hands to him; he begged him:
“But this order, father,” he repeated, “this order which is due
to-day–even now–it will contain your sentence of death.”
“The order may come, but my determination will not change. No, my
son! Joam Dacosta, guilty, might fly! Joam Dacosta, innocent, will
not fly!”
The scene which followed these words was heart-rending. Benito
struggled with his father. Manoel, distracted, kept near the window
ready to carry off the prisoner–when the door of the room opened.
On the threshold appeared the chief of the police, accompanied by the
head warder of the prison and a few soldiers. The chief of the police
understood at a glance that an attempt at escape was being made; but
he also understood from the prisoner’s attitude that he it was who
had no wish to go! He said nothing. The sincerest pity was depicted
on his face. Doubtless he also, like Judge Jarriquez, would have
liked Dacosta to have escaped.
It was too late!
The chief of the police, who held a paper in his hand, advanced
toward the prisoner.
“Before all of you,” said Joam Dacosta, “let me tell you, sir, that
it only rested with me to get away, and that I would not do so.”
The chief of the police bowed his head, and then, in a voice which he
vainly tried to control”
“Joam Dacosta,” he said, “the order has this moment arrived from the
chief justice at Rio Janeiro.”
“Father!” exclaimed Manoel and Benito.
“This order,” asked Joam Dacosta, who had crossed his arms, “this
order requires the execution of my sentence?”
“Yes!”
“And that will take place?”
“To-morrow.”
Benito threw himself on his father. Again would he have dragged him
from his cell, but the soldiers came and drew away the prisoner from
his grasp.
At a sign from the chief of the police Benito and Manoel were taken
away. An end had to be put to this painful scene, which had already
lasted too long.
“Sir,” said the doomed man, “before to-morrow, before the hour of my
execution, may I pass a few moments with Padre Passanha, whom I ask
you to tell?”
“It will be forbidden.”
“May I see my family, and embrace for a last time my wife and
children?”
“You shall see them.”
“Thank you, sir,” answered Joam; “and now keep guard over that
window; it will not do for them to take me out of here against my
will.”
And then the chief of the police, after a respectful bow, retired
with the warder and the soldiers.
The doomed man, who had now but a few hours to live, was left alone.
CHAPTER XVIII
FRAGOSO
AND SO the order had come, and, as Judge Jarriquez had foreseen, it
was an order requiring the immediate execution of the sentence
pronounced on Joam Dacosta. No proof had been produced; justice must
take its course.
It was the very day–the 31st of August, at nine o’clock in the
morning of which the condemned man was to perish on the gallows.
The death penalty in Brazil is generally commuted except in the case
of negroes, but this time it was to be suffered by a white man.
Such are the penal arrangements relative to crimes in the diamond
arrayal, for which, in the public interest, the law allows no appear
to mercy.
Nothing could now save Joam Dacosta. It was not only life, but honor
that he was about to lose.
But on the 31st of August a man was approaching Manaos with all the
speed his horse was capable of, and such had been the pace at which
he had come that half a mile from the town the gallant creature fell,
incapable of carrying him any further.
The rider did not even stop to raise his steed. Evidently he had
asked and obtained from it all that was possible, and, despite the
state of exhaustion in which he found himself, he rushed off in the
direction of the city.
The man came from the eastern provinces, and had followed the left
bank of the river. All his means had gone in the purchase of this
horse, which, swifter far than any pirogue on the Amazon, had brought