“Well, signor, if you say so, I will try it; but I am afraid it will turn out badly.  I shall be obliged to rest on the way, and that will take more time than will be prudent.  And then how shall I be able each time to replace the body on my shoulders?  It requires two to transport it with sufficient rapidity.”

“Two?” said Turchi, “You know well that we can confide our secret to no one.”

“To escape death, one would submit to anything.  Suppose you help me yourself, signor?”

“I!” replied Turchi, shuddering, “I carry a dead body through the streets!  I, a nobleman!  No, no; better a dungeon and death!”

“What a strange sentiment of honor!” muttered the astonished servant.  “Would to God, signor, that you had sooner remembered that you were a nobleman, we would not thus be seeking, in mortal anguish, the means to save our lives.  Consider the affair as you will, you must confess that if I carry the corpse alone, ten chances to one we shall be discovered.”

While the servant thus spoke, Turchi seemed preoccupied by torturing thoughts.  After a moment he said, with a sigh: 

“Alas! there is no other means; it is dangerous, but necessity demands it.  Julio, go to the summer-house, and I will send Bernardo this evening to help you.”

“What” said Julio, ironically, “will you reveal your secret?”

“No; I will command him, under penalty of his life, to do whatever you order him; threaten to stab him at the least show of resistance, and he will obey you.”

“Impossible!  Signor Bernardo is a good, pious man.  He would inform upon us.  I might as well put the halter around my neck.  I will have none of his aid.”

Simon Turchi, in despair at the failure of all his efforts to succeed in his design, paced the floor impatiently.  Suddenly he stopped before his servant, and with sparkling eyes he said, in a suppressed voice: 

“Julio, there must be an end to all this hesitation.  We have no choice, and whatever may be the means, we must not deliberate in presence of the death which menaces us.  Stab Bernardo, and throw him into the sewer above the body of Geronimo."[25]

“Oh, signor, murder Bernardo!” exclaimed Julio, in horror.  “And do you suppose that he would not defend himself? that he would not give the alarm?  In that case, your servant would be recognized, and thus they would put them on the track of the criminals.  Your mind wanders.”

Grinding his teeth in his agony, Turchi tossed his arms convulsively, and at last said, hoarsely: 

“You will not undertake it alone?  You have not the wish to succeed.  Coward that you are, for what are you fit but to boast and drink and gamble in the taverns?  Would that I had never seen you!  Leave the corpse in the cellar; let the bailiff discover it there; we will see which of us will meet the more courageously an infamous death!”

A prey to the keenest emotion, he fell back in his chair, and while uttering bitter invectives against his servant, he tore his hair in real or feigned despair.