they dragged him through the streets like an odious criminal; the people cast filth and dirt upon the prisoner, and cried out, 'Murderer!' What did I see? A scaffold, and on this scaffold an executioner and one condemned to death; then a sword glittered in the sunlight, it fell, a stream of blood flowed, and a head rolled in the dust."