Penniless, and unable to enter Tijuco again, Ortega fled away to the
provinces in the north of Brazil, to those districts of the Upper
Amazon where the _capitaes da mato_ are to be found. He had to live
somehow, and so he joined this not very honorable company; they
neither asked him who he was nor whence he came, and so Ortega became
a captain of the woods, and for many years he followed the trade of a
chaser of men.
During this time Torres, the adventurer, himself in absolute want,
became his companion. Ortega and he became most intimate. But, as he
had told Torres, remorse began gradually to trouble the scoundrel's
life. The remembrance of his crime became horrible to him. He knew
that another had been condemned in his place! He knew subsequently
that the innocent man had escaped from the last penalty, but that he
would never be free from the shadow of the capital sentence! And
then, during an expedition of his party for several months beyond the
Peruvian frontier, chance caused Ortega to visit the neighborhood of
Iquitos, and there in Joam Garral, who did not recognize him, he
recognized Joam Dacosta.
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