And then, lost in his thoughts and
recollections, he sat, regardless of a peculiar noise on the outer
wall of the convent, of the jerkings of a rope hitched on to a bar of
his window, and of grating steel as it cut through iron, which ought
at once to have attracted the attention of a less absorbed man.
Joam Dacosta continued to live the years of his youth after his
arrival in Peru. He again saw the fazender, the clerk, the partner of
the old Portuguese, toiling hard for the prosperity of the
establishment at Iquitos. Ah! why at the outset had he not told all
to his benefactor? He would never have doubted him. It was the only
error with which he could reproach himself. Why had he not confessed
to him whence he had come, and who he was--above all, at the moment
when Magalha?s had place in his hand the hand of the daughter who
would never have believed that he was the author of so frightful a
crime.
And now the noise outside became loud enough to attract the
prisoner's attention. For an instant Joam raised his head; his eyes
sought the window, but with a vacant look, as though he were
unconscious, and the next instant his head again sank into his hands.
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