“I was innocent!”
“That is what I was waiting for,” said Judge Jarriquez.
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.”
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.
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.
“You have finished?” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
“And you persist in asserting that you only left Iquitos to procure the revision of the judgment against you.”
“I had no other intention.”
“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?”