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Updated: June 28, 2025
"An innocent man has been branded as guilty, and Joam Dacosta is to lose his life and his honor while you hold in your hands the material proof of his innocence! That is what is impossible!" "Ah! young man!" exclaimed Jarriquez, "who told you, after all, that Torres did not tell a lie?
"We might have done so," answered Judge Jarriquez, "if the lines of the document had been divided into words." "And why?" "For this reason, young man. I think we can assume that in the last paragraph all that is written in these earlier paragraphs is summed up. Now I am convinced that in it will be found the name of Joam Dacosta.
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.
This was likewise the hope of Yaquita, of Benito, of Manoel, and of Minha, and, shut up in the house, they passed long hours in endeavoring to decipher the writing. But if it was their hope and there is no need to insist on that point it was none the less that of Judge Jarriquez.
"Benito," said Jarriquez, in a voice which he tried to keep calm, "if you father cannot escape the expiation of a crime which is not his, you could do something better than kill yourself." "What?" said Benito. "Try and save his life!" "How?" "That is for you to discover," answered the magistrate, "and not for me to say."
"And the document?" "Nothing yet!" exclaimed he. "Everything my imagination can suggest I have tried, and no result." "None?" "Nevertheless, I distinctly see one word in the document only one!" "What is that what is the word?" "'Fly'!" Manoel said nothing, but he pressed the hand which Jarriquez held out to him, and returned to the jangada to wait for the moment of action.
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, 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!"
The cheers redoubled when the worthy magistrate, in a loud voice, and for the edification of all, read from the document this terrible history. And from that moment Judge Jarriquez, who possessed this indubitable proof, arranged with the chief of the police, and declined to allow Joam Dacosta, while waiting new instructions from Rio Janeiro, to stay in any prison but his own house.
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."
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