e. It sums up the entire document.
It gives their true names to true personages; but before trying to
understand it I ought to begin by counting the number of words it
contains, and even when this is done its true meaning may be missed."

In saying this Torres began to count mentally.

"There are fifty-eight words, and that makes fifty-eight contos. With
nothing but that one could live in Brazil, in America, wherever one
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 neighboring
States--ten double-condors in gold of the United States of Colombia,
worth about a hundred francs; Brazilian reis, worth about as much;
golden sols of Peru, worth, say, double; some Chilian escudos, worth
fifty francs or more, and some smaller coins; but the lot would not
amount to more than five hundred fr