Jules Verne (25 page)

Eight days before his new arrest, made on account of information given
by Torres, which forestalled and perhaps would ruin his prospects, he
intrusted to an Indian on the Amazon a letter, in which he warned Judge
Ribeiro of his approaching arrival.

The letter was sent and delivered as addressed, and the magistrate only
waited for Joam Dacosta to commence on the serious undertaking which he
hoped to bring to a successful issue.

During the night before the arrival of the raft at Manaos Judge Ribeiro
was seized with an attack of apoplexy. But the denunciation of Torres,
whose scheme of extortion had collapsed in face of the noble anger of
his victim, had produced its effect. Joam Dacosta was arrested in the
bosom of his family, and his old advocate was no longer in this world to
defend him!

Yes, the blow was terrible indeed. His lot was cast, whatever his fate
might be; there was no going back for him! And Joam Dacosta rose from
beneath the blow which had so unexpectedly struck him. It was not only
his own honor which was in question, but the honor of all who belonged
to him.

THE WARRANT against Joam Dacosta, alias Joam Garral, had been issued
by the assistant of Judge Ribeiro, who filled the position of the
magistrate in the province of Amazones, until the nomination of the
successor of the late justice.

This assistant bore the name of Vicente Jarriquez. He was a surly
little fellow, whom forty years' practice in criminal procedure had not
rendered particularly friendly toward those who came before him. He had
had so many cases of this sort, and tried and sentenced so many rascals,
that a prisoner's innocence seemed to him
à priori
inadmissable. To
be sure, he did not come to a decision unconscientiously; but his
conscience was strongly fortified and was not easily affected by the
circumstances of the examination or the arguments for the defense. Like
a good many judges, he thought but little of the indulgence of the jury,
and when a prisoner was brought before him, after having passed
through the sieve of inquest, inquiry, and examination, there was every
presumption in his eyes that the man was quite ten times guilty.

Jarriquez, however, was not a bad man. Nervous, fidgety, talkative,
keen, crafty, he had a curious look about him, with his big head on
his little body; his ruffled hair, which would not have disgraced the
judge's wig of the past; his piercing gimlet-like eyes, with their
expression of surprising acuteness; his prominent nose, with which he
would assuredly have gesticulated had it been movable; his ears wide
open, so as to better catch all that was said, even when it was out of
range of ordinary auditory apparatus; his fingers unceasingly tapping
the table in front of him, like those of a pianist practicing on
the mute; and his body so long and his legs so short, and his feet
perpetually crossing and recrossing, as he sat in state in his
magistrate's chair.

In private life, Jarriquez, who was a confirmed old bachelor, never left
his law-books but for the table which he did not despise; for chess, of
which he was a past master; and above all things for Chinese puzzles,
enigmas, charades, rebuses, anagrams, riddles, and such things, with
which, like more than one European justice—thorough sphinxes by taste
as well as by profession—he principally passed his leisure.

It will be seen that he was an original, and it will be seen also how
much Joam Dacosta had lost by the death of Judge Ribeiro, inasmuch as
his case would come before this not very agreeable judge.

Moreover, the task of Jarriquez was in a way very simple. He had either
to inquire nor to rule; he had not even to regulate a discussion nor to
obtain a verdict, neither to apply the articles of the penal code nor to
pronounce a sentence. Unfortunately for the fazender, such formalities
were no longer necessary; Joam Dacosta had been arrested, convicted, and
sentenced twenty-three years ago for the crime at Tijuco; no limitation
had yet affected his sentence. No demand in commutation of the penalty
could be introduced, and no appeal for mercy could be received. It was
only necessary then to establish his identity, and as soon as the order
arrived from Rio Janeiro justice would have to take its course.

But in the nature of things Joam Dacosta would protest his innocence;
he would say he had been unjustly condemned. The magistrate's duty,
notwithstanding the opinions he held, would be to listen to him. The
question would be, what proofs could the convict offer to make good
his assertions? And if he was not able to produce them when he appeared
before his first judges, was he able to do so now?

Herein consisted all the interest of the examination. There would have
to be admitted the fact of a defaulter, prosperous and safe in a foreign
country, leaving his refuge of his own free will to face the justice
which his past life should have taught him to dread, and herein would
be one of those rare and curious cases which ought to interest even a
magistrate hardened with all the surroundings of forensic strife. Was it
impudent folly on the part of the doomed man of Tijuco, who was tired of
his life, or was it the impulse of a conscience which would at all
risks have wrong set right? The problem was a strange one, it must be
acknowledged.

On the morrow of Joam Dacosta's arrest, Judge Jarriquez made his way to
the prison in God-the-Son Street, where the convict had been placed. The
prison was an old missionary convent, situated on the bank of one of the
principal iguarapes of the town. To the voluntary prisoners of former
times there had succeeded in this building, which was but little adapted
for the purpose, the compulsory prisoners of to-day. The room occupied
by Joam Dacosta was nothing like one of those sad little cells which
form part of our modern penitentiary system: but an old monk's room,
with a barred window without shutters, opening on to an uncultivated
space, a bench in one corner, and a kind of pallet in the other. It was
from this apartment that Joam Dacosta, on this 25th of August, about
eleven o'clock in the morning, was taken and brought into the judge's
room, which was the old common hall of the convent.

Judge Jarriquez was there in front of his desk, perched on his high
chair, his back turned toward the window, so that his face was in shadow
while that of the accused remained in full daylight. His clerk, with the
indifference which characterizes these legal folks, had taken his seat
at the end of the table, his pen behind his ear, ready to record the
questions and answers.

Joam Dacosta was introduced into the room, and at a sign from the judge
the guards who had brought him withdrew.

Judge Jarriquez looked at the accused for some time. The latter, leaning
slightly forward and maintaining a becoming attitude, neither careless
nor humble, waited with dignity for the questions to which he was
expected to reply.

"Your name?" said Judge Jarriquez.

"Joam Dacosta."

"Your age?"

"Fifty-two."

"Where do you live?"

"In Peru, at the village of Iquitos."

"Under what name?"

"Under that of Garral, which is that of my mother."

"And why do you bear that name?"

"Because for twenty-three years I wished to hide myself from the pursuit
of Brazilian justice."

The answers were so exact, and seemed to show that Joam Dacosta had made
up his mind to confess everything concerning his past and present life,
that Judge Jarriquez, little accustomed to such a course, cocked up his
nose more than was usual to him.

"And why," he continued, "should Brazilian justice pursue you?"

"Because I was sentenced to death in 1826 in the diamond affair at
Tijuco."

"You confess then that you are Joam Dacosta?"

"I am Joam Dacosta."

All this was said with great calmness, and as simply as possible. The
little eyes of Judge Jarriquez, hidden by their lids, seemed to say:

"Never came across anything like this before."

He had put the invariable question which had hitherto brought the
invariable reply from culprits of every category protesting their
innocence. The fingers of the judge began to beat a gentle tattoo on the
table.

"Joam Dacosta," he asked, "what were you doing at Iquitos?"

"I was a fazender, and engaged in managing a farming establishment of
considerable size."

"It was prospering?"

"Greatly prospering."

"How long ago did you leave your fazenda?"

"About nine weeks."

"Why?"

"As to that, sir," answered Dacosta, "I invented a pretext, but in
reality I had a motive."

"What was the pretext?"

"The responsibility of taking into Para a large raft, and a cargo of
different products of the Amazon."

"Ah! and what was the real motive of your departure?"

And in asking this question Jarriquez said to himself:

"Now we shall get into denials and falsehoods."

"The real motive," replied Joam Dacosta, in a firm voice, "was the
resolution I had taken to give myself up to the justice of my country."

"You give yourself up!" exclaimed the judge, rising from his stool. "You
give yourself up of your own free will?"

"Of my own free will."

"And why?"

"Because I had had enough of this lying life, this obligation to live
under a false name, of this impossibility to be able to restore to
my wife and children that which belongs to them; in short, sir,
because—"

"Because?"

"I was innocent!"

"That is what I was waiting for," said Judge Jarriquez.

And while his fingers tattooed a slightly more audible march, he made a
sign with his head to Dacosta, which signified as clearly as possible,
"Go on! Tell me your history. I know it, but I do not wish to interrupt
you in telling it in your own way."

Joam Dacosta, who did not disregard the magistrate's far from
encouraging attitude, could not but see this, and he told the history of
his whole life. He spoke quietly without departing from the calm he
had imposed upon himself, without omitting any circumstances which had
preceded or succeeded his condemnation. In the same tone he insisted
on the honored and honorable life he had led since his escape, on his
duties as head of his family, as husband and father, which he had so
worthily fulfilled. He laid stress only on one circumstance—that which
had brought him to Manaos to urge on the revision of the proceedings
against him, to procure his rehabilitation—and that he was compelled to
do.

Judge Jarriquez, who was naturally prepossessed against all criminals,
did not interrupt him. He contented himself with opening and shutting
his eyes like a man who heard the story told for the hundredth time; and
when Joam Dacosta laid on the table the memoir which he had drawn up, he
made no movement to take it.

"You have finished?" he said.

"Yes, sir."

"And you persist in asserting that you only left Iquitos to procure the
revision of the judgment against you."

"I had no other intention."

"What is there to prove that? Who can prove that, without the
denunciation which had brought about your arrest, you would have given
yourself up?"

"This memoir, in the first place."

"That memoir was in your possession, and there is nothing to show that
had you not been arrested, you would have put it to the use you say you
intended."

"At the least, sir, there was one thing that was not in my possession,
and of the authenticity of which there can be no doubt."

"What?"

"The letter I wrote to your predecessor, Judge Ribeiro, the letter which
gave him notice of my early arrival."

"Ah! you wrote?"

"Yes. And the letter which ought to have arrived at its destination
should have been handed over to you."

"Really!" answered Judge Jarriquez, in a slightly incredulous tone. "You
wrote to Judge Ribeiro."

"Before he was a judge in this province," answered Joam Dacosta, "he
was an advocate at Villa Rica. He it was who defended me in the trial at
Tijuco. He never doubted of the justice of my cause. He did all he could
to save me. Twenty years later, when he had become chief justice at
Manaos, I let him know who I was, where I was, and what I wished to
attempt. His opinion about me had not changed, and it was at his
advice I left the fazenda, and came in person to proceed with my
rehabilitation. But death had unfortunately struck him, and maybe I
shall be lost, sir, if in Judge Jarriquez I do not find another Judge
Ribeiro."

The magistrate, appealed to so directly, was about to start up in
defiance of all the traditions of the judicial bench, but he managed to
restrain himself, and was contented with muttering:

"Very strong, indeed; very strong!"

Judge Jarriquez was evidently hard of heart, and proof against all
surprise.

At this moment a guard entered the room, and handed a sealed packet to
the magistrate.

He broke the seal and drew a letter from the envelope. He opened it and
read it, not without a certain contraction of his eyebrows, and then
said:

"I have no reason for hiding from you, Joam Dacosta, that this is the
letter you have been speaking about, addressed by you to Judge Ribeiro
and sent on to me. I have, therefore, no reason to doubt what you have
said on the subject."

"Not only on that subject," answered Dacosta, "but on the subject of all
the circumstances of my life which I have brought to your knowledge, and
which are none of them open to question."

"Eh! Joam Dacosta," quickly replied Judge Jarriquez. "You protest your
innocence; but all prisoners do as much! After all, you only offer moral
presumptions. Have you any material proof?"

"Perhaps I have," answered Joam Dacosta.

At these words, Judge Jarriquez left his chair. This was too much for
him, and he had to take two or three circuits of the room to recover
himself.