about eight o’clock
But this cipher Fragoso did not know . A few more presumptions , a half-certainty that the adventurer had invented nothing , certain circumstances tending to prove that the secret of the matter was contained in the document -- and that was all that the gallant fellow brought back from his visit to the chief of the gang of which Torres had been a member . Nevertheless , little as it was , he was in all haste to relate it to Judge Jarriquez . He knew that he had not an hour to lose , and that was why on this very morning , at about eight o'clock , he arrived , exhausted with fatigue , within half a mile of Manaos . The distance between there and the town he traversed in a few minutes . A kind of irresistible presentiment urged him on , and he had almost come to believe that Joam Dacosta 's safety rested in his hands . Suddenly Fragoso stopped as if his feet had become rooted in the ground .