BETWEEN THE TWO MEN
For a moment, alone in the room, where none could see or hear them, Joam
Garral and Torres looked at each other without uttering a word. Did the
adventurer hesitate to speak? Did he suspect that Joam Garral would only
reply to his demands by a scornful silence?
Yes! Probably so. So Torres did not question him. At the outset of
the conversation he took the affirmative, and assumed the part of an
accuser.
“Joam,” he said, “your name is not Garral. Your name is Dacosta!”
At the guilty name which Torres thus gave him, Joam Garral could not
repress a slight shudder.
“You are Joam Dacosta,” continued Torres, “who, twenty-five years ago,
were a clerk in the governor-general’s office at Tijuco, and you are
the man who was sentenced to death in this affair of the robbery and
murder!”
No response from Joam Garral, whose strange tranquillity surprised the
adventurer. Had he made a mistake in accusing his host? No! For Joam
Garral made no start at the terrible accusations. Doubtless he wanted to
know to what Torres was coming.
“Joam Dacosta, I repeat! It was you whom they sought for this diamond
affair, whom they convicted of crime and sentenced to death, and it was
you who escaped from the prison at Villa Rica a few hours before you
should have been executed! Do you not answer?”
Rather a long silence followed this direct question which Torres asked.
Joam Garral, still calm, took a seat. His elbow rested on a small table,
and he looked fixedly at his accuser without bending his head.
“Will you reply?” repeated Torres.
“What reply do you want from me?” said Joam quietly.
“A reply,” slowly answered Torres, “that will keep me from finding out
the chief of the police at Manaos, and saying to him, ‘A man is there
whose identity can easily be established, who can be recognized even
after twenty-five years’ absence, and this man was the instigator of the
diamond robbery at Tijuco. He was the accomplice of the murderers of the
soldiers of the escort; he is the man who escaped from execution; he is
Joam Garral, whose true name is Joam Dacosta.’”
“And so, Torres,” said Joam Garral, “I shall have nothing to fear from
you if I give the answer you require?”
“Nothing, for neither you nor I will have any interest in talking about
the matter.”
“Neither you nor I?” asked Joam Garral. “It is not with money, then,
that your silence is to be bought?”
“No! No matter how much you offered me!”
“What do you want, then?”
“Joam Garral,” replied Torres, “here is my proposal. Do not be in a
hurry to reply by a formal refusal. Remember that you are in my power.”
“What is this proposal?” asked Joam.
Torres hesitated for a moment.
The attitude of this guilty man, whose life he held in his hands, was
enough to astonish him. He had expected a stormy discussion and prayers
and tears. He had before him a man convicted of the most heinous of
crimes, and the man never flinched.
At length, crossing his arms, he said:
“You have a daughter!--I like her--and I want to marry her!”
Apparently Joam Garral expected anything from such a man, and was as
quiet as before.
“And so,” he said, “the worthy Torres is anxious to enter the family of
a murderer and a thief?”
“I am the sole judge of what it suits me to do,” said Torres. “I wish to
be the son-in-law of Joam Garral, and I will.”
“You ignore, then, that my daughter is going to marry Manoel Valdez?”
“You will break it off with Manoel Valdez!”
“And if my daughter declines?”
“If you tell her all, I have no doubt she would consent,” was the
impudent answer.
“All?”
“All, if necessary. Between her own feelings and the honor of her family
and the life of her father she would not hesitate.”
“You are a consummate scoundrel, Torres,” quietly said Joam, whose
coolness never forsook him.
“A scoundrel and a murderer were made to understand each other.”
At these words Joam Garral rose, advanced to the adventurer, and looking
him straight in the face, “Torres,” he said, “if you wish to become one
of the family of Joam Dacosta, you ought to know that Joam Dacosta was
innocent of the crime for which he was condemned.”
“Really!”
“And I add,” replied Joam, “that you hold the proof of his innocence,
and are keeping it back to proclaim it on the day when you marry his
daughter.”
“Fair play, Joam Garral,” answered Torres, lowering his voice, “and
when you have heard me out, you will see if you dare refuse me your
daughter!”
“I am listening, Torres.”
“Well,” said the adventurer, half keeping back his words, as if he was
sorry to let them escape from his lips, “I know you are innocent! I know
it, for I know the true culprit, and I am in a position to prove your
innocence.”
“And the unhappy man who committed the crime?”
“Is dead.”
“Dead!” exclaimed Joam Garral; and the word made him turn pale, in spite
of himself, as if it had deprived him of all power of reinstatement.
“Dead,” repeated Torres; “but this man, whom I knew a long time after
his crime, and without knowing that he was a convict, had written out at
length, in his own hand, the story of this affair of the diamonds, even
to the smallest details. Feeling his end approaching, he was seized with
remorse. He knew where Joam Dacosta had taken refuge, and under what
name the innocent man had again begun a new life. He knew that he was
rich, in the bosom of a happy family, but he knew also that there was
no happiness for him. And this happiness he desired to add to the
reputation to which he was entitled. But death came--he intrusted to me,
his companion, to do what he could no longer do. He gave me the proofs
of Dacosta’s innocence for me to transmit them to him, and he died.”
“The man’s name?” exclaimed Joam Garral, in a tone he could not control.
“You will know it when I am one of your family.”
“And the writing?”
Joam Garral was ready to throw himself on Torres, to search him, to
snatch from him the proofs of his innocence.
“The writing is in a safe place,” replied Torres, “and you will not have
it until your daughter has become my wife. Now will you still refuse
me?”
“Yes,” replied Joam, “but in return for that paper the half of my
fortune is yours.”
“The half of your fortune?” exclaimed Torres; “agreed, on condition that
Minha brings it to me at her marriage.”
“And it is thus that you respect the wishes of a dying man, of a
criminal tortured by remorse, and who has charge you to repair as much
as he could the evil which he had done?”
“It is thus.”
“Once more, Torres,” said Joam Garral, “you are a consummate scoundrel.”
“Be it so.”
“And as I am not a criminal we were not made to understand one another.”
“And your refuse?”
“I refuse.”
“It will be your ruin, then, Joam Garral. Everything accuses you in the
proceedings that have already taken place. You are condemned to death,
and you know, in sentences for crimes of that nature, the government is
forbidden the right of commuting the penalty. Denounced, you are taken;
taken, you are executed. And I will denounce you.”
Master as he was of himself, Joam could stand it no longer. He was
about to rush on Torres.
A gesture from the rascal cooled his anger.
“Take care,” said Torres, “your wife knows not that she is the wife of
Joam Dacosta, your children do not know they are the children of Joam
Dacosta, and you are not going to give them the information.”
Joam Garral stopped himself. He regained his usual command over himself,
and his features recovered their habitual calm.
“This discussion has lasted long enough,” said he, moving toward the
door, “and I know what there is left for me to do.”
“Take care, Joam Garral!” said Torres, for the last time, for he could
scarcely believe that his ignoble attempt at extortion had collapsed.
Joam Garral made him no answer. He threw back the door which opened
under the veranda, made a sign to Torres to follow him, and they
advanced toward the center of the jangada, where the family were
assembled.
Benito, Manoel, and all of them, under a feeling of deep anxiety, had
risen. They could see that the bearing of Torres was still menacing, and
that the fire of anger still shone in his eyes.
In extraordinary contrast, Joam Garral was master of himself, and almost
smiling.
Both of them stopped before Yaquita and her people. Not one dared to say
a word to them.
It was Torres who, in a hollow voice, and with his customary impudence,
broke the painful silence.
“For the last time, Joam Garral,” he said, “I ask you for a last reply!”
“And here is my reply.”
And addressing his wife:
“Yaquita,” he said, “peculiar circumstances oblige me to alter what we
have formerly decided as to the marriage of Minha and Manoel.”
“At last!” exclaimed Torres.
Joam Garral, without answering him, shot at the adventurer a glance of
the deepest scorn.
But at the words Manoel had felt his heart beat as if it would break.
The girl arose, ashy pale, as if she would seek shelter by the side of
her mother. Yaquita opened her arms to protect, to defend her.
“Father,” said Benito, who had placed himself between Joam Garral and
Torres, “what were you going to say?”
“I was going to say,” answered Joam Garral, raising his voice, “that to
wait for our arrival in Para for the wedding of Minha and Manoel is
to wait too long. The marriage will take place here, not later than
to-morrow, on the jangada, with the aid of Padre Passanha, if, after a
conversation I am about to have with Manoel, he agrees with me to defer
it no longer.”
“Ah, father, father!” exclaimed the young man.
“Wait a little before you call me so, Manoel,” replied Joam, in a tone
of unspeakable suffering.
Here Torres, with crossed arms, gave the whole family a look of
inconceivable insolence.
“So that is you last word?” said he, extending his hand toward Joam
Garral.
“No, that is not my last word.”
“What is it, then?”
“This, Torres. I am master here. You will be off, if you please, and
even if you do not please, and leave the jangada at this very instant!”
“Yes, this instant!” exclaimed Benito, “or I will throw you overboard.”
Torres shrugged his shoulders.
“No threats,” he said; “they are of no use. It suits me also to land,
and without delay. But you will remember me, Joam Garral. We shall not
be long before we meet.”
“If it only depends on me,” answered Joam Garral, “we shall soon meet,
and rather sooner, perhaps, than you will like. To-morrow I shall be
with Judge Ribeiro, the first magistrate of the province, whom I have
advised of my arrival at Manaos. If you dare, meet me there!”
“At Judge Ribeiro’s?” said Torres, evidently disconcerted.
“At Judge Ribeiro’s,” answered Joam Garral.
And then, showing the pirogue to Torres, with a gesture of supreme
contempt Joam Garral ordered four of his people to land him without
delay on the nearest point of the island.
The scoundrel at last disappeared.
The family, who were still appalled, respected the silence of its chief;
but Fragoso, comprehending scarce half the gravity of the situation, and
carried away by his customary vivacity, came up to Joam Garral.
“If the wedding of Miss Minha and Mr. Manoel is to take place to-morrow
on the raft----”
“Yours shall take place at the same time,” kindly answered Joam Garral.
And making a sign to Manoel, he retired to his room with him.
The interview between Joam and Manoel had lasted for half an hour,
and it seemed a century to the family, when the door of the room was
reopened.
Manoel came out alone; his face glowed with generous resolution.
Going up to Yaquita, he said, “My mother!” to Minha he said, “My wife!”
and to Benito he said, “My brother!” and, turning toward Lina and
Fragoso, he said to all, “To-morrow!”
He knew all that had passed between Joam Garral and Torres. He knew
that, counting on the protection of Judge Ribeiro, by means of a
correspondence which he had had with him for a year past without
speaking of it to his people, Joam Garral had at last succeeded in
clearing himself and convincing him of his innocence. He knew that
Joam Garral had boldly undertaken the voyage with the sole object of
canceling the hateful proceedings of which he had been the victim, so as
not to leave on his daughter and son-in-law the weight of the terrible
situation which he had had to endure so long himself.
Yes, Manoel knew all this, and, further, he knew that Joam Garral--or
rather Joam Dacosta--was innocent, and his misfortunes made him even
dearer and more devoted to him. What he did not know was that the
material proof of the innocence of the fazender existed, and that this
proof was in the hands of Torres. Joam Garral wished to reserve for the
judge himself the use of this proof, which, if the adventurer had spoken
truly, would demonstrate his innocence.
Manoel confined himself, then, to announcing that he was going to Padre
Passanha to ask him to get things ready for the two weddings.
Next day, the 24th of August, scarcely an hour before the ceremony was
to take place, a large pirogue came off from the left bank of the river
and hailed the jangada. A dozen paddlers had swiftly brought it from
Manaos, and with a few men it carried the chief of the police, who made
himself known and came on board.
At the moment Joam Garral and his family, attired for the ceremony, were
coming out of the house.
“Joam Garral?” asked the chief of the police.
“I am here,” replied Joam.
“Joam Garral,” continued the chief of the police, “you have also been
Joam Dacosta; both names have been borne by the same man--I arrest you!”
At these words Yaquita and Minha, struck with stupor, stopped without
any power to move.
“My father a murderer?” exclaimed Benito, rushing toward Joam Garral.
By a gesture his father silenced him.
“I will only ask you one question,” said Joam with firm voice,
addressing the chief of police. “Has the warrant in virtue of which
you arrest me been issued against me by the justice at Manaos--by Judge
Ribeiro?”
“No,” answered the chief of the police, “it was given to me, with an
order for its immediate execution, by his substitute. Judge Ribeiro was
struck with apoplexy yesterday evening, and died during the night at two
o’clock, without having recovered his consciousness.”
“Dead!” exclaimed Joam Garral, crushed for a moment by the news--“dead!
dead!”
But soon raising his head, he said to his wife and children, “Judge
Ribeiro alone knew that I was innocent, my dear ones. The death of the
judge may be fatal to me, but that is no reason for me to despair.”
And, turning toward Manoel, “Heaven help us!” he said to him; “we shall
see if truth will come down to the earth from Above.”
The chief of the police made a sign to his men, who advanced to secure
Joam Garral.
“But speak, father!” shouted Benito, mad with despair; “say one word,
and we shall contest even by force this horrible mistake of which you
are the victim!”
“There is no mistake here, my son,” replied Joam Garral; “Joam Dacosta
and Joam Garral are one. I am in truth Joam Dacosta! I am the honest man
whom a legal error unjustly doomed to death twenty-five years ago in
the place of the true culprit! That I am quite innocent I swear before
Heaven, once for all, on your heads, my children, and on the head of
your mother!”
“All communication between you and yours is now forbidden,” said the
chief of the police. “You are my prisoner, Joam Garral, and I will
rigorously execute my warrant.”
Joam restrained by a gesture his dismayed children and servants.
“Let the justice of man be done while we wait for the justice of God!”
And with his head unbent, he stepped into the pirogue.
It seemed, indeed, as though of all present Joam Garral was the only one
whom this fearful thunderbolt, which had fallen so unexpectedly on his
head, had failed to overwhelm.
PART II.
THE CRYPTOGRAM
CHAPTER I.
MANAOS
The town of Manaos is in 3° 8′ 4″ south latitude, and 67° 27′ west
longitude, reckoning from the Paris meridian. It is some four hundred
and twenty leagues from Belem, and about ten miles from the _embouchure_
of the Rio Negro.
Manaos is not built on the Amazon. It is on the left bank of the Rio
Negro, the most important and remarkable of all the tributaries of
the great artery of Brazil, that the capital of the province, with its
picturesque group of private houses and public buildings, towers above
the surrounding plain.
The Rio Negro, which was discovered by the Spaniard Favella in 1645,
rises in the very heart of the province of Popayan, on the flanks of the
mountains which separate Brazil from New Grenada, and it communicates
with the Orinoco by two of its affluents, the Pimichin and the
Cassiquary.
After a noble course of some seventeen hundred miles it mingles its
cloudy waters with those of the Amazon through a mouth eleven hundred
feet wide, but such is its vigorous influx that many a mile has to
be completed before those waters lose their distinctive character.
Hereabouts the ends of both its banks trend off and form a huge bay
fifteen leagues across, extending to the islands of Anavilhanas; and in
one of its indentations the port of Manaos is situated. Vessels of all
kinds are there collected in great numbers, some moored in the
stream awaiting a favorable wind, others under repair up the numerous
_iguarapes,_ or canals, which so capriciously intersect the town, and
give it its slightly Dutch appearance.
With the introduction of steam vessels, which is now rapidly taking
place, the trade of Manaos is destined to increase enormously. Woods
used in building and furniture work, cocoa, caoutchouc, coffee,
sarsaparilla, sugar-canes, indigo, muscado nuts, salt fish, turtle
butter, and other commodities, are brought here from all parts, down the
innumerable streams into the Rio Negro from the west and north, into
the Madeira from the west and south, and then into the Amazon, and by it
away eastward to the coast of the Atlantic.
Manaos was formerly called Moura, or Barra de Rio Negro. From 1757 to
1804 it was only part of the captaincy which bears the name of the
great river at whose mouth it is placed; but since 1826 it has been the
capital of the large province of Amazones, borrowing its latest name
from an Indian tribe which formerly existed in these parts of equatorial
America.
Careless travelers have frequently confounded it with the famous Manoa,
a city of romance, built, it was reported, near the legendary lake of
Parima--which would seem to be merely the Upper Branco, a tributary of
the Rio Negro. Here was the Empire of El Dorado, whose monarch, if we
are to believe the fables of the district, was every morning covered
with powder of gold, there being so much of the precious metal abounding
in this privileged locality that it was swept up with the very dust
of the streets. This assertion, however, when put to the test, was
disproved, and with extreme regret, for the auriferous deposits which
had deceived the greedy scrutiny of the gold-seekers turned out to be
only worthless flakes of mica!
In short, Manaos has none of the fabulous splendors of the mythical
capital of El Dorado. It is an ordinary town of about five thousand
inhabitants, and of these at least three thousand are in government
employ. This fact is to be attributed to the number of its public
buildings, which consist of the legislative chamber, the government
house, the treasury, the post-office, and the custom-house, and, in
addition, a college founded in 1848, and a hospital erected in 1851.
When with these is also mentioned a cemetery on the south side of a
hill, on which, in 1669, a fortress, which has since been demolished,
was thrown up against the pirates of the Amazon, some idea can be gained
as to the importance of the official establishments of the city. Of
religious buildings it would be difficult to find more than two, the
small Church of the Conception and the Chapel of Notre Dame des Remedes,
built on a knoll which overlooks the town. These are very few for a town
of Spanish origin, though to them should perhaps be added the Carmelite
Convent, burned down in 1850, of which only the ruins remain. The
population of Manaos does not exceed the number above given, and after
reckoning the public officials and soldiers, is principally made of up
Portuguese and Indian merchants belonging to the different tribes of the
Rio Negro.
Three principal thoroughfares of considerable irregularity run through
the town, and they bear names highly characteristic of the tone of
thought prevalent in these parts--God-the-Father Street, God-the-Son
Street, and God-the-Holy Ghost Street!
In the west of the town is a magnificent avenue of centenarian orange
trees which were carefully respected by the architects who out of the
old city made the new. Round these principal thoroughfares is interwoven
a perfect network of unpaved alleys, intersected every now and then by
four canals, which are occasionally crossed by wooden bridges. In a few
places these iguarapes flow with their brownish waters through large
vacant spaces covered with straggling weeds and flowers of startling
hues, and here and there are natural squares shaded by magnificent
trees, with an occasional white-barked sumaumeira shooting up, and
spreading out its large dome-like parasol above its gnarled branches.
The private houses have to be sought for among some hundreds of
dwellings, of very rudimentary type, some roofed with tiles, others with
interlaced branches of the palm-tree, and with prominent miradors, and
projecting shops for the most part tenanted by Portuguese traders.
And what manner of people are they who stroll on to the fashionable
promenade from the public buildings and private residences? Men of good
appearance, with black cloth coats, chimney-pot hats, patent-leather
boots, highly-colored gloves, and diamond pins in their necktie bows;
and women in loud, imposing toilets, with flounced dressed and headgear
of the latest style; and Indians, also on the road to Europeanization
in a way which bids fair to destroy every bit of local color in this
central portion of the district of the Amazon!
Such is Manaos, which, for the benefit of the reader, it was necessary
to sketch. Here the voyage of the giant raft, so tragically interrupted,
had just come to a pause in the midst of its long journey, and here will
be unfolded the further vicissitudes of the mysterious history of the
fazender of Iquitos.
CHAPTER II.
THE FIRST MOMENTS
Scarcely had the pirogue which bore off Joam Garral, or rather Joam
Dacosta--for it is more convenient that he should resume his real
name--disappeared, than Benito stepped up to Manoel.
“What is it you know?” he asked.
“I know that your father is innocent! Yes, innocent!” replied Manoel,
“and that he was sentenced to death twenty-three years ago for a crime
which he never committed!”
“He has told you all about it, Manoel?”
“All about it,” replied the young man. “The noble fazender did not wish
that any part of his past life should be hidden from him who, when he
marries his daughter, is to be his second son.”
“And the proof of his innocence my father can one day produce?”
“That proof, Benito, lies wholly in the twenty-three years of an
honorable and honored life, lies entirely in the bearing of Joam
Dacosta, who comes forward to say to justice, ‘Here am I! I do not care
for this false existence any more. I do not care to hide under a name
which is not my true one! You have condemned an innocent man! Confess
your errors and set matters right.’”
“And when my father spoke like that, you did not hesitate for a moment
to believe him?”
“Not for an instant,” replied Manoel.
The hands of the two young fellows closed in a long and cordial grasp.
Then Benito went up to Padre Passanha.
“Padre,” he said, “take my mother and sister away to their rooms. Do not
leave them all day. No one here doubts my father’s innocence--not one,
you know that! To-morrow my mother and I will seek out the chief of the
police. They will not refuse us permission to visit the prison. No! that
would be too cruel. We will see my father again, and decide what steps
shall be taken to procure his vindication.”
Yaquita was almost helpless, but the brave woman, though nearly crushed
by this sudden blow, arose. With Yaquita Dacosta it was as with Yaquita
Garral. She had not a doubt as to the innocence of her husband. The
idea even never occurred to her that Joam Dacosta had been to blame in
marrying her under a name which was not his own. She only thought of the
life of happiness she had led with the noble man who had been injured so
unjustly. Yes! On the morrow she would go to the gate of the prison, and
never leave it until it was opened!
Padre Passanha took her and her daughter, who could not restrain her
tears, and the three entered the house.
The two young fellows found themselves alone.
“And now,” said Benito, “I ought to know all that my father has told
you.”
“I have nothing to hide from you.”
“Why did Torres come on board the jangada?”
“To see to Joam Dacosta the secret of his past life.”
“And so, when we first met Torres in the forest of Iquitos, his plan had
already been formed to enter into communication with my father?”
“There cannot be a doubt of it,” replied Manoel. “The scoundrel was on
his way to the fazenda with the idea of consummating a vile scheme of
extortion which he had been preparing for a long time.”
“And when he learned from us that my father and his whole family were
about to pass the frontier, he suddenly changed his line of conduct?”
“Yes. Because Joam Dacosta once in Brazilian territory became more at
his mercy than while within the frontiers of Peru. That is why we
found Torres at Tabatinga, where he was waiting in expectation of our
arrival.”
“And it was I who offered him a passage on the raft!” exclaimed Benito,
with a gesture of despair.
“Brother,” said Manoel, “you need not reproach yourself. Torres would
have joined us sooner or later. He was not the man to abandon such
a trail. Had we lost him at Tabatinga, we should have found him at
Manaos.”
“Yes, Manoel, you are right. But we are not concerned with the past now.
We must think of the present. An end to useless recriminations! Let us
see!” And while speaking, Benito, passing his hand across his forehead,
endeavored to grasp the details of the strange affair.
“How,” he asked, “did Torres ascertain that my father had been sentenced
twenty-three years back for this abominable crime at Tijuco?”
“I do not know,” answered Manoel, “and everything leads me to think that
your father did not know that.”
“But Torres knew that Garral was the name under which Joam Dacosta was
living?”
“Evidently.”
“And he knew that it was in Peru, at Iquitos, that for so many years my
father had taken refuge?”
“He knew it,” said Manoel, “but how he came to know it I do not
understand.”
“One more question,” continued Benito. “What was the proposition that
Torres made to my father during the short interview which preceded his
expulsion?”
“He threatened to denounce Joam Garral as being Joam Dacosta, if he
declined to purchase his silence.”
“And at what price?”
“At the price of his daughter’s hand!” answered Manoel unhesitatingly,
but pale with anger.
“The scoundrel dared to do that!” exclaimed Benito.
“To this infamous request, Benito, you saw the reply that your father
gave.”
“Yes, Manoel, yes! The indignant reply of an honest man. He kicked
Torres off the raft. But it is not enough to have kicked him out. No!
That will not do for me. It was on Torres’ information that they came
here and arrested my father; is not that so?”
“Yes, on his denunciation.”
“Very well,” continued Benito, shaking his fist toward the left bank of
the river, “I must find out Torres. I must know how he became master of
the secret. He must tell me if he knows the real author of this crime.
He shall speak out. And if he does not speak out, I know what I shall
have to do.”
“What you will have to do is for me to do as well!” added Manoel, more
coolly, but not less resolutely.
“No! Manoel, no, to me alone!”
“We are brothers, Benito,” replied Manoel. “The right of demanding an
explanation belongs to us both.”
Benito made no reply. Evidently on that subject his decision was
irrevocable.
At this moment the pilot Araujo, who had been observing the state of the
river, came up to them.
“Have you decided,” he asked, “if the raft is to remain at her moorings
at the Isle of Muras, or to go on to the port of Manaos?”
The question had to be decided before nightfall, and the sooner it was
settled the better.
In fact, the news of the arrest of Joam Dacosta ought already to have
spread through the town. That it was of a nature to excite the interest
of the population of Manaos could scarcely be doubted. But would it
provoke more than curiosity against the condemned man, who was the
principal author of the crime of Tijuco, which had formerly created such
a sensation? Ought they not to fear that some popular movement might be
directed against the prisoner? In the face of this hypothesis was it not
better to leave the jangada moored near the Isle of Muras on the right
bank of the river at a few miles from Manaos?
The pros and cons of the question were well weighed.
“No!” at length exclaimed Benito; “to remain here would look as though
we were abandoning my father and doubting his innocence--as though we
were afraid to make common cause with him. We must go to Manaos, and
without delay.”
“You are right,” replied Manoel. “Let us go.”
Araujo, with an approving nod, began his preparations for leaving the
island. The maneuver necessitated a good deal of care. They had to work
the raft slantingly across the current of the Amazon, here doubled in
force by that of the Rio Negro, and to make for the _embouchure_ of the
tributary about a dozen miles down on the left bank.
The ropes were cast off from the island. The jangada, again started on
the river, began to drift off diagonally. Araujo, cleverly profiting by
the bendings of the current, which were due to the projections of the
banks, and assisted by the long poles of his crew, succeeded in working
the immense raft in the desired direction.
In two hours the jangada was on the other side of the Amazon, a little
above the mouth of the Rio Negro, and fairly in the current which was to
take it to the lower bank of the vast bay which opened on the left side
of the stream.
At five o’clock in the evening it was strongly moored alongside this
bank, not in the port of Manaos itself, which it could not enter without
stemming a rather powerful current, but a short mile below it.
The raft was then in the black waters of the Rio Negro, near rather
a high bluff covered with cecropias with buds of reddish-brown, and
palisaded with stiff-stalked reeds called _“froxas,”_ of which the
Indians make some of their weapons.
A few citizens were strolling about the bank. A feeling of curiosity had
doubtless attracted them to the anchorage of the raft. The news of the
arrest of Joam Dacosta had soon spread about, but the curiosity of the
Manaens did not outrun their discretion, and they were very quiet.
Benito’s intention had been to land that evening, but Manoel dissuaded
him.
“Wait till to-morrow,” he said; “night is approaching, and there is no
necessity for us to leave the raft.”
“So be it! To-morrow!” answered Benito.
And here Yaquita, followed by her daughter and Padre Passanha, came
out of the house. Minha was still weeping, but her mother’s face was
tearless, and she had that look of calm resolution which showed that the
wife was now ready for all things, either to do her duty or to insist on
her rights.
Yaquita slowly advanced toward Manoel.
“Manoel,” she said, “listen to what I have to say, for my conscience
commands me to speak as I am about to do.”
“I am listening,” replied Manoel.
Yaquita, looking him straight in the face, continued: “Yesterday, after
the interview you had with Joam Dacosta, my husband, you came to me and
called me--mother! You took Minha’s hand, and called her--your wife!
You then knew everything, and the past life of Joam Dacosta had been
disclosed to you.”
“Yes,” answered Manoel, “and heaven forbid I should have had any
hesitation in doing so!”
“Perhaps so,” replied Yaquita; “but then Joam Dacosta had not been
arrested. The position is not now the same. However innocent he may be,
my husband is in the hands of justice; his past life has been publicly
proclaimed. Minha is a convict’s daughter.”
“Minha Dacosta or Minha Garral, what matters it to me?” exclaimed
Manoel, who could keep silent no longer.
“Manoel!” murmured Minha.
And she would certainly have fallen had not Lina’s arm supported her.
“Mother, if you do not wish to kill her,” said Manoel, “call me your
son!”
“My son! my child!”
It was all Yaquita could say, and the tears, which she restrained with
difficulty, filled her eyes.
And then they all re-entered the house. But during the long night not an
hour’s sleep fell to the lot of the unfortunate family who were being so
cruelly tried.
CHAPTER III.
RETROSPECTIVE
Joam Dacosta had relied entirely on Judge Albeiro, and his death was
most unfortunate.
Before he was judge at Manaos, and chief magistrate in the province,
Ribeiro had known the young clerk at the time he was being prosecuted
for the murder in the diamond arrayal. He was then an advocate at Villa
Rica, and he it was who defended the prisoner at the trial. He took
the cause to heart and made it his own, and from an examination of the
papers and detailed information, and not from the simple fact of his
position in the matter, he came to the conclusion that his client was
wrongfully accused, and that he had taken not the slightest part in the
murder of the escort or the theft of the diamonds--in a word, that Joam
Dacosta was innocent.
But, notwithstanding this conviction, notwithstanding his talent and
zeal, Ribeiro was unable to persuade the jury to take the same view of
the matter. How could he remove so strong a presumption? If it was not
Joam Dacosta, who had every facility for informing the scoundrels of the
convoy’s departure, who was it? The official who accompanied the escort
had perished with the greater part of the soldiers, and suspicion could
not point against him. Everything agreed in distinguishing Dacosta as
the true and only author of the crime.
Ribeiro defended him with great warmth and with all his powers, but he
could not succeed in saving him. The verdict of the jury was affirmative
on all the questions. Joam Dacosta, convicted of aggravated and
premeditated murder, did not even obtain the benefit of extenuating
circumstances, and heard himself condemned to death.
There was no hope left for the accused. No commutation of the sentence
was possible, for the crime was committed in the diamond arrayal.
The condemned man was lost. But during the night which preceded his
execution, and when the gallows was already erected, Joam Dacosta
managed to escape from the prison at Villa Rica. We know the rest.
Twenty years later Ribeiro the advocate became the chief justice of
Manaos. In the depths of his retreat the fazender of Iquitos heard of
the change, and in it saw a favorable opportunity for bringing forward
the revision of the former proceedings against him with some chance of
success. He knew that the old convictions of the advocate would be still
unshaken in the mind of the judge. He therefore resolved to try and
rehabilitate himself. Had it not been for Ribeiro’s nomination to the
chief justiceship in the province of Amazones, he might perhaps have
hesitated, for he had no new material proof of his innocence to bring
forward. Although the honest man suffered acutely, he might still have
remained hidden in exile at Iquitos, and still have asked for time to
smother the remembrances of the horrible occurrence, but something was
urging him to act in the matter without delay.
In fact, before Yaquita had spoken to him, Joam Dacosta had noticed that
Manoel was in love with his daughter.
The union of the young army doctor and his daughter was in every respect
a suitable one. It was evident to Joam that some day or other he would
be asked for her hand in marriage, and he did not wish to be obliged to
refuse.
But then the thought that his daughter would have to marry under a
name which did not belong to her, that Manoel Valdez, thinking he was
entering the family of Garral, would enter that of Dacosta, the head
of which was under sentence of death, was intolerable to him. No! The
wedding should not take place unless under proper conditions! Never!
Let us recall what had happened up to this time. Four years after the
young clerk, who eventually became the partner of Magalhaës, had arrived
at Iquitos, the old Portuguese had been taken back to the farm mortally
injured. A few days only were left for him to live. He was alarmed at
the thought that his daughter would be left alone and unprotected; but
knowing that Joam and Yaquita were in love with each other, he desired
their union without delay.
Joam at first refused. He offered to remain the protector or the servant
of Yaquita without becoming her husband. The wish of the dying Magalhaës
was so urgent that resistance became impossible. Yaquita put her hand
into the hand of Joam, and Joam did not withdraw it.
Yes! It was a serious matter! Joam Dacosta ought to have confessed
all, or to have fled forever from the house in which he had been so
hospitably received, from the establishment of which he had built up
the prosperity! Yes! To confess everything rather than to give to the
daughter of his benefactor a name which was not his, instead of the name
of a felon condemned to death for murder, innocent though he might be!
But the case was pressing, the old fazender was on the point of death,
his hands were stretched out toward the young people! Joam was silent,
the marriage took place, and the remainder of his life was devoted to
the happiness of the girl he had made his wife.
“The day when I confess everything,” Joam repeated, “Yaquita will pardon
everything! She will not doubt me for an instant! But if I ought not to
have deceived her, I certainly will not deceive the honest fellow who
wishes to enter our family by marrying Mina! No! I would rather give
myself up and have done with this life!”
Many times had Joam thought of telling his wife about his past life.
Yes! the avowal was on his lips whenever she asked him to take her
into Brazil, and with her and her daughter descend the beautiful Amazon
river. He knew sufficient of Yaquita to be sure that her affection for
him would not thereby be diminished in the least. But courage failed
him!
And this is easily intelligible in the face of the happiness of the
family, which increased on every side. This happiness was his work, and
it might be destroyed forever by his return.
Such had been his life for those long years; such had been the
continuous source of his sufferings, of which he had kept the secret so
well; such had been the existence of this man, who had no action to
be ashamed of, and whom a great injustice compelled to hide away from
himself!
But at length the day arrived when there could no longer remain a doubt
as to the affection which Manoel bore to Minha, when he could see that
a year would not go by before he was asked to give his consent to her
marriage, and after a short delay he no longer hesitated to proceed in
the matter.
A letter from him, addressed to Judge Ribeiro, acquainted the chief
justice with the secret of the existence of Joam Dacosta, with the name
under which he was concealed, with the place where he lived with his
family, and at the same time with his formal intention of delivering
himself up to justice, and taking steps to procure the revision of the
proceedings, which would either result in his rehabilitation or in the
execution of the iniquitous judgment delivered at Villa Rica.
What were the feelings which agitated the heart of the worthy
magistrate? We can easily divine them. It was no longer to the advocate
that the accused applied; it was to the chief justice of the province
that the convict appealed. Joam Dacosta gave himself over to him
entirely, and did not even ask him to keep the secret.
Judge Ribeiro was at first troubled about this unexpected revelation,
but he soon recovered himself, and scrupulously considered the duties
which the position imposed on him. It was his place to pursue criminals,
and here was one who delivered himself into his hands. This criminal,
it was true, he had defended; he had never doubted but that he had been
unjustly condemned; his joy had been extreme when he saw him escape by
flight from the last penalty; he had even instigated and facilitated his
flight! But what the advocate had done in the past could the magistrate
do in the present?
“Well, yes!” had the judge said, “my conscience tells me not to abandon
this just man. The step he is taking is a fresh proof of his innocence,
a moral proof, even if he brings me others, which may be the most
convincing of all! No! I will not abandon him!”
From this day forward a secret correspondence took place between the
magistrate and Joam Dacosta. Ribeiro at the outset cautioned his client
against compromising himself by any imprudence. He had again to work
up the matter, again to read over the papers, again to look through the
inquiries. He had to find out if any new facts had come to light in
the diamond province referring to so serious a case. Had any of the
accomplices of the crime, of the smugglers who had attacked the convoy,
been arrested since the attempt? Had any confessions or half-confessions
been brought forward? Joam Dacosta had done nothing but protest his
innocence from the very first. But that was not enough, and Judge
Ribeiro was desirous of finding in the case itself the clue to the real
culprit.
Joam Dacosta had accordingly been prudent. He had promised to be so. But
in all his trials it was an immense consolation for him to find his old
advocate, though now a chief justice, so firmly convinced that he was
not guilty. Yes! Joam Dacosta, in spite of his condemnation, was
a victim, a martyr, an honest man to whom society owed a signal
reparation! And when the magistrate knew the past career of the fazender
of Iquitos since his sentence, the position of his family, all that life
of devotion, of work, employed unceasingly for the happiness of those
belonging to him, he was not only more convinced but more affected, and
determined to do all that he could to procure the rehabilitation of the
felon of Tijuco.
For six months a correspondence had passed between these two men.
One day, the case being pressing, Joam Dacosta wrote to Judge Ribeiro:
“In two months I will be with you, in the power of the chief justice of
the province!”
“Come, then,” replied Ribeiro.
The jangada was then ready to go down the river. Joam Dacosta embarked
on it with all his people. During the voyage, to the great astonishment
of his wife and son, he landed but rarely, as we know. More often he
remained shut up on his room, writing, working, not at his trading
accounts, but, without saying anything about it, at a kind of memoir,
which he called “The History of My Life,” and which was meant to be used
in the revision of the legal proceedings.
Eight days before his new arrest, made on account of information given
by Torres, which forestalled and perhaps would ruin his prospects, he
intrusted to an Indian on the Amazon a letter, in which he warned Judge
Ribeiro of his approaching arrival.
The letter was sent and delivered as addressed, and the magistrate only
waited for Joam Dacosta to commence on the serious undertaking which he
hoped to bring to a successful issue.
During the night before the arrival of the raft at Manaos Judge Ribeiro
was seized with an attack of apoplexy. But the denunciation of Torres,
whose scheme of extortion had collapsed in face of the noble anger of
his victim, had produced its effect. Joam Dacosta was arrested in the
bosom of his family, and his old advocate was no longer in this world to
defend him!
Yes, the blow was terrible indeed. His lot was cast, whatever his fate
might be; there was no going back for him! And Joam Dacosta rose from
beneath the blow which had so unexpectedly struck him. It was not only
his own honor which was in question, but the honor of all who belonged
to him.
CHAPTER IV.
MORAL PROOFS
The warrant against Joam Dacosta, alias Joam Garral, had been issued
by the assistant of Judge Ribeiro, who filled the position of the
magistrate in the province of Amazones, until the nomination of the
successor of the late justice.
This assistant bore the name of Vicente Jarriquez. He was a surly
little fellow, whom forty years’ practice in criminal procedure had not
rendered particularly friendly toward those who came before him. He had
had so many cases of this sort, and tried and sentenced so many rascals,
that a prisoner’s innocence seemed to him _à priori_ inadmissable. To
be sure, he did not come to a decision unconscientiously; but his
conscience was strongly fortified and was not easily affected by the
circumstances of the examination or the arguments for the defense. Like
a good many judges, he thought but little of the indulgence of the jury,
and when a prisoner was brought before him, after having passed
through the sieve of inquest, inquiry, and examination, there was every
presumption in his eyes that the man was quite ten times guilty.
Jarriquez, however, was not a bad man. Nervous, fidgety, talkative,
keen, crafty, he had a curious look about him, with his big head on
his little body; his ruffled hair, which would not have disgraced the
judge’s wig of the past; his piercing gimlet-like eyes, with their
expression of surprising acuteness; his prominent nose, with which he
would assuredly have gesticulated had it been movable; his ears wide
open, so as to better catch all that was said, even when it was out of
range of ordinary auditory apparatus; his fingers unceasingly tapping
the table in front of him, like those of a pianist practicing on
the mute; and his body so long and his legs so short, and his feet
perpetually crossing and recrossing, as he sat in state in his
magistrate’s chair.
In private life, Jarriquez, who was a confirmed old bachelor, never left
his law-books but for the table which he did not despise; for chess, of
which he was a past master; and above all things for Chinese puzzles,
enigmas, charades, rebuses, anagrams, riddles, and such things, with
which, like more than one European justice--thorough sphinxes by taste
as well as by profession--he principally passed his leisure.
It will be seen that he was an original, and it will be seen also how
much Joam Dacosta had lost by the death of Judge Ribeiro, inasmuch as
his case would come before this not very agreeable judge.
Moreover, the task of Jarriquez was in a way very simple. He had either
to inquire nor to rule; he had not even to regulate a discussion nor to
obtain a verdict, neither to apply the articles of the penal code nor to
pronounce a sentence. Unfortunately for the fazender, such formalities
were no longer necessary; Joam Dacosta had been arrested, convicted, and
sentenced twenty-three years ago for the crime at Tijuco; no limitation
had yet affected his sentence. No demand in commutation of the penalty
could be introduced, and no appeal for mercy could be received. It was
only necessary then to establish his identity, and as soon as the order
arrived from Rio Janeiro justice would have to take its course.
But in the nature of things Joam Dacosta would protest his innocence;
he would say he had been unjustly condemned. The magistrate’s duty,
notwithstanding the opinions he held, would be to listen to him. The
question would be, what proofs could the convict offer to make good
his assertions? And if he was not able to produce them when he appeared
before his first judges, was he able to do so now?
Herein consisted all the interest of the examination. There would have
to be admitted the fact of a defaulter, prosperous and safe in a foreign
country, leaving his refuge of his own free will to face the justice
which his past life should have taught him to dread, and herein would
be one of those rare and curious cases which ought to interest even a
magistrate hardened with all the surroundings of forensic strife. Was it
impudent folly on the part of the doomed man of Tijuco, who was tired of
his life, or was it the impulse of a conscience which would at all
risks have wrong set right? The problem was a strange one, it must be
acknowledged.
On the morrow of Joam Dacosta’s arrest, Judge Jarriquez made his way to
the prison in God-the-Son Street, where the convict had been placed. The
prison was an old missionary convent, situated on the bank of one of the
principal iguarapes of the town. To the voluntary prisoners of former
times there had succeeded in this building, which was but little adapted
for the purpose, the compulsory prisoners of to-day. The room occupied
by Joam Dacosta was nothing like one of those sad little cells which
form part of our modern penitentiary system: but an old monk’s room,
with a barred window without shutters, opening on to an uncultivated
space, a bench in one corner, and a kind of pallet in the other. It was
from this apartment that Joam Dacosta, on this 25th of August, about
eleven o’clock in the morning, was taken and brought into the judge’s
room, which was the old common hall of the convent.
Judge Jarriquez was there in front of his desk, perched on his high
chair, his back turned toward the window, so that his face was in shadow
while that of the accused remained in full daylight. His clerk, with the
indifference which characterizes these legal folks, had taken his seat
at the end of the table, his pen behind his ear, ready to record the
questions and answers.
Joam Dacosta was introduced into the room, and at a sign from the judge
the guards who had brought him withdrew.
Judge Jarriquez looked at the accused for some time. The latter, leaning
slightly forward and maintaining a becoming attitude, neither careless
nor humble, waited with dignity for the questions to which he was
expected to reply.
“Your name?” said Judge Jarriquez.
“Joam Dacosta.”
“Your age?”
“Fifty-two.”
“Where do you live?”
“In Peru, at the village of Iquitos.”
“Under what name?”
“Under that of Garral, which is that of my mother.”
“And why do you bear that name?”
“Because for twenty-three years I wished to hide myself from the pursuit
of Brazilian justice.”
The answers were so exact, and seemed to show that Joam Dacosta had made
up his mind to confess everything concerning his past and present life,
that Judge Jarriquez, little accustomed to such a course, cocked up his
nose more than was usual to him.
“And why,” he continued, “should Brazilian justice pursue you?”
“Because I was sentenced to death in 1826 in the diamond affair at
Tijuco.”
“You confess then that you are Joam Dacosta?”
“I am Joam Dacosta.”
All this was said with great calmness, and as simply as possible. The
little eyes of Judge Jarriquez, hidden by their lids, seemed to say:
“Never came across anything like this before.”
He had put the invariable question which had hitherto brought the
invariable reply from culprits of every category protesting their
innocence. The fingers of the judge began to beat a gentle tattoo on the
table.
“Joam Dacosta,” he asked, “what were you doing at Iquitos?”
“I was a fazender, and engaged in managing a farming establishment of
considerable size.”
“It was prospering?”
“Greatly prospering.”
“How long ago did you leave your fazenda?”
“About nine weeks.”
“Why?”
“As to that, sir,” answered Dacosta, “I invented a pretext, but in
reality I had a motive.”
“What was the pretext?”
“The responsibility of taking into Para a large raft, and a cargo of
different products of the Amazon.”
“Ah! and what was the real motive of your departure?”
And in asking this question Jarriquez said to himself:
“Now we shall get into denials and falsehoods.”
“The real motive,” replied Joam Dacosta, in a firm voice, “was the
resolution I had taken to give myself up to the justice of my country.”
“You give yourself up!” exclaimed the judge, rising from his stool. “You
give yourself up of your own free will?”
“Of my own free will.”
“And why?”
“Because I had had enough of this lying life, this obligation to live
under a false name, of this impossibility to be able to restore to
my wife and children that which belongs to them; in short, sir,
because----”
“Because?”
“I was innocent!”
“That is what I was waiting for,” said Judge Jarriquez.
And while his fingers tattooed a slightly more audible march, he made a
sign with his head to Dacosta, which signified as clearly as possible,
“Go on! Tell me your history. I know it, but I do not wish to interrupt
you in telling it in your own way.”
Joam Dacosta, who did not disregard the magistrate’s far from
encouraging attitude, could not but see this, and he told the history of
his whole life. He spoke quietly without departing from the calm he
had imposed upon himself, without omitting any circumstances which had
preceded or succeeded his condemnation. In the same tone he insisted
on the honored and honorable life he had led since his escape, on his
duties as head of his family, as husband and father, which he had so
worthily fulfilled. He laid stress only on one circumstance--that which
had brought him to Manaos to urge on the revision of the proceedings
against him, to procure his rehabilitation--and that he was compelled to
do.
Judge Jarriquez, who was naturally prepossessed against all criminals,
did not interrupt him. He contented himself with opening and shutting
his eyes like a man who heard the story told for the hundredth time; and
when Joam Dacosta laid on the table the memoir which he had drawn up, he
made no movement to take it.
“You have finished?” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
“And you persist in asserting that you only left Iquitos to procure the
revision of the judgment against you.”
“I had no other intention.”
“What is there to prove that? Who can prove that, without the
denunciation which had brought about your arrest, you would have given
yourself up?”
“This memoir, in the first place.”
“That memoir was in your possession, and there is nothing to show that
had you not been arrested, you would have put it to the use you say you
intended.”
“At the least, sir, there was one thing that was not in my possession,
and of the authenticity of which there can be no doubt.”
“What?”
“The letter I wrote to your predecessor, Judge Ribeiro, the letter which
gave him notice of my early arrival.”
“Ah! you wrote?”
“Yes. And the letter which ought to have arrived at its destination
should have been handed over to you.”
“Really!” answered Judge Jarriquez, in a slightly incredulous tone. “You
wrote to Judge Ribeiro.”
“Before he was a judge in this province,” answered Joam Dacosta, “he
was an advocate at Villa Rica. He it was who defended me in the trial at
Tijuco. He never doubted of the justice of my cause. He did all he could
to save me. Twenty years later, when he had become chief justice at
Manaos, I let him know who I was, where I was, and what I wished to
attempt. His opinion about me had not changed, and it was at his
advice I left the fazenda, and came in person to proceed with my
rehabilitation. But death had unfortunately struck him, and maybe I
shall be lost, sir, if in Judge Jarriquez I do not find another Judge
Ribeiro.”
The magistrate, appealed to so directly, was about to start up in
defiance of all the traditions of the judicial bench, but he managed to
restrain himself, and was contented with muttering:
“Very strong, indeed; very strong!”
Judge Jarriquez was evidently hard of heart, and proof against all
surprise.
At this moment a guard entered the room, and handed a sealed packet to
the magistrate.
He broke the seal and drew a letter from the envelope. He opened it and
read it, not without a certain contraction of his eyebrows, and then
said:
“I have no reason for hiding from you, Joam Dacosta, that this is the
letter you have been speaking about, addressed by you to Judge Ribeiro
and sent on to me. I have, therefore, no reason to doubt what you have
said on the subject.”
“Not only on that subject,” answered Dacosta, “but on the subject of all
the circumstances of my life which I have brought to your knowledge, and
which are none of them open to question.”
“Eh! Joam Dacosta,” quickly replied Judge Jarriquez. “You protest your
innocence; but all prisoners do as much! After all, you only offer moral
presumptions. Have you any material proof?”
“Perhaps I have,” answered Joam Dacosta.
At these words, Judge Jarriquez left his chair. This was too much for
him, and he had to take two or three circuits of the room to recover
himself.
CHAPTER V.
MATERIAL PROOFS
When the magistrate had again taken his place, like a man who considered
he was perfectly master of himself, he leaned back in his chair, and
with his head raised and his eyes looking straight in front, as though
not even noticing the accused, remarked, in a tone of the most perfect
indifference:
“Go on.”
Joam Dacosta reflected for a minute as if hesitating to resume the order
of his thoughts, and then answered as follows:
“Up to the present, sir, I have only given you moral presumptions of my
innocence grounded on the dignity, propriety, and honesty of the whole
of my life. I should have thought that such proofs were those most
worthy of being brought forward in matters of justice.”
Judge Jarriquez could not restrain a movement of his shoulders, showing
that such was not his opinion.
“Since they are not enough, I proceed with the material proofs which I
shall perhaps be able to produce,” continued Dacosta; “I say perhaps,
for I do not yet know what credit to attach to them. And, sir, I have
never spoken of these things to my wife or children, not wishing to
raise a hope which might be destroyed.”
“To the point,” answered Jarriquez.
“I have every reason to believe, sir, that my arrest on the eve of the
arrival of the raft at Manaos is due to information given to the chief
of the police!”
“You are not mistaken, Joam Dacosta, but I ought to tell you that the
information is anonymous.”
“It matters little, for I know that it could only come from a scoundrel
called Torres.”
“And what right have you to speak in such a way of this--informer?”
“A scoundrel! Yes, sir!” replied Joam quickly. “This man, whom I
received with hospitality, only came to me to propose that I should
purchase his silence to offer me an odious bargain that I shall
never regret having refused, whatever may be the consequences of his
denunciation!”
“Always this method!” thought Judge Jarriquez; “accusing others to clear
himself.”
But he none the less listened with extreme attention to Joam’s recital
of his relations with the adventurer up to the moment when Torres let
him know that he knew and could reveal the name of the true author of
the crime of Tijuco.
“And what is the name of the guilty man?” asked Jarriquez, shaken in his
indifference.
“I do not know,” answered Joam Dacosta. “Torres was too cautious to let
it out.”
“And the culprit is living?”
“He is dead.”
The fingers of Judge Jarriquez tattooed more quickly, and he could not
avoid exclaiming, “The man who can furnish the proof of a prisoner’s
innocence is always dead.”
“If the real culprit is dead, sir,” replied Dacosta, “Torres at least
is living, and the proof, written throughout in the handwriting of the
author of the crime, he has assured me is in his hands! He offered to
sell it to me!”
“Eh! Joam Dacosta!” answered Judge Jarriquez, “that would not have been
dear at the cost of the whole of your fortune!”
“If Torres had only asked my fortune, I would have given it to him and
not one of my people would have demurred! Yes, you are right, sir; a
man cannot pay too dearly for the redemption of his honor! But this
scoundrel, knowing that I was at his mercy, required more than my
fortune!”
“How so?”
“My daughter’s hand was to be the cost of the bargain! I refused; he
denounced me, and that is why I am now before you!”
“And if Torres had not informed against you,” asked Judge Jarriquez--“if
Torres had not met with you on your voyage, what would you have done on
learning on your arrival of the death of Judge Ribeiro? Would you then
have delivered yourself into the hands of justice?”
“Without the slightest hesitation,” replied Joam, in a firm voice;
“for, I repeat it, I had no other object in leaving Iquitos to come to
Manaos.”
This was said in such a tone of truthfulness that Judge Jarriquez
experienced a kind of feeling making its way to that corner of the heart
where convictions are formed, but he did not yet give in.
He could hardly help being astonished. A judge engaged merely in this
examination, he knew nothing of what is known by those who have followed
this history, and who cannot doubt but that Torres held in his hands the
material proof of Joam Dacosta’s innocence. They know that the document
existed; that it contained this evidence; and perhaps they may be led to
think that Judge Jarriquez was pitilessly incredulous. But they should
remember that Judge Jarriquez was not in their position; that he was
accustomed to the invariable protestations of the culprits who came
before him. The document which Joam Dacosta appealed to was not
produced; he did not really know if it actually existed; and to
conclude, he had before him a man whose guilt had for him the certainty
of a settled thing.
However, he wished, perhaps through curiosity, to drive Joam Dacosta
behind his last entrenchments.
“And so,” he said, “all your hope now rests on the declaration which has
been made to you by Torres.”
“Yes, sir, if my whole life does not plead for me.”
“Where do you think Torres really is?”
“I think in Manaos.”
“And you hope that he will speak--that he will consent to good-naturedly
hand over to you the document for which you have declined to pay the
price he asked?”
“I hope so, sir,” replied Joam Dacosta; “the situation now is not the
same for Torres; he has denounced me, and consequently he cannot retain
any hope of resuming his bargaining under the previous conditions.
But this document might still be worth a fortune if, supposing I am
acquitted or executed, it should ever escape him. Hence his interest is
to sell me the document, which can thus not injure him in any way, and I
think he will act according to his interest.”
The reasoning of Joam Dacosta was unanswerable, and Judge Jarriquez felt
it to be so. He made the only possible objection.
“The interest of Torres is doubtless to sell you the document--if the
document exists.”
“If it does not exist,” answered Joam Dacosta, in a penetrating voice,
“in trusting to the justice of men, I must put my trust only in God!”
At these words Judge Jarriquez rose, and, in not quite such an
indifferent tone, said, “Joam Dacosta, in examining you here, in
allowing you to relate the particulars of your past life and to protest
your innocence, I have gone further than my instructions allow me. An
information has already been laid in this affair, and you have appeared
before the jury at Villa Rica, whose verdict was given unanimously, and
without even the addition of extenuating circumstances. You have been
found guilty of the instigation of, and complicity in, the murder of the
soldiers and the robbery of the diamonds at Tijuco, the capital sentence
was pronounced on you, and it was only by flight that you escaped
execution. But that you came here to deliver yourself over, or not, to
the hands of justice twenty-three years afterward, you would never have
been retaken. For the last time, you admit that you are Joam Dacosta,
the condemned man of the diamond arrayal?”
“I am Joam Dacosta.”
“You are ready to sign this declaration?”
“I am ready.”
And with a hand without a tremble Joam Dacosta put his name to the foot
of the declaration and the report which Judge Jarriquez had made his
clerk draw up.
“The report, addressed to the minister of justice, is to be sent off
to Rio Janeiro,” said the magistrate. “Many days will elapse before we
receive orders to carry out your sentence. If then, as you say, Torres
possesses the proof of your innocence, do all you can yourself--do all
you can through your friends--do everything, so that that proof can be
produced in time. Once the order arrives no delay will be possible, and
justice must take its course.”
Joam Dacosta bowed slightly.
“Shall I be allowed in the meantime to see my wife and children?” he
asked.
“After to-day, if you wish,” answered Judge Jarriquez; “you are no
longer in close confinement, and they can be brought to you as soon as
they apply.”
The magistrate then rang the bell. The guards entered the room, and took
away Joam Dacosta.
Judge Jarriquez watched him as he went out, and shook his head and
muttered:
“Well, well! This is a much stranger affair than I ever thought it would
be!”
CHAPTER VI.
THE LAST BLOW
While Joam Dacosta was undergoing this examination, Yaquita, from an
inquiry made by Manoel, ascertained that she and her children would be
permitted to see the prisoner that very day about four o’clock in the
afternoon.
Yaquita had not left her room since the evening before. Minha and Lina
kept near her, waiting for the time when she would be admitted to see
her husband.
Yaquita Garral or Yaquita Dacosta, he would still find her the devoted
wife and brave companion he had ever known her to be.
About eleven o’clock in the morning Benito joined Manoel and Fragoso,
who were talking in the bow of the jangada.
“Manoel,” said he, “I have a favor to ask you.”
“What is it?”
“And you too, Fragoso.”
“I am at your service, Mr. Benito,” answered the barber.
“What is the matter?” asked Manoel, looking at his friend, whose
expression was that of a man who had come to some unalterable
resolution.
“You never doubt my father’s innocence? Is that so?” said Benito.
“Ah!” exclaimed Fragoso. “Rather I think it was I who committed the
crime.”
“Well, we must now commence on the project I thought of yesterday.”
“To find out Torres?” asked Manoel.
“Yes, and know from him how he found out my father’s retreat. There
is something inexplicable about it. Did he know it before? I cannot
understand it, for my father never left Iquitos for more than twenty
years, and this scoundrel is hardly thirty! But the day will not close
before I know it; or, woe to Torres!”
Benito’s resolution admitted of no discussion; and besides, neither
Manoel nor Fragoso had the slightest thought of dissuading him.
“I will ask, then,” continued Benito, “for both of you to accompany me.
We shall start in a minute or two. It will not do to wait till Torres
has left Manaos. He has no longer got his silence to sell, and the idea
might occur to him. Let us be off!”
And so all three of them landed on the bank of the Rio Negro and started
for the town.
Manaos was not so considerable that it could not be searched in a
few hours. They had made up their minds to go from house to house, if
necessary, to look for Torres, but their better plan seemed to be to
apply in the first instance to the keepers of the taverns and lojas
where the adventurer was most likely to put up. There could hardly be a
doubt that the ex-captain of the woods would not have given his name;
he might have personal reasons for avoiding all communication with
the police. Nevertheless, unless he had left Manaos, it was almost
impossible for him to escape the young fellows’ search. In any case,
there would be no use in applying to the police, for it was very
probable--in fact, we know that it actually was so--that the information
given to them had been anonymous.
For an hour Benito, Manoel, and Fragoso walked along the principal
streets of the town, inquiring of the tradesmen in their shops, the
tavern-keepers in their cabarets, and even the bystanders, without any
one being able to recognize the individual whose description they so
accurately gave.
Had Torres left Manaos? Would they have to give up all hope of coming
across him?
In vain Manoel tried to calm Benito, whose head seemed on fire. Cost
what it might, he must get at Torres!
Chance at last favored them, and it was Fragoso who put them on the
right track.
In a tavern in Holy Ghost Street, from the description which the people
received of the adventurer, they replied that the individual in question
had put up at the loja the evening before.
“Did he sleep here?” asked Fragoso.
“Yes,” answered the tavern-keeper.
“Is he here now?”
“No. He has gone out.”
“But has he settled his bill, as a man would who has gone for good?”
“By no means; he left his room about an hour ago, and he will doubtless
come back to supper.”
“Do you know what road he took when he went out?”
“We saw him turning toward the Amazon, going through the lower town, and
you will probably meet him on that side.”
Fragoso did not want any more. A few seconds afterward he rejoined the
young fellows, and said:
“I am on the track.”
“He is there!” exclaimed Benito.
“No; he has just gone out, and they have seen him walking across to the
bank of the Amazon.”
“Come on!” replied Benito.
They had to go back toward the river, and the shortest way was for them
to take the left bank of the Rio Negro, down to its mouth.
Benito and his companions soon left the last houses of the town behind,
and followed the bank, making a slight detour so as not to be observed
from the jangada.
The plain was at this time deserted. Far away the view extended across
the flat, where cultivated fields had replaced the former forests.
Benito did not speak; he could not utter a word. Manoel and Fragoso
respected his silence. And so the three of them went along and looked
about on all sides as they traversed the space between the bank of
the Rio Negro and that of the Amazon. Three-quarters of an hour after
leaving Manaos, and still they had seen nothing!
Once or twice Indians working in the fields were met with. Manoel
questioned them, and one of them at length told him that a man, such as
he described, had just passed in the direction of the angle formed by
the two rivers at their confluence.
Without waiting for more, Benito, by an irresistible movement, strode
to the front, and his two companions had to hurry on to avoid being left
behind.
The left bank of the Amazon was then about a quarter of a mile off. A
sort of cliff appeared ahead, hiding a part of the horizon, and bounding
the view a few hundred paces in advance.
Benito, hurrying on, soon disappeared behind one of the sandy knolls.
“Quicker! quicker!” said Manoel to Fragoso. “We must not leave him alone
for an instant.”
And they were dashing along when a shout struck on their ears.
Had Benito caught sight of Torres? What had he seen? Had Benito and
Torres already met?
Manoel and Fragoso, fifty paces further on, after swiftly running round
one of the spurs of the bank, saw two men standing face to face to each
other.
They were Torres and Benito.
In an instant Manoel and Fragoso had hurried up to them. It might have
been supposed that in Benito’s state of excitement he would be unable to
restrain himself when he found himself once again in the presence of the
adventurer. It was not so.
As soon as the young man saw himself face to face with Torres, and was
certain that he could not escape, a complete change took place in
his manner, his coolness returned, and he became once more master of
himself.
The two men looked at one another for a few moments without a word.
Torres first broke silence, and, in the impudent tone habitual to him,
remarked:
“Ah! How goes it, Mr. Benito Garral?”
“No, Benito Dacosta!” answered the young man.
“Quite so,” continued Torres. “Mr. Benito Dacosta, accompanied by Mr.
Manoel Valdez and my friend Fragoso!”
At the irritating qualification thus accorded him by the adventurer,
Fragoso, who was by no means loath to do him some damage, was about to
rush to the attack, when Benito, quite unmoved, held him back.
“What is the matter with you, my lad?” exclaimed Torres, retreating for
a few steps. “I think I had better put myself on guard.”
And as he spoke he drew from beneath his poncho his manchetta, the
weapon, adapted at will for offense or defense, which a Brazilian is
never without. And then, slightly stooping, and planted firmly on his
feet, he waited for what was to follow.
“I have come to look for you, Torres,” said Benito, who had not stirred
in the least at this threatening attitude.
“To look for me?” answered the adventurer. “It is not very difficult to
find me. And why have you come to look for me?”
“To know from your own lips what you appear to know of the past life of
my father.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I want to know how you recognized him, why you were prowling about
our fazenda in the forest of Iquitos, and why you were waiting for us at
Tabatinga.”
“Well! it seems to me nothing could be clearer!” answered Torres, with
a grin. “I was waiting to get a passage on the jangada, and I went on
board with the intention of making him a very simple proposition--which
possibly he was wrong in rejecting.”
At these words Manoel could stand it no longer. With pale face and eye
of fire he strode up to Torres.
Benito, wishing to exhaust every means of conciliation, thrust himself
between them.
“Calm yourself, Manoel!” he said. “I am calm--even I.”
And then continuing:
“Quite so, Torres; I know the reason of your coming on board the raft.
Possessed of a secret which was doubtless given to you, you wanted to
make it a means of extortion. But that is not what I want to know at
present.”
“What is it, then?”
“I want to know how you recognized Joam Dacosta in the fazenda of
Iquitos?”
“How I recognized him?” replied Torres. “That is my business, and I see
no reason why I should tell you. The important fact is, that I was
not mistaken when I denounced in him the real author of the crime of
Tijuco!”
“You say that to me?” exclaimed Benito, who began to lose his
self-possession.
“I will tell you nothing,” returned Torres; “Joam Dacosta declined my
propositions! He refused to admit me into his family! Well! now that his
secret is known, now that he is a prisoner, it is I who refuse to enter
his family, the family of a thief, of a murderer, of a condemned felon,
for whom the gallows now waits!”
“Scoundrel!” exclaimed Benito, who drew his manchetta from his belt and
put himself in position.
Manoel and Fragoso, by a similar movement, quickly drew their weapons.
“Three against one!” said Torres.
“No! one against one!” answered Benito.
“Really! I should have thought an assassination would have better suited
an assassin’s son!”
“Torres!” exclaimed Benito, “defend yourself, or I will kill you like a
mad dog!”
“Mad! so be it!” answered Torres. “But I bite, Benito Dacosta, and
beware of the wounds!”
And then again grasping his manchetta, he put himself on guard and ready
to attack his enemy.
Benito had stepped back a few paces.
“Torres,” he said, regaining all his coolness, which for a moment he had
lost; “you were the guest of my father, you threatened him, you betrayed
him, you denounced him, you accused an innocent man, and with God’s help
I am going to kill you!”
Torres replied with the most insolent smile imaginable. Perhaps at the
moment the scoundrel had an idea of stopping any struggle between
Benito and him, and he could have done so. In fact he had seen that Joam
Dacosta had said nothing about the document which formed the material
proof of his innocence.
Had he revealed to Benito that he, Torres, possessed this proof, Benito
would have been that instant disarmed. But his desire to wait till the
very last moment, so as to get the very best price for the document he
possessed, the recollection of the young man’s insulting words, and the
hate which he bore to all that belonged to him, made him forget his own
interest.
In addition to being thoroughly accustomed to the manchetta, which he
often had had occasion to use, the adventurer was strong, active, and
artful, so that against an adversary who was scarcely twenty, who could
have neither his strength nor his dexterity, the chances were greatly in
his favor.
Manoel by a last effort wished to insist on fighting him instead of
Benito.
“No, Manoel,” was the cool reply, “it is for me alone to avenge my
father, and as everything here ought to be in order, you shall be my
second.”
“Benito!”
“As for you, Fragoso, you will not refuse if I ask you to act as second
for that man?”
“So be it,” answered Fragoso, “though it is not an office of honor.
Without the least ceremony,” he added, “I would have killed him like a
wild beast.”
The place where the duel was about to take place was a level bank about
fifty paces long, on the top of a cliff rising perpendicularly some
fifty feet above the Amazon. The river slowly flowed at the foot, and
bathed the clumps of reeds which bristled round its base.
There was, therefore, none too much room, and the combatant who was the
first to give way would quickly be driven over into the abyss.
The signal was given by Manoel, and Torres and Benito stepped forward.
Benito had complete command over himself. The defender of a sacred
cause, his coolness was unruffled, much more so than that of Torres,
whose conscience insensible and hardened as it was, was bound at the
moment to trouble him.
The two met, and the first blow came from Benito. Torres parried it.
They then jumped back, but almost at the same instant they rushed
together, and with their left hands seized each other by the
shoulder--never to leave go again.
Torres, who was the strongest, struck a side blow with his manchetta
which Benito could not quite parry. His left side was touched, and his
poncho was reddened with his blood. But he quickly replied, and slightly
wounded Torres in the hand.