him to Manaos.
It was Fragoso!
Had, then, the brave fellow succeeded in the enterprise of which he
had spoken to nobody? Had he found the party to which Torres
belonged? Had he discovered some secret which would yet save Joam
Dacosta?
He hardly knew. But in any case he was in great haste to acquaint
Judge Jarriquez with what he had ascertained during his short
excursion.
And this is what had happened.
Fragoso had made no mistake when he recognized Torres as one of the
captains of the party which was employed in the river provinces of
the Madeira.
He set out, and on reaching the mouth of that tributary he learned
that the chief of these _capitaes da mato_ was then in the
neighborhood.
Without losing a minute, Fragoso started on the search, and, not
without difficulty, succeeded in meeting him.
To Fragoso’s questions the chief of the party had no hesitation in
replying; he had no interest in keeping silence with regard to the
few simple matters on which he was interrogated. In fact, three
questions only of importance were asked him by Fragoso, and these
were:
“Did not a captain of the woods named Torres belong to your party a
few months ago?”
“Yes.”
“At that time had he not one intimate friend among his companions who
has recently died?”
“Just so!”
“And the name of that friend was?”
“Ortega.”
This was all that Fragoso had learned. Was this information of a kind
to modify Dacosta’s position? It was hardly likely.
Fragoso saw this, and pressed the chief of the band to tell him what
he knew of this Ortega, of the place where he came from, and of his
antecedents generally. Such information would have been of great
importance if Ortega, as Torres had declared, was the true author of
the crime of Tijuco. But unfortunately the chief could give him no
information whatever in the matter.
What was certain was that Ortega had been a member of the band for
many years, that an intimate friendship existed between him and
Torres, that they were always seen together, and that Torres had
watched at his bedside when he died.
This was all the chief of the band knew, and he could tell no more.
Fragoso, then, had to be contented with these insignificant details,
and departed immediately.
But if the devoted fellow had not brought back the proof that Ortega
was the author of the crime of Tijuco, he had gained one thing, and
that was the knowledge that Torres had told the truth when he
affirmed that one of his comrades in the band had died, and that he
had been present during his last moments.
The hypothesis that Ortega had given him the document in question had
now become admissible. Nothing was more probable than that this
document had reference to the crime of which Ortega was really the
author, and that it contained the confession of the culprit,
accompanied by circumstances which permitted of no doubt as to its
truth.
And so, if the document could be read, if the key had been found, if
the cipher on which the system hung were known, no doubt of its truth
could be entertained.
But this cipher Fragoso did not know. A few more presumptions, a
half-certainty that the adventurer had invented nothing, certain
circumstances tending to prove that the secret of the matter was
contained in the document–and that was all that the gallant fellow
brought back from his visit to the chief of the gang of which Torres
had been a member.
Nevertheless, little as it was, he was in all haste to relate it to
Judge Jarriquez. He knew that he had not an hour to lose, and that
was why on this very morning, at about eight o’clock, he arrived,
exhausted with fatigue, within half a mile of Manaos. The distance
between there and the town he traversed in a few minutes. A kind of
irresistible presentiment urged him on, and he had almost come to
believe that Joam Dacosta’s safety rested in his hands.
Suddenly Fragoso stopped as if his feet had become rooted in the
ground. He had reached the entrance to a small square, on which