Jules Verne (27 page)

Without waiting for more, Benito, by an irresistible movement, strode
to the front, and his two companions had to hurry on to avoid being left
behind.

The left bank of the Amazon was then about a quarter of a mile off. A
sort of cliff appeared ahead, hiding a part of the horizon, and bounding
the view a few hundred paces in advance.

Benito, hurrying on, soon disappeared behind one of the sandy knolls.

"Quicker! quicker!" said Manoel to Fragoso. "We must not leave him alone
for an instant."

And they were dashing along when a shout struck on their ears.

Had Benito caught sight of Torres? What had he seen? Had Benito and
Torres already met?

Manoel and Fragoso, fifty paces further on, after swiftly running round
one of the spurs of the bank, saw two men standing face to face to each
other.

They were Torres and Benito.

In an instant Manoel and Fragoso had hurried up to them. It might have
been supposed that in Benito's state of excitement he would be unable to
restrain himself when he found himself once again in the presence of the
adventurer. It was not so.

As soon as the young man saw himself face to face with Torres, and was
certain that he could not escape, a complete change took place in
his manner, his coolness returned, and he became once more master of
himself.

The two men looked at one another for a few moments without a word.

Torres first broke silence, and, in the impudent tone habitual to him,
remarked:

"Ah! How goes it, Mr. Benito Garral?"

"No, Benito Dacosta!" answered the young man.

"Quite so," continued Torres. "Mr. Benito Dacosta, accompanied by Mr.
Manoel Valdez and my friend Fragoso!"

At the irritating qualification thus accorded him by the adventurer,
Fragoso, who was by no means loath to do him some damage, was about to
rush to the attack, when Benito, quite unmoved, held him back.

"What is the matter with you, my lad?" exclaimed Torres, retreating for
a few steps. "I think I had better put myself on guard."

And as he spoke he drew from beneath his poncho his manchetta, the
weapon, adapted at will for offense or defense, which a Brazilian is
never without. And then, slightly stooping, and planted firmly on his
feet, he waited for what was to follow.

"I have come to look for you, Torres," said Benito, who had not stirred
in the least at this threatening attitude.

"To look for me?" answered the adventurer. "It is not very difficult to
find me. And why have you come to look for me?"

"To know from your own lips what you appear to know of the past life of
my father."

"Really?"

"Yes. I want to know how you recognized him, why you were prowling about
our fazenda in the forest of Iquitos, and why you were waiting for us at
Tabatinga."

"Well! it seems to me nothing could be clearer!" answered Torres, with
a grin. "I was waiting to get a passage on the jangada, and I went on
board with the intention of making him a very simple proposition—which
possibly he was wrong in rejecting."

At these words Manoel could stand it no longer. With pale face and eye
of fire he strode up to Torres.

Benito, wishing to exhaust every means of conciliation, thrust himself
between them.

"Calm yourself, Manoel!" he said. "I am calm—even I."

And then continuing:

"Quite so, Torres; I know the reason of your coming on board the raft.
Possessed of a secret which was doubtless given to you, you wanted to
make it a means of extortion. But that is not what I want to know at
present."

"What is it, then?"

"I want to know how you recognized Joam Dacosta in the fazenda of
Iquitos?"

"How I recognized him?" replied Torres. "That is my business, and I see
no reason why I should tell you. The important fact is, that I was
not mistaken when I denounced in him the real author of the crime of
Tijuco!"

"You say that to me?" exclaimed Benito, who began to lose his
self-possession.

"I will tell you nothing," returned Torres; "Joam Dacosta declined my
propositions! He refused to admit me into his family! Well! now that his
secret is known, now that he is a prisoner, it is I who refuse to enter
his family, the family of a thief, of a murderer, of a condemned felon,
for whom the gallows now waits!"

"Scoundrel!" exclaimed Benito, who drew his manchetta from his belt and
put himself in position.

Manoel and Fragoso, by a similar movement, quickly drew their weapons.

"Three against one!" said Torres.

"No! one against one!" answered Benito.

"Really! I should have thought an assassination would have better suited
an assassin's son!"

"Torres!" exclaimed Benito, "defend yourself, or I will kill you like a
mad dog!"

"Mad! so be it!" answered Torres. "But I bite, Benito Dacosta, and
beware of the wounds!"

And then again grasping his manchetta, he put himself on guard and ready
to attack his enemy.

Benito had stepped back a few paces.

"Torres," he said, regaining all his coolness, which for a moment he had
lost; "you were the guest of my father, you threatened him, you betrayed
him, you denounced him, you accused an innocent man, and with God's help
I am going to kill you!"

Torres replied with the most insolent smile imaginable. Perhaps at the
moment the scoundrel had an idea of stopping any struggle between
Benito and him, and he could have done so. In fact he had seen that Joam
Dacosta had said nothing about the document which formed the material
proof of his innocence.

Had he revealed to Benito that he, Torres, possessed this proof, Benito
would have been that instant disarmed. But his desire to wait till the
very last moment, so as to get the very best price for the document he
possessed, the recollection of the young man's insulting words, and the
hate which he bore to all that belonged to him, made him forget his own
interest.

In addition to being thoroughly accustomed to the manchetta, which he
often had had occasion to use, the adventurer was strong, active, and
artful, so that against an adversary who was scarcely twenty, who could
have neither his strength nor his dexterity, the chances were greatly in
his favor.

Manoel by a last effort wished to insist on fighting him instead of
Benito.

"No, Manoel," was the cool reply, "it is for me alone to avenge my
father, and as everything here ought to be in order, you shall be my
second."

"Benito!"

"As for you, Fragoso, you will not refuse if I ask you to act as second
for that man?"

"So be it," answered Fragoso, "though it is not an office of honor.
Without the least ceremony," he added, "I would have killed him like a
wild beast."

The place where the duel was about to take place was a level bank about
fifty paces long, on the top of a cliff rising perpendicularly some
fifty feet above the Amazon. The river slowly flowed at the foot, and
bathed the clumps of reeds which bristled round its base.

There was, therefore, none too much room, and the combatant who was the
first to give way would quickly be driven over into the abyss.

The signal was given by Manoel, and Torres and Benito stepped forward.

Benito had complete command over himself. The defender of a sacred
cause, his coolness was unruffled, much more so than that of Torres,
whose conscience insensible and hardened as it was, was bound at the
moment to trouble him.

The two met, and the first blow came from Benito. Torres parried it.
They then jumped back, but almost at the same instant they rushed
together, and with their left hands seized each other by the
shoulder—never to leave go again.

Torres, who was the strongest, struck a side blow with his manchetta
which Benito could not quite parry. His left side was touched, and his
poncho was reddened with his blood. But he quickly replied, and slightly
wounded Torres in the hand.

Several blows were then interchanged, but nothing decisive was done. The
ever silent gaze of Benito pierced the eyes of Torres like a sword
blade thrust to his very heart. Visibly the scoundrel began to quail. He
recoiled little by little, pressed back by his implacable foe, who was
more determined on taking the life of his father's denouncer than in
defending his own. To strike was all that Benito longed for; to parry
was all that the other now attempted to do.

Soon Torres saw himself thrust to the very edge of the bank, at a spot
where, slightly scooped away, it overhung the river. He perceived the
danger; he tried to retake the offensive and regain the lost ground. His
agitation increased, his looks grew livid. At length he was obliged to
stoop beneath the arm which threatened him.

"Die, then!" exclaimed Benito.

The blow was struck full on its chest, but the point of the manchetta
was stopped by a hard substance hidden beneath the poncho of the
adventurer.

Benito renewed his attack, and Torres, whose return thrust did not touch
his adversary, felt himself lost. He was again obliged to retreat. Then
he would have shouted—shouted that the life of Joam Dacosta depended on
his own! He had not time!

A second thrust of the manchetta pierced his heart. He fell backward,
and the ground suddenly failing him, he was precipitated down the cliff.
As a last effort his hands convulsively clutched at a clump of reeds,
but they could not stop him, and he disappeared beneath the waters of
the river.

Benito was supported on Manoel's shoulder; Fragoso grasped his hands.
He would not even give his companions time to dress his wound, which was
very slight.

"To the jangada!" he said, "to the jangada!"

Manoel and Fragoso with deep emotion followed him without speaking a
word.

A quarter of an hour afterward the three reached the bank to which
the raft was moored. Benito and Manoel rushed into the room where were
Yaquita and Minha, and told them all that had passed.

"My son!" "My brother!"

The words were uttered at the same moment.

"To the prison!" said Benito.

"Yes! Come! come!" replied Yaquita.

Benito, followed by Manoel, hurried along his mother, and half an hour
later they arrived before the prison.

Owing to the order previously given by Judge Jarriquez they were
immediately admitted, and conducted to the chamber occupied by the
prisoner.

The door opened. Joam Dacosta saw his wife, his son, and Manoel enter
the room.

"Ah! Joam, my Joam!" exclaimed Yaquita.

"Yaquita! my wife! my children!" replied the prisoner, who opened his
arms and pressed them to his heart.

"My Joam, innocent!"

"Innocent and avenged!" said Benito.

"Avenged? What do you mean?"

"Torres is dead, father; killed by my hand!"

"Dead!—Torres!—Dead!" gasped Joam Dacosta. "My son! You have ruined
me!"

A FEW HOURS later the whole family had returned to the raft, and were
assembled in the large room. All were there, except the prisoner, on
whom the last blow had just fallen. Benito was quite overwhelmed, and
accused himself of having destroyed his father, and had it not been
for the entreaties of Yaquita, of his sister, of Padre Passanha, and of
Manoel, the distracted youth would in the first moments of despair have
probably made away with himself. But he was never allowed to get out
of sight; he was never left alone. And besides, how could he have acted
otherwise? Ah! why had not Joam Dacosta told him all before he left the
jangada? Why had he refrained from speaking, except before a judge, of
this material proof of his innocence? Why, in his interview with Manoel
after the expulsion of Torres, had he been silent about the document
which the adventurer pretended to hold in his hands? But, after all,
what faith ought he to place in what Torres had said? Could he be
certain that such a document was in the rascal's possession?

Whatever might be the reason, the family now knew everything, and
that from the lips of Joam Dacosta himself. They knew that Torres
had declared that the proof of the innocence of the convict of Tijuco
actually existed; that the document had been written by the very hand
of the author of the attack; that the criminal, seized by remorse at the
moment of his death, had intrusted it to his companion, Torres; and
that he, instead of fulfilling the wishes of the dying man, had made the
handing over of the document an excuse for extortion. But they knew also
that Torres had just been killed, and that his body was engulfed in the
waters of the Amazon, and that he died without even mentioning the name
of the guilty man.

Unless he was saved by a miracle, Joam Dacosta might now be considered
as irrevocably lost. The death of Judge Ribeiro on the one hand,
the death of Torres on the other, were blows from which he could
not recover! It should here be said that public opinion at Manaos,
unreasoning as it always is, was all against he prisoner. The unexpected
arrest of Joam Dacosta had revived the memory of the terrible crime of
Tijuco, which had lain forgotten for twenty-three years. The trial
of the young clerk at the mines of the diamond arrayal, his capital
sentence, his escape a few hours before his intended execution—all
were remembered, analyzed, and commented on. An article which had just
appeared in the
O Diario d'o Grand Para,
the most widely circulated
journal in these parts, after giving a history of the circumstances of
the crime, showed itself decidedly hostile to the prisoner. Why should
these people believe in Joam Dacosta's innocence, when they were
ignorant of all that his friends knew—of what they alone knew?

And so the people of Manaos became excited. A mob of Indians and negroes
hurried, in their blind folly, to surround the prison and roar forth
tumultuous shouts of death. In this part of the two Americas, where
executions under Lynch law are of frequent occurrence, the mob soon
surrenders itself to its cruel instincts, and it was feared that on this
occasion it would do justice with its own hands.