CHAPTER XI
THE CONTENTS OF THE CASE
WHAT WAS it that had happened? A purely physical phenomenon, of which
the following is the explanation.
The gunboat Santa Ana, bound for Manaos, had come up the river and
passed the bar at Frias. Just before she reached the _embouchure_ of
the Rio Negro she hoisted her colors and saluted the Brazilian flag.
At the report vibrations were produced along the surface of the
stream, and these vigrations making their way down to the bottom of
the river, had been sufficient to raise the corpse of Torres, already
lightened by the commencement of its decomposition and the distension
of its cellular system. The body of the drowned man had in the
ordinary course risen to the surface of the water.
This well-known phenomenon explains the reappearance of the corpse,
but it must be admitted that the arrival of the Santa Ana was a
fortunate coincidence.
By a shout from Manoel, repeated by all his companions, one of the
pirogues was immediately steered for the body, while the diver was at
the same time hauled up to the raft.
Great was Manoel's emotion when Benito, drawn on to the platform, was
laid there in a state of complete inertia, not a single exterior
movement betraying that he still lived.
Was not this a second corpse which the waters of the Amazon had given
up?
As quickly as possible the diving-dress was taken off him.
Benito had entirely lost consciousness beneath the violent shocks of
the gymnotus.
Manoel, distracted, called to him, breathed into him, and endeavored
to recover the heart's pulsation.
"It beats! It beats!" he exclaimed.
Yes! Benito's heart did still beat, and in a few minutes Manoel's
efforts restored him to life.
"The body! the Body!"
Such were the first words, the only ones which escaped from Benito's
lips.
"There it is!" answered Fragoso, pointing to a pirogue then coming up
to the raft with the corpse.
"But what has been the matter, Benito?" asked Manoel. "Has it been
the want of air?"
"No!" said Benito; "a puraque attacked me! But the noise? the
detonation?"
"A cannon shot!" replied Manoel. "It was the cannon shot which
brought the corpse to the surface."
At this moment the pirogue came up to the raft with the body of
Torres, which had been taken on board by the Indians. His sojourn in
the water had not disfigured him very much. He was easily
recognizable, and there was no doubt as to his identity.
Fragoso, kneeling down in the pirogue, had already begun to undo the
clothes of the drowned man, which came away in fragments.
At the moment Torres' right arm, which was now left bare, attracted
his attention. On it there appeared the distinct scar of an old wound
produced by a blow from a knife.
"That scar!" exclaimed Fragoso. "But--that is good! I remember
now----"
"What?" demanded Manoel.
"A quarrel! Yes! a quarrel I witnessed in the province of Madeira
three years ago. How could I have forgotten it! This Torres was then
a captain of the woods. Ah! I know now where I had seen him, the
scoundrel!"
"That does not matter to us now!" cried Benito. "The case! the case!
Has he still got that?" and Benito was about to tear away the last
coverings of the corpse to get at it.
Manoel stopped him.
"One moment, Benito," he said; and then, turning to the men on the
raft who did not belong to the jangada, and whose evidence could not
be suspected at any future time:
"Just take note, my friends," he said, "of what we are doing here, so
that you can relate before the magistrate what has passed."
The men came up to the pirogue.
Fragoso undid the belt which encircled the body of Torres underneath
the torn poncho, and feeling his breast-pocket, exclaimed:
"The case!"
A cry of joy escaped from Benito. He stretched forward to seize the
case, to make sure than it contained----
"No!" again interrupted Manoel, whose coolness did not forsake him.
"It is necessary that not the slightest possible doubt should exist
in the mind of the magistrate! It is better that disinterested
witnesses should affirm that this case was really found on the corpse
of Torres!"
"You are right," replied Benito.
"My friend," said Manoel to the foreman of the raft, "just feel in
the pocket of the waistcoat."
The foreman obeyed. He drew forth a metal case, with the cover
screwed on, and which seemed to have suffered in no way from its
sojourn in the water.
"The paper! Is the paper still inside?" exclaimed Benito, who could
not contain himself.
"It is for the magistrate to open this case!" answered Manoel. "To
him alone belongs the duty of verifying that the document was found
within it."
"Yes, yes. Again you are right, Manoel," said Benito. "To Manaos, my
friends--to Manaos!"
Benito, Manoel, Fragoso, and the foreman who held the case,
immediately jumped into one of the pirogues, and were starting off,
when Fragoso said:
"And the corpse?"
The pirogue stopped.
In fact, the Indians had already thrown back the body into the water,
and it was drifting away down the river.
"Torres was only a scoundrel," said Benito. "If I had to fight him,
it was God that struck him, and his body ought not to go unburied!"
And so orders were given to the second pirogue to recover the corpse,
and take it to the bank to await its burial.
But at the same moment a flock of birds of prey, which skimmed along
the surface of the stream, pounced on the floating body. They were
urubus, a kind of small vulture, with naked necks and long claws, and
black as crows. In South America they are known as gallinazos, and
their voracity is unparalleled. The body, torn open by their beaks,
gave forth the gases which inflated it, its density increased, it
sank down little by little, and for the last time what remained of
Torres disappeared beneath the waters of the Amazon.
Ten minutes afterward the pirogue arrived at Manaos. Benito and his
companions jumped ashore, and hurried through the streets of the
town. In a few minutes they had reached the dwelling of Judge
Jarriuez, and informed him, through one of his servants, that they
wished to see him immediately.
The judge ordered them to be shown into his study.
There Manoel recounted all that had passed, from the moment when
Torres had been killed until the moment when the case had been found
on his corpse, and taken from his breast-pocket by the foreman.
Although this recital was of a nature to corroborate all that Joam
Dacosta had said on the subject of Torres, and of the bargain which
he had endeavored to make, Judge Jarriquez could not restrain a smile
of incredulity.
"There is the case, sir," said Manoel. "For not a single instant has
it been in our hands, and the man who gives it to you is he who took
it from the body of Torres."
The magistrate took the case and examined it with care, turning it
over and over as though it were made of some precious material. Then
he shook it, and a few coins inside sounded with a metallic ring. Did
not, then, the case contain the document which had been so much
sought after--the document written in the very hand of the true
author of the crime of Tijuco, and which Torres had wished to sell at
such an ignoble price to Joam Dacosta? Was this material proof of the
convict's innocence irrevocably lost?
We can easily imagine the violent agitation which had seized upon the
spectators f this scene. Benito could scarcely utter a word, he felt
his heart ready to burst. "Open it, sir! open the case!" he at last
exclaimed, in a broken voice.
Judge Jarriquez began to unscrew the lid; then, when the cover was
removed, he turned up the case, and from it a few pieces of gold
dropped out and rolled on the table.
"But the paper! the paper!" again gasped Benito, who clutched hold of
the table to save himself from falling.
The magistrate put his fingers into the case and drew out, not
without difficulty, a faded paper, folded with care, and which the
water did not seem to have even touched.
"The document! that is the document!" shouted Fragoso; "that is the
very paper I saw in the hands of Torres!"
Judge Jarriquez unfolded the paper and cast his eyes over it, and
then he turned it over so as to examine it on the back and the front,
which were both covered with writing. "A document it really is!" said
he; "there is no doubt of that. It is indeed a document!"
"Yes," replied Benito; "and that is the document which proves my
father's innocence!"
"I do not know that," replied Judge Jarriquez; "and I am much afraid
it will be very difficult to know it."
"Why?" exclaimed Benito, who became pale as death.
"Because this document is a cryptogram, and----"
"Well?"
"We have not got the key!"
