The Giant Raft The cryptogram Author:Jules Verne Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. MORAL PROOFS. '"THE warrant against Joam Dacosta, alias Joam Garral, had been issued by the assistant of Judge Ribeiro, who filled the position... more » of magistrate in the province of Amazones, until the nomination of the successor of the late justice. This assistant bore the name of Vicente Jarriquez. He was a surly little fellow, whom forty years' practice in criminal procedure had not rendered particularly friendly towards those who came before him. He had had so many cases of this sort, and tried and sentenced so many rascals, that a prisoner's innocence seemed to him a priori inadmissable. To be sure, he did not come to a decision unconscientiously; but his conscience was strongly fortified, and was not easily affected by the circumstances of the examination or the arguments for the defense. Like a good many judges, he thought but little of the indulgence of the jury, and when a prisoner was brought before him, after having passed through the sieve of inquest, inquiry, and examination, there was every presumption in his eyes that the man was quite ten times guilty. Jarriquez, however, was not a bad man. Nervous, fidgety, talkative, keen, crafty, he had a curious look about him, with his big head on his little body; his ruffled hair, which would not have disgraced the judge's wig of the past; his piercing, gimlet-like eyes, with their expression of surprising acuteness; his prominent nose, with which he would assuredly have gesticulated had it been movable; his ears wide open, so as to better catch all that was said, even when itwas out of range of ordinary auditory apparatus; his fingers unceasingly tapping the table in front of him, like those of a pianist practising on the mute; and his body so long and his legs so short, and his feet perpetually crossing a...« less