“Impossible; he is of noble birth.”

“And if I insulted him, his valets would fall upon me and beat me.”

“That is true.  There is but one way, Julio; I will tell you where you can stab him at night without the least danger.”

“I? shall I treacherously kill your enemy?  This gentleman has never injured me.  Since how long has it been the custom for valets to avenge the grievances of their masters?  It is your own affair, signor.”

“You value the life of a man as little as a farthing, you said,” replied Simon Turchi, with bitter irony; “and now you allege the most puerile reasons as excuses.  You are a coward, Julio.”

“I am not; but I do not choose to lie in wait and stab a man in the dark.”

“That is a feint, a subterfuge, to conceal your cowardice.”

“Since it is so simple and easy, why do you not deal the blow yourself, signor?”

The scar on Simon Turchi’s face became of a livid white; his whole frame trembled with rage; but by a strong effort he controlled his emotion, and after a few moments he said, with a contemptuous smile upon his lips: 

“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 Voltai?”

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?”