“The document! that is the document!” shouted Fragoso; “that is the
very paper I saw in the hands of Torres!”
Judge Jarriquez unfolded the paper and cast his eyes over it, and
then he turned it over so as to examine it on the back and the front,
which were both covered with writing. “A document it really is!” said
he; “there is no doubt of that. It is indeed a document!”
“Yes,” replied Benito; “and that is the document which proves my
father’s innocence!”
“I do not know that,” replied Judge Jarriquez; “and I am much afraid
it will be very difficult to know it.”
“Why?” exclaimed Benito, who became pale as death.
“Because this document is a cryptogram, and—-”
“Well?”
“We have not got the key!”
CHAPTER XII
THE DOCUMENT
THIS WAS a contingency which neither Joam Dacosta nor his people
could have anticipated. In fact, as those who have not forgotten the
first scene in this story are aware, the document was written in a
disguised form in one of the numerous systems used in cryptography.
But in which of them?
To discover this would require all the ingenuity of which the human
brain was capable.
Before dismissing Benito and his companions, Judge Jarriquez had an
exact copy made of the document, and, keeping the original, handed it
over to them after due comparison, so that they could communicate
with the prisoner.
Then, making an appointment for the morrow, they retired, and not
wishing to lose an instant in seeing Joam Dacosta, they hastened on
to the prison, and there, in a short interview, informed him of all
that had passed.
Joam Dacosta took the document and carefully examined it. Shaking his
head, he handed it back to his son. “Perhaps,” he said, “there is
therein written the proof I shall never be able to produce. But if
that proof escapes me, if the whole tenor of my life does not plead
for me, I have nothing more to expect from the justice of men, and my
fate is in the hands of God!”
And all felt it to be so. If the document remained indecipherable,
the position of the convict was a desperate one.
“We shall find it, father!” exclaimed Benito. “There never was a
document of this sort yet which could stand examination. Have
confidence–yes, confidence! Heaven has, so to speak, miraculously
given us the paper which vindicates you, and, after guiding our hands
to recover it, it will not refuse to direct our brains to unravel
it.”
Joam Dacosta shook hands with Benito and Manoel, and then the three
young men, much agitated, retired to the jangada, where Yaquita was
awaiting them.
Yaquita was soon informed of what had happened since the evening–the
reappearance of the body of Torres, the discovery of the document,
and the strange form under which the real culprit, the companion of
the adventurer, had thought proper to write his
confession–doubtless, so that it should not compromise him if it
fell into strange hands.
Naturally, Lina was informed of this unexpected complication, and of
the discovery made by Fragoso that Torres was an old captain of the
woods belonging to the gang who were employed about the mouths of the
Madeira.
“But under what circumstances did you meet him?” asked the young
mulatto.
“It was during one of my runs across the province of Amazones,”
replied Fragoso, “when I was going from village to village, working
at my trade.”
“And the scar?”
“What happened was this: One day I arrived at the mission of Aranas
at the moment that Torres, whom I had never before seen, had picked a
quarrel with one of his comrades–and a bad lot they are!–and this
quarrel ended with a stab from a knife, which entered the arm of the
captain of the woods. There was no doctor there, and so I took charge
of the wound, and that is how I made his acquaintance.”
“What does it matter after all,” replied the young girl, “that we
know what Torres had been? He was not the author of the crime, and it
does not help us in the least.”
“No, it does not,” answered Fragoso; “for we shall end by reading the