Jules Verne (38 page)

An exclamation immediately escaped him. He saw, at first glance, that
the six last letters were inferior in alphabetical order to those which
composed Ortega's name, and that consequently they might yield the
number.

And when he reduced the formula, reckoning each later letter from the
earlier letter of the word, he obtained.

O r t e g a
4 3 2 5 1 3
S u v j h d

The number thus disclosed was 432513.

But was this number that which had been used in the document? Was it not
as erroneous as those he had previously tried?

At this moment the shouts below redoubled—shouts of pity which betrayed
the sympathy of the excited crowd. A few minutes more were all that the
doomed man had to live!

Fragoso, maddened with grief, darted from the room! He wished to see,
for the last time, his benefactor who was on the road to death! He
longed to throw himself before the mournful procession and stop it,
shouting, "Do not kill this just man! do not kill him!"

But already Judge Jarriquez had placed the given number above the first
letters of the paragraph, repeating them as often as was necessary, as
follows:

4 3 2 5 1 3 4 3 2 5 1 3 4 3 2 5 1 3 4 3 2 5 1 3
P h y j s l y d d q f d z x g a s g z z q q e h

And then, reckoning the true letters according to their alphabetical
order, he read:

"Le véritable auteur du vol de—"

A yell of delight escaped him! This number, 432513, was the number
sought for so long! The name of Ortega had enabled him to discover it!
At length he held the key of the document, which would incontestably
prove the innocence of Joam Dacosta, and without reading any more he
flew from his study into the street, shouting:

"Halt! Halt!"

To cleave the crowd, which opened as he ran, to dash to the prison,
whence the convict was coming at the last moment, with his wife and
children clinging to him with the violence of despair, was but the work
of a minute for Judge Jarriquez.

Stopping before Joam Dacosta, he could not speak for a second, and then
these words escaped his lips:

"Innocent! Innocent!"

ON THE ARRIVAL of the judge the mournful procession halted. A roaring
echo had repeated after him and again repeated the cry which escaped
from every mouth:

"Innocent! Innocent!"

Then complete silence fell on all. The people did not want to lose one
syllable of what was about to be proclaimed.

Judge Jarriquez sat down on a stone seat, and then, while Minha, Benito,
Manoel, and Fragoso stood round him, while Joam Dacosta clasped Yaquita
to his heart, he first unraveled the last paragraph of the document by
means of the number, and as the words appeared by the institution of the
true letters for the cryptological ones, he divided and punctuated them,
and then read it out in a loud voice. And this is what he read in the
midst of profound silence:

Le véritable auteur du vol des diamants et de
43 251343251 343251 34 325 134 32513432 51 34
Ph yjslyddf dzxgas gz zqq ehx gkfndrxu ju gi

l'assassinat des soldats qui escortaient le convoi,
32513432513 432 5134325 134 32513432513 43 251343
ocytdxvksbx bhu ypohdvy rym huhpuydkjox ph etozsl

commis dans la nuit du vingt-deux janvier mil
251343 2513 43 2513 43 251343251 3432513 432
etnpmv ffov pd pajx hy ynojyggay meqynfu q1n

huit-cent vingt-six, n'est donc pas Joam Dacosta,
5134 3251 3425 134 3251 3432 513 4325 1343251
mvly fgsu zmqiz tlb qgyu gsqe uvb nrcc edgruzb

injustement condamné à mort, c'est moi, les misérable
34325134325 13432513 4 3251 3432 513 43 251343251
l4msyuhqpz drrgcroh e pqxu fivv rpl ph onthvddqf

employé de l'administration du district diamantin,
3432513 43 251343251343251 34 32513432 513432513
hqsntzh hh nfepmqkyuuexkto gz gkyuumfv ijdqdpzjq

out, moi seul, qui signe de mon vrai nom, Ortega.
432 513 4325 134 32513 43 251 3432 513 432513
syk rpl xhxq rym vkloh hh oto zvdk spp suvjhd.

"The real author of the robbery of the diamonds and of the murder of
the soldiers who escorted the convoy, committed during the night of the
twenty-second of January, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-six,
was thus not Joam Dacosta, unjustly condemned to death; it was I, the
wretched servant of the Administration of the diamond district; yes, I
alone, who sign this with my true name, Ortega."

The reading of this had hardly finished when the air was rent with
prolonged hurrahs.

What could be more conclusive than this last paragraph, which summarized
the whole of the document, and proclaimed so absolutely the innocence of
the fazender of Iquitos, and which snatched from the gallows this victim
of a frightful judicial mistake!

Joam Dacosta, surrounded by his wife, his children, and his friends,
was unable to shake the hands which were held out to him. Such was the
strength of his character that a reaction occurred, tears of joy escaped
from his eyes, and at the same instant his heart was lifted up to that
Providence which had come to save him so miraculously at the moment he
was about to offer the last expiation to that God who would not permit
the accomplishment of that greatest of crimes, the death of an innocent
man!

Yes! There could be no doubt as to the vindication of Joam Dacosta. The
true author of the crime of Tijuco confessed of his own free will, and
described the circumstances under which it had been perpetrated!

By means of the number Judge Jarriquez interpreted the whole of the
cryptogram.

And this was what Ortega confessed.

He had been the colleague of Joam Dacosta, employed, like him, at
Tijuco, in the offices of the governor of the diamond arrayal. He had
been the official appointed to accompany the convoy to Rio de Janeiro,
and, far from recoiling at the horrible idea of enriching himself by
means of murder and robbery, he had informed the smugglers of the very
day the convoy was to leave Tijuco.

During the attack of the scoundrels, who awaited the convoy just beyond
Villa Rica, he pretended to defend himself with the soldiers of the
escort, and then, falling among the dead, he was carried away by his
accomplices. Hence it was that the solitary soldier who survived the
massacre had reported that Ortega had perished in the struggle.

But the robbery did not profit the guilty man in the long run, for,
a little time afterward, he was robbed by those whom he had helped to
commit the crime.

Penniless, and unable to enter Tijuco again, Ortega fled away to the
provinces in the north of Brazil, to those districts of the Upper Amazon
where the
capitaes da mato
are to be found. He had to live somehow,
and so he joined this not very honorable company; they neither asked
him who he was nor whence he came, and so Ortega became a captain of the
woods, and for many years he followed the trade of a chaser of men.

During this time Torres, the adventurer, himself in absolute want,
became his companion. Ortega and he became most intimate. But, as he had
told Torres, remorse began gradually to trouble the scoundrel's life.
The remembrance of his crime became horrible to him. He knew that
another had been condemned in his place! He knew subsequently that the
innocent man had escaped from the last penalty, but that he would never
be free from the shadow of the capital sentence! And then, during an
expedition of his party for several months beyond the Peruvian frontier,
chance caused Ortega to visit the neighborhood of Iquitos, and there in
Joam Garral, who did not recognize him, he recognized Joam Dacosta.

Henceforth he resolved to make all the reparation he could for the
injustice of which his old comrade had been the victim. He committed to
the document all the facts relative to the crime of Tijuco, writing it
first in French, which had been his mother's native tongue, and then
putting it into the mysterious form we know, his intention being to
transmit it to the fazender of Iquitos, with the cipher by which it
could be read.

Death prevented his completing his work of reparation. Mortally wounded
in a scuffle with some negroes on the Madeira, Ortega felt he was
doomed. His comrade Torres was then with him. He thought he could
intrust to his friend the secret which had so grievously darkened his
life. He gave him the document, and made him swear to convey it to Joam
Dacosta, whose name and address he gave him, and with his last breath
he whispered the number 432513, without which the document would remain
undecipherable.

Ortega dead, we know how the unworthy Torres acquitted himself of his
mission, how he resolved to turn to his own profit the secret of which
he was the possessor, and how he tried to make it the subject of an
odious bargain.

Torres died without accomplishing his work, and carried his secret with
him. But the name of Ortega, brought back by Fragoso, and which was
the signature of the document, had afforded the means of unraveling the
cryptogram, thanks to the sagacity of Judge Jarriquez. Yes, the material
proof sought after for so long was the incontestable witness of the
innocence of Joam Dacosta, returned to life, restored to honor.

The cheers redoubled when the worthy magistrate, in a loud voice,
and for the edification of all, read from the document this terrible
history.

And from that moment Judge Jarriquez, who possessed this indubitable
proof, arranged with the chief of the police, and declined to allow Joam
Dacosta, while waiting new instructions from Rio Janeiro, to stay in any
prison but his own house.

There could be no difficulty about this, and in the center of the crowd
of the entire population of Manaos, Joam Dacosta, accompanied by all his
family, beheld himself conducted like a conquerer to the magistrate's
residence.

And in that minute the honest fazender of Iquitos was well repaid for
all that he had suffered during the long years of exile, and if he was
happy for his family's sake more than for his own, he was none the less
proud for his country's sake that this supreme injustice had not been
consummated!

And in all this what had become of Fragoso?

Well, the good-hearted fellow was covered with caresses! Benito, Manoel,
and Minha had overwhelmed him, and Lina had by no means spared him. He
did not know what to do, he defended himself as best he could. He did
not deserve anything like it. Chance alone had done it. Were any thanks
due to him for having recognized Torres as a captain of the woods? No,
certainly not. As to his idea of hurrying off in search of the band to
which Torres had belonged, he did not think it had been worth much, and
as to the name of Ortega, he did not even know its value.

Gallant Fragoso! Whether he wished it or no, he had none the less saved
Joam Dacosta!

And herein what a strange succession of different events all tending to
the same end. The deliverance of Fragoso at the time when he was dying
of exhaustion in the forest of Iquitos; the hospitable reception he
had met with at the fazenda, the meeting with Torres on the Brazilian
frontier, his embarkation on the jangada; and lastly, the fact that
Fragoso had seen him somewhere before.

"Well, yes!" Fragoso ended by exclaiming; "but it is not to me that all
this happiness is due, it is due to Lina!"

"To me?" replied the young mulatto.

"No doubt of it. Without the liana, without the idea of the liana, could
I ever have been the cause of so much happiness?"

So that Fragoso and Lina were praised and petted by all the family, and
by all the new friends whom so many trials had procured them at Manaos,
need hardly be insisted on.

But had not Judge Jarriquez also had his share in this rehabilitation
of an innocent man? If, in spite of all the shrewdness of his 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.