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<h2> CHAPTER IV. MORAL PROOFS </h2>
<p>THE WARRANT against Joam Dacosta, alias Joam Garral, had been issued by
the assistant of Judge Ribeiro, who filled the position of the magistrate
in the province of Amazones, until the nomination of the successor of the
late justice.</p>
<p>This assistant bore the name of Vicente Jarriquez. He was a surly little
fellow, whom forty years' practice in criminal procedure had not rendered
particularly friendly toward those who came before him. He had had so many
cases of this sort, and tried and sentenced so many rascals, that a
prisoner's innocence seemed to him <i>� priori</i> inadmissable. To be
sure, he did not come to a decision unconscientiously; but his conscience
was strongly fortified and was not easily affected by the circumstances of
the examination or the arguments for the defense. Like a good many judges,
he thought but little of the indulgence of the jury, and when a prisoner
was brought before him, after having passed through the sieve of inquest,
inquiry, and examination, there was every presumption in his eyes that the
man was quite ten times guilty.</p>
<p>Jarriquez, however, was not a bad man. Nervous, fidgety, talkative, keen,
crafty, he had a curious look about him, with his big head on his little
body; his ruffled hair, which would not have disgraced the judge's wig of
the past; his piercing gimlet-like eyes, with their expression of
surprising acuteness; his prominent nose, with which he would assuredly
have gesticulated had it been movable; his ears wide open, so as to better
catch all that was said, even when it was out of range of ordinary
auditory apparatus; his fingers unceasingly tapping the table in front of
him, like those of a pianist practicing on the mute; and his body so long
and his legs so short, and his feet perpetually crossing and recrossing,
as he sat in state in his magistrate's chair.</p>
<p>In private life, Jarriquez, who was a confirmed old bachelor, never left
his law-books but for the table which he did not despise; for chess, of
which he was a past master; and above all things for Chinese puzzles,
enigmas, charades, rebuses, anagrams, riddles, and such things, with
which, like more than one European justice—thorough sphinxes by
taste as well as by profession—he principally passed his leisure.</p>
<p>It will be seen that he was an original, and it will be seen also how much
Joam Dacosta had lost by the death of Judge Ribeiro, inasmuch as his case
would come before this not very agreeable judge.</p>
<p>Moreover, the task of Jarriquez was in a way very simple. He had either to
inquire nor to rule; he had not even to regulate a discussion nor to
obtain a verdict, neither to apply the articles of the penal code nor to
pronounce a sentence. Unfortunately for the fazender, such formalities
were no longer necessary; Joam Dacosta had been arrested, convicted, and
sentenced twenty-three years ago for the crime at Tijuco; no limitation
had yet affected his sentence. No demand in commutation of the penalty
could be introduced, and no appeal for mercy could be received. It was
only necessary then to establish his identity, and as soon as the order
arrived from Rio Janeiro justice would have to take its course.</p>
<p>But in the nature of things Joam Dacosta would protest his innocence; he
would say he had been unjustly condemned. The magistrate's duty,
notwithstanding the opinions he held, would be to listen to him. The
question would be, what proofs could the convict offer to make good his
assertions? And if he was not able to produce them when he appeared before
his first judges, was he able to do so now?</p>
<p>Herein consisted all the interest of the examination. There would have to
be admitted the fact of a defaulter, prosperous and safe in a foreign
country, leaving his refuge of his own free will to face the justice which
his past life should have taught him to dread, and herein would be one of
those rare and curious cases which ought to interest even a magistrate
hardened with all the surroundings of forensic strife. Was it impudent
folly on the part of the doomed man of Tijuco, who was tired of his life,
or was it the impulse of a conscience which would at all risks have wrong
set right? The problem was a strange one, it must be acknowledged.</p>
<p>On the morrow of Joam Dacosta's arrest, Judge Jarriquez made his way to
the prison in God-the-Son Street, where the convict had been placed. The
prison was an old missionary convent, situated on the bank of one of the
principal iguarapes of the town. To the voluntary prisoners of former
times there had succeeded in this building, which was but little adapted
for the purpose, the compulsory prisoners of to-day. The room occupied by
Joam Dacosta was nothing like one of those sad little cells which form
part of our modern penitentiary system: but an old monk's room, with a
barred window without shutters, opening on to an uncultivated space, a
bench in one corner, and a kind of pallet in the other. It was from this
apartment that Joam Dacosta, on this 25th of August, about eleven o'clock
in the morning, was taken and brought into the judge's room, which was the
old common hall of the convent.</p>
<p>Judge Jarriquez was there in front of his desk, perched on his high chair,
his back turned toward the window, so that his face was in shadow while
that of the accused remained in full daylight. His clerk, with the
indifference which characterizes these legal folks, had taken his seat at
the end of the table, his pen behind his ear, ready to record the
questions and answers.</p>
<p>Joam Dacosta was introduced into the room, and at a sign from the judge
the guards who had brought him withdrew.</p>
<p>Judge Jarriquez looked at the accused for some time. The latter, leaning
slightly forward and maintaining a becoming attitude, neither careless nor
humble, waited with dignity for the questions to which he was expected to
reply.</p>
<p>"Your name?" said Judge Jarriquez.</p>
<p>"Joam Dacosta."</p>
<p>"Your age?"</p>
<p>"Fifty-two."</p>
<p>"Where do you live?"</p>
<p>"In Peru, at the village of Iquitos."</p>
<p>"Under what name?"</p>
<p>"Under that of Garral, which is that of my mother."</p>
<p>"And why do you bear that name?"</p>
<p>"Because for twenty-three years I wished to hide myself from the pursuit
of Brazilian justice."</p>
<p>The answers were so exact, and seemed to show that Joam Dacosta had made
up his mind to confess everything concerning his past and present life,
that Judge Jarriquez, little accustomed to such a course, cocked up his
nose more than was usual to him.</p>
<p>"And why," he continued, "should Brazilian justice pursue you?"</p>
<p>"Because I was sentenced to death in 1826 in the diamond affair at
Tijuco."</p>
<p>"You confess then that you are Joam Dacosta?"</p>
<p>"I am Joam Dacosta."</p>
<p>All this was said with great calmness, and as simply as possible. The
little eyes of Judge Jarriquez, hidden by their lids, seemed to say:</p>
<p>"Never came across anything like this before."</p>
<p>He had put the invariable question which had hitherto brought the
invariable reply from culprits of every category protesting their
innocence. The fingers of the judge began to beat a gentle tattoo on the
table.</p>
<p>"Joam Dacosta," he asked, "what were you doing at Iquitos?"</p>
<p>"I was a fazender, and engaged in managing a farming establishment of
considerable size."</p>
<p>"It was prospering?"</p>
<p>"Greatly prospering."</p>
<p>"How long ago did you leave your fazenda?"</p>
<p>"About nine weeks."</p>
<p>"Why?"</p>
<p>"As to that, sir," answered Dacosta, "I invented a pretext, but in reality
I had a motive."</p>
<p>"What was the pretext?"</p>
<p>"The responsibility of taking into Para a large raft, and a cargo of
different products of the Amazon."</p>
<p>"Ah! and what was the real motive of your departure?"</p>
<p>And in asking this question Jarriquez said to himself:</p>
<p>"Now we shall get into denials and falsehoods."</p>
<p>"The real motive," replied Joam Dacosta, in a firm voice, "was the
resolution I had taken to give myself up to the justice of my country."</p>
<p>"You give yourself up!" exclaimed the judge, rising from his stool. "You
give yourself up of your own free will?"</p>
<p>"Of my own free will."</p>
<p>"And why?"</p>
<p>"Because I had had enough of this lying life, this obligation to live
under a false name, of this impossibility to be able to restore to my wife
and children that which belongs to them; in short, sir, because——"</p>
<p>"Because?"</p>
<p>"I was innocent!"</p>
<p>"That is what I was waiting for," said Judge Jarriquez.</p>
<p>And while his fingers tattooed a slightly more audible march, he made a
sign with his head to Dacosta, which signified as clearly as possible, "Go
on! Tell me your history. I know it, but I do not wish to interrupt you in
telling it in your own way."</p>
<p>Joam Dacosta, who did not disregard the magistrate's far from encouraging
attitude, could not but see this, and he told the history of his whole
life. He spoke quietly without departing from the calm he had imposed upon
himself, without omitting any circumstances which had preceded or
succeeded his condemnation. In the same tone he insisted on the honored
and honorable life he had led since his escape, on his duties as head of
his family, as husband and father, which he had so worthily fulfilled. He
laid stress only on one circumstance—that which had brought him to
Manaos to urge on the revision of the proceedings against him, to procure
his rehabilitation—and that he was compelled to do.</p>
<p>Judge Jarriquez, who was naturally prepossessed against all criminals, did
not interrupt him. He contented himself with opening and shutting his eyes
like a man who heard the story told for the hundredth time; and when Joam
Dacosta laid on the table the memoir which he had drawn up, he made no
movement to take it.</p>
<p>"You have finished?" he said.</p>
<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
<p>"And you persist in asserting that you only left Iquitos to procure the
revision of the judgment against you."</p>
<p>"I had no other intention."</p>
<p>"What is there to prove that? Who can prove that, without the denunciation
which had brought about your arrest, you would have given yourself up?"</p>
<p>"This memoir, in the first place."</p>
<p>"That memoir was in your possession, and there is nothing to show that had
you not been arrested, you would have put it to the use you say you
intended."</p>
<p>"At the least, sir, there was one thing that was not in my possession, and
of the authenticity of which there can be no doubt."</p>
<p>"What?"</p>
<p>"The letter I wrote to your predecessor, Judge Ribeiro, the letter which
gave him notice of my early arrival."</p>
<p>"Ah! you wrote?"</p>
<p>"Yes. And the letter which ought to have arrived at its destination should
have been handed over to you."</p>
<p>"Really!" answered Judge Jarriquez, in a slightly incredulous tone. "You
wrote to Judge Ribeiro."</p>
<p>"Before he was a judge in this province," answered Joam Dacosta, "he was
an advocate at Villa Rica. He it was who defended me in the trial at
Tijuco. He never doubted of the justice of my cause. He did all he could
to save me. Twenty years later, when he had become chief justice at
Manaos, I let him know who I was, where I was, and what I wished to
attempt. His opinion about me had not changed, and it was at his advice I
left the fazenda, and came in person to proceed with my rehabilitation.
But death had unfortunately struck him, and maybe I shall be lost, sir, if
in Judge Jarriquez I do not find another Judge Ribeiro."</p>
<p>The magistrate, appealed to so directly, was about to start up in defiance
of all the traditions of the judicial bench, but he managed to restrain
himself, and was contented with muttering:</p>
<p>"Very strong, indeed; very strong!"</p>
<p>Judge Jarriquez was evidently hard of heart, and proof against all
surprise.</p>
<p>At this moment a guard entered the room, and handed a sealed packet to the
magistrate.</p>
<p>He broke the seal and drew a letter from the envelope. He opened it and
read it, not without a certain contraction of his eyebrows, and then said:</p>
<p>"I have no reason for hiding from you, Joam Dacosta, that this is the
letter you have been speaking about, addressed by you to Judge Ribeiro and
sent on to me. I have, therefore, no reason to doubt what you have said on
the subject."</p>
<p>"Not only on that subject," answered Dacosta, "but on the subject of all
the circumstances of my life which I have brought to your knowledge, and
which are none of them open to question."</p>
<p>"Eh! Joam Dacosta," quickly replied Judge Jarriquez. "You protest your
innocence; but all prisoners do as much! After all, you only offer moral
presumptions. Have you any material proof?"</p>
<p>"Perhaps I have," answered Joam Dacosta.</p>
<p>At these words, Judge Jarriquez left his chair. This was too much for him,
and he had to take two or three circuits of the room to recover himself.</p>
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