ole 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 Gran