Jules Verne (24 page)

"You are right," replied Manoel. "Let us go."

Araujo, with an approving nod, began his preparations for leaving the
island. The maneuver necessitated a good deal of care. They had to work
the raft slantingly across the current of the Amazon, here doubled in
force by that of the Rio Negro, and to make for the
embouchure
of the
tributary about a dozen miles down on the left bank.

The ropes were cast off from the island. The jangada, again started on
the river, began to drift off diagonally. Araujo, cleverly profiting by
the bendings of the current, which were due to the projections of the
banks, and assisted by the long poles of his crew, succeeded in working
the immense raft in the desired direction.

In two hours the jangada was on the other side of the Amazon, a little
above the mouth of the Rio Negro, and fairly in the current which was to
take it to the lower bank of the vast bay which opened on the left side
of the stream.

At five o'clock in the evening it was strongly moored alongside this
bank, not in the port of Manaos itself, which it could not enter without
stemming a rather powerful current, but a short mile below it.

The raft was then in the black waters of the Rio Negro, near rather
a high bluff covered with cecropias with buds of reddish-brown, and
palisaded with stiff-stalked reeds called
"froxas,"
of which the
Indians make some of their weapons.

A few citizens were strolling about the bank. A feeling of curiosity had
doubtless attracted them to the anchorage of the raft. The news of the
arrest of Joam Dacosta had soon spread about, but the curiosity of the
Manaens did not outrun their discretion, and they were very quiet.

Benito's intention had been to land that evening, but Manoel dissuaded
him.

"Wait till to-morrow," he said; "night is approaching, and there is no
necessity for us to leave the raft."

"So be it! To-morrow!" answered Benito.

And here Yaquita, followed by her daughter and Padre Passanha, came
out of the house. Minha was still weeping, but her mother's face was
tearless, and she had that look of calm resolution which showed that the
wife was now ready for all things, either to do her duty or to insist on
her rights.

Yaquita slowly advanced toward Manoel.

"Manoel," she said, "listen to what I have to say, for my conscience
commands me to speak as I am about to do."

"I am listening," replied Manoel.

Yaquita, looking him straight in the face, continued: "Yesterday, after
the interview you had with Joam Dacosta, my husband, you came to me and
called me—mother! You took Minha's hand, and called her—your wife!
You then knew everything, and the past life of Joam Dacosta had been
disclosed to you."

"Yes," answered Manoel, "and heaven forbid I should have had any
hesitation in doing so!"

"Perhaps so," replied Yaquita; "but then Joam Dacosta had not been
arrested. The position is not now the same. However innocent he may be,
my husband is in the hands of justice; his past life has been publicly
proclaimed. Minha is a convict's daughter."

"Minha Dacosta or Minha Garral, what matters it to me?" exclaimed
Manoel, who could keep silent no longer.

"Manoel!" murmured Minha.

And she would certainly have fallen had not Lina's arm supported her.

"Mother, if you do not wish to kill her," said Manoel, "call me your
son!"

"My son! my child!"

It was all Yaquita could say, and the tears, which she restrained with
difficulty, filled her eyes.

And then they all re-entered the house. But during the long night not an
hour's sleep fell to the lot of the unfortunate family who were being so
cruelly tried.

JOAM DACOSTA had relied entirely on Judge Albeiro, and his death was
most unfortunate.

Before he was judge at Manaos, and chief magistrate in the province,
Ribeiro had known the young clerk at the time he was being prosecuted
for the murder in the diamond arrayal. He was then an advocate at Villa
Rica, and he it was who defended the prisoner at the trial. He took
the cause to heart and made it his own, and from an examination of the
papers and detailed information, and not from the simple fact of his
position in the matter, he came to the conclusion that his client was
wrongfully accused, and that he had taken not the slightest part in the
murder of the escort or the theft of the diamonds—in a word, that Joam
Dacosta was innocent.

But, notwithstanding this conviction, notwithstanding his talent and
zeal, Ribeiro was unable to persuade the jury to take the same view of
the matter. How could he remove so strong a presumption? If it was not
Joam Dacosta, who had every facility for informing the scoundrels of the
convoy's departure, who was it? The official who accompanied the escort
had perished with the greater part of the soldiers, and suspicion could
not point against him. Everything agreed in distinguishing Dacosta as
the true and only author of the crime.

Ribeiro defended him with great warmth and with all his powers, but he
could not succeed in saving him. The verdict of the jury was affirmative
on all the questions. Joam Dacosta, convicted of aggravated and
premeditated murder, did not even obtain the benefit of extenuating
circumstances, and heard himself condemned to death.

There was no hope left for the accused. No commutation of the sentence
was possible, for the crime was committed in the diamond arrayal.
The condemned man was lost. But during the night which preceded his
execution, and when the gallows was already erected, Joam Dacosta
managed to escape from the prison at Villa Rica. We know the rest.

Twenty years later Ribeiro the advocate became the chief justice of
Manaos. In the depths of his retreat the fazender of Iquitos heard of
the change, and in it saw a favorable opportunity for bringing forward
the revision of the former proceedings against him with some chance of
success. He knew that the old convictions of the advocate would be still
unshaken in the mind of the judge. He therefore resolved to try and
rehabilitate himself. Had it not been for Ribeiro's nomination to the
chief justiceship in the province of Amazones, he might perhaps have
hesitated, for he had no new material proof of his innocence to bring
forward. Although the honest man suffered acutely, he might still have
remained hidden in exile at Iquitos, and still have asked for time to
smother the remembrances of the horrible occurrence, but something was
urging him to act in the matter without delay.

In fact, before Yaquita had spoken to him, Joam Dacosta had noticed that
Manoel was in love with his daughter.

The union of the young army doctor and his daughter was in every respect
a suitable one. It was evident to Joam that some day or other he would
be asked for her hand in marriage, and he did not wish to be obliged to
refuse.

But then the thought that his daughter would have to marry under a
name which did not belong to her, that Manoel Valdez, thinking he was
entering the family of Garral, would enter that of Dacosta, the head
of which was under sentence of death, was intolerable to him. No! The
wedding should not take place unless under proper conditions! Never!

Let us recall what had happened up to this time. Four years after the
young clerk, who eventually became the partner of Magalhaës, had arrived
at Iquitos, the old Portuguese had been taken back to the farm mortally
injured. A few days only were left for him to live. He was alarmed at
the thought that his daughter would be left alone and unprotected; but
knowing that Joam and Yaquita were in love with each other, he desired
their union without delay.

Joam at first refused. He offered to remain the protector or the servant
of Yaquita without becoming her husband. The wish of the dying Magalhaës
was so urgent that resistance became impossible. Yaquita put her hand
into the hand of Joam, and Joam did not withdraw it.

Yes! It was a serious matter! Joam Dacosta ought to have confessed
all, or to have fled forever from the house in which he had been so
hospitably received, from the establishment of which he had built up
the prosperity! Yes! To confess everything rather than to give to the
daughter of his benefactor a name which was not his, instead of the name
of a felon condemned to death for murder, innocent though he might be!

But the case was pressing, the old fazender was on the point of death,
his hands were stretched out toward the young people! Joam was silent,
the marriage took place, and the remainder of his life was devoted to
the happiness of the girl he had made his wife.

"The day when I confess everything," Joam repeated, "Yaquita will pardon
everything! She will not doubt me for an instant! But if I ought not to
have deceived her, I certainly will not deceive the honest fellow who
wishes to enter our family by marrying Mina! No! I would rather give
myself up and have done with this life!"

Many times had Joam thought of telling his wife about his past life.
Yes! the avowal was on his lips whenever she asked him to take her
into Brazil, and with her and her daughter descend the beautiful Amazon
river. He knew sufficient of Yaquita to be sure that her affection for
him would not thereby be diminished in the least. But courage failed
him!

And this is easily intelligible in the face of the happiness of the
family, which increased on every side. This happiness was his work, and
it might be destroyed forever by his return.

Such had been his life for those long years; such had been the
continuous source of his sufferings, of which he had kept the secret so
well; such had been the existence of this man, who had no action to
be ashamed of, and whom a great injustice compelled to hide away from
himself!

But at length the day arrived when there could no longer remain a doubt
as to the affection which Manoel bore to Minha, when he could see that
a year would not go by before he was asked to give his consent to her
marriage, and after a short delay he no longer hesitated to proceed in
the matter.

A letter from him, addressed to Judge Ribeiro, acquainted the chief
justice with the secret of the existence of Joam Dacosta, with the name
under which he was concealed, with the place where he lived with his
family, and at the same time with his formal intention of delivering
himself up to justice, and taking steps to procure the revision of the
proceedings, which would either result in his rehabilitation or in the
execution of the iniquitous judgment delivered at Villa Rica.

What were the feelings which agitated the heart of the worthy
magistrate? We can easily divine them. It was no longer to the advocate
that the accused applied; it was to the chief justice of the province
that the convict appealed. Joam Dacosta gave himself over to him
entirely, and did not even ask him to keep the secret.

Judge Ribeiro was at first troubled about this unexpected revelation,
but he soon recovered himself, and scrupulously considered the duties
which the position imposed on him. It was his place to pursue criminals,
and here was one who delivered himself into his hands. This criminal,
it was true, he had defended; he had never doubted but that he had been
unjustly condemned; his joy had been extreme when he saw him escape by
flight from the last penalty; he had even instigated and facilitated his
flight! But what the advocate had done in the past could the magistrate
do in the present?

"Well, yes!" had the judge said, "my conscience tells me not to abandon
this just man. The step he is taking is a fresh proof of his innocence,
a moral proof, even if he brings me others, which may be the most
convincing of all! No! I will not abandon him!"

From this day forward a secret correspondence took place between the
magistrate and Joam Dacosta. Ribeiro at the outset cautioned his client
against compromising himself by any imprudence. He had again to work
up the matter, again to read over the papers, again to look through the
inquiries. He had to find out if any new facts had come to light in
the diamond province referring to so serious a case. Had any of the
accomplices of the crime, of the smugglers who had attacked the convoy,
been arrested since the attempt? Had any confessions or half-confessions
been brought forward? Joam Dacosta had done nothing but protest his
innocence from the very first. But that was not enough, and Judge
Ribeiro was desirous of finding in the case itself the clue to the real
culprit.

Joam Dacosta had accordingly been prudent. He had promised to be so. But
in all his trials it was an immense consolation for him to find his old
advocate, though now a chief justice, so firmly convinced that he was
not guilty. Yes! Joam Dacosta, in spite of his condemnation, was
a victim, a martyr, an honest man to whom society owed a signal
reparation! And when the magistrate knew the past career of the fazender
of Iquitos since his sentence, the position of his family, all that life
of devotion, of work, employed unceasingly for the happiness of those
belonging to him, he was not only more convinced but more affected, and
determined to do all that he could to procure the rehabilitation of the
felon of Tijuco.

For six months a correspondence had passed between these two men.

One day, the case being pressing, Joam Dacosta wrote to Judge Ribeiro:

"In two months I will be with you, in the power of the chief justice of
the province!"

"Come, then," replied Ribeiro.

The jangada was then ready to go down the river. Joam Dacosta embarked
on it with all his people. During the voyage, to the great astonishment
of his wife and son, he landed but rarely, as we know. More often he
remained shut up on his room, writing, working, not at his trading
accounts, but, without saying anything about it, at a kind of memoir,
which he called "The History of My Life," and which was meant to be used
in the revision of the legal proceedings.