acquittal?
Yes, he still hoped. With the report of Judge Jarriquez establishing
his identity, he knew that his memoir, which he had penned with so
much sincerity, would have been sent to Rio Janeiro, and was now in
the hands of the chief justice. This memoir, as we know, was the
history of his life from his entry into the offices of the diamond
arrayal until the very moment when the jangada stopped before Manaos.
Joam Dacosta was pondering over his whole career. He again lived his
past life from the moment when, as an orphan, he had set foot in
Tijuco. There his zeal had raised him high in the offices of the
governor-general, into which he had been admitted when still very
young. The future smiled on him; he would have filled some important
position. Then this sudden catastrophe; the robbery of the diamond
convoy, the massacre of the escort, the suspicion directed against
him as the only official who could have divulged the secret of the
expedition, his arrest, his appearance before the jury, his
conviction in spite of all the efforts of his advocate, the last
hours spent in the condemned cell at Villa Rica, his escape under
conditions which betokened almost superhuman courage, his flight
through the northern provinces, his arrival on the Peruvian frontier,
and the reception which the starving fugitive had met with from the
hospitable fazender Magalhaës.
The prisoner once more passed in review these events, which had so
cruelly amrred his life. And then, lost in his thoughts and
recollections, he sat, regardless of a peculiar noise on the outer
wall of the convent, of the jerkings of a rope hitched on to a bar of
his window, and of grating steel as it cut through iron, which ought
at once to have attracted the attention of a less absorbed man.
Joam Dacosta continued to live the years of his youth after his
arrival in Peru. He again saw the fazender, the clerk, the partner of
the old Portuguese, toiling hard for the prosperity of the
establishment at Iquitos. Ah! why at the outset had he not told all
to his benefactor? He would never have doubted him. It was the only
error with which he could reproach himself. Why had he not confessed
to him whence he had come, and who he was–above all, at the moment
when Magalhaës had place in his hand the hand of the daughter who
would never have believed that he was the author of so frightful a
crime.
And now the noise outside became loud enough to attract the
prisoner’s attention. For an instant Joam raised his head; his eyes
sought the window, but with a vacant look, as though he were
unconscious, and the next instant his head again sank into his hands.
Again he was in thought back at Iquitos.
There the old fazender was dying; before his end he longed for the
future of his daughter to be assured, for his partner to be the sole
master of the settlement which had grown so prosperous under his
management. Should Dacosta have spoken then? Perhaps; but he dared
not do it. He again lived the happy days he had spent with Yaquita,
and again thought of the birth of his children, again felt the
happiness which had its only trouble in the remembrances of Tijuco
and the remorse that he had not confessed his terrible secret.
The chain of events was reproduced in Joam’s mind with a clearness
and completeness quite remarkable.
And now he was thinking of the day when his daughter’s marriage with
Manoel had been decided. Could he allow that union to take place
under a false name without acquainting the lad with the mystery of
his life? No! And so at the advice of Judge Ribeiro he resolved to
come and claim the revision of his sentence, to demand the
rehabilitation which was his due! He was starting with his people,
and then came the intervention of Torres, the detestable bargain
proposed by the scoundrel, the indignant refusal of the father to
hand over his daughter to save his honor and his life, and then the
denunciation and the arrest!