witnesses should affirm that this case was really found on the corpse
of Torres!”
“You are right,” replied Benito.
“My friend,” said Manoel to the foreman of the raft, “just feel in
the pocket of the waistcoat.”
The foreman obeyed. He drew forth a metal case, with the cover
screwed on, and which seemed to have suffered in no way from its
sojourn in the water.
“The paper! Is the paper still inside?” exclaimed Benito, who could
not contain himself.
“It is for the magistrate to open this case!” answered Manoel. “To
him alone belongs the duty of verifying that the document was found
within it.”
“Yes, yes. Again you are right, Manoel,” said Benito. “To Manaos, my
friends–to Manaos!”
Benito, Manoel, Fragoso, and the foreman who held the case,
immediately jumped into one of the pirogues, and were starting off,
when Fragoso said:
“And the corpse?”
The pirogue stopped.
In fact, the Indians had already thrown back the body into the water,
and it was drifting away down the river.
“Torres was only a scoundrel,” said Benito. “If I had to fight him,
it was God that struck him, and his body ought not to go unburied!”
And so orders were given to the second pirogue to recover the corpse,
and take it to the bank to await its burial.
But at the same moment a flock of birds of prey, which skimmed along
the surface of the stream, pounced on the floating body. They were
urubus, a kind of small vulture, with naked necks and long claws, and
black as crows. In South America they are known as gallinazos, and
their voracity is unparalleled. The body, torn open by their beaks,
gave forth the gases which inflated it, its density increased, it
sank down little by little, and for the last time what remained of
Torres disappeared beneath the waters of the Amazon.
Ten minutes afterward the pirogue arrived at Manaos. Benito and his
companions jumped ashore, and hurried through the streets of the
town. In a few minutes they had reached the dwelling of Judge
Jarriuez, and informed him, through one of his servants, that they
wished to see him immediately.
The judge ordered them to be shown into his study.
There Manoel recounted all that had passed, from the moment when
Torres had been killed until the moment when the case had been found
on his corpse, and taken from his breast-pocket by the foreman.
Although this recital was of a nature to corroborate all that Joam
Dacosta had said on the subject of Torres, and of the bargain which
he had endeavored to make, Judge Jarriquez could not restrain a smile
of incredulity.
“There is the case, sir,” said Manoel. “For not a single instant has
it been in our hands, and the man who gives it to you is he who took
it from the body of Torres.”
The magistrate took the case and examined it with care, turning it
over and over as though it were made of some precious material. Then
he shook it, and a few coins inside sounded with a metallic ring. Did
not, then, the case contain the document which had been so much
sought after–the document written in the very hand of the true
author of the crime of Tijuco, and which Torres had wished to sell at
such an ignoble price to Joam Dacosta? Was this material proof of the
convict’s innocence irrevocably lost?
We can easily imagine the violent agitation which had seized upon the
spectators f this scene. Benito could scarcely utter a word, he felt
his heart ready to burst. “Open it, sir! open the case!” he at last
exclaimed, in a broken voice.
Judge Jarriquez began to unscrew the lid; then, when the cover was
removed, he turned up the case, and from it a few pieces of gold
dropped out and rolled on the table.
“But the paper! the paper!” again gasped Benito, who clutched hold of
the table to save himself from falling.
The magistrate put his fingers into the case and drew out, not
without difficulty, a faded paper, folded with care, and which the
water did not seem to have even touched.