or,
and that it contained the confession of the culprit, accompanied by
circumstances which permitted of no doubt as to its truth.

And so, if the document could be read, if the key had been found, if the
cipher on which the system hung were known, no doubt of its truth could
be entertained.

But this cipher Fragoso did not know. A few more presumptions, a
half-certainty that the adventurer had invented nothing, certain
circumstances tending to prove that the secret of the matter was
contained in the document--and that was all that the gallant fellow
brought back from his visit to the chief of the gang of which Torres had
been a member.

Nevertheless, little as it was, he was in all haste to relate it to
Judge Jarriquez. He knew that he had not an hour to lose, and that was
why on this very morning, at about eight o'clock, he arrived, exhausted
with fatigue, within half a mile of Manaos. The distance between there
and the town he traversed in a few minutes. A kind of irresistible
presentiment urged him on, and he had almost come to believe that Joam
Dacosta's safety rested in his hands.

Suddenly Fragoso stopped as if his feet had become rooted in the ground.
He had reached the entrance to a small square, on which opened one of
the town gates.

There, in the midst of a dense crowd, arose the gallows, towering up
some twenty feet, and from it there hung the rope!

Fragoso felt his consciousness abandon him. He fell; his eyes
involuntarily closed. He did not wish to look, and these words escaped
his lips: "Too late! too late!" But by a superhuman effort he raised
himself up. No; it was _not_ too late, the corpse of Joam Dacosta was
_not_ hanging at the end of the rope!

"Judge Jarriquez! Judge Jarriquez!" shouted Fragoso, and panting and
bewildered he rushed toward the city gate, dashed up the principal
street of Manaos, and fell half-dead on the threshold of the judge's
house. The door was shut. Fragoso had still strength enough left to
knock at it.

One of the magistrate's servants came to open it; his master would see
no one.

In spite of this denial, Fragoso pushed back the man who guarded the
entrance, and with a bound threw himself into the judge's study.

"I come from the province where Torres pursued his calling as captain of
the woods!" he gasped. "Mr. Judge, Torres told the truth. Stop--stop the
execution?"

"You found the gang?"

"Yes."

"And you have brought me the cipher of the document?"