Manoel would then have to make their way into the prisoner’s room,
and without much difficulty the escape could be managed by means of
the rope fastened to the projecting iron. During the night, if the
sky were very cloudy, none of these operations would be noticed
before the day dawned. Joam Dacosta could get safely away.
Manoel and Benito spent an hour about the spot, taking care not to
attract attention, but examining the locality with great exactness,
particularly as regarded the position of the window, the arrangement
of the iron bars, and the place from which it would be best to throw
the line.
“That is agreed,” said Manoel at length. “And now, ought Joam Dacosta
to be told about this?”
“No, Manoel. Neither to him, any more than to my mother, ought we to
impart the secret of an attempt in which there is such a risk of
failure.”
“We shall succeed, Benito!” continued Manoel. “However, we must
prepare for everything; and in case the chief of the prison should
discover us at the moment of escape—-”
“We shall have money enough to purchase his silence,” answered
Benito.
“Good!” replied Manoel. “But once your father is out of prison he
cannot remain hidden in the town or on the jangada. Where is he to
find refuge?”
This was the second question to solve: and a very difficult one it
was.
A hundred paces away from the prison, however, the waste land was
crossed by one of those canals which flow through the town into the
Rio Negro. This canal afforded an easy way of gaining the river if a
pirogue were in waiting for the fugitive. From the foot of the wall
to the canal side was hardly a hundred yards.
Benito and Manoel decided that about eight o’clock in the evening one
of the pirogues, with two strong rowers, under the command of the
pilot Araujo, should start from the jangada. They could ascend the
Rio Negro, enter the canal, and, crossing the waste land, remain
concealed throughout the night under the tall vegetation on the
banks.
But once on board, where was Joam Dacosta to seek refuge? To return
to Iquitos was to follow a road full of difficulties and peril, and a
long one in any case, should the fugitive either travel across the
country or by the river. Neither by horse not pirogue could he be got
out of danger quickly enough, and the fazenda was no longer a safe
retreat. He would not return to it as the fazender, Joam Garral, but
as the convict, Joam Dacosta, continually in fear of his extradition.
He could never dream of resuming his former life.
To get away by the Rio Negro into the north of the province, or even
beyond the Brazilian territory, would require more time than he could
spare, and his first care must be to escape from immediate pursuit.
To start again down the Amazon? But stations, village, and towns
abounded on both sides of the river. The description of the fugitive
would be sent to all the police, and he would run the risk of being
arrested long before he reached the Atlantic. And supposing he
reached the coast, where and how was he to hide and wait for a
passage to put the sea between himself and his pursuers?
On consideration of these various plans, Benito and Manoel agreed
that neither of them was practicable. One, however, did offer some
chance of safety, and that was to embark in the pirogue, follow the
canal into the Rio Negro, descend this tributary under the guidance
of the pilot, reach the confluence of the rivers, and run down the
Amazon along its right bank for some sixty miles during the nights,
resting during the daylight, and so gaining the _embouchure_ of the
Madeira.
This tributary, which, fed by a hundred affluents, descends from the
watershed of the Cordilleras, is a regular waterway opening into the
very heart of Bolivia. A pirogue could pass up it and leave no trace
of its passage, and a refuge could be found in some town or village
beyond the Brazilian frontier. There Joam Dacosta would be