faith in God. If my life is still useful to my people, and a miracle
is necessary to save me, that miracle will be performed; if not, I
shall die! God alone is my judge!”
The excitement increased in Manaos as the time ran on; the affair was
discussed with unexampled acerbity. In the midst of this enthralment
of public opinion, which evoked so much of the mysterious, the
document was the principal object of conversation.
At the end of this fourth day not a single person doubted but that it
contained the vindication of the doomed man. Every one had been given
an opportunity of deciphering its incomprehensible contents, for the
“Diario d’o Grand Para” had reproduced it in facsimile. Autograph
copies were spread about in great numbers at the suggestion of
Manoel, who neglect nothing that might lead to the penetration of the
mystery–not even chance, that “nickname of Providence,” as some one
has called it.
In addition, a reward of one hundred contos (or three hundred
thousand francs) was promised to any one who could discover the
cipher so fruitlessly sought after–and read the document. This was
quite a fortune, and so people of all classes forgot to eat, drink,
or sleep to attack this unintelligible cryptogram.
Up to the present, however, all had been useless, and probably the
most ingenious analysts in the world would have spent their time in
vain. It had been advertised that any solution should be sent,
without delay, to Judge Jarriquez, to his house in God-the-Son
Street; but the evening of the 29th of August came and none had
arrived, nor was any likely to arrive.
Of all those who took up the study of the puzzle, Judge Jarriquez was
one of the most to be pitied. By a natural association of ideas, he
also joined in the general opinion that the document referred to the
affair at Tijuco, and that it had ben written by the hand of the
guilty man, and exonerated Joam Dacosta. And so he put even more
ardor into his search for the key. It was not only the art for art’s
sake which guided him, it was a sentiment of justice, of pity toward
a man suffering under an unjust condemnation. If it is the fact that
a certain quantity of phosphorus is expended in the work of the
brain, it would be difficult to say how many milligrammes the judge
had parted with to excite the network of his “sensorium,” and after
all, to find out nothing, absolutely nothing.
But Jarriquez had no idea of abandoning the inquiry. If he could only
now trust to chance, he would work on for that chance. He tried to
evoke it by all means possible and impossible. He had given himself
over to fury and anger, and, what was worse, to impotent anger!
During the latter part of this day he had been trying different
numbers–numbers selected arbitrarily–and how many of them can
scarcely be imagined. Had he had the time, he would not have shrunk
from plunging into the millions of combinations of which the ten
symbols of numeration are capable. He would have given his whole life
to it at the risk of going mad before the year was out. Mad! was he
not that already? He had had the idea that the document might be read
through the paper, and so he turned it round and exposed it to the
light, and tried it in that way.
Nothing! The numbers already thought of, and which he tried in this
new way, gave no result. Perhaps the document read backward, and the
last letter was really the first, for the author would have done this
had he wished to make the reading more difficult.
Nothing! The new combination only furnished a series of letters just
as enigmatic.
At eight o’clock in the evening Jarriquez, with his face in his
hands, knocked up, worn out mentally and physically, had neither
strength to move, to speak, to think, or to associate one idea with
another.
Suddenly a noise was heard outside. Almost immediately,
notwithstanding his formal orders, the door of his study was thrown
open. Benito and Manoel were before him, Benito looking dreadfully