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 today, 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!”
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,
