I had no expectation of finding Dom Miguel still alive. With everything in our favor the trip would require five hours, and long before that time the prisoner’s fate would have overtaken him. But the chief’s dying wish would be to save the records, and that I intended to do if it were possible.
However, the delays caused by meeting with Paola and my subsequent unlucky fall had been fatal to my plans. We dashed up to the Cruz station in time to see the train for Rio disappearing in the distance, and to complete my disappointment we found standing beside the platform a horse yet panting and covered with foam.
Quickly dismounting, I approached the horse to examine it. The station master came from his little house and bowed with native politeness.
“The horse? Ah, yes; it was from the stables of Dom Miguel. Senhora de Mar had arrived upon the animal just in time to take the express for Rio. The gentleman also wanted the train? How sad to have missed it! But there would be another at eleven o’clock, although not so fast a train.”
For a time I stood in a sort of stupor, my mind refusing to grasp the full horror of the situation. Until then, perhaps, a lingering hope of saving Dom Miguel had possessed me. But with the ring on its way to Rio and the Emperor, and I condemned to inaction at a deserted way-station, it is no wonder that despair overwhelmed me.
When I slowly recovered my faculties I found that my men and the station master had disappeared. I found them in the little house writing telegrams, which the official was busily ticking over the wires.
Glancing at one or two of the messages I found them unintelligible.
“It is the secret cypher,” whispered Figgot. “We shall put Madam Izabel in the care of Mazanovitch himself. Ah, how he will cling to the dear lady! She is clever—ah, yes! exceedingly clever is Senhora de Mar. But has Mazanovitch his match in all Brazil?”
“I do not know the gentleman,” I returned.
“No? Perhaps not. But you know the Minister of Police, and Mazanovitch is the soul of Francisco Paola.”