“Julio, you must leave the country; it is your only means of safety.”

“I leave the country!” said Julio; “and you, signor?”

“Would that I could accompany you! but I cannot say as you can:  ’Where my body is, there is all I have and all I care for.’  I must of necessity remain here:  I have many interests to detain me.”

Julio was astonished by the advice.

“Where shall I go?  In Italy a price is set upon my head; I dare not be seen beyond the mountains.  It is too late for me to leave for England; there are no vessels ready to sail.  What could I do in Germany, ignorant of the language of the country and without means of subsistence?”

“Save your life, Julio; go to Germany,” said Turchi.  “I will give you money, plenty of money.”

The deep red of the scar on his master’s face, his expression of cunning, his evident satisfaction, made Julio suspect some deception.  He was unable at first to imagine his secret design; but a light suddenly broke upon his mind, and recoiling with horror and anger, he exclaimed: 

“What an odious trap you are setting for me!  You intend to accuse me of the murder in my absence?  And while poor Julio, charged with a double crime, finds no resting-spot upon earth, you will enjoy here in entire security, in the midst of wealth and honor, the price of the innocent blood which you have shed.  No, no, I will bring no new anathema on my head.”

“You are silly, Julio,” said Simon Turchi, disdainfully.  “Should we be arrested to-morrow, and the truth known, would you not be equally punished for having treacherously pushed Geronimo into the chair?”

“Yes; but all would know that I neither conceived the crime, nor profited by its commission.”

“A fine consolation, to contend on the scaffold!” said the signor ironically, repressing his impatience.  “But I will speak to you plainly and without reserve.  I will state my conditions; if you refuse them, then all is at an end between us.  Each of us is at liberty to save himself even at the sacrifice of the other.  The worst part of the whole is that I might feel myself obliged, for my own security, to make known to the authorities of Lucca who you are.”

The servant regarded his master with an expression of disgust and aversion.

“These are my conditions,” said Simon.  “You will leave immediately for Germany, and reach the Rhine as soon as possible.  I will give you two hundred crowns.  Procure a carriage and horse at the very first village, and do not stop until you are in a place of safety.  To prevent any detention on the way, I will give you a letter to Signor Mazzuchelli, a banker at Cologne.  If on the journey you are asked why you have undertaken it, say that you are on urgent business for your master, and if necessity require it, show the letter; but once in Cologne, do not present the letter to Mazzuchelli.  Two hundred crowns! that is a fortune, Julio.  With that you can live luxuriously for two or three years.  And what difference will it make whether you know the language of the country or not.  Money understands and speaks all languages."[26]