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And then, having refreshed himself by giving his head a thorough sluicing with cold water: "Let us try another way," he said, "and as I cannot hit upon the number from the arrangement of the letters, let us see what number the author of the document would have chosen in confessing that he was the author of the crime at Tijuco."
"Where do you come from, then?" asked Fragoso, who always had the idea that he had already met Torres somewhere. "From the province of Minas Geraes." "And you were born " "In the capital of the diamond district, Tijuco." Those who had seen Joam Garral at this moment would have been surprised at the fixity of his look which met that of Torres. "Yes," said Torres. "Do you hail from that province?"
"You see, Fragoso," said Minha, "when you marry Lina, diamond takes the place of diamond, and you do not lose by the change!" "To be sure, Miss Minha," gallantly replied Fragoso; "rather I gain!" There could be no doubt that Torres did not want the subject to drop, for he went on with: "It is a fact that at Tijuco sudden fortunes are realized enough to turn any man's head!
"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.
Leave me!" Fragoso, repulsed, would not quit the spot. Again he threw himself at the judge's feet. "Joam Dacosta is innocent!" he cried; "you will not leave him to die? It was not he who committed the crime of Tijuco; it was the comrade of Torres, the author of that document! It was Ortega!" As he uttered the name the judge bounded backward.
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.
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?
There could be no doubt as to the vindication of Joam Dacosta. The true author of the crime of Tijuco confessed of his own free will, and described the circumstances under which it had been perpetrated! By means of the number Judge Jarriquez interpreted the whole of the cryptogram. And this was what Ortega confessed.
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?"
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.
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