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.
Several blows were then interchanged, but nothing decisive was done. The
ever silent gaze of Benito pierced the eyes of Torres like a sword
blade thrust to his very heart. Visibly the scoundrel began to quail. He
recoiled little by little, pressed back by his implacable foe, who was
more determined on taking the life of his father’s denouncer than in
defending his own. To strike was all that Benito longed for; to parry
was all that the other now attempted to do.
Soon Torres saw himself thrust to the very edge of the bank, at a spot
where, slightly scooped away, it overhung the river. He perceived the
danger; he tried to retake the offensive and regain the lost ground. His
agitation increased, his looks grew livid. At length he was obliged to
stoop beneath the arm which threatened him.
“Die, then!” exclaimed Benito.
The blow was struck full on its chest, but the point of the manchetta
was stopped by a hard substance hidden beneath the poncho of the
adventurer.
Benito renewed his attack, and Torres, whose return thrust did not touch
his adversary, felt himself lost. He was again obliged to retreat. Then
he would have shouted--shouted that the life of Joam Dacosta depended on
his own! He had not time!
A second thrust of the manchetta pierced his heart. He fell backward,
and the ground suddenly failing him, he was precipitated down the cliff.
As a last effort his hands convulsively clutched at a clump of reeds,
but they could not stop him, and he disappeared beneath the waters of
the river.
Benito was supported on Manoel’s shoulder; Fragoso grasped his hands.
He would not even give his companions time to dress his wound, which was
very slight.
“To the jangada!” he said, “to the jangada!”
Manoel and Fragoso with deep emotion followed him without speaking a
word.
A quarter of an hour afterward the three reached the bank to which
the raft was moored. Benito and Manoel rushed into the room where were
Yaquita and Minha, and told them all that had passed.
“My son!” “My brother!”
The words were uttered at the same moment.
“To the prison!” said Benito.
“Yes! Come! come!” replied Yaquita.
Benito, followed by Manoel, hurried along his mother, and half an hour
later they arrived before the prison.
Owing to the order previously given by Judge Jarriquez they were
immediately admitted, and conducted to the chamber occupied by the
prisoner.
The door opened. Joam Dacosta saw his wife, his son, and Manoel enter
the room.
“Ah! Joam, my Joam!” exclaimed Yaquita.
“Yaquita! my wife! my children!” replied the prisoner, who opened his
arms and pressed them to his heart.
“My Joam, innocent!”
“Innocent and avenged!” said Benito.
“Avenged? What do you mean?”
“Torres is dead, father; killed by my hand!”
“Dead!--Torres!--Dead!” gasped Joam Dacosta. “My son! You have ruined
me!”
CHAPTER VII. RESOLUTIONS
A FEW HOURS later the whole family had returned to the raft, and were
assembled in the large room. All were there, except the prisoner, on
whom the last blow had just fallen. Benito was quite overwhelmed, and
accused himself of having destroyed his father, and had it not been
for the entreaties of Yaquita, of his sister, of Padre Passanha, and of
Manoel, the distracted youth would in the first moments of despair have
probably made away with himself. But he was never allowed to get out
of sight; he was never left alone. And besides, how could he have acted
otherwise? Ah! why had not Joam Dacosta told him all before he left the
jangada? Why had he refrained from speaking, except before a judge, of
this material proof of his innocence? Why, in his interview with Manoel
after the expulsion of Torres, had he been silent about the document
which the adventurer pretended to hold in his hands? But, after all,
what faith ought he to place in what Torres had said? Could he be
certain that such a document was in the rascal’s possession?
Whatever might be the reason, the family now knew everything, and
that from the lips of Joam Dacosta himself. They knew that Torres
had declared that the proof of the innocence of the convict of Tijuco
actually existed; that the document had been written by the very hand
of the author of the attack; that the criminal, seized by remorse at the
moment of his death, had intrusted it to his companion, Torres; and
that he, instead of fulfilling the wishes of the dying man, had made the
handing over of the document an excuse for extortion. But they knew also
that Torres had just been killed, and that his body was engulfed in the
waters of the Amazon, and that he died without even mentioning the name
of the guilty man.
Unless he was saved by a miracle, Joam Dacosta might now be considered
as irrevocably lost. The death of Judge Ribeiro on the one hand,
the death of Torres on the other, were blows from which he could
not recover! It should here be said that public opinion at Manaos,
unreasoning as it always is, was all against he prisoner. The unexpected
arrest of Joam Dacosta had revived the memory of the terrible crime of
Tijuco, which had lain forgotten for twenty-three years. The trial
of the young clerk at the mines of the diamond arrayal, his capital
sentence, his escape a few hours before his intended execution--all
were remembered, analyzed, and commented on. An article which had just
appeared in the -O Diario d’o Grand Para,- the most widely circulated
journal in these parts, after giving a history of the circumstances of
the crime, showed itself decidedly hostile to the prisoner. Why should
these people believe in Joam Dacosta’s innocence, when they were
ignorant of all that his friends knew--of what they alone knew?
And so the people of Manaos became excited. A mob of Indians and negroes
hurried, in their blind folly, to surround the prison and roar forth
tumultuous shouts of death. In this part of the two Americas, where
executions under Lynch law are of frequent occurrence, the mob soon
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