io! does not this
information awaken you to a sense of our perilous condition?"

"From whom did you learn all that?" asked the affrighted servant.

"From the bailiff himself."

"From his own lips?"

"Yes, my friend, from his own lips. In spite of your courage and coolness,
I think I may say that you have no stronger desire than myself to die by
the hand of the executioner."

Julio put his hand to his throat and said, dejectedly:

"The affair looks serious. I seem to be strangling; I feel the rope around
my neck. It is all your fault, signor. Why did you murder your best
friend? Did I not warn you that so frightful a crime would come to light?"

"Call it crime, if you will; but at least my just vengeance is satisfied,
and now neither complaints nor recriminations can recall the past nor
shelter us from danger."

"But, signor, what can we do to escape punishment?"

"There is a means, easy and certain. There is a means; but, Julio, it
requires good will and resolution. May I rely upon you for this last
effort?"

"What would not one be willing to do in order to escape this gallows or
the wheel?"

"Then listen to me. I told you that the bailiff would search the cellars.
If he finds the corpse in my house, we are both ruined."

"Certainly, signor."

"But suppose it be found in another place, far from this spot, who would
suspect us of the murder?"

"An excellent thought!" exclaimed Julio, joyfully. "We must carry the dead
body to a distant street and leave it there."

"Not so. They would naturally suppose that it had been removed to that
spot from some other place. A better plan is to throw it into the sewer in
the Vleminck Field. The officers of justice will then conclude that
Geronimo fell under the hand of some unknown assassin."

"That is still better! Ah! signor, you frightened me without cause. I
place very little value on my life, and yet the thought of a certain death
shatters my nerves. Now I am myself again. But how shall we manage to
transport Geronimo's body to the Vleminck Field?"

"It was for that purpose, Julio, that I was waiting so impatiently for
you," said Simon Turchi; "it was because I needed your aid to execute a
project which will save us both. Nothing is easier. You will disinter the
body, and you will throw it into the sewer."[24]

"Alone?" said the servant, in a tone which prognosticated a refusal.

"Why not alone, since you are able to do it?"

"It is very easy, signor, for