analytical talents, he had not been able to read the document, which
was absolutely undecipherable to any one who had not got the key, had
he not at any rate discovered the system on which the cryptogram was
composed? Without him what could have been done with only the name of
Ortega to reconstitute the number which the author of the crime and
Torres, both of whom were dead, alone knew?
And so he also received abundant thanks.
Needless to say that the same day there was sent to Rio de Janeiro a
detailed report of the whole affair, and with it the original
document and the cipher to enable it to be read. New instructions
from the minister of justice had to be waited for, though there could
be no doubt that they would order the immediate discharge of the
prisoner. A few days would thus have to be passed at Manaos, and then
Joam Dacosta and his people, free from all constraint, and released
from all apprehension, would take leave of their host to go on board
once more and continue their descent of the Amazon to Para, where the
voyage was intended to terminate with the double marriage of Minha
and Manoel and Lina and Fragoso.
Four days afterward, on the fourth of September, the order of
discharge arrived. The document had been recognized as authentic. The
handwriting was really that of Ortega, who had been formerly employed
in the diamond district, and there could be no doubt that the
confession of his crime, with the minutest details that were given,
had been entirely written with his own hand.
The innocence of the convict of Villa Rica was at length admitted.
The rehabilitation of Joam Dacosta was at last officially proclaimed.
That very day Judge Jarriquez dined with the family on board the
giant raft, and when evening came he shook hands with them all.
Touching were the adieus, but an engagement was made for them to see
him again on their return at Manaos, and later on the fazenda of
Iquitos.
On the morning of the morrow, the fifth of September, the signal for
departure was given. Joam Dacosta and Yaquita, with their daughter
and sons, were on the deck of the enormous raft. The jangada had its
moorings slackened off and began to move with the current, and when
it disappeared round the bend of the Rio Negro, the hurrahs of the
whole population of Manaos, who were assembled on the bank, again and
again re-echoed across the stream.
CHAPTER XX
THE LOWER AMAZON
LITTLE REMAINS to tell of the second part of the voyage down the
mighty river. It was but a series of days of joy. Joam Dacosta
returned to a new life, which shed its happiness on all who belonged
to him.
The giant raft glided along with greater rapidity on the waters now
swollen by the floods. On the left they passed the small village of
Don Jose de Maturi, and on the right the mouth of that Madeira which
owes its name to the floating masses of vegetable remains and trunks
denuded of their foliage which it bears from the depths of Bolivia.
They passed the archipelago of Caniny, whose islets are veritable
boxes of palms, and before the village of Serpa, which, successively
transported from one back to the other, has definitely settled on the
left of the river, with its little houses, whose thresholds stand on
the yellow carpet of the beach.
The village of Silves, built on the left of the Amazon, and the town
of Villa Bella, which is the principal guarana market in the whole
province, were soon left behind by the giant raft. And so was the
village of Faro and its celebrated river of the Nhamundas, on which,
in 1539, Orellana asserted he was attacked by female warriors, who
have never been seen again since, and thus gave us the legend which
justifies the immortal name of the river of the Amazons.
Here it is that the province of Rio Negro terminates. The
jurisdiction of Para then commences; and on the 22d of September the
family, marveling much at a valley which has no equal in the world,