wished, and even live without doing anything! And what would it be,
then, if all the words of this document were paid for at the same
price? It would be necessary to count by hundreds of contos. Ah!
there is quite a fortune here for me to realize if I am not the
greatest of duffers!"

It seemed as though the hands of Torres felt the enormous sum, and
were already closing over the rolls of gold. Suddenly his thoughts
took another turn.

"At length," he cried, "I see land; and I do not regret the voyage
which has led me from the coast of the Atlantic to the Upper Amazon.
But this man may quit America and go beyond the seas, and then how
can I touch him? But no! he is there, and if I climb to the top of
this tree I can see the roof under which he lives with his family!"
Then seizing the paper and shaking it with terrible meaning: "Before
to-morrow I will be in his presence; before to-morrow he will know
that his honor and his life are contained in these lines. And when he
wishes to see the cipher which permits him to read them, he--well, he
will pay for it. He will pay, if I wish it, with all his fortune, as
he ought to pay with all his blood! Ah! My worthy comrade, who gave
me this cipher, who told me where I could find his old colleague, and
the name under which he has been hiding himself for so many years,
hardly suspects that he has made my fortune!"

For the last time Torres glanced over the yellow paper, and then,
after carefully folding it, put it away into a little copper box
which he used for a purse. This box was about as big as a cigar case,
and if what was in it was all Torres possessed he would nowhere have
been considered a wealthy man. He had a few of all the coins of the