CHAPTER II
THE FIRST MOMENTS
SCARCELY HAD the pirogue which bore off Joam Garral, or rather Joam Dacosta--for it is more convenient that he should resume his real name-disappeared, than Benito stepped up to Manoel.
"What is it you know?" he asked.
"I know that your father is innocent! Yes, innocent!" replied Manoel, "and that he was sentenced to death twenty-three years ago for a crime which he never committed!"
"He has told you all about it, Manoel?"
"All about it," replied the young man. "The noble fazender did not wish that any part of his past life should be hidden from him who, when he marries his daughter, is to be his second son."
"And the proof of his innocence my father can one day produce?"
"That proof, Benito, lies wholly in the twenty-three years of an honorable and hon
