Joseph Conrad ..........................................................................................................................................1

"NOSTROMO" is the most anxiously meditated of the longer novels which belong to the period following

I don't mean to say that I became then conscious of any impending change in my mentality and in my attitude

towards the tasks of my writing life. And perhaps there was never any change, except in that mysterious,

extraneous thing which has nothing to do with the theories of art; a subtle change in the nature of the

inspiration; a phenomenon for which I can not in any way be held responsible. What, however, did cause me

some concern was that after finishing the last story of the "Typhoon" volume it seemed somehow that there

This so strangely negative but disturbing mood lasted some little time; and then, as with many of my longer

stories, the first hint for "Nostromo" came to me in the shape of a vagrant anecdote completely destitute of

As a matter of fact in 1875 or '6, when very young, in the West Indies or rather in the Gulf of Mexico, for my

contacts with land were short, few, and fleeting, I heard the story of some man who was supposed to have

stolen singlehanded a whole lighterfull of silver, somewhere on the Tierra Firme seaboard during the

On the face of it this was something of a feat. But I heard no details, and having no particular interest in

crime qua crime I was not likely to keep that one in my mind. And I forgot it till twentysix or seven years

afterwards I came upon the very thing in a shabby volume picked up outside a secondhand bookshop. It

was the life story of an American seaman written by himself with the assistance of a journalist. In the course

of his wanderings that American sailor worked for some months on board a schooner, the master and owner

of which was the thief of whom I had heard in my very young days. I have no doubt of that because there

could hardly have been two exploits of that peculiar kind in the same part of the world and both connected

The fellow had actually managed to steal a lighter with silver, and this, it seems, only because he was

implicitly trusted by his employers, who must have been singularly poor judges of character. In the sailor's

story he is represented as an unmitigated rascal, a small cheat, stupidly ferocious, morose, of mean

appearance, and altogether unworthy of the greatness this opportunity had thrust upon him. What was

He used to say: "People think I make a lot of money in this schooner of mine. But that is nothing. I don't care

for that. Now and then I go away quietly and lift a bar of silver. I must get rich slowlyyou understand."

There was also another curious point about the man. Once in the course of some quarrel the sailor threatened

him: "What's to prevent me reporting ashore what you have told me about that silver?"

The cynical ruffian was not alarmed in the least. He actually laughed. "You fool, if you dare talk like that on

shore about me you will get a knife stuck in your back. Every man, woman, and child in that port is my

friend. And who's to prove the lighter wasn't sunk? I didn't show you where the silver is hidden. Did I? So

Ultimately the sailor, disgusted with the sordid meanness of that impenitent thief, deserted from the schooner.

The whole episode takes about three pages of his autobiography. Nothing to speak of; but as I looked them

over, the curious confirmation of the few casual words heard in my early youth evoked the memories of that

distant time when everything was so fresh, so surprising, so venturesome, so interesting; bits of strange coasts

under the stars, shadows of hills in the sunshine, men's passions in the dusk, gossip halfforgotten, faces

grown dim. . . . Perhaps, perhaps, there still was in the world something to write about. Yet I did not see

anything at first in the mere story. A rascal steals a large parcel of a valuable commodityso people say. It's

either true or untrue; and in any case it has no value in itself. To invent a circumstantial account of the

robbery did not appeal to me, because my talents not running that way I did not think that the game was

worth the candle. It was only when it dawned upon me that the purloiner of the treasure need not necessarily

be a confirmed rogue, that he could be even a man of character, an actor and possibly a victim in the

changing scenes of a revolution, it was only then that I had the first vision of a twilight country which was to

become the province of Sulaco, with its high shadowy Sierra and its misty Campo for mute witnesses of

Such are in very truth the obscure origins of "Nostromo"the book. From that moment, I suppose, it had to

be. Yet even then I hesitated, as if warned by the instinct of selfpreservation from venturing on a distant and

toilsome journey into a land full of intrigues and revolutions. But it had to be done.

It took the best part of the years 19034 to do; with many intervals of renewed hesitation, lest I should lose

myself in the everenlarging vistas opening before me as I progressed deeper in my knowledge of the

country. Often, also, when I had thought myself to a standstill over the tangledup affairs of the Republic, I

would, figuratively speaking, pack my bag, rush away from Sulaco for a change of air and write a few pages

of the "Mirror of the Sea." But generally, as I've said before, my sojourn on the Continent of Latin America,

famed for its hospitality, lasted for about two years. On my return I found (speaking somewhat in the style of

Captain Gulliver) my family all well, my wife heartily glad to learn that the fuss was all over, and our small

My principal authority for the history of Costaguana is, of course, my venerated friend, the late Don Jose

Avellanos, Minister to the Courts of England and Spain, etc., etc., in his impartial and eloquent "History of

Fifty Years of Misrule." That work was never publishedthe reader will discover whyand I am in fact the

only person in the world possessed of its contents. I have mastered them in not a few hours of earnest

meditation, and I hope that my accuracy will be trusted. In justice to myself, and to allay the fears of

prospective readers, I beg to point out that the few historical allusions are never dragged in for the sake of

parading my unique erudition, but that each of them is closely related to actuality; either throwing a light on

the nature of current events or affecting directly the fortunes of the people of whom I speak.

As to their own histories I have tried to set them down, Aristocracy and People, men and women, Latin and

AngloSaxon, bandit and politician, with as cool a hand as was possible in the heat and clash of my own

conflicting emotions. And after all this is also the story of their conflicts. It is for the reader to say how far

they are deserving of interest in their actions and in the secret purposes of their hearts revealed in the bitter

necessities of the time. I confess that, for me, that time is the time of firm friendships and unforgotten

hospitalities. And in my gratitude I must mention here Mrs. Gould, "the first lady of Sulaco," whom we may

safely leave to the secret devotion of Dr. Monygham, and Charles Gould, the Idealistcreator of Material

Interests whom we must leave to his Minefrom which there is no escape in this world.

About Nostromo, the second of the two racially and socially contrasted men, both captured by the silver of

I did not hesitate to make that central figure an Italian. First of all the thing is perfectly credible: Italians were

swarming into the Occidental Province at the time, as anybody who will read further can see; and secondly,

there was no one who could stand so well by the side of Giorgio Viola the Garibaldino, the Idealist of the old,

humanitarian revolutions. For myself I needed there a Man of the People as free as possible from his

classconventions and all settled modes of thinking. This is not a side snarl at conventions. My reasons were

not moral but artistic. Had he been an AngloSaxon he would have tried to get into local politics. But

Nostromo does not aspire to be a leader in a personal game. He does not want to raise himself above the

But mainly Nostromo is what he is because I received the inspiration for him in my early days from a

Mediterranean sailor. Those who have read certain pages of mine will see at once what I mean when I say

that Dominic, the padrone of the Tremolino, might under given circumstances have been a Nostromo. At any

rate Dominic would have understood the younger man perfectlyif scornfully. He and I were engaged

together in a rather absurd adventure, but the absurdity does not matter. It is a real satisfaction to think that in

my very young days there must, after all, have been something in me worthy to command that man's

halfbitter fidelity, his halfironic devotion. Many of Nostromo's speeches I have heard first in Dominic's

voice. His hand on the tiller and his fearless eyes roaming the horizon from within the monkish hood

shadowing his face, he would utter the usual exordium of his remorseless wisdom: "Vous autres

gentilhommes!" in a caustic tone that hangs on my ear yet. Like Nostromo! "You hombres finos!" Very much

like Nostromo. But Dominic the Corsican nursed a certain pride of ancestry from which my Nostromo is free;

for Nostromo's lineage had to be more ancient still. He is a man with the weight of countless generations

In his firm grip on the earth he inherits, in his improvidence and generosity, in his lavishness with his gifts, in

his manly vanity, in the obscure sense of his greatness and in his faithful devotion with something despairing

as well as desperate in its impulses, he is a Man of the People, their very own unenvious force, disdaining to

lead but ruling from within. Years afterwards, grown older as the famous Captain Fidanza, with a stake in the

country, going about his many affairs followed by respectful glances in the modernized streets of Sulaco,

calling on the widow of the cargador, attending the Lodge, listening in unmoved silence to anarchist speeches

at the meeting, the enigmatical patron of the new revolutionary agitation, the trusted, the wealthy comrade

Fidanza with the knowledge of his moral ruin locked up in his breast, he remains essentially a Man of the

People. In his mingled love and scorn of life and in the bewildered conviction of having been betrayed, of

dying betrayed he hardly knows by what or by whom, he is still of the People, their undoubted Great

One more figure of those stirring times I would like to mention: and that is Antonia Avellanosthe

"beautiful Antonia." Whether she is a possible variation of LatinAmerican girlhood I wouldn't dare to

affirm. But, for me, she is. Always a little in the background by the side of her father (my venerated friend) I

hope she has yet relief enough to make intelligible what I am going to say. Of all the people who had seen

with me the birth of the Occidental Republic, she is the only one who has kept in my memory the aspect of

continued life. Antonia the Aristocrat and Nostromo the Man of the People are the artisans of the New Era,

the true creators of the New State; he by his legendary and daring feat, she, like a woman, simply by the force

of what she is: the only being capable of inspiring a sincere passion in the heart of a trifler.

If anything could induce me to revisit Sulaco (I should hate to see all these changes) it would be Antonia.

And the true reason for thatwhy not be frank about it?the true reason is that I have modelled her on my

first love. How we, a band of tallish schoolboys, the chums of her two brothers, how we used to look up to

that girl just out of the schoolroom herself, as the standardbearer of a faith to which we all were born but

which she alone knew how to hold aloft with an unflinching hope! She had perhaps more glow and less

serenity in her soul than Antonia, but she was an uncompromising Puritan of patriotism with no taint of the

slightest worldliness in her thoughts. I was not the only one in love with her; but it was I who had to hear

oftenest her scathing criticism of my levitiesvery much like poor Decoudor stand the brunt of her

austere, unanswerable invective. She did not quite understandbut never mind. That afternoon when I came

in, a shrinking yet defiant sinner, to say the final goodbye I received a handsqueeze that made my heart

leap and saw a tear that took my breath away. She was softened at the last as though she had suddenly

perceived (we were such children still!) that I was really going away for good, going very far awayeven as

far as Sulaco, lying unknown, hidden from our eyes in the darkness of the Placid Gulf.

That's why I long sometimes for another glimpse of the "beautiful Antonia" (or can it be the Other?) moving

in the dimness of the great cathedral, saying a short prayer at the tomb of the first and last

CardinalArchbishop of Sulaco, standing absorbed in filial devotion before the monument of Don Jose

Avellanos, and, with a lingering, tender, faithful glance at the medallionmemorial to Martin Decoud, going

out serenely into the sunshine of the Plaza with her upright carriage and her white head; a relic of the past

disregarded by men awaiting impatiently the Dawns of other New Eras, the coming of more Revolutions.

But this is the idlest of dreams; for I did understand perfectly well at the time that the moment the breath left

the body of the Magnificent Capataz, the Man of the People, freed at last from the toils of love and wealth,

IN THE time of Spanish rule, and for many years afterwards, the town of Sulacothe luxuriant beauty of the

orange gardens bears witness to its antiquityhad never been commercially anything more important than a

coasting port with a fairly large local trade in oxhides and indigo. The clumsy deepsea galleons of the

conquerors that, needing a brisk gale to move at all, would lie becalmed, where your modern ship built on

clipper lines forges ahead by the mere flapping of her sails, had been barred out of Sulaco by the prevailing

calms of its vast gulf. Some harbours of the earth are made difficult of access by the treachery of sunken

rocks and the tempests of their shores. Sulaco had found an inviolable sanctuary from the temptations of a

trading world in the solemn hush of the deep Golfo Placido as if within an enormous semicircular and

unroofed temple open to the ocean, with its walls of lofty mountains hung with the mourning draperies of

On one side of this broad curve in the straight seaboard of the Republic of Costaguana, the last spur of the

coast range forms an insignificant cape whose name is Punta Mala. From the middle of the gulf the point of

the land itself is not visible at all; but the shoulder of a steep hill at the back can be made out faintly like a

On the other side, what seems to be an isolated patch of blue mist floats lightly on the glare of the horizon.

This is the peninsula of Azuera, a wild chaos of sharp rocks and stony levels cut about by vertical ravines. It

lies far out to sea like a rough head of stone stretched from a greenclad coast at the end of a slender neck of

sand covered with thickets of thorny scrub. Utterly waterless, for the rainfall runs off at once on all sides into

the sea, it has not soil enoughit is saidto grow a single blade of grass, as if it were blighted by a curse.

The poor, associating by an obscure instinct of consolation the ideas of evil and wealth, will tell you that it is

deadly because of its forbidden treasures. The common folk of the neighbourhood, peons of the estancias,

vaqueros of the seaboard plains, tame Indians coming miles to market with a bundle of sugarcane or a

basket of maize worth about threepence, are well aware that heaps of shining gold lie in the gloom of the

deep precipices cleaving the stony levels of Azuera. Tradition has it that many adventurers of olden time had

perished in the search. The story goes also that within men's memory two wandering sailors Americanos,

perhaps, but gringos of some sort for certaintalked over a gambling, goodfornothing mozo, and the

three stole a donkey to carry for them a bundle of dry sticks, a waterskin, and provisions enough to last a

few days. Thus accompanied, and with revolvers at their belts, they had started to chop their way with

On the second evening an upright spiral of smoke (it could only have been from their campfire) was seen

for the first time within memory of man standing up faintly upon the sky above a razorbacked ridge on the

stony head. The crew of a coasting schooner, lying becalmed three miles off the shore, stared at it with

amazement till dark. A negro fisherman, living in a lonely hut in a little bay near by, had seen the start and

was on the lookout for some sign. He called to his wife just as the sun was about to set. They had watched the

The impious adventurers gave no other sign. The sailors, the Indian, and the stolen burro were never seen

again. As to the mozo, a Sulaco manhis wife paid for some masses, and the poor fourfooted beast, being

without sin, had been probably permitted to die; but the two gringos, spectral and alive, are believed to be

dwelling to this day amongst the rocks, under the fatal spell of their success. Their souls cannot tear

themselves away from their bodies mounting guard over the discovered treasure. They are now rich and

hungry and thirstya strange theory of tenacious gringo ghosts suffering in their starved and parched flesh

These, then, are the legendary inhabitants of Azuera guarding its forbidden wealth; and the shadow on the sky

on one side with the round patch of blue haze blurring the bright skirt of the horizon on the other, mark the

two outermost points of the bend which bears the name of Golfo Placido, because never a strong wind had

On crossing the imaginary line drawn from Punta Mala to Azuera the ships from Europe bound to Sulaco lose

at once the strong breezes of the ocean. They become the prey of capricious airs that play with them for thirty

hours at a stretch sometimes. Before them the head of the calm gulf is filled on most days of the year by a

great body of motionless and opaque clouds. On the rare clear mornings another shadow is cast upon the

sweep of the gulf. The dawn breaks high behind the towering and serrated wall of the Cordillera, a clearcut

vision of dark peaks rearing their steep slopes on a lofty pedestal of forest rising from the very edge of the

shore. Amongst them the white head of Higuerota rises majestically upon the blue. Bare clusters of enormous

Then, as the midday sun withdraws from the gulf the shadow of the mountains, the clouds begin to roll out of

the lower valleys. They swathe in sombre tatters the naked crags of precipices above the wooded slopes, hide

the peaks, smoke in stormy trails across the snows of Higuerota. The Cordillera is gone from you as if it had

dissolved itself into great piles of grey and black vapours that travel out slowly to seaward and vanish into

thin air all along the front before the blazing heat of the day. The wasting edge of the cloudbank always

strives for, but seldom wins, the middle of the gulf. The sunas the sailors sayis eating it up. Unless

perchance a sombre thunderhead breaks away from the main body to career all over the gulf till it escapes

into the offing beyond Azuera, where it bursts suddenly into flame and crashes like a sinster pirateship of

At night the body of clouds advancing higher up the sky smothers the whole quiet gulf below with an

impenetrable darkness, in which the sound of the falling showers can be heard beginning and ceasing

abruptlynow here, now there. Indeed, these cloudy nights are proverbial with the seamen along the whole

west coast of a great continent. Sky, land, and sea disappear together out of the world when the Placidoas

the saying isgoes to sleep under its black poncho. The few stars left below the seaward frown of the vault

shine feebly as into the mouth of a black cavern. In its vastness your ship floats unseen under your feet, her

sails flutter invisible above your head. The eye of God Himselfthey add with grim profanitycould not

find out what work a man's hand is doing in there; and you would be free to call the devil to your aid with

The shores on the gulf are steepto all round; three uninhabited islets basking in the sunshine just outside the

cloud veil, and opposite the entrance to the harbour of Sulaco, bear the name of "The Isabels."

There is the Great Isabel; the Little Isabel, which is round; and Hermosa, which is the smallest.

That last is no more than a foot high, and about seven paces across, a mere flat top of a grey rock which

smokes like a hot cinder after a shower, and where no man would care to venture a naked sole before sunset.

On the Little Isabel an old ragged palm, with a thick bulging trunk rough with spines, a very witch amongst

palm trees, rustles a dismal bunch of dead leaves above the coarse sand. The Great Isabel has a spring of

fresh water issuing from the overgrown side of a ravine. Resembling an emerald green wedge of land a mile

long, and laid flat upon the sea, it bears two forest trees standing close together, with a wide spread of shade

at the foot of their smooth trunks. A ravine extending the whole length of the island is full of bushes; and

presenting a deep tangled cleft on the high side spreads itself out on the other into a shallow depression

From that low end of the Great Isabel the eye plunges through an opening two miles away, as abrupt as if

chopped with an axe out of the regular sweep of the coast, right into the harbour of Sulaco. It is an oblong,

lakelike piece of water. On one side the short wooded spurs and valleys of the Cordillera come down at

right angles to the very strand; on the other the open view of the great Sulaco plain passes into the opal

mystery of great distances overhung by dry haze. The town of Sulaco itselftops of walls, a great cupola,

gleams of white miradors in a vast grove of orange treeslies between the mountains and the plain, at some

little distance from its harbour and out of the direct line of sight from the sea.

THE only sign of commercial activity within the harbour, visible from the beach of the Great Isabel, is the

square blunt end of the wooden jetty which the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company (the O.S.N. of familiar

speech) had thrown over the shallow part of the bay soon after they had resolved to make of Sulaco one of

their ports of call for the Republic of Costaguana. The State possesses several harbours on its long seaboard,

but except Cayta, an important place, all are either small and inconvenient inlets in an ironbound

coastlike Esmeralda, for instance, sixty miles to the southor else mere open roadsteads exposed to the

Perhaps the very atmospheric conditions which had kept away the merchant fleets of bygone ages induced the

O.S.N. Company to violate the sanctuary of peace sheltering the calm existence of Sulaco. The variable airs

sporting lightly with the vast semicircle of waters within the head of Azuera could not baffle the steam power

of their excellent fleet. Year after year the black hulls of their ships had gone up and down the coast, in and

out, past Azuera, past the Isabels, past Punta Maladisregarding everything but the tyranny of time. Their

names, the names of all mythology, became the household words of a coast that had never been ruled by the

gods of Olympus. The Juno was known only for her comfortable cabins amidships, the Saturn for the

geniality of her captain and the painted and gilt luxuriousness of her saloon, whereas the Ganymede was

fitted out mainly for cattle transport, and to be avoided by coastwise passengers. The humblest Indian in the

obscurest village on the coast was familiar with the Cerberus, a little black puffer without charm or living

accommodation to speak of, whose mission was to creep inshore along the wooded beaches close to mighty

ugly rocks, stopping obligingly before every cluster of huts to collect produce, down to threepound parcels

And as they seldom failed to account for the smallest package, rarely lost a bullock, and had never drowned a

single passenger, the name of the O.S.N. stood very high for trustworthiness. People declared that under the

Company's care their lives and property were safer on the water than in their own houses on shore.

The O.S.N.'s superintendent in Sulaco for the whole Costaguana section of the service was very proud of his

Company's standing. He resumed it in a saying which was very often on his lips, "We never make mistakes."

To the Company's officers it took the form of a severe injunction, "We must make no mistakes. I'll have no

Smith, on whom he had never set eyes in his life, was the other superintendent of the service, quartered some

Then, calming down suddenly, he would dismiss the subject with studied negligence.

"Our excellent Senor Mitchell" for the business and official world of Sulaco; "Fussy Joe" for the commanders

of the Company's ships, Captain Joseph Mitchell prided himself on his profound knowledge of men and

things in the countrycosas de Costaguana. Amongst these last he accounted as most unfavourable to the

orderly working of his Company the frequent changes of government brought about by revolutions of the

The political atmosphere of the Republic was generally stormy in these days. The fugitive patriots of the

defeated party had the knack of turning up again on the coast with half a steamer's load of small arms and

ammunition. Such resourcefulness Captain Mitchell considered as perfectly wonderful in view of their utter

destitution at the time of flight. He had observed that "they never seemed to have enough change about them

to pay for their passage ticket out of the country." And he could speak with knowledge; for on a memorable

occasion he had been called upon to save the life of a dictator, together with the lives of a few Sulaco

officialsthe political chief, the director of the customs, and the head of policebelonging to an overturned

government. Poor Senor Ribiera (such was the dictator's name) had come pelting eighty miles over mountain

tracks after the lost battle of Socorro, in the hope of outdistancing the fatal newswhich, of course, he

could not manage to do on a lame mule. The animal, moreover, expired under him at the end of the Alameda,

where the military band plays sometimes in the evenings between the revolutions. "Sir," Captain Mitchell

would pursue with portentous gravity, "the illtimed end of that mule attracted attention to the unfortunate

rider. His features were recognized by several deserters from the Dictatorial army amongst the rascally mob

Early on the morning of that day the local authorities of Sulaco had fled for refuge to the O.S.N. Company's

offices, a strong building near the shore end of the jetty, leaving the town to the mercies of a revolutionary

rabble; and as the Dictator was execrated by the populace on account of the severe recruitment law his

necessities had compelled him to enforce during the struggle, he stood a good chance of being torn to pieces.

Providentially, Nostromoinvaluable fellowwith some Italian workmen, imported to work upon the

National Central Railway, was at hand, and managed to snatch him awayfor the time at least. Ultimately,

Captain Mitchell succeeded in taking everybody off in his own gig to one of the Company's steamersit was

He had to lower these gentlemen at the end of a rope out of a hole in the wall at the back, while the mob

which, pouring out of the town, had spread itself all along the shore, howled and foamed at the foot of the

building in front. He had to hurry them then the whole length of the jetty; it had been a desperate dash, neck

or nothingand again it was Nostromo, a fellow in a thousand, who, at the head, this time, of the Company's

body of lightermen, held the jetty against the rushes of the rabble, thus giving the fugitives time to reach the

gig lying ready for them at the other end with the Company's flag at the stern. Sticks, stones, shots flew;

knives, too, were thrown. Captain Mitchell exhibited willingly the long cicatrice of a cut over his left ear and

temple, made by a razorblade fastened to a sticka weapon, he explained, very much in favour with the

Captain Mitchell was a thick, elderly man, wearing high, pointed collars and short sidewhiskers, partial to

white waistcoats, and really very communicative under his air of pompous reserve.

"These gentlemen," he would say, staring with great solemnity, "had to run like rabbits, sir. I ran like a rabbit

myself. Certain forms of death areerdistasteful to aaerrespectable man. They would have

pounded me to death, too. A crazy mob, sir, does not discriminate. Under providence we owed our

preservation to my Capataz de Cargadores, as they called him in the town, a man who, when I discovered his

value, sir, was just the bos'n of an Italian ship, a big Genoese ship, one of the few European ships that ever

came to Sulaco with a general cargo before the building of the National Central. He left her on account of

some very respectable friends he made here, his own countrymen, but also, I suppose, to better himself. Sir, I

am a pretty good judge of character. I engaged him to be the foreman of our lightermen, and caretaker of our

jetty. That's all that he was. But without him Senor Ribiera would have been a dead man. This Nostromo, sir,

a man absolutely above reproach, became the terror of all the thieves in the town. We were infested, infested,

overrun, sir, here at that time by ladrones and matreros, thieves and murderers from the whole province. On

this occasion they had been flocking into Sulaco for a week past. They had scented the end, sir. Fifty per cent.

of that murdering mob were professional bandits from the Campo, sir, but there wasn't one that hadn't heard

of Nostromo. As to the town leperos, sir, the sight of his black whiskers and white teeth was enough for them.

They quailed before him, sir. That's what the force of character will do for you."

It could very well be said that it was Nostromo alone who saved the lives of these gentlemen. Captain

Mitchell, on his part, never left them till he had seen them collapse, panting, terrified, and exasperated, but

safe, on the luxuriant velvet sofas in the firstclass saloon of the Minerva. To the very last he had been

"Sir, I could do no other. The man was downghastly, livid, one mass of scratches."

The Minerva never let go her anchor that call. The superintendent ordered her out of the harbour at once. No

cargo could be landed, of course, and the passengers for Sulaco naturally refused to go ashore. They could

hear the firing and see plainly the fight going on at the edge of the water. The repulsed mob devoted its

energies to an attack upon the Custom House, a dreary, unfinishedlooking structure with many windows

two hundred yards away from the O.S.N. Offices, and the only other building near the harbour. Captain

Mitchell, after directing the commander of the Minerva to land "these gentlemen" in the first port of call

outside Costaguana, went back in his gig to see what could be done for the protection of the Company's

property. That and the property of the railway were preserved by the European residents; that is, by Captain

Mitchell himself and the staff of engineers building the road, aided by the Italian and Basque workmen who

rallied faithfully round their English chiefs. The Company's lightermen, too, natives of the Republic, behaved

very well under their Capataz. An outcast lot of very mixed blood, mainly negroes, everlastingly at feud with

the other customers of low grog shops in the town, they embraced with delight this opportunity to settle their

personal scores under such favourable auspices. There was not one of them that had not, at some time or

other, looked with terror at Nostromo's revolver poked very close at his face, or been otherwise daunted by

Nostromo's resolution. He was "much of a man," their Capataz was, they said, too scornful in his temper ever

to utter abuse, a tireless taskmaster, and the more to be feared because of his aloofness. And behold! there he

was that day, at their head, condescending to make jocular remarks to this man or the other.

Such leadership was inspiriting, and in truth all the harm the mob managed to achieve was to set fire to

oneonly onestack of railwaysleepers, which, being creosoted, burned well. The main attack on the

railway yards, on the O.S.N. Offices, and especially on the Custom House, whose strong room, it was well

known, contained a large treasure in silver ingots, failed completely. Even the little hotel kept by old Giorgio,

standing alone halfway between the harbour and the town, escaped looting and destruction, not by a miracle,

but because with the safes in view they had neglected it at first, and afterwards found no leisure to stop.

IT MIGHT have been said that there he was only protecting his own. From the first he had been admitted to

live in the intimacy of the family of the hotelkeeper who was a countryman of his. Old Giorgio Viola, a

Genoese with a shaggy white leonine headoften called simply "the Garibaldino" (as Mohammedans are

called after their prophet)was, to use Captain Mitchell's own words, the "respectable married friend" by

whose advice Nostromo had left his ship to try for a run of shore luck in Costaguana.

The old man, full of scorn for the populace, as your austere republican so often is, had disregarded the

preliminary sounds of trouble. He went on that day as usual pottering about the "casa" in his slippers,

muttering angrily to himself his contempt of the nonpolitical nature of the riot, and shrugging his shoulders.

In the end he was taken unawares by the outrush of the rabble. It was too late then to remove his family,

and, indeed, where could he have run to with the portly Signora Teresa and two little girls on that great plain?

So, barricading every opening, the old man sat down sternly in the middle of the darkened cafe with an old

shotgun on his knees. His wife sat on another chair by his side, muttering pious invocations to all the saints

The old republican did not believe in saints, or in prayers, or in what he called "priest's religion." Liberty and

Garibaldi were his divinities; but he tolerated "superstition" in women, preserving in these matters a lofty and

His two girls, the eldest fourteen, and the other two years younger, crouched on the sanded floor, on each side

of the Signora Teresa, with their heads on their mother's lap, both scared, but each in her own way, the

darkhaired Linda indignant and angry, the fair Giselle, the younger, bewildered and resigned. The Patrona

removed her arms, which embraced her daughters, for a moment to cross herself and wring her hands

She was not then invoking the saint himself, but calling upon Nostromo, whose patron he was. And Giorgio,

motionless on the chair by her side, would be provoked by these reproachful and distracted appeals.

"Peace, woman! Where's the sense of it? There's his duty," he murmured in the dark; and she would retort,

"Eh! I have no patience. Duty! What of the woman who has been like a mother to him? I bent my knee to him

this morning; don't you go out, Gian' Battistastop in the house, Battistinolook at those two little

Mrs. Viola was an Italian, too, a native of Spezzia, and though considerably younger than her husband,

already middleaged. She had a handsome face, whose complexion had turned yellow because the climate of

Sulaco did not suit her at all. Her voice was a rich contralto. When, with her arms folded tight under her

ample bosom, she scolded the squat, thicklegged China girls handling linen, plucking fowls, pounding corn

in wooden mortars amongst the mud outbuildings at the back of the house, she could bring out such an

impassioned, vibrating, sepulchral note that the chained watchdog bolted into his kennel with a great rattle.

Luis, a cinnamoncoloured mulatto with a sprouting moustache and thick, dark lips, would stop sweeping the

cafe with a broom of palmleaves to let a gentle shudder run down his spine. His languishing almond eyes

This was the staff of the Casa Viola, but all these people had fled early that morning at the first sounds of the

riot, preferring to hide on the plain rather than trust themselves in the house; a preference for which they were

in no way to blame, since, whether true or not, it was generally believed in the town that the Garibaldino had

some money buried under the clay floor of the kitchen. The dog, an irritable, shaggy brute, barked violently

and whined plaintively in turns at the back, running in and out of his kennel as rage or fear prompted him.

Bursts of great shouting rose and died away, like wild gusts of wind on the plain round the barricaded house;

the fitful popping of shots grew louder above the yelling. Sometimes there were intervals of unaccountable

stillness outside, and nothing could have been more gaily peaceful than the narrow bright lines of sunlight

from the cracks in the shutters, ruled straight across the cafe over the disarranged chairs and tables to the wall

opposite. Old Giorgio had chosen that bare, whitewashed room for a retreat. It had only one window, and its

only door swung out upon the track of thick dust fenced by aloe hedges between the harbour and the town,

where clumsy carts used to creak along behind slow yokes of oxen guided by boys on horseback.

In a pause of stillness Giorgio cocked his gun. The ominous sound wrung a low moan from the rigid figure of

the woman sitting by his side. A sudden outbreak of defiant yelling quite near the house sank all at once to a

confused murmur of growls. Somebody ran along; the loud catching of his breath was heard for an instant

passing the door; there were hoarse mutters and footsteps near the wall; a shoulder rubbed against the shutter,

effacing the bright lines of sunshine pencilled across the whole breadth of the room. Signora Teresa's arms

thrown about the kneeling forms of her daughters embraced them closer with a convulsive pressure.

The mob, driven away from the Custom House, had broken up into several bands, retreating across the plain

in the direction of the town. The subdued crash of irregular volleys fired in the distance was answered by

faint yells far away. In the intervals the single shots rang feebly, and the low, long, white building blinded in

every window seemed to be the centre of a turmoil widening in a great circle about its closedup silence. But

the cautious movements and whispers of a routed party seeking a momentary shelter behind the wall made

the darkness of the room, striped by threads of quiet sunlight, alight with evil, stealthy sounds. The Violas

had them in their ears as though invisible ghosts hovering about their chairs had consulted in mutters as to the

It was trying to the nerves. Old Viola had risen slowly, gun in hand, irresolute, for he did not see how he

could prevent them. Already voices could be heard talking at the back. Signora Teresa was beside herself

"Ah! the traitor! the traitor!" she mumbled, almost inaudibly. "Now we are going to be burnt; and I bent my

She seemed to think that Nostromo's mere presence in the house would have made it perfectly safe. So far,

she, too, was under the spell of that reputation the Capataz de Cargadores had made for himself by the

waterside, along the railway line, with the English and with the populace of Sulaco. To his face, and even

against her husband, she invariably affected to laugh it to scorn, sometimes goodnaturedly, more often with

a curious bitterness. But then women are unreasonable in their opinions, as Giorgio used to remark calmly on

fitting occasions. On this occasion, with his gun held at ready before him, he stooped down to his wife's head,

and, keeping his eyes steadfastly on the barricaded door, he breathed out into her ear that Nostromo would

have been powerless to help. What could two men shut up in a house do against twenty or more bent upon

setting fire to the roof? Gian' Battista was thinking of the casa all the time, he was sure.

"He think of the casa! He!" gasped Signora Viola, crazily. She struck her breast with her open hands. "I know

A discharge of firearms near by made her throw her head back and close her eyes. Old Giorgio set his teeth

hard under his white moustache, and his eyes began to roll fiercely. Several bullets struck the end of the wall

together; pieces of plaster could be heard falling outside; a voice screamed "Here they come!" and after a

Then the tension of old Giorgio's attitude relaxed, and a smile of contemptuous relief came upon his lips of an

old fighter with a leonine face. These were not a people striving for justice, but thieves. Even to defend his

life against them was a sort of degradation for a man who had been one of Garibaldi's immortal thousand in

the conquest of Sicily. He had an immense scorn for this outbreak of scoundrels and leperos, who did not

He grounded his old gun, and, turning his head, glanced at the coloured lithograph of Garibaldi in a black

frame on the white wall; a thread of strong sunshine cut it perpendicularly. His eyes, accustomed to the

luminous twilight, made out the high colouring of the face, the red of the shirt, the outlines of the square

shoulders, the black patch of the Bersagliere hat with cock's feathers curling over the crown. An immortal

hero! This was your liberty; it gave you not only life, but immortality as well!

For that one man his fanaticism had suffered no diminution. In the moment of relief from the apprehension of

the greatest danger, perhaps, his family had been exposed to in all their wanderings, he had turned to the

picture of his old chief, first and only, then laid his hand on his wife's shoulder.

The children kneeling on the floor had not moved. Signora Teresa opened her eyes a little, as though he had

awakened her from a very deep and dreamless slumber. Before he had time in his deliberate way to say a

reassuring word she jumped up, with the children clinging to her, one on each side, gasped for breath, and let

It was simultaneous with the bang of a violent blow struck on the outside of the shutter. They could hear

suddenly the snorting of a horse, the restive tramping of hoofs on the narrow, hard path in front of the house;

the toe of a boot struck at the shutter again; a spur jingled at every blow, and an excited voice shouted, "Hola!

ALL the morning Nostromo had kept his eye from afar on the Casa Viola, even in the thick of the hottest

scrimmage near the Custom House. "If I see smoke rising over there," he thought to himself, "they are lost."

Directly the mob had broken he pressed with a small band of Italian workmen in that direction, which,

indeed, was the shortest line towards the town. That part of the rabble he was pursuing seemed to think of

making a stand under the house; a volley fired by his followers from behind an aloe hedge made the rascals

fly. In a gap chopped out for the rails of the harbour branch line Nostromo appeared, mounted on his

silvergrey mare. He shouted, sent after them one shot from his revolver, and galloped up to the cafe

window. He had an idea that old Giorgio would choose that part of the house for a refuge.

His voice had penetrated to them, sounding breathlessly hurried: "Hola! Vecchio! O, Vecchio! Is it all well

"You see" murmured old Viola to his wife. Signora Teresa was silent now. Outside Nostromo laughed.

"You have done your best to kill me with fear," cried Signora Teresa. She wanted to say something more, but

Linda raised her eyes to her face for a moment, but old Giorgio shouted apologetically

They heard him wheel his horse away from the shutters. The party he led were babbling excitedly in Italian

and Spanish, inciting each other to the pursuit. He put himself at their head, crying, "Avanti!"

"He has not stopped very long with us. There is no praise from strangers to be got here," Signora Teresa said

tragically. "Avanti! Yes! That is all he cares for. To be first somewheresomehowto be first with these

English. They will be showing him to everybody. 'This is our Nostromo!'" She laughed ominously. "What a

name! What is that? Nostromo? He would take a name that is properly no word from them."

Meantime Giorgio, with tranquil movements, had been unfastening the door; the flood of light fell on Signora

Teresa, with her two girls gathered to her side, a picturesque woman in a pose of maternal exaltation. Behind

her the wall was dazzlingly white, and the crude colours of the Garibaldi lithograph paled in the sunshine.

Old Viola, at the door, moved his arm upwards as if referring all his quick, fleeting thoughts to the picture of

his old chief on the wall. Even when he was cooking for the "Signori Inglesi"the engineers (he was a

famous cook, though the kitchen was a dark place)he was, as it were, under the eye of the great man who

had led him in a glorious struggle where, under the walls of Gaeta, tyranny would have expired for ever had it

not been for that accursed Piedmontese race of kings and ministers. When sometimes a fryingpan caught

fire during a delicate operation with some shredded onions, and the old man was seen backing out of the

doorway, swearing and coughing violently in an acrid cloud of smoke, the name of Cavourthe arch

intriguer sold to kings and tyrantscould be heard involved in imprecations against the China girls, cooking

in general, and the brute of a country where he was reduced to live for the love of liberty that traitor had

Then Signora Teresa, all in black, issuing from another door, advanced, portly and anxious, inclining her fine,

"Giorgio! thou passionate man! Misericordia Divina! In the sun like this! He will make himself ill."

At her feet the hens made off in all directions, with immense strides; if there were any engineers from up the

line staying in Sulaco, a young English face or two would appear at the billiardroom occupying one end of

the house; but at the other end, in the cafe, Luis, the mulatto, took good care not to show himself. The Indian

girls, with hair like flowing black manes, and dressed only in a shift and short petticoat, stared dully from

under the squarecut fringes on their foreheads; the noisy frizzling of fat had stopped, the fumes floated

upwards in sunshine, a strong smell of burnt onions hung in the drowsy heat, enveloping the house; and the

eye lost itself in a vast flat expanse of grass to the west, as if the plain between the Sierra overtopping Sulaco

and the coast range away there towards Esmeralda had been as big as half the world.

"Eh, Giorgio! Leave Cavour alone and take care of yourself now we are lost in this country all alone with the

And while she looked at him she would sometimes put her hand hastily to her side with a short twitch of her

fine lips and a knitting of her black, straight eyebrows like a flicker of angry pain or an angry thought on her

It was pain; she suppressed the twinge. It had come to her first a few years after they had left Italy to emigrate

to America and settle at last in Sulaco after wandering from town to town, trying shopkeeping in a small way

here and there; and once an organized enterprise of fishingin Maldonadofor Giorgio, like the great

Sometimes she had no patience with pain. For years its gnawing had been part of the landscape embracing the

glitter of the harbour under the wooded spurs of the range; and the sunshine itself was heavy and dullheavy

with painnot like the sunshine of her girlhood, in which middleaged Giorgio had wooed her gravely and

"You go in at once, Giorgio," she directed. "One would think you do not wish to have any pity on mewith

four Signori Inglesi staying in the house." "Va bene, va bene," Giorgio would mutter. He obeyed. The Signori

Inglesi would require their midday meal presently. He had been one of the immortal and invincible band of

liberators who had made the mercenaries of tyranny fly like chaff before a hurricane, "un uragano terribile."

But that was before he was married and had children; and before tyranny had reared its head again amongst

There were three doors in the front of the house, and each afternoon the Garibaldino could be seen at one or

another of them with his big bush of white hair, his arms folded, his legs crossed, leaning back his leonine

head against the side, and looking up the wooded slopes of the foothills at the snowy dome of Higuerota. The

front of his house threw off a black long rectangle of shade, broadening slowly over the soft oxcart track.

Through the gaps, chopped out in the oleander hedges, the harbour branch railway, laid out temporarily on

the level of the plain, curved away its shining parallel ribbons on a belt of scorched and withered grass within

sixty yards of the end of the house. In the evening the empty material trains of flat cars circled round the dark

green grove of Sulaco, and ran, undulating slightly with white jets of steam, over the plain towards the Casa

Viola, on their way to the railway yards by the harbour. The Italian drivers saluted him from the footplate

with raised hand, while the negro brakesmen sat carelessly on the brakes, looking straight forward, with the

rims of their big hats flapping in the wind. In return Giorgio would give a slight sideways jerk of the head,

On this memorable day of the riot his arms were not folded on his chest. His hand grasped the barrel of the

gun grounded on the threshold; he did not look up once at the white dome of Higuerota, whose cool purity

seemed to hold itself aloof from a hot earth. His eyes examined the plain curiously. Tall trails of dust

subsided here and there. In a speckless sky the sun hung clear and blinding. Knots of men ran headlong;

others made a stand; and the irregular rattle of firearms came rippling to his ears in the fiery, still air. Single

figures on foot raced desperately. Horsemen galloped towards each other, wheeled round together, separated

at speed. Giorgio saw one fall, rider and horse disappearing as if they had galloped into a chasm, and the

movements of the animated scene were like the passages of a violent game played upon the plain by dwarfs

mounted and on foot, yelling with tiny throats, under the mountain that seemed a colossal embodiment of

silence. Never before had Giorgio seen this bit of plain so full of active life; his gaze could not take in all its

details at once; he shaded his eyes with his hand, till suddenly the thundering of many hoofs near by startled

A troop of horses had broken out of the fenced paddock of the Railway Company. They came on like a

whirlwind, and dashed over the line snorting, kicking, squealing in a compact, piebald, tossing mob of bay,

brown, grey backs, eyes staring, necks extended, nostrils red, long tails streaming. As soon as they had leaped

upon the road the thick dust flew upwards from under their hoofs, and within six yards of Giorgio only a

brown cloud with vague forms of necks and cruppers rolled by, making the soil tremble on its passage.

Viola coughed, turning his face away from the dust, and shaking his head slightly.

In the square of sunlight falling through the door Signora Teresa, kneeling before the chair, had bowed her

head, heavy with a twisted mass of ebony hair streaked with silver, into the palm of her hands. The black lace

shawl she used to drape about her face had dropped to the ground by her side. The two girls had got up,

handinhand, in short skirts, their loose hair falling in disorder. The younger had thrown her arm across her

eyes, as if afraid to face the light. Linda, with her hand on the other's shoulder, stared fearlessly. Viola looked

at his children. The sun brought out the deep lines on his face, and, energetic in expression, it had the

immobility of a carving. It was impossible to discover what he thought. Bushy grey eyebrows shaded his dark

Linda pouted, advancing her red lips, which were almost too red; but she had admirable eyes, brown, with a

sparkle of gold in the irises, full of intelligence and meaning, and so clear that they seemed to throw a glow

upon her thin, colourless face. There were bronze glints in the sombre clusters of her hair, and the eyelashes,

"Mother is going to offer up a lot of candles in the church. She always does when Nostromo has been away

fighting. I shall have some to carry up to the Chapel of the Madonna in the Cathedral."

She said all this quickly, with great assurance, in an animated, penetrating voice. Then, giving her sister's

"She is timid," said Linda, with a little burst of laughter. "People notice her fair hair as she goes along with

us. They call out after her, 'Look at the Rubia! Look at the Rubiacita!' They call out in the streets. She is

Old Giorgio contemplated his children thoughtfully. There was two years difference between them. They had

been born to him late, years after the boy had died. Had he lived he would have been nearly as old as Gian'

Battistahe whom the English called Nostromo; but as to his daughters, the severity of his temper, his

advancing age, his absorption in his memories, had prevented his taking much notice of them. He loved his

children, but girls belong more to the mother, and much of his affection had been expended in the worship

When quite a youth he had deserted from a ship trading to La Plata, to enlist in the navy of Montevideo, then

under the command of Garibaldi. Afterwards, in the Italian legion of the Republic struggling against the

encroaching tyranny of Rosas, he had taken part, on great plains, on the banks of immense rivers, in the

fiercest fighting perhaps the world had ever known. He had lived amongst men who had declaimed about

liberty, suffered for liberty, died for liberty, with a desperate exaltation, and with their eyes turned towards an

oppressed Italy. His own enthusiasm had been fed on scenes of carnage, on the examples of lofty devotion,

on the din of armed struggle, on the inflamed language of proclamations. He had never parted from the chief

of his choicethe fiery apostle of independencekeeping by his side in America and in Italy till after the

fatal day of Aspromonte, when the treachery of kings, emperors, and ministers had been revealed to the world

in the wounding and imprisonment of his heroa catastrophe that had instilled into him a gloomy doubt of

He did not deny it, however. It required patience, he would say. Though he disliked priests, and would not

put his foot inside a church for anything, he believed in God. Were not the proclamations against tyrants

addressed to the peoples in the name of God and liberty? "God for menreligions for women," he muttered

sometimes. In Sicily, an Englishman who had turned up in Palermo after its evacuation by the army of the

king, had given him a Bible in Italianthe publication of the British and Foreign Bible Society, bound in a

dark leather cover. In periods of political adversity, in the pauses of silence when the revolutionists issued no

proclamations, Giorgio earned his living with the first work that came to handas sailor, as dock labourer on

the quays of Genoa, once as a hand on a farm in the hills above Spezziaand in his spare time he studied the

thick volume. He carried it with him into battles. Now it was his only reading, and in order not to be deprived

of it (the print was small) he had consented to accept the present of a pair of silvermounted spectacles from

Senora Emilia Gould, the wife of the Englishman who managed the silver mine in the mountains three

Giorgio Viola had a great consideration for the English. This feeling, born on the battlefields of Uruguay, was

forty years old at the very least. Several of them had poured their blood for the cause of freedom in America,

and the first he had ever known he remembered by the name of Samuel; he commanded a negro company

under Garibaldi, during the famous siege of Montevideo, and died heroically with his negroes at the fording

of the Boyana. He, Giorgio, had reached the rank of ensignalferezand cooked for the general. Later, in

Italy, he, with the rank of lieutenant, rode with the staff and still cooked for the general. He had cooked for

him in Lombardy through the whole campaign; on the march to Rome he had lassoed his beef in the

Campagna after the American manner; he had been wounded in the defence of the Roman Republic; he was

one of the four fugitives who, with the general, carried out of the woods the inanimate body of the general's

wife into the farmhouse where she died, exhausted by the hardships of that terrible retreat. He had survived

that disastrous time to attend his general in Palermo when the Neapolitan shells from the castle crashed upon

the town. He had cooked for him on the field of Volturno after fighting all day. And everywhere he had seen

Englishmen in the front rank of the army of freedom. He respected their nation because they loved Garibaldi.

Their very countesses and princesses had kissed the general's hands in London, it was said. He could well

believe it; for the nation was noble, and the man was a saint. It was enough to look once at his face to see the

divine force of faith in him and his great pity for all that was poor, suffering, and oppressed in this world.

The spirit of selfforgetfulness, the simple devotion to a vast humanitarian idea which inspired the thought

and stress of that revolutionary time, had left its mark upon Giorgio in a sort of austere contempt for all

personal advantage. This man, whom the lowest class in Sulaco suspected of having a buried hoard in his

kitchen, had all his life despised money. The leaders of his youth had lived poor, had died poor. It had been a

habit of his mind to disregard tomorrow. It was engendered partly by an existence of excitement, adventure,

and wild warfare. But mostly it was a matter of principle. It did not resemble the carelessness of a

condottiere, it was a puritanism of conduct, born of stern enthusiasm like the puritanism of religion.

This stern devotion to a cause had cast a gloom upon Giorgio's old age. It cast a gloom because the cause

seemed lost. Too many kings and emperors flourished yet in the world which God had meant for the people.

He was sad because of his simplicity. Though always ready to help his countrymen, and greatly respected by

the Italian emigrants wherever he lived (in his exile he called it), he could not conceal from himself that they

cared nothing for the wrongs of downtrodden nations. They listened to his tales of war readily, but seemed

to ask themselves what he had got out of it after all. There was nothing that they could see. "We wanted

nothing, we suffered for the love of all humanity!" he cried out furiously sometimes, and the powerful voice,

the blazing eyes, the shaking of the white mane, the brown, sinewy hand pointing upwards as if to call heaven

to witness, impressed his hearers. After the old man hadbroken off abruptly with a jerk of the head and a

movement of the arm, meaning clearly, "But what's the good of talking to you?" they nudged each other.

There was in old Giorgio an energy of feeling, a personal quality of conviction, something they called

"terribilita""an old lion," they used to say of him. Some slight incident, a chance word would set him off

talking on the beach to the Italian fishermen of Maldonado, in the little shop he kept afterwards (in

Valparaiso) to his countrymen customers; of an evening, suddenly, in the cafe at one end of the Casa Viola

(the other was reserved for the English engineers) to the select clientele of enginedrivers and foremen of the

With their handsome, bronzed, lean faces, shiny black ringlets, glistening eyes, broadchested, bearded,

sometimes a tiny gold ring in the lobe of the ear, the aristocracy of the railway works listened to him, turning

away from their cards or dominoes. Here and there a fairhaired Basque studied his hand meantime, waiting

without protest. No native of Costaguana intruded there. This was the Italian stronghold. Even the Sulaco

policemen on a night patrol let their horses pace softly by, bending low in the saddle to glance through the

window at the heads in a fog of smoke; and the drone of old Giorgio's declamatory narrative seemed to sink

behind them into the plain. Only now and then the assistant of the chief of police, some broadfaced, brown

little gentleman, with a great deal of Indian in him, would put in an appearance. Leaving his man outside with

the horses he advanced with a confident, sly smile, and without a word up to the long trestle table. He pointed

to one of the bottles on the shelf; Giorgio, thrusting his pipe into his mouth abruptly, served him in person.

Nothing would be heard but the slight jingle of the spurs. His glass emptied, he would take a leisurely,

scrutinizing look all round the room, go out, and ride away slowly, circling towards the town.

IN THIS way only was the power of the local authorities vindicated amongst the great body of stronglimbed

foreigners who dug the earth, blasted the rocks, drove the engines for the "progressive and patriotic

undertaking." In these very words eighteen months before the Excellentissimo Senor don Vincente Ribiera,

the Dictator of Costaguana, had described the National Central Railway in his great speech at the turning of

He had come on purpose to Sulaco, and there was a oneo'clock dinnerparty, a convite offered by the

O.S.N. Company on board the Juno after the function on shore. Captain Mitchell had himself steered the

cargo lighter, all draped with flags, which, in tow of the Juno's steam launch, took the Excellentissimo from

the jetty to the ship. Everybody of note in Sulaco had been invitedthe one or two foreign merchants, all the

representatives of the old Spanish families then in town, the great owners of estates on the plain, grave,

courteous, simple men, caballeros of pure descent, with small hands and feet, conservative, hospitable, and

kind. The Occidental Province was their stronghold; their Blanco party had triumphed now; it was their

PresidentDictator, a Blanco of the Blancos, who sat smiling urbanely between the representatives of two

friendly foreign powers. They had come with him from Sta. Marta to countenance by their presence the

enterprise in which the capital of their countries was engaged. The only lady of that company was Mrs.

Gould, the wife of Don Carlos, the administrator of the San Tome silver mine. The ladies of Sulaco were not

advanced enough to take part in the public life to that extent. They had come out strongly at the great ball at

the Intendencia the evening before, but Mrs. Gould alone had appeared, a bright spot in the group of black

coats behind the PresidentDictator, on the crimson clothcovered stage erected under a shady tree on the

shore of the harbour, where the ceremony of turning the first sod had taken place. She had come off in the

cargo lighter, full of notabilities, sitting under the flutter of gay flags, in the place of honour by the side of

Captain Mitchell, who steered, and her clear dress gave the only truly festive note to the sombre gathering in

The head of the chairman of the railway board (from London), handsome and pale in a silvery mist of white

hair and clipped beard, hovered near her shoulder attentive, smiling, and fatigued. The journey from London

to Sta. Marta in mail boats and the special carriages of the Sta. Marta coastline (the only railway so far) had

been tolerableeven pleasantquite tolerable. But the trip over the mountains to Sulaco was another sort of

experience, in an old diligencia over impassable roads skirting awful precipices.

"We have been upset twice in one day on the brink of very deep ravines," he was telling Mrs. Gould in an

undertone. "And when we arrived here at last I don't know what we should have done without your

hospitality. What an outoftheway place Sulaco is!and for a harbour, too! Astonishing!"

"Ah, but we are very proud of it. It used to be historically important. The highest ecclesiastical court for two

"The place is lovable, if only by its situation. Perhaps you don't know what an old resident I am."

"How old, I wonder," he murmured, looking at her with a slight smile. Mrs. Gould's appearance was made

youthful by the mobile intelligence of her face. "We can't give you your ecclesiastical court back again; but

you shall have more steamers, a railway, a telegraphcablea future in the great world which is worth

infinitely more than any amount of ecclesiastical past. You shall be brought in touch with something greater

than two viceroyalties. But I had no notion that a place on a seacoast could remain so isolated from the

world. If it had been a thousand miles inland nowmost remarkable! Has anything ever happened here for a

While he talked in a slow, humorous tone, she kept her little smile. Agreeing ironically, she assured him that

certainly notnothing ever happened in Sulaco. Even the revolutions, of which there had been two in her

time, had respected the repose of the place. Their course ran in the more populous southern parts of the

Republic, and the great valley of Sta. Marta, which was like one great battlefield of the parties, with the

possession of the capital for a prize and an outlet to another ocean. They were more advanced over there.

Here in Sulaco they heard only the echoes of these great questions, and, of course, their official world

changed each time, coming to them over their rampart of mountains which he himself had traversed in an old

The chairman of the railway had been enjoying her hospitality for several days, and he was really grateful for

it. It was only since he had left Sta. Marta that he had utterly lost touch with the feeling of European life on

the background of his exotic surroundings. In the capital he had been the guest of the Legation, and had been

kept busy negotiating with the members of Don Vincente's Governmentcultured men, men to whom the

What concerned him most at the time was the acquisition of land for the railway. In the Sta. Marta Valley,

where there was already one line in existence, the people were tractable, and it was only a matter of price. A

commission had been nominated to fix the values, and the difficulty resolved itself into the judicious

influencing of the Commissioners. But in Sulacothe Occidental Province for whose very development the

railway was intendedthere had been trouble. It had been lying for ages ensconced behind its natural

barriers, repelling modern enterprise by the precipices of its mountain range, by its shallow harbour opening

into the everlasting calms of a gulf full of clouds, by the benighted state of mind of the owners of its fertile

territoryall these aristocratic old Spanish families, all those Don Ambrosios this and Don Fernandos that,

who seemed actually to dislike and distrust the coming of the railway over their lands. It had happened that

some of the surveying parties scattered all over the province had been warned off with threats of violence. In

other cases outrageous pretensions as to price had been raised. But the man of railways prided himself on

being equal to every emergency. Since he was met by the inimical sentiment of blind conservatism in Sulaco

he would meet it by sentiment, too, before taking his stand on his right alone. The Government was bound to

carry out its part of the contract with the board of the new railway company, even if it had to use force for the

purpose. But he desired nothing less than an armed disturbance in the smooth working of his plans. They

were much too vast and farreaching, and too promising to leave a stone unturned; and so he imagined to get

the PresidentDictator over there on a tour of ceremonies and speeches, culminating in a great function at the

turning of the first sod by the harbour shore. After all he was their own creaturethat Don Vincente. He was

the embodied triumph of the best elements in the State. These were facts, and, unless facts meant nothing, Sir

John argued to himself, such a man's influence must be real, and his personal action would produce the

conciliatory effect he required. He had succeeded in arranging the trip with the help of a very clever

advocate, who was known in Sta. Marta as the agent of the Gould silver mine, the biggest thing in Sulaco,

and even in the whole Republic. It was indeed a fabulously rich mine. Its socalled agent, evidently a man of

culture and ability, seemed, without official position, to possess an extraordinary influence in the highest

Government spheres. He was able to assure Sir John that the PresidentDictator would make the journey. He

regretted, however, in the course of the same conversation, that General Montero insisted upon going, too.

General Montero, whom the beginning of the struggle had found an obscure army captain employed on the

wild eastern frontier of the State, had thrown in his lot with the Ribiera party at a moment when special

circumstances had given that small adhesion a fortuitous importance. The fortunes of war served him

marvellously, and the victory of Rio Seco (after a day of desperate fighting) put a seal to his success. At the

end he emerged General, Minister of War, and the military head of the Blanco party, although there was

nothing aristocratic in his descent. Indeed, it was said that he and his brother, orphans, had been brought up

by the munificence of a famous European traveller, in whose service their father had lost his life. Another

story was that their father had been nothing but a charcoal burner in the woods, and their mother a baptised

However that might be, the Costaguana Press was in the habit of styling Montero's forest march from his

commandancia to join the Blanco forces at the beginning of the troubles, the "most heroic military exploit of

modern times." About the same time, too, his brother had turned up from Europe, where he had gone

apparently as secretary to a consul. Having, however, collected a small band of outlaws, he showed some

talent as guerilla chief and had been rewarded at the pacification by the post of Military Commandant of the

The Minister of War, then, accompanied the Dictator. The board of the O.S.N. Company, working

handinhand with the railway people for the good of the Republic, had on this important occasion instructed

Captain Mitchell to put the mailboat Juno at the disposal of the distinguished party. Don Vincente,

journeying south from Sta. Marta, had embarked at Cayta, the principal port of Costaguana, and came to

Sulaco by sea. But the chairman of the railway company had courageously crossed the mountains in a

ramshackle diligencia, mainly for the purpose of meeting his engineerinchief engaged in the final survey

For all the indifference of a man of affairs to nature, whose hostility can always be overcome by the resources

of finance, he could not help being impressed by his surroundings during his halt at the surveying camp

established at the highest point his railway was to reach. He spent the night there, arriving just too late to see

the last dying glow of sunlight upon the snowy flank of Higuerota. Pillared masses of black basalt framed

like an open portal a portion of the white field lying aslant against the west. In the transparent air of the high

altitudes everything seemed very near, steeped in a clear stillness as in an imponderable liquid; and with his

ear ready to catch the first sound of the expected diligencia the engineerinchief, at the door of a hut of

rough stones, had contemplated the changing hues on the enormous side of the mountain, thinking that in this

sight, as in a piece of inspired music, there could be found together the utmost delicacy of shaded expression

Sir John arrived too late to hear the magnificent and inaudible strain sung by the sunset amongst the high

peaks of the Sierra. It had sung itself out into the breathless pause of deep dusk before, climbing down the

fore wheel of the diligencia with stiff limbs, he shook hands with the engineer.

They gave him his dinner in a stone hut like a cubical boulder, with no door or windows in its two openings;

a bright fire of sticks (brought on muleback from the first valley below) burning outside, sent in a wavering

glare; and two candles in tin candlestickslighted, it was explained to him, in his honourstood on a sort

of rough camp table, at which he sat on the right hand of the chief. He knew how to be amiable; and the

young men of the engineering staff, for whom the surveying of the railway track had the glamour of the first

steps on the path of life, sat there, too, listening modestly, with their smooth faces tanned by the weather, and

Afterwards, late at night, pacing to and fro outside, he had a long talk with his chief engineer. He knew him

well of old. This was not the first undertaking in which their gifts, as elementally different as fire and water,

had worked in conjunction. From the contact of these two personalities, who had not the same vision of the

world, there was generated a power for the world's servicea subtle force that could set in motion mighty

machines, men's muscles, and awaken also in human breasts an unbounded devotion to the task. Of the young

fellows at the table, to whom the survey of the track was like the tracing of the path of life, more than one

would be called to meet death before the work was done. But the work would be done: the force would be

almost as strong as a faith. Not quite, however. In the silence of the sleeping camp upon the moonlit plateau

forming the top of the pass like the floor of a vast arena surrounded by the basalt walls of precipices, two

strolling figures in thick ulsters stood still, and the voice of the engineer pronounced distinctly the words

Sir John, raising his head to follow the pointing gesture, felt the full force of the words. The white Higuerota

soared out of the shadows of rock and earth like a frozen bubble under the moon. All was still, till near by,

behind the wall of a corral for the camp animals, built roughly of loose stones in the form of a circle, a pack

The engineerinchief had used the phrase in answer to the chairman's tentative suggestion that the tracing of

the line could, perhaps, be altered in deference to the prejudices of the Sulaco landowners. The chief engineer

believed that the obstinacy of men was the lesser obstacle. Moreover, to combat that they had the great

influence of Charles Gould, whereas tunnelling under Higuerota would have been a colossal undertaking.

Sir John had heard much of Charles Gould in Sta. Marta, and wanted to know more. The engineerinchief

assured him that the administrator of the San Tome silver mine had an immense influence over all these

Spanish Dons. He had also one of the best houses in Sulaco, and the Gould hospitality was beyond all praise.

"They received me as if they had known me for years," he said. "The little lady is kindness personified. I

stayed with them for a month. He helped me to organize the surveying parties. His practical ownership of the

San Tome silver mine gives him a special position. He seems to have the ear of every provincial authority

apparently, and, as I said, he can wind all the hidalgos of the province round his little finger. If you follow his

advice the difficulties will fall away, because he wants the railway. Of course, you must be careful in what

you say. He's English, and besides he must be immensely wealthy. The Holroyd house is in with him in that

He interrupted himself as, from before one of the little fires burning outside the low wall of the corral, arose

the figure of a man wrapped in a poncho up to the neck. The saddle which he had been using for a pillow

"I shall see Holroyd himself on my way back through the States," said Sir John. "I've ascertained that he, too,

The man who, perhaps disturbed by the proximity of the voices, had arisen from the ground, struck a match

to light a cigarette. The flame showed a bronzed, blackwhiskered face, a pair of eyes gazing straight; then,

rearranging his wrappings, he sank full length and laid his head again on the saddle.

"That's our campmaster, whom I must send back to Sulaco now we are going to carry our survey into the

Sta. Marta Valley," said the engineer. "A most useful fellow, lent me by Captain Mitchell of the O.S.N.

Company. It was very good of Mitchell. Charles Gould told me I couldn't do better than take advantage of the

offer. He seems to know how to rule all these muleteers and peons. We had not the slightest trouble with our

people. He shall escort your diligencia right into Sulaco with some of our railway peons. The road is bad. To

have him at hand may save you an upset or two. He promised me to take care of your person all the way

This campmaster was the Italian sailor whom all the Europeans in Sulaco, following Captain Mitchell's

mispronunciation, were in the habit of calling Nostromo. And indeed, taciturn and ready, he did take

excellent care of his charge at the bad parts of the road, as Sir John himself acknowledged to Mrs. Gould

AT THAT time Nostromo had been already long enough in the country to raise to the highest pitch Captain

Mitchell's opinion of the extraordinary value of his discovery. Clearly he was one of those invaluable

subordinates whom to possess is a legitimate cause of boasting. Captain Mitchell plumed himself upon his

eye for menbut he was not selfishand in the innocence of his pride was already developing that mania

for "lending you my Capataz de Cargadores" which was to bring Nostromo into personal contact, sooner or

later, with every European in Sulaco, as a sort of universal factotuma prodigy of efficiency in his own

"The fellow is devoted to me, body and soul!" Captain Mitchell was given to affirm; and though nobody,

perhaps, could have explained why it should be so, it was impossible on a survey of their relation to throw

doubt on that statement, unless, indeed, one were a bitter, eccentric character like Dr. Monyghamfor

instancewhose short, hopeless laugh expressed somehow an immense mistrust of mankind. Not that Dr.

Monygham was a prodigal either of laughter or of words. He was bitterly taciturn when at his best. At his

worst people feared the open scornfulness of his tongue. Only Mrs. Gould could keep his unbelief in men's

motives within due bounds; but even to her (on an occasion not connected with Nostromo, and in a tone

which for him was gentle), even to her, he had said once, "Really, it is most unreasonable to demand that a

man should think of other people so much better than he is able to think of himself."

And Mrs. Gould had hastened to drop the subject. There were strange rumours of the English doctor. Years

ago, in the time of Guzman Bento, he had been mixed up, it was whispered, in a conspiracy which was

betrayed and, as people expressed it, drowned in blood. His hair had turned grey, his hairless, seamed face

was of a brickdust colour; the large check pattern of his flannel shirt and his old stained Panama hat were an

established defiance to the conventionalities of Sulaco. Had it not been for the immaculate cleanliness of his

apparel he might have been taken for one of those shiftless Europeans that are a moral eyesore to the

respectability of a foreign colony in almost every exotic part of the world. The young ladies of Sulaco,

adorning with clusters of pretty faces the balconies along the Street of the Constitution, when they saw him

pass, with his limping gait and bowed head, a short linen jacket drawn on carelessly over the flannel check

shirt, would remark to each other, "Here is the Senor doctor going to call on Dona Emilia. He has got his little

coat on." The inference was true. Its deeper meaning was hidden from their simple intelligence. Moreover,

they expended no store of thought on the doctor. He was old, ugly, learnedand a little "loco"mad, if not

a bit of a sorcerer, as the common people suspected him of being. The little white jacket was in reality a

concession to Mrs. Gould's humanizing influence. The doctor, with his habit of sceptical, bitter speech, had

no other means of showing his profound respect for the character of the woman who was known in the

country as the English Senora. He presented this tribute very seriously indeed; it was no trifle for a man of his

habits. Mrs. Gould felt that, too, perfectly. She would never have thought of imposing upon him this marked

She kept her old Spanish house (one of the finest specimens in Sulaco) open for the dispensation of the small

graces of existence. She dispensed them with simplicity and charm because she was guided by an alert

perception of values. She was highly gifted in the art of human intercourse which consists in delicate shades

of selfforgetfulness and in the suggestion of universal comprehension. Charles Gould (the Gould family,

established in Costaguana for three generations, always went to England for their education and for their

wives) imagined that he had fallen in love with a girl's sound common sense like any other man, but these

were not exactly the reasons why, for instance, the whole surveying camp, from the youngest of the young

men to their mature chief, should have found occasion to allude to Mrs. Gould's house so frequently amongst

the high peaks of the Sierra. She would have protested that she had done nothing for them, with a low laugh

and a surprised widening of her grey eyes, had anybody told her how convincingly she was remembered on

the edge of the snowline above Sulaco. But directly, with a little capable air of setting her wits to work, she

would have found an explanation. "Of course, it was such a surprise for these boys to find any sort of

welcome here. And I suppose they are homesick. I suppose everybody must be always just a little homesick."

Born in the country, as his father before him, spare and tall, with a flaming moustache, a neat chin, clear blue

eyes, auburn hair, and a thin, fresh, red face, Charles Gould looked like a new arrival from over the sea. His

grandfather had fought in the cause of independence under Bolivar, in that famous English legion which on

the battlefield of Carabobo had been saluted by the great Liberator as Saviours of his country. One of Charles

Gould's uncles had been the elected President of that very province of Sulaco (then called a State) in the days

of Federation, and afterwards had been put up against the wall of a church and shot by the order of the

barbarous Unionist general, Guzman Bento. It was the same Guzman Bento who, becoming later Perpetual

President, famed for his ruthless and cruel tyranny, readied his apotheosis in the popular legend of a

sanguinary landhaunting spectre whose body had been carried off by the devil in person from the brick

mausoleum in the nave of the Church of Assumption in Sta. Marta. Thus, at least, the priests explained its

disappearance to the barefooted multitude that streamed in, awestruck, to gaze at the hole in the side of the

Guzman Bento of cruel memory had put to death great numbers of people besides Charles Gould's uncle; but

with a relative martyred in the cause of aristocracy, the Sulaco Oligarchs (this was the phraseology of

Guzman Bento's time; now they were called Blancos, and had given up the federal idea), which meant the

families of pure Spanish descent, considered Charles as one of themselves. With such a family record, no one

could be more of a Costaguanero than Don Carlos Gould; but his aspect was so characteristic that in the talk

of common people he was just the Inglezthe Englishman of Sulaco. He looked more English than a casual

tourist, a sort of heretic pilgrim, however, quite unknown in Sulaco. He looked more English than the last

arrived batch of young railway engineers, than anybody out of the huntingfield pictures in the numbers of

Punch reaching his wife's drawingroom two months or so after date. It astonished you to hear him talk

Spanish (Castillan, as the natives say) or the Indian dialect of the countrypeople so naturally. His accent had

never been English; but there was something so indelible in all these ancestral Gouldsliberators, explorers,

coffee planters, merchants, revolutionistsof Costaguana, that he, the only representative of the third

generation in a continent possessing its own style of horsemanship, went on looking thoroughly English even

on horseback. This is not said of him in the mocking spirit of the Llanerosmen of the great plainswho

think that no one in the world knows how to sit a horse but themselves. Charles Gould, to use the suitably

lofty phrase, rode like a centaur. Riding for him was not a special form of exercise; it was a natural faculty, as

walking straight is to all men sound of mind and limb; but, all the same, when cantering beside the rutty

oxcart track to the mine he looked in his English clothes and with his imported saddlery as though he had

come this moment to Costaguana at his easy swift pasotrote, straight out of some green meadow at the other

His way would lie along the old Spanish roadthe Camino Real of popular speechthe only remaining

vestige of a fact and name left by that royalty old Giorgio Viola hated, and whose very shadow had departed

from the land; for the big equestrian statue of Charles IV at the entrance of the Alameda, towering white

against the trees, was only known to the folk from the country and to the beggars of the town that slept on the

steps around the pedestal, as the Horse of Stone. The other Carlos, turning off to the left with a rapid clatter

of hoofs on the disjointed pavement Don Carlos Gould, in his English clothes, looked as incongruous, but

much more at home than the kingly cavalier reining in his steed on the pedestal above the sleeping leperos,

The weatherstained effigy of the mounted king, with its vague suggestion of a saluting gesture, seemed to

present an inscrutable breast to the political changes which had robbed it of its very name; but neither did the

other horseman, well known to the people, keen and alive on his wellshaped, slatecoloured beast with a

white eye, wear his heart on the sleeve of his English coat. His mind preserved its steady poise as if sheltered

in the passionless stability of private and public decencies at home in Europe. He accepted with a like calm

the shocking manner in which the Sulaco ladies smothered their faces with pearl powder till they looked like

white plaster casts with beautiful living eyes, the peculiar gossip of the town, and the continuous political

changes, the constant "saving of the country," which to his wife seemed a puerile and bloodthirsty game of

murder and rapine played with terrible earnestness by depraved children. In the early days of her Costaguana

life, the little lady used to clench her hands with exasperation at not being able to take the public affairs of the

country as seriously as the incidental atrocity of methods deserved. She saw in them a comedy of naive

pretences, but hardly anything genuine except her own appalled indignation. Charles, very quiet and twisting

his long moustaches, would decline to discuss them at all. Once, however, he observed to her gently

"My dear, you seem to forget that I was born here." These few words made her pause as if they had been a

sudden revelation. Perhaps the mere fact of being born in the country did make a difference. She had a great

confidence in her husband; it had always been very great. He had struck her imagination from the first by his

unsentimentalism, by that very quietude of mind which she had erected in her thought for a sign of perfect

competency in the business of living. Don Jose Avellanos, their neighbour across the street, a statesman, a

poet, a man of culture, who had represented his country at several European Courts (and had suffered untold

indignities as a state prisoner in the time of the tyrant Guzman Bento), used to declare in Dona Emilia's

drawingroom that Carlos had all the English qualities of character with a truly patriotic heart.

Mrs. Gould, raising her eyes to her husband's thin, red and tan face, could not detect the slightest quiver of a

feature at what he must have heard said of his patriotism. Perhaps he had just dismounted on his return from

the mine; he was English enough to disregard the hottest hours of the day. Basilio, in a livery of white linen

and a red sash, had squatted for a moment behind his heels to unstrap the heavy, blunt spurs in the patio; and

then the Senor Administrator would go up the staircase into the gallery. Rows of plants in pots, ranged on the

balustrade between the pilasters of the arches, screened the corredor with their leaves and flowers from the

quadrangle below, whose paved space is the true hearthstone of a South American house, where the quiet

hours of domestic life are marked by the shifting of light and shadow on the flagstones.

Senor Avellanos was in the habit of crossing the patio at five o'clock almost every day. Don Jose chose to

come over at teatime because the English rite at Dona Emilia's house reminded him of the time he lived in

London as Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James. He did not like tea; and, usually, rocking his

American chair, his neat little shiny boots crossed on the footrest, he would talk on and on with a sort of

complacent virtuosity wonderful in a man of his age, while he held the cup in his hands for a long time. His

On seeing Charles Gould step into the sala he would nod provisionally and go on to the end of the oratorial

"Carlos, my friend, you have ridden from San Tome in the heat of the day. Always the true English activity.

He drank up all the tea at once in one draught. This performance was invariably followed by a slight shudder

and a low, involuntary "brrrr," which was not covered by the hasty exclamation, "Excellent!"

Then giving up the empty cup into his young friend's hand, extended with a smile, he continued to expatiate

upon the patriotic nature of the San Tome mine for the simple pleasure of talking fluently, it seemed, while

his reclining body jerked backwards and forwards in a rockingchair of the sort exported from the United

States. The ceiling of the largest drawingroom of the Casa Gould extended its white level far above his

head. The loftiness dwarfed the mixture of heavy, straightbacked Spanish chairs of brown wood with

leathern seats, and European furniture, low, and cushioned all over, like squat little monsters gorged to

bursting with steel springs and horsehair. There were knickknacks on little tables, mirrors let into the wall

above marble consoles, square spaces of carpet under the two groups of armchairs, each presided over by a

deep sofa; smaller rugs scattered all over the floor of red tiles; three windows from the ceiling down to the

ground, opening on a balcony, and flanked by the perpendicular folds of the dark hangings. The stateliness of

ancient days lingered between the four high, smooth walls, tinted a delicate primrosecolour; and Mrs.

Gould, with her little head and shining coils of hair, sitting in a cloud of muslin and lace before a slender

mahogany table, resembled a fairy posed lightly before dainty philtres dispensed out of vessels of silver and

Mrs. Gould knew the history of the San Tome mine. Worked in the early days mostly by means of lashes on

the backs of slaves, its yield had been paid for in its own weight of human bones. Whole tribes of Indians had

perished in the exploitation; and then the mine was abandoned, since with this primitive method it had ceased

to make a profitable return, no matter how many corpses were thrown into its maw. Then it became forgotten.

It was rediscovered after the War of Independence. An English company obtained the right to work it, and

found so rich a vein that neither the exactions of successive governments, nor the periodical raids of

recruiting officers upon the population of paid miners they had created, could discourage their perseverance.

But in the end, during the long turmoil of pronunciamentos that followed the death of the famous Guzman

Bento, the native miners, incited to revolt by the emissaries sent out from the capital, had risen upon their

English chiefs and murdered them to a man. The decree of confiscation which appeared immediately

afterwards in the Diario Official, published in Sta. Marta, began with the words: "Justly incensed at the

grinding oppression of foreigners, actuated by sordid motives of gain rather than by love for a country where

they come impoverished to seek their fortunes, the mining population of San Tome, etc. . . ." and ended with

the declaration: "The chief of the State has resolved to exercise to the full his power of clemency. The mine,

which by every law, international, human, and divine, reverts now to the Government as national property,

shall remain closed till the sword drawn for the sacred defence of liberal principles has accomplished its

And for many years this was the last of the San Tome mine. What advantage that Government had expected

from the spoliation, it is impossible to tell now. Costaguana was made with difficulty to pay a beggarly

money compensation to the families of the victims, and then the matter dropped out of diplomatic despatches.

But afterwards another Government bethought itself of that valuable asset. It was an ordinary Costaguana

Governmentthe fourth in six yearsbut it judged of its opportunities sanely. It remembered the San Tome

mine with a secret conviction of its worthlessness in their own hands, but with an ingenious insight into the

various uses a silver mine can be put to, apart from the sordid process of extracting the metal from under the

ground. The father of Charles Gould, for a long time one of the most wealthy merchants of Costaguana, had

already lost a considerable part of his fortune in forced loans to the successive Governments. He was a man

of calm judgment, who never dreamed of pressing his claims; and when, suddenly, the perpetual concession

of the San Tome mine was offered to him in full settlement, his alarm became extreme. He was versed in the

ways of Governments. Indeed, the intention of this affair, though no doubt deeply meditated in the closet, lay

open on the surface of the document presented urgently for his signature. The third and most important clause

stipulated that the concessionholder should pay at once to the Government five years' royalties on the

Mr. Gould, senior, defended himself from this fatal favour with many arguments and entreaties, but without

success. He knew nothing of mining; he had no means to put his concession on the European market; the

mine as a working concern did not exist. The buildings had been burnt down, the mining plant had been

destroyed, the mining population had disappeared from the neighbourhood years and years ago; the very road

had vanished under a flood of tropical vegetation as effectually as if swallowed by the sea; and the main

gallery had fallen in within a hundred yards from the entrance. It was no longer an abandoned mine; it was a

wild, inaccessible, and rocky gorge of the Sierra, where vestiges of charred timber, some heaps of smashed

bricks, and a few shapeless pieces of rusty iron could have been found under the matted mass of thorny

creepers covering the ground. Mr. Gould, senior, did not desire the perpetual possession of that desolate

locality; in fact, the mere vision of it arising before his mind in the still watches of the night had the power to

It so happened, however, that the Finance Minister of the time was a man to whom, in years gone by, Mr.

Gould had, unfortunately, declined to grant some small pecuniary assistance, basing his refusal on the ground

that the applicant was a notorious gambler and cheat, besides being more than half suspected of a robbery

with violence on a wealthy ranchero in a remote country district, where he was actually exercising the

function of a judge. Now, after reaching his exalted position, that politician had proclaimed his intention to

repay evil with good to Senor Gouldthe poor man. He affirmed and reaffirmed this resolution in the

drawingrooms of Sta. Marta, in a soft and implacable voice, and with such malicious glances that Mr.

Gould's best friends advised him earnestly to attempt no bribery to get the matter dropped. It would have

been useless. Indeed, it would not have been a very safe proceeding. Such was also the opinion of a stout,

loudvoiced lady of French extraction, the daughter, she said, of an officer of high rank (officier superieur de

l'armee), who was accommodated with lodgings within the walls of a secularized convent next door to the

Ministry of Finance. That florid person, when approached on behalf of Mr. Gould in a proper manner, and

with a suitable present, shook her head despondently. She was goodnatured, and her despondency was

genuine. She imagined she could not take money in consideration of something she could not accomplish.

The friend of Mr. Gould, charged with the delicate mission, used to say afterwards that she was the only

honest person closely or remotely connected with the Government he had ever met. "No go," she had said

with a cavalier, husky intonation which was natural to her, and using turns of expression more suitable to a

child of parents unknown than to the orphaned daughter of a general officer. "No; it's no go. Pas moyen, mon

garcon. C'est dommage, tout de meme. Ah! zut! Je ne vole pas mon monde. Je ne suis pas ministremoi!

For a moment, biting her carmine lip, she deplored inwardly the tyranny of the rigid principles governing the

sale of her influence in high places. Then, significantly, and with a touch of impatience, "Allez," she added,

After such a warning there was nothing for it but to sign and pay. Mr. Gould had swallowed the pill, and it

was as though it had been compounded of some subtle poison that acted directly on his brain. He became at

once mineridden, and as he was well read in light literature it took to his mind the form of the Old Man of

the Sea fastened upon his shoulders. He also began to dream of vampires. Mr. Gould exaggerated to himself

the disadvantages of his new position, because he viewed it emotionally. His position in Costaguana was no

worse than before. But man is a desperately conservative creature, and the extravagant novelty of this outrage

upon his purse distressed his sensibilities. Everybody around him was being robbed by the grotesque and

murderous bands that played their game of governments and revolutions after the death of Guzman Bento.

His experience had taught him that, however short the plunder might fall of their legitimate expectations, no

gang in possession of the Presidential Palace would be so incompetent as to suffer itself to be baffled by the

want of a pretext. The first casual colonel of the barefooted army of scarecrows that came along was able to

expose with force and precision to any mere civilian his titles to a sum of 10,000 dollars; the while his hope

would be immutably fixed upon a gratuity, at any rate, of no less than a thousand. Mr. Gould knew that very

well, and, armed with resignation, had waited for better times. But to be robbed under the forms of legality

and business was intolerable to his imagination. Mr. Gould, the father, had one fault in his sagacious and

honourable character: he attached too much importance to form. It is a failing common to mankind, whose

views are tinged by prejudices. There was for him in that affair a malignancy of perverted justice which, by

means of a moral shock, attacked his vigorous physique. "It will end by killing me," he used to affirm many

times a day. And, in fact, since that time he began to suffer from fever, from liver pains, and mostly from a

worrying inability to think of anything else. The Finance Minister could have formed no conception of the

profound subtlety of his revenge. Even Mr. Gould's letters to his fourteenyearold boy Charles, then away

in England for his education, came at last to talk of practically nothing but the mine. He groaned over the

injustice, the persecution, the outrage of that mine; he occupied whole pages in the exposition of the fatal

consequences attaching to the possession of that mine from every point of view, with every dismal inference,

with words of horror at the apparently eternal character of that curse. For the Concession had been granted to

him and his descendants for ever. He implored his son never to return to Costaguana, never to claim any part

of his inheritance there, because it was tainted by the infamous Concession; never to touch it, never to

approach it, to forget that America existed, and pursue a mercantile career in Europe. And each letter ended

with bitter selfreproaches for having stayed too long in that cavern of thieves, intriguers, and brigands.

To be told repeatedly that one's future is blighted because of the possession of a silver mine is not, at the age

of fourteen, a matter of prime importance as to its main statement; but in its form it is calculated to excite a

certain amount of wonder and attention. In course of time the boy, at first only puzzled by the angry

jeremiads, but rather sorry for his dad, began to turn the matter over in his mind in such moments as he could

spare from play and study. In about a year he had evolved from the lecture of the letters a definite conviction

that there was a silver mine in the Sulaco province of the Republic of Costaguana, where poor Uncle Harry

had been shot by soldiers a great many years before. There was also connected closely with that mine a thing

called the "iniquitous Gould Concession," apparently written on a paper which his father desired ardently to

"tear and fling into the faces" of presidents, members of judicature, and ministers of State. And this desire

persisted, though the names of these people, he noticed, seldom remained the same for a whole year together.

This desire (since the thing was iniquitous) seemed quite natural to the boy, though why the affair was

iniquitous he did not know. Afterwards, with advancing wisdom, he managed to clear the plain truth of the

business from the fantastic intrusions of the Old Man of the Sea, vampires, and ghouls, which had lent to his

father's correspondence the flavour of a gruesome Arabian Nights tale. In the end, the growing youth attained

to as close an intimacy with the San Tome mine as the old man who wrote these plaintive and enraged letters

on the other side of the sea. He had been made several times already to pay heavy fines for neglecting to

work the mine, he reported, besides other sums extracted from him on account of future royalties, on the

ground that a man with such a valuable concession in his pocket could not refuse his financial assistance to

the Government of the Republic. The last of his fortune was passing away from him against worthless

receipts, he wrote, in a rage, whilst he was being pointed out as an individual who had known how to secure

enormous advantages from the necessities of his country. And the young man in Europe grew more and more

interested in that thing which could provoke such a tumult of words and passion.

He thought of it every day; but he thought of it without bitterness. It might have been an unfortunate affair for

his poor dad, and the whole story threw a queer light upon the social and political life of Costaguana. The

view he took of it was sympathetic to his father, yet calm and reflective. His personal feelings had not been

outraged, and it is difficult to resent with proper and durable indignation the physical or mental anguish of

another organism, even if that other organism is one's own father. By the time he was twenty Charles Gould

had, in his turn, fallen under the spell of the San Tome mine. But it was another form of enchantment, more

suitable to his youth, into whose magic formula there entered hope, vigour, and selfconfidence, instead of

weary indignation and despair. Left after he was twenty to his own guidance (except for the severe injunction

not to return to Costaguana), he had pursued his studies in Belgium and France with the idea of qualifying for

a mining engineer. But this scientific aspect of his labours remained vague and imperfect in his mind. Mines

had acquired for him a dramatic interest. He studied their peculiarities from a personal point of view, too, as

one would study the varied characters of men. He visited them as one goes with curiosity to call upon

remarkable persons. He visited mines in Germany, in Spain, in Cornwall. Abandoned workings had for him

strong fascination. Their desolation appealed to him like the sight of human misery, whose causes are varied

and profound. They might have been worthless, but also they might have been misunderstood. His future wife

was the first, and perhaps the only person to detect this secret mood which governed the profoundly sensible,

almost voiceless attitude of this man towards the world of material things. And at once her delight in him,

lingering with halfopen wings like those birds that cannot rise easily from a flat level, found a pinnacle from

They had become acquainted in Italy, where the future Mrs. Gould was staying with an old and pale aunt

who, years before, had married a middleaged, impoverished Italian marquis. She now mourned that man,

who had known how to give up his life to the independence and unity of his country, who had known how to

be as enthusiastic in his generosity as the youngest of those who fell for that very cause of which old Giorgio

Viola was a drifting relic, as a broken spar is suffered to float away disregarded after a naval victory. The

Marchesa led a still, whispering existence, nunlike in her black robes and a white band over the forehead, in

a corner of the first floor of an ancient and ruinous palace, whose big, empty halls downstairs sheltered under

their painted ceilings the harvests, the fowls, and even the cattle, together with the whole family of the tenant

The two young people had met in Lucca. After that meeting Charles Gould visited no mines, though they

went together in a carriage, once, to see some marble quarries, where the work resembled mining in so far

that it also was the tearing of the raw material of treasure from the earth. Charles Gould did not open his heart

to her in any set speeches. He simply went on acting and thinking in her sight. This is the true method of

sincerity. One of his frequent remarks was, "I think sometimes that poor father takes a wrong view of that

San Tome business." And they discussed that opinion long and earnestly, as if they could influence a mind

across half the globe; but in reality they discussed it because the sentiment of love can enter into any subject

and live ardently in remote phrases. For this natural reason these discussions were precious to Mrs. Gould in

her engaged state. Charles feared that Mr. Gould, senior, was wasting his strength and making himself ill by

his efforts to get rid of the Concession. "I fancy that this is not the kind of handling it requires," he mused

aloud, as if to himself. And when she wondered frankly that a man of character should devote his energies to

plotting and intrigues, Charles would remark, with a gentle concern that understood her wonder, "You must

She would set her quick mind to work upon that, and then make the inconsequent retort, which he accepted as

"That's different. I've been away ten years. Dad never had such a long spell; and it was more than thirty years

She was the first person to whom he opened his lips after receiving the news of his father's death.

He had walked straight out of town with the news, straight out before him in the noonday sun on the white

road, and his feet had brought him face to face with her in the hall of the ruined palazzo, a room magnificent

and naked, with here and there a long strip of damask, black with damp and age, hanging down on a bare

panel of the wall. It was furnished with exactly one gilt armchair, with a broken back, and an octagon

columnar stand bearing a heavy marble vase ornamented with sculptured masks and garlands of flowers, and

cracked from top to bottom. Charles Gould was dusty with the white dust of the road lying on his boots, on

his shoulders, on his cap with two peaks. Water dripped from under it all over his face, and he grasped a thick

She went very pale under the roses of her big straw hat, gloved, swinging a clear sunshade, caught just as she

was going out to meet him at the bottom of the hill, where three poplars stand near the wall of a vineyard.

"It has killed him!" he repeated. "He ought to have had many years yet. We are a longlived family."

She was too startled to say anything; he was contemplating with a penetrating and motionless stare the

cracked marble urn as though he had resolved to fix its shape for ever in his memory. It was only when,

turning suddenly to her, he blurted out twice, "I've come to youI've come straight to you," without being

able to finish his phrase, that the great pitifulness of that lonely and tormented death in Costaguana came to

her with the full force of its misery. He caught hold of her hand, raised it to his lips, and at that she dropped

her parasol to pat him on the cheek, murmured "Poor boy," and began to dry her eyes under the downward

curve of her hatbrim, very small in her simple, white frock, almost like a lost child crying in the degraded

grandeur of the noble hall, while he stood by her, again perfectly motionless in the contemplation of the

Afterwards they went out for a long walk, which was silent till he exclaimed suddenly

And then they stopped. Everywhere there were long shadows lying on the hills, on the roads, on the enclosed

fields of olive trees; the shadows of poplars, of wide chestnuts, of farm buildings, of stone walls; and in

midair the sound of a bell, thin and alert, was like the throbbing pulse of the sunset glow. Her lips were

slightly parted as though in surprise that he should not be looking at her with his usual expression. His usual

expression was unconditionally approving and attentive. He was in his talks with her the most anxious and

deferential of dictators, an attitude that pleased her immensely. It affirmed her power without detracting from

his dignity. That slight girl, with her little feet, little hands, little face attractively overweighted by great coils

of hair; with a rather large mouth, whose mere parting seemed to breathe upon you the fragrance of frankness

and generosity, had the fastidious soul of an experienced woman. She was, before all things and all flatteries,

careful of her pride in the object of her choice. But now he was actually not looking at her at all; and his

expression was tense and irrational, as is natural in a man who elects to stare at nothing past a young girl's

"Well, yes. It was iniquitous. They corrupted him thoroughly, the poor old boy. Oh! why wouldn't he let me

After pronouncing these words with immense assurance, he glanced down at her, and at once fell a prey to

The only thing he wanted to know now, he said, was whether she did love him enoughwhether she would

have the courage to go with him so far away? He put these questions to her in a voice that trembled with

She did. She would. And immediately the future hostess of all the Europeans in Sulaco had the physical

experience of the earth falling away from under her. It vanished completely, even to the very sound of the

bell. When her feet touched the ground again, the bell was still ringing in the valley; she put her hands up to

her hair, breathing quickly, and glanced up and down the stony lane. It was reassuringly empty. Meantime,

Charles, stepping with one foot into a dry and dusty ditch, picked up the open parasol, which had bounded

away from them with a martial sound of drum taps. He handed it to her soberly, a little crestfallen.

They turned back, and after she had slipped her hand on his arm, the first words he pronounced were

"It's lucky that we shall be able to settle in a coast town. You've heard its name. It is Sulaco. I am so glad

poor father did get that house. He bought a big house there years ago, in order that there should always be a

Casa Gould in the principal town of what used to be called the Occidental Province. I lived there once, as a

small boy, with my dear mother, for a whole year, while poor father was away in the United States on

And later, in the inhabited corner of the Palazzo above the vineyards, the marble hills, the pines and olives of

"The name of Gould has been always highly respected in Sulaco. My uncle Harry was chief of the State for

some time, and has left a great name amongst the first families. By this I mean the pure Creole families, who

take no part in the miserable farce of governments. Uncle Harry was no adventurer. In Costaguana we Goulds

are no adventurers. He was of the country, and he loved it, but he remained essentially an Englishman in his

ideas. He made use of the political cry of his time. It was Federation. But he was no politician. He simply

stood up for social order out of pure love for rational liberty and from his hate of oppression. There was no

nonsense about him. He went to work in his own way because it seemed right, just as I feel I must lay hold of

In such words he talked to her because his memory was very full of the country of his childhood, his heart of

his life with that girl, and his mind of the San Tome Concession. He added that he would have to leave her

for a few days to find an American, a man from San Francisco, who was still somewhere in Europe. A few

months before he had made his acquaintance in an old historic German town, situated in a mining district.

The American had his womankind with him, but seemed lonely while they were sketching all day long the

old doorways and the turreted corners of the mediaeval houses. Charles Gould had with him the inseparable

companionship of the mine. The other man was interested in mining enterprises, knew something of

Costaguana, and was no stranger to the name of Gould. They had talked together with some intimacy which

was made possible by the difference of their ages. Charles wanted now to find that capitalist of shrewd mind

and accessible character. His father's fortune in Costaguana, which he had supposed to be still considerable,

seemed to have melted in the rascally crucible of revolutions. Apart from some ten thousand pounds

deposited in England, there appeared to be nothing left except the house in Sulaco, a vague right of forest

exploitation in a remote and savage district, and the San Tome Concession, which had attended his poor

He explained those things. It was late when they parted. She had never before given him such a fascinating

vision of herself. All the eagerness of youth for a strange life, for great distances, for a future in which there

was an air of adventure, of combata subtle thought of redress and conquest, had filled her with an intense

excitement, which she returned to the giver with a more open and exquisite display of tenderness.

He left her to walk down the hill, and directly he found himself alone he became sober. That irreparable

change a death makes in the course of our daily thoughts can be felt in a vague and poignant discomfort of

mind. It hurt Charles Gould to feel that never more, by no effort of will, would he be able to think of his

father in the same way he used to think of him when the poor man was alive. His breathing image was no

longer in his power. This consideration, closely affecting his own identity, filled his breast with a mournful

and angry desire for action. In this his instinct was unerring. Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought

and the friend of flattering illusions. Only in the conduct of our action can we find the sense of mastery over

the Fates. For his action, the mine was obviously the only field. It was imperative sometimes to know how to

disobey the solemn wishes of the dead. He resolved firmly to make his disobedience as thorough (by way of

atonement) as it well could be. The mine had been the cause of an absurd moral disaster; its working must be

made a serious and moral success. He owed it to the dead man's memory. Such were theproperly

speakingemotions of Charles Gould. His thoughts ran upon the means of raising a large amount of capital

in San Francisco or elsewhere; and incidentally there occurred to him also the general reflection that the

counsel of the departed must be an unsound guide. Not one of them could be aware beforehand what

enormous changes the death of any given individual may produce in the very aspect of the world.

The latest phase in the history of the mine Mrs. Gould knew from personal experience. It was in essence the

history of her married life. The mantle of the Goulds' hereditary position in Sulaco had descended amply

upon her little person; but she would not allow the peculiarities of the strange garment to weigh down the

vivacity of her character, which was the sign of no mere mechanical sprightliness, but of an eager

intelligence. It must not be supposed that Mrs. Gould's mind was masculine. A woman with a masculine mind

is not a being of superior efficiency; she is simply a phenomenon of imperfect differentiationinterestingly

barren and without importance. Dona Emilia's intelligence being feminine led her to achieve the conquest of

Sulaco, simply by lighting the way for her unselfishness and sympathy. She could converse charmingly, but

she was not talkative. The wisdom of the heart having no concern with the erection or demolition of theories

any more than with the defence of prejudices, has no random words at its command. The words it pronounces

have the value of acts of integrity, tolerance, and compassion. A woman's true tenderness, like the true virility

of man, is expressed in action of a conquering kind. The ladies of Sulaco adored Mrs. Gould. "They still look

upon me as something of a monster," Mrs. Gould had said pleasantly to one of the three gentlemen from San

Francisco she had to entertain in her new Sulaco house just about a year after her marriage.

They were her first visitors from abroad, and they had come to look at the San Tome mine. She jested most

agreeably, they thought; and Charles Gould, besides knowing thoroughly what he was about, had shown

himself a real hustler. These facts caused them to be well disposed towards his wife. An unmistakable

enthusiasm, pointed by a slight flavour of irony, made her talk of the mine absolutely fascinating to her

visitors, and provoked them to grave and indulgent smiles in which there was a good deal of deference.

Perhaps had they known how much she was inspired by an idealistic view of success they would have been

amazed at the state of her mind as the SpanishAmerican ladies had been amazed at the tireless activity of

her body. She wouldin her own wordshave been for them "something of a monster." However, the

Goulds were in essentials a reticent couple, and their guests departed without the suspicion of any other

purpose but simple profit in the working of a silver mine. Mrs. Gould had out her own carriage, with two

white mules, to drive them down to the harbour, whence the Ceres was to carry them off into the Olympus of

plutocrats. Captain Mitchell had snatched at the occasion of leavetaking to remark to Mrs. Gould, in a low,

Mrs. Gould loved the patio of her Spanish house. A broad flight of stone steps was overlooked silently from a

niche in the wall by a Madonna in blue robes with the crowned child sitting on her arm. Subdued voices

ascended in the early mornings from the paved well of the quadrangle, with the stamping of horses and mules

led out in pairs to drink at the cistern. A tangle of slender bamboo stems drooped its narrow, bladelike

leaves over the square pool of water, and the fat coachman sat muffled up on the edge, holding lazily the ends

of halters in his hand. Barefooted servants passed to and fro, issuing from dark, low doorways below; two

laundry girls with baskets of washed linen; the baker with the tray of bread made for the day; Leonardaher

own cameristabearing high up, swung from her hand raised above her raven black head, a bunch of

starched underskirts dazzlingly white in the slant of sunshine. Then the old porter would hobble in,

sweeping the flagstones, and the house was ready for the day. All the lofty rooms on three sides of the

quadrangle opened into each other and into the corredor, with its wroughtiron railings and a border of

flowers, whence, like the lady of the mediaeval castle, she could witness from above all the departures and

arrivals of the Casa, to which the sonorous arched gateway lent an air of stately importance.

She had watched her carriage roll away with the three guests from the north. She smiled. Their three arms

went up simultaneously to their three hats. Captain Mitchell, the fourth, in attendance, had already begun a

pompous discourse. Then she lingered. She lingered, approaching her face to the clusters of flowers here and

there as if to give time to her thoughts to catch up with her slow footsteps along the straight vista of the

A fringed Indian hammock from Aroa, gay with coloured featherwork, had been swung judiciously in a

corner that caught the early sun; for the mornings are cool in Sulaco. The cluster of flor de noche buena

blazed in great masses before the open glass doors of the reception rooms. A big green parrot, brilliant like an

emerald in a cage that flashed like gold, screamed out ferociously, "Viva Costaguana!" then called twice

mellifluously, "Leonarda! Leonarda!" in imitation of Mrs. Gould's voice, and suddenly took refuge in

immobility and silence. Mrs. Gould reached the end of the gallery and put her head through the door of her

Charles Gould, with one foot on a low wooden stool, was already strapping his spurs. He wanted to hurry

back to the mine. Mrs. Gould, without coming in, glanced about the room. One tall, broad bookcase, with

glass doors, was full of books; but in the other, without shelves, and lined with red baize, were arranged

firearms: Winchester carbines, revolvers, a couple of shotguns, and even two pairs of doublebarrelled

holster pistols. Between them, by itself, upon a strip of scarlet velvet, hung an old cavalry sabre, once the

property of Don Enrique Gould, the hero of the Occidental Province, presented by Don Jose Avellanos, the

Otherwise, the plastered white walls were completely bare, except for a watercolour sketch of the San Tome

mountainthe work of Dona Emilia herself. In the middle of the redtiled floor stood two long tables

littered with plans and papers, a few chairs, and a glass showcase containing specimens of ore from the

mine. Mrs. Gould, looking at all these things in turn, wondered aloud why the talk of these wealthy and

enterprising men discussing the prospects, the working, and the safety of the mine rendered her so impatient

and uneasy, whereas she could talk of the mine by the hour with her husband with unwearied interest and

Then, surprised at her husband's silence, she raised her eyes, opened wide, as pretty as pale flowers. He had

done with the spurs, and, twisting his moustache with both hands, horizontally, he contemplated her from the

height of his long legs with a visible appreciation of her appearance. The consciousness of being thus

"I know. But have you listened to their conversation? They don't seem to have understood anything they have

"They have seen the mine. They have understood that to some purpose," Charles Gould interjected, in

defence of the visitors; and then his wife mentioned the name of the most considerable of the three. He was

considerable in finance and in industry. His name was familiar to many millions of people. He was so

considerable that he would never have travelled so far away from the centre of his activity if the doctors had

"Mr. Holroyd's sense of religion," Mrs. Gould pursued, "was shocked and disgusted at the tawdriness of the

dressedup saints in the cathedralthe worship, he called it, of wood and tinsel. But it seemed to me that he

looked upon his own God as a sort of influential partner, who gets his share of profits in the endowment of

churches. That's a sort of idolatry. He told me he endowed churches every year, Charley."

"No end of them," said Mr. Gould, marvelling inwardly at the mobility of her physiognomy. "All over the

country. He's famous for that sort of munificence." "Oh, he didn't boast," Mrs. Gould declared, scrupulously.

"I believe he's really a good man, but so stupid! A poor Chulo who offers a little silver arm or leg to thank his

"He's at the head of immense silver and iron interests," Charles Gould observed.

"Ah, yes! The religion of silver and iron. He's a very civil man, though he looked awfully solemn when he

first saw the Madonna on the staircase, who's only wood and paint; but he said nothing to me. My dear

Charley, I heard those men talk among themselves. Can it be that they really wish to become, for an immense

consideration, drawers of water and hewers of wood to all the countries and nations of the earth?"

Mrs. Gould, frowning, surveyed him from head to foot. With his riding breeches, leather leggings (an article

of apparel never before seen in Costaguana), a Norfolk coat of grey flannel, and those great flaming

moustaches, he suggested an officer of cavalry turned gentleman farmer. This combination was gratifying to

Mrs. Gould's tastes. "How thin the poor boy is!" she thought. "He overworks himself." But there was no

denying that his finedrawn, keen red face, and his whole, longlimbed, lank person had an air of breeding

During the last few days, as it happened, Charles Gould had been kept too busy thinking twice before he

spoke to have paid much attention to the state of his feelings. But theirs was a successful match, and he had

"The best of my feelings are in your keeping, my dear," he said, lightly; and there was so much truth in that

obscure phrase that he experienced towards her at the moment a great increase of gratitude and tenderness.

Mrs. Gould, however, did not seem to find this answer in the least obscure. She brightened up delicately;

"But there are facts. The worth of the mineas a mineis beyond doubt. It shall make us very wealthy. The

mere working of it is a matter of technical knowledge, which I havewhich ten thousand other men in the

world have. But its safety, its continued existence as an enterprise, giving a return to mento strangers,

comparative strangerswho invest money in it, is left altogether in my hands. I have inspired confidence in

a man of wealth and position. You seem to think this perfectly naturaldo you? Well, I don't know. I don't

know why I have; but it is a fact. This fact makes everything possible, because without it I would never have

thought of disregarding my father's wishes. I would never have disposed of the Concession as a speculator

disposes of a valuable right to a companyfor cash and shares, to grow rich eventually if possible, but at any

rate to put some money at once in his pocket. No. Even if it had been feasiblewhich I doubtI would not

have done so. Poor father did not understand. He was afraid I would hang on to the ruinous thing, waiting for

just some such chance, and waste my life miserably. That was the true sense of his prohibition, which we

They were walking up and down the corredor. Her head just reached to his shoulder. His arm, extended

"He had not seen me for ten years. He did not know me. He parted from me for my sake, and he would never

let me come back. He was always talking in his letters of leaving Costaguana, of abandoning everything and

making his escape. But he was too valuable a prey. They would have thrown him into one of their prisons at

His spurred feet clinked slowly. He was bending over his wife as they walked. The big parrot, turning its

"He was a lonely man. Ever since I was ten years old he used to talk to me as if I had been grown up. When I

was in Europe he wrote to me every month. Ten, twelve pages every month of my life for ten years. And,

after all, he did not know me! Just think of itten whole years away; the years I was growing up into a man.

Mrs. Gould shook her head negatively; which was just what her husband had expected from the strength of

the argument. But she shook her head negatively only because she thought that no one could know her

Charlesreally know him for what he was but herself. The thing was obvious. It could be felt. It required no

argument. And poor Mr. Gould, senior, who had died too soon to ever hear of their engagement, remained too

"No, he did not understand. In my view this mine could never have been a thing to sell. Never! After all his

misery I simply could not have touched it for money alone," Charles Gould pursued: and she pressed her

These two young people remembered the life which had ended wretchedly just when their own lives had

come together in that splendour of hopeful love, which to the most sensible minds appears like a triumph of

good over all the evils of the earth. A vague idea of rehabilitation had entered the plan of their life. That it

was so vague as to elude the support of argument made it only the stronger. It had presented itself to them at

the instant when the woman's instinct of devotion and the man's instinct of activity receive from the strongest

of illusions their most powerful impulse. The very prohibition imposed the necessity of success. It was as if

they had been morally bound to make good their vigorous view of life against the unnatural error of

weariness and despair. If the idea of wealth was present to them it was only in so far as it was bound with that

other success. Mrs. Gould, an orphan from early childhood and without fortune, brought up in an atmosphere

of intellectual interests, had never considered the aspects of great wealth. They were too remote, and she had

not learned that they were desirable. On the other hand, she had not known anything of absolute want. Even

the very poverty of her aunt, the Marchesa, had nothing intolerable to a refined mind; it seemed in accord

with a great grief: it had the austerity of a sacrifice offered to a noble ideal. Thus even the most legitimate

touch of materialism was wanting in Mrs. Gould's character. The dead man of whom she thought with

tenderness (because he was Charley's father) and with some impatience (because he had been weak), must be

put completely in the wrong. Nothing else would do to keep their prosperity without a stain on its only real,

Charles Gould, on his part, had been obliged to keep the idea of wealth well to the fore; but he brought it

forward as a means, not as an end. Unless the mine was good business it could not be touched. He had to

insist on that aspect of the enterprise. It was his lever to move men who had capital. And Charles Gould

believed in the mine. He knew everything that could be known of it. His faith in the mine was contagious,

though it was not served by a great eloquence; but business men are frequently as sanguine and imaginative

as lovers. They are affected by a personality much oftener than people would suppose; and Charles Gould, in

his unshaken assurance, was absolutely convincing. Besides, it was a matter of common knowledge to the

men to whom he addressed himself that mining in Costaguana was a game that could be made considably

more than worth the candle. The men of affairs knew that very well. The real difficulty in touching it was

elsewhere. Against that there was an implication of calm and implacable resolution in Charles Gould's very

voice. Men of affairs venture sometimes on acts that the common judgment of the world would pronounce

absurd; they make their decisions on apparently impulsive and human grounds. "Very well," had said the

considerable personage to whom Charles Gould on his way out through San Francisco had lucidly exposed

his point of view. "Let us suppose that the mining affairs of Sulaco are taken in hand. There would then be in

it: first, the house of Holroyd, which is all right; then, Mr. Charles Gould, a citizen of Costaguana, who is

also all right; and, lastly, the Government of the Republic. So far this resembles the first start of the Atacama

nitrate fields, where there was a financing house, a gentleman of the name of Edwards, anda Government;

or, rather, two Governmentstwo South American Governments. And you know what came of it. War came

of it; devastating and prolonged war came of it, Mr. Gould. However, here we possess the advantage of

having only one South American Government hanging around for plunder out of the deal. It is an advantage;

but then there are degrees of badness, and that Government is the Costaguana Government."

Thus spoke the considerable personage, the millionaire endower of churches on a scale befitting the greatness

of his native landthe same to whom the doctors used the language of horrid and veiled menaces. He was a

biglimbed, deliberate man, whose quiet burliness lent to an ample silkfaced frockcoat a superfine dignity.

His hair was iron grey, his eyebrows were still black, and his massive profile was the profile of a Caesar's

head on an old Roman coin. But his parentage was German and Scotch and English, with remote strains of

Danish and French blood, giving him the temperament of a Puritan and an insatiable imagination of conquest.

He was completely unbending to his visitor, because of the warm introduction the visitor had brought from

Europe, and because of an irrational liking for earnestness and determination wherever met, to whatever end

"The Costaguana Government shall play its hand for all it's worthand don't you forget it, Mr. Gould. Now,

what is Costaguana? It is the bottomless pit of 10 per cent. loans and other fool investments. European capital

has been flung into it with both hands for years. Not ours, though. We in this country know just about enough

to keep indoors when it rains. We can sit and watch. Of course, some day we shall step in. We are bound to.

But there's no hurry. Time itself has got to wait on the greatest country in the whole of God's Universe. We

shall be giving the word for everything: industry, trade, law, journalism, art, politics, and religion, from Cape

Horn clear over to Smith's Sound, and beyond, too, if anything worth taking hold of turns up at the North

Pole. And then we shall have the leisure to take in hand the outlying islands and continents of the earth. We

shall run the world's business whether the world likes it or not. The world can't help itand neither can we, I

By this he meant to express his faith in destiny in words suitable to his intelligence, which was unskilled in

the presentation of general ideas. His intelligence was nourished on facts; and Charles Gould, whose

imagination had been permanently affected by the one great fact of a silver mine, had no objection to this

theory of the world's future. If it had seemed distasteful for a moment it was because the sudden statement of

such vast eventualities dwarfed almost to nothingness the actual matter in hand. He and his plans and all the

mineral wealth of the Occidental Province appeared suddenly robbed of every vestige of magnitude. The

sensation was disagreeable; but Charles Gould was not dull. Already he felt that he was producing a

favourable impression; the consciousness of that flattering fact helped him to a vague smile, which his big

interlocutor took for a smile of discreet and admiring assent. He smiled quietly, too; and immediately Charles

Gould, with that mental agility mankind will display in defence of a cherished hope, reflected that the very

apparent insignificance of his aim would help him to success. His personality and his mine would be taken up

because it was a matter of no great consequence, one way or another, to a man who referred his action to such

a prodigious destiny. And Charles Gould was not humiliated by this consideration, because the thing

remained as big as ever for him. Nobody else's vast conceptions of destiny could diminish the aspect of his

desire for the redemption of the San Tome mine. In comparison to the correctness of his aim, definite in space

and absolutely attainable within a limited time, the other man appeared for an instant as a dreamy idealist of

The great man, massive and benignant, had been looking at him thoughtfully; when he broke the short silence

it was to remark that concessions flew about thick in the air of Costaguana. Any simple soul that just yearned

"Our consuls get their mouths stopped with them," he continued, with a twinkle of genial scorn in his eyes.

But in a moment he became grave. "A conscientious, upright man, that cares nothing for boodle, and keeps

clear of their intrigues, conspiracies, and factions, soon gets his passports. See that, Mr. Gould? Persona non

grata. That's the reason our Government is never properly informed. On the other hand, Europe must be kept

out of this continent, and for proper interference on our part the time is not yet ripe, I dare say. But we

herewe are not this country's Government, neither are we simple souls. Your affair is all right. The main

question for us is whether the second partner, and that's you, is the right sort to hold his own against the third

and unwelcome partner, which is one or another of the high and mighty robber gangs that run the Costaguana

He bent forward to look steadily into the unflinching eyes of Charles Gould, who, remembering the large box

full of his father's letters, put the accumulated scorn and bitterness of many years into the tone of his

"As far as the knowledge of these men and their methods and their politics is concerned, I can answer for

myself. I have been fed on that sort of knowledge since I was a boy. I am not likely to fall into mistakes from

"Not likely, eh? That's all right. Tact and a stiff upper lip is what you'll want; and you could bluff a little on

the strength of your backing. Not too much, though. We will go with you as long as the thing runs straight.

But we won't be drawn into any large trouble. This is the experiment which I am willing to make. There is

some risk, and we will take it; but if you can't keep up your end, we will stand our loss, of course, and

thenwe'll let the thing go. This mine can wait; it has been shut up before, as you know. You must

understand that under no circumstances will we consent to throw good money after bad."

Thus the great personage had spoken then, in his own private office, in a great city where other men (very

considerable in the eyes of a vain populace) waited with alacrity upon a wave of his hand. And rather more

than a year later, during his unexpected appearance in Sulaco, he had emphasized his uncompromising

attitude with a freedom of sincerity permitted to his wealth and influence. He did this with the less reserve,

perhaps, because the inspection of what had been done, and more still the way in which successive steps had

been taken, had impressed him with the conviction that Charles Gould was perfectly capable of keeping up

"This young fellow," he thought to himself, "may yet become a power in the land."

This thought flattered him, for hitherto the only account of this young man he could give to his intimates

"My brotherinlaw met him in one of these onehorse old German towns, near some mines, and sent him

on to me with a letter. He's one of the Costaguana Goulds, purebred Englishmen, but all born in the country.

His uncle went into politics, was the last Provincial President of Sulaco, and got shot after a battle. His father

was a prominent business man in Sta. Marta, tried to keep clear of their politics, and died ruined after a lot of

Of course, he was too great a man to be questioned as to his motives, even by his intimates. The outside

world was at liberty to wonder respectfully at the hidden meaning of his actions. He was so great a man that

his lavish patronage of the "purer forms of Christianity" (which in its naive form of churchbuilding amused

Mrs. Gould) was looked upon by his fellowcitizens as the manifestation of a pious and humble spirit. But in

his own circles of the financial world the taking up of such a thing as the San Tome mine was regarded with

respect, indeed, but rather as a subject for discreet jocularity. It was a great man's caprice. In the great

Holroyd building (an enormous pile of iron, glass, and blocks of stone at the corner of two streets, cobwebbed

aloft by the radiation of telegraph wires) the heads of principal departments exchanged humorous glances,

which meant that they were not let into the secrets of the San Tome business. The Costaguana mail (it was

never largeone fairly heavy envelope) was taken unopened straight into the great man's room, and no

instructions dealing with it had ever been issued thence. The office whispered that he answered

personallyand not by dictation either, but actually writing in his own hand, with pen and ink, and, it was to

be supposed, taking a copy in his own private press copybook, inaccessible to profane eyes. Some scornful

young men, insignificant pieces of minor machinery in that elevenstoreyhigh workshop of great affairs,

expressed frankly their private opinion that the great chief had done at last something silly, and was ashamed

of his folly; others, elderly and insignificant, but full of romantic reverence for the business that had devoured

their best years, used to mutter darkly and knowingly that this was a portentous sign; that the Holroyd

connection meant byandby to get hold of the whole Republic of Costaguana, lock, stock, and barrel. But,

in fact, the hobby theory was the right one. It interested the great man to attend personally to the San Tome

mine; it interested him so much that he allowed this hobby to give a direction to the first complete holiday he

had taken for quite a startling number of years. He was not running a great enterprise there; no mere railway

board or industrial corporation. He was running a man! A success would have pleased him very much on

refreshingly novel grounds; but, on the other side of the same feeling, it was incumbent upon him to cast it

off utterly at the first sign of failure. A man may be thrown off. The papers had unfortunately trumpeted all

over the land his journey to Costaguana. If he was pleased at the way Charles Gould was going on, he infused

an added grimness into his assurances of support. Even at the very last interview, half an hour or so before he

rolled out of the patio, hat in hand, behind Mrs. Gould's white mules, he had said in Charles's room

"You go ahead in your own way, and I shall know how to help you as long as you hold your own. But you

To this Charles Gould's only answer had been: "You may begin sending out the machinery as soon as you

And the great man had liked this imperturbable assurance. The secret of it was that to Charles Gould's mind

these uncompromising terms were agreeable. Like this the mine preserved its identity, with which he had

endowed it as a boy; and it remained dependent on himself alone. It was a serious affair, and he, too, took it

"Of course," he said to his wife, alluding to this last conversation with the departed guest, while they walked

slowly up and down the corredor, followed by the irritated eye of the parrot"of course, a man of that sort

can take up a thing or drop it when he likes. He will suffer from no sense of defeat. He may have to give in,

or he may have to die tomorrow, but the great silver and iron interests will survive, and some day will get

They had stopped near the cage. The parrot, catching the sound of a word belonging to his vocabulary, was

"Viva Costaguana!" he shrieked, with intense selfassertion, and, instantly ruffling up his feathers, assumed

"And do you believe that, Charley?" Mrs. Gould asked. "This seems to me most awful materialism, and"

"My dear, it's nothing to me," interrupted her husband, in a reasonable tone. "I make use of what I see. What's

it to me whether his talk is the voice of destiny or simply a bit of claptrap eloquence? There's a good deal of

eloquence of one sort or another produced in both Americas. The air of the New World seems favourable to

the art of declamation. Have you forgotten how dear Avellanos can hold forth for hours here?"

"Oh, but that's different," protested Mrs. Gould, almost shocked. The allusion was not to the point. Don Jose

was a dear good man, who talked very well, and was enthusiastic about the greatness of the San Tome mine.

"How can you compare them, Charles?" she exclaimed, reproachfully. "He has sufferedand yet he hopes."

The working competence of menwhich she never questionedwas very surprising to Mrs. Gould, because

Charles Gould, with a careworn calmness which secured for him at once his wife's anxious sympathy, assured

her that he was not comparing. He was an American himself, after all, and perhaps he could understand both

kinds of eloquence"if it were worth while to try," he added, grimly. But he had breathed the air of England

longer than any of his people had done for three generations, and really he begged to be excused. His poor

father could be eloquent, too. And he asked his wife whether she remembered a passage in one of his father's

last letters where Mr. Gould had expressed the conviction that "God looked wrathfully at these countries, or

else He would let some ray of hope fall through a rift in the appalling darkness of intrigue, bloodshed, and

Mrs. Gould had not forgotten. "You read it to me, Charley," she murmured. "It was a striking

"He did not like to be robbed. It exasperated him," said Charles Gould. "But the image will serve well

enough. What is wanted here is law, good faith, order, security. Any one can declaim about these things, but I

pin my faith to material interests. Only let the material interests once get a firm footing, and they are bound to

impose the conditions on which alone they can continue to exist. That's how your moneymaking is justified

here in the face of lawlessness and disorder. It is justified because the security which it demands must be

shared with an oppressed people. A better justice will come afterwards. That's your ray of hope." His arm

pressed her slight form closer to his side for a moment. "And who knows whether in that sense even the San

Tome mine may not become that little rift in the darkness which poor father despaired of ever seeing?"

She glanced up at him with admiration. He was competent; he had given a vast shape to the vagueness of her

He left her suddenly in the corredor to go and get his hat, a soft, grey sombrero, an article of national costume

which combined unexpectedly well with his English getup. He came back, a ridingwhip under his arm,

buttoning up a dogskin glove; his face reflected the resolute nature of his thoughts. His wife had waited for

him at the head of the stairs, and before he gave her the parting kiss he finished the conversation

"What should be perfectly clear to us," he said, "is the fact that there is no going back. Where could we begin

He bent over her upturned face very tenderly and a little remorsefully. Charles Gould was competent because

he had no illusions. The Gould Concession had to fight for life with such weapons as could be found at once

in the mire of a corruption that was so universal as almost to lose its significance. He was prepared to stoop

for his weapons. For a moment he felt as if the silver mine, which had killed his father, had decoyed him

further than he meant to go; and with the roundabout logic of emotions, he felt that the worthiness of his life

"MRS. GOULD was too intelligently sympathetic not to share that feeling. It made life exciting, and she was

too much of a woman not to like excitement. But it frightened her, too, a little; and when Don Jose Avellanos,

rocking in the American chair, would go so far as to say, "Even, my dear Carlos, if you had failed; even if

some untoward event were yet to destroy your workwhich God forbid!you would have deserved well of

your country," Mrs. Gould would look up from the teatable profoundly at her unmoved husband stirring the

Not that Don Jose anticipated anything of the sort. He could not praise enough dear Carlos's tact and courage.

His English, rocklike quality of character was his best safeguard, Don Jose affirmed; and, turning to Mrs.

Gould, "As to you, Emilia, my soul"he would address her with the familiarity of his age and old

This might have been less or more than the truth. Mrs. Gould, accompanying her husband all over the

province in the search for labour, had seen the land with a deeper glance than a trueborn Costaguanera could

have done. In her travelworn riding habit, her face powdered white like a plaster cast, with a further

protection of a small silk mask during the heat of the day, she rode on a wellshaped, lightfooted pony in

the centre of a little cavalcade. Two mozos de campo, picturesque in great hats, with spurred bare heels, in

white embroidered calzoneras, leather jackets and striped ponchos, rode ahead with carbines across their

shoulders, swaying in unison to the pace of the horses. A tropilla of pack mules brought up the rear in charge

of a thin brown muleteer, sitting his longeared beast very near the tail, legs thrust far forward, the wide brim

of his hat set far back, making a sort of halo for his head. An old Costaguana officer, a retired senior major of

humble origin, but patronized by the first families on account of his Blanco opinions, had been recommended

by Don Jose for commissary and organizer of that expedition. The points of his grey moustache hung far

below his chin, and, riding on Mrs. Gould's left hand, he looked about with kindly eyes, pointing out the

features of the country, telling the names of the little pueblos and of the estates, of the smoothwalled

haciendas like long fortresses crowning the knolls above the level of the Sulaco Valley. It unrolled itself, with

green young crops, plains, woodland, and gleams of water, parklike, from the blue vapour of the distant

sierra to an immense quivering horizon of grass and sky, where big white clouds seemed to fall slowly into

Men ploughed with wooden ploughs and yoked oxen, small on a boundless expanse, as if attacking

immensity itself. The mounted figures of vaqueros galloped in the distance, and the great herds fed with all

their horned heads one way, in one single wavering line as far as eye could reach across the broad potreros. A

spreading cottonwool tree shaded a thatched ranche by the road; the trudging files of burdened Indians

taking off their hats, would lift sad, mute eyes to the cavalcade raising the dust of the crumbling camino real

made by the hands of their enslaved forefathers. And Mrs. Gould, with each day's journey, seemed to come

nearer to the soul of the land in the tremendous disclosure of this interior unaffected by the slight European

veneer of the coast towns, a great land of plain and mountain and people, suffering and mute, waiting for the

She knew its sights and its hospitality, dispensed with a sort of slumbrous dignity in those great houses

presenting long, blind walls and heavy portals to the windswept pastures. She was given the head of the

tables, where masters and dependants sat in a simple and patriarchal state. The ladies of the house would talk

softly in the moonlight under the orange trees of the courtyards, impressing upon her the sweetness of their

voices and the something mysterious in the quietude of their lives. In the morning the gentlemen, well

mounted in braided sombreros and embroidered riding suits, with much silver on the trappings of their

horses, would ride forth to escort the departing guests before committing them, with grave goodbyes, to the

care of God at the boundary pillars of their estates. In all these households she could hear stories of political

outrage; friends, relatives, ruined, imprisoned, killed in the battles of senseless civil wars, barbarously

executed in ferocious proscriptions, as though the government of the country had been a struggle of lust

between bands of absurd devils let loose upon the land with sabres and uniforms and grandiloquent phrases.

And on all the lips she found a weary desire for peace, the dread of officialdom with its nightmarish parody

She bore a whole two months of wandering very well; she had that power of resistance to fatigue which one

discovers here and there in some quite fraillooking women with surpriselike a state of possession by a

remarkably stubborn spirit. Don Pepethe old Costaguana majorafter much display of solicitude for the

delicate lady, had ended by conferring upon her the name of the "Nevertired Senora." Mrs. Gould was

indeed becoming a Costaguanera. Having acquired in Southern Europe a knowledge of true peasantry, she

was able to appreciate the great worth of the people. She saw the man under the silent, sadeyed beast of

burden. She saw them on the road carrying loads, lonely figures upon the plain, toiling under great straw hats,

with their white clothing flapping about their limbs in the wind; she remembered the villages by some group

of Indian women at the fountain impressed upon her memory, by the face of some young Indian girl with a

melancholy and sensual profile, raising an earthenware vessel of cool water at the door of a dark hut with a

wooden porch cumbered with great brown jars. The solid wooden wheels of an oxcart, halted with its shafts

in the dust, showed the strokes of the axe; and a party of charcoal carriers, with each man's load resting above

his head on the top of the low mud wall, slept stretched in a row within the strip of shade.

The heavy stonework of bridges and churches left by the conquerors proclaimed the disregard of human

labour, the tributelabour of vanished nations. The power of king and church was gone, but at the sight of

some heavy ruinous pile overtopping from a knoll the low mud walls of a village, Don Pepe would interrupt

"Poor Costaguana! Before, it was everything for the Padres, nothing for the people; and now it is everything

Charles talked with the alcaldes, with the fiscales, with the principal people in towns, and with the caballeros

on the estates. The commandantes of the districts offered him escortsfor he could show an authorization

from the Sulaco political chief of the day. How much the document had cost him in gold twentydollar

pieces was a secret between himself, a great man in the United States (who condescended to answer the

Sulaco mail with his own hand), and a great man of another sort, with a dark olive complexion and shifty

eyes, inhabiting then the Palace of the Intendencia in Sulaco, and who piqued himself on his culture and

Europeanism generally in a rather French style because he had lived in Europe for some yearsin exile, he

said. However, it was pretty well known that just before this exile he had incautiously gambled away all the

cash in the Custom House of a small port where a friend in power had procured for him the post of

subcollector. That youthful indiscretion had, amongst other inconveniences, obliged him to earn his living for

a time as a cafe waiter in Madrid; but his talents must have been great, after all, since they had enabled him to

retrieve his political fortunes so splendidly. Charles Gould, exposing his business with an imperturbable

The provincial Excellency assumed a weary superiority, tilting his chair far back near an open window in the

true Costaguana manner. The military band happened to be braying operatic selections on the plaza just then,

and twice he raised his hand imperatively for silence in order to listen to a favourite passage.

"Exquisite, delicious!" he murmured; while Charles Gould waited, standing by with inscrutable patience.

"Lucia, Lucia di Lammermoor! I am passionate for music. It transports me. Ha! the divineha!Mozart.

Of course, rumours had reached him already of the newcomer's intentions. Besides, he had received an

official warning from Sta. Marta. His manner was intended simply to conceal his curiosity and impress his

visitor. But after he had locked up something valuable in the drawer of a large writingdesk in a distant part

"If you intend to build villages and assemble a population near the mine, you shall require a decree of the

"I have already sent a memorial," said Charles Gould, steadily, "and I reckon now confidently upon your

The Excellency was a man of many moods. With the receipt of the money a great mellowness had descended

"Ah, Don Carlos! What we want is advanced men like you in the province. The lethargythe lethargy of

these aristocrats! The want of public spirit! The absence of all enterprise! I, with my profound studies in

With one hand thrust into his swelling bosom, he rose and fell on his toes, and for ten minutes, almost

without drawing breath, went on hurling himself intellectually to the assault of Charles Gould's polite silence;

and when, stopping abruptly, he fell back into his chair, it was as though he had been beaten off from a

fortress. To save his dignity he hastened to dismiss this silent man with a solemn inclination of the head and

"You may depend upon my enlightened goodwill as long as your conduct as a good citizen deserves it."

He took up a paper fan and began to cool himself with a consequential air, while Charles Gould bowed and

withdrew. Then he dropped the fan at once, and stared with an appearance of wonder and perplexity at the

closed door for quite a long time. At last he shrugged his shoulders as if to assure himself of his disdain.

His face darkened. What meant this unimpressed and frigid behaviour? He was the first of the successive

politicians sent out from the capital to rule the Occidental Province whom the manner of Charles Gould in

Charles Gould assumed that if the appearance of listening to deplorable balderdash must form part of the

price he had to pay for being left unmolested, the obligation of uttering balderdash personally was by no

means included in the bargain. He drew the line there. To these provincial autocrats, before whom the

peaceable population of all classes had been accustomed to tremble, the reserve of that Englishlooking

engineer caused an uneasiness which swung to and fro between cringing and truculence. Gradually all of

them discovered that, no matter what party was in power, that man remained in most effective touch with the

This was a fact, and it accounted perfectly for the Goulds being by no means so wealthy as the

engineerinchief on the new railway could legitimately suppose. Following the advice of Don Jose

Avellanos, who was a man of good counsel (though rendered timid by his horrible experiences of Guzman

Bento's time), Charles Gould had kept clear of the capital; but in the current gossip of the foreign residents

there he was known (with a good deal of seriousness underlying the irony) by the nickname of "King of

Sulaco." An advocate of the Costaguana Bar, a man of reputed ability and good character, member of the

distinguished Moraga family possessing extensive estates in the Sulaco Valley, was pointed out to strangers,

with a shade of mystery and respect, as the agent of the San Tome mine"political, you know." He was tall,

blackwhiskered, and discreet. It was known that he had easy access to ministers, and that the numerous

Costaguana generals were always anxious to dine at his house. Presidents granted him audience with facility.

He corresponded actively with his maternal uncle, Don Jose Avellanos; but his lettersunless those

expressing formally his dutiful affectionwere seldom entrusted to the Costaguana Post Office. There the

envelopes are opened, indiscriminately, with the frankness of a brazen and childish impudence characteristic

of some SpanishAmerican Governments. But it must be noted that at about the time of the reopening of the

San Tome mine the muleteer who had been employed by Charles Gould in his preliminary travels on the

Campo added his small train of animals to the thin stream of traffic carried over the mountain passes between

the Sta. Marta upland and the Valley of Sulaco. There are no travellers by that arduous and unsafe route

unless under very exceptional circumstances, and the state of inland trade did not visibly require additional

transport facilities; but the man seemed to find his account in it. A few packages were always found for him

whenever he took the road. Very brown and wooden, in goatskin breeches with the hair outside, he sat near

the tail of his own smart mule, his great hat turned against the sun, an expression of blissful vacancy on his

long face, humming day after day a lovesong in a plaintive key, or, without a change of expression, letting

out a yell at his small tropilla in front. A round little guitar hung high up on his back; and there was a place

scooped out artistically in the wood of one of his packsaddles where a tightly rolled piece of paper could be

slipped in, the wooden plug replaced, and the coarse canvas nailed on again. When in Sulaco it was his

practice to smoke and doze all day long (as though he had no care in the world) on a stone bench outside the

doorway of the Casa Gould and facing the windows of the Avellanos house. Years and years ago his mother

had been chief laundrywoman in that familyvery accomplished in the matter of clearstarching. He

himself had been born on one of their haciendas. His name was Bonifacio, and Don Jose, crossing the street

about five o'clock to call on Dona Emilia, always acknowledged his humble salute by some movement of

hand or head. The porters of both houses conversed lazily with him in tones of grave intimacy. His evenings

he devoted to gambling and to calls in a spirit of generous festivity upon the peyne d'oro girls in the more

THOSE of us whom business or curiosity took to Sulaco in these years before the first advent of the railway

can remember the steadying effect of the San Tome mine upon the life of that remote province. The outward

appearances had not changed then as they have changed since, as I am told, with cable cars running along the

streets of the Constitution, and carriage roads far into the country, to Rincon and other villages, where the

foreign merchants and the Ricos generally have their modern villas, and a vast railway goods yard by the

harbour, which has a quayside, a long range of warehouses, and quite serious, organized labour troubles of

Nobody had ever heard of labour troubles then. The Cargadores of the port formed, indeed, an unruly

brotherhood of all sorts of scum, with a patron saint of their own. They went on strike regularly (every

bullfight day), a form of trouble that even Nostromo at the height of his prestige could never cope with

efficiently; but the morning after each fiesta, before the Indian marketwomen had opened their mat parasols

on the plaza, when the snows of Higuerota gleamed pale over the town on a yet black sky, the appearance of

a phantomlike horseman mounted on a silvergrey mare solved the problem of labour without fail. His

steed paced the lanes of the slums and the weedgrown enclosures within the old ramparts, between the

black, lightless cluster of huts, like cowbyres, like dogkennels. The horseman hammered with the butt of a

heavy revolver at the doors of low pulperias, of obscene leanto sheds sloping against the tumbledown

piece of a noble wall, at the wooden sides of dwellings so flimsy that the sound of snores and sleepy mutters

within could be heard in the pauses of the thundering clatter of his blows. He called out men's names

menacingly from the saddle, once, twice. The drowsy answersgrumpy, conciliating, savage, jocular, or

deprecatingcame out into the silent darkness in which the horseman sat still, and presently a dark figure

would flit out coughing in the still air. Sometimes a lowtoned woman cried through the windowhole softly,

"He's coming directly, senor," and the horseman waited silent on a motionless horse. But if perchance he had

to dismount, then, after a while, from the door of that hovel or of that pulperia, with a ferocious scuffle and

stifled imprecations, a cargador would fly out head first and hands abroad, to sprawl under the forelegs of the

silvergrey mare, who only pricked forward her sharp little ears. She was used to that work; and the man,

picking himself up, would walk away hastily from Nostromo's revolver, reeling a little along the street and

snarling low curses. At sunrise Captain Mitchell, coming out anxiously in his night attire on to the wooden

balcony running the whole length of the O.S.N. Company's lonely building by the shore, would see the

lighters already under way, figures moving busily about the cargo cranes, perhaps hear the invaluable

Nostromo, now dismounted and in the checked shirt and red sash of a Mediterranean sailor, bawling orders

The material apparatus of perfected civilization which obliterates the individuality of old towns under the

stereotyped conveniences of modern life had not intruded as yet; but over the wornout antiquity of Sulaco,

so characteristic with its stuccoed houses and barred windows, with the great yellowywhite walls of

abandoned convents behind the rows of sombre green cypresses, that factvery modern in its spiritthe

San Tome mine had already thrown its subtle influence. It had altered, too, the outward character of the

crowds on feast days on the plaza before the open portal of the cathedral, by the number of white ponchos

with a green stripe affected as holiday wear by the San Tome miners. They had also adopted white hats with

green cord and braidarticles of good quality, which could be obtained in the storehouse of the

administration for very little money. A peaceable Cholo wearing these colours (unusual in Costaguana) was

somehow very seldom beaten to within an inch of his life on a charge of disrespect to the town police; neither

ran he much risk of being suddenly lassoed on the road by a recruiting party of lancerosa method of

voluntary enlistment looked upon as almost legal in the Republic. Whole villages were known to have

volunteered for the army in that way; but, as Don Pepe would say with a hopeless shrug to Mrs. Gould,

"What would you! Poor people! Pobrecitos! Pobrecitos! But the State must have its soldiers."

Thus professionally spoke Don Pepe, the fighter, with pendent moustaches, a nutbrown, lean face, and a

clean run of a castiron jaw, suggesting the type of a cattleherd horseman from the great Llanos of the

South. "If you will listen to an old officer of Paez, senores," was the exordium of all his speeches in the

Aristocratic Club of Sulaco, where he was admitted on account of his past services to the extinct cause of

Federation. The club, dating from the days of the proclamation of Costaguana's independence, boasted many

names of liberators amongst its first founders. Suppressed arbitrarily innumerable times by various

Governments, with memories of proscriptions and of at least one wholesale massacre of its members, sadly

assembled for a banquet by the order of a zealous military commandante (their bodies were afterwards

stripped naked and flung into the plaza out of the windows by the lowest scum of the populace), it was again

flourishing, at that period, peacefully. It extended to strangers the large hospitality of the cool, big rooms of

its historic quarters in the front part of a house, once the residence of a high official of the Holy Office. The

two wings, shut up, crumbled behind the nailed doors, and what may be described as a grove of young orange

trees grown in the unpaved patio concealed the utter ruin of the back part facing the gate. You turned in from

the street, as if entering a secluded orchard, where you came upon the foot of a disjointed staircase, guarded

by a mossstained effigy of some saintly bishop, mitred and staffed, and bearing the indignity of a broken

nose meekly, with his fine stone hands crossed on his breast. The chocolatecoloured faces of servants with

mops of black hair peeped at you from above; the click of billiard balls came to your ears, and ascending the

steps, you would perhaps see in the first sala, very stiff upon a straightbacked chair, in a good light, Don

Pepe moving his long moustaches as he spelt his way, at arm's length, through an old Sta. Marta newspaper.

His horsea stonyhearted but persevering black brute with a hammer headyou would have seen in the

street dozing motionless under an immense saddle, with its nose almost touching the curbstone of the

Don Pepe, when "down from the mountain," as the phrase, often heard in Sulaco, went, could also be seen in

the drawingroom of the Casa Gould. He sat with modest assurance at some distance from the teatable.

With his knees close together, and a kindly twinkle of drollery in his deepset eyes, he would throw his small

and ironic pleasantries into the current of conversation. There was in that man a sort of sane, humorous

shrewdness, and a vein of genuine humanity so often found in simple old soldiers of proved courage who

have seen much desperate service. Of course he knew nothing whatever of mining, but his employment was

of a special kind. He was in charge of the whole population in the territory of the mine, which extended from

the head of the gorge to where the cart track from the foot of the mountain enters the plain, crossing a stream

over a little wooden bridge painted greengreen, the colour of hope, being also the colour of the mine.

It was reported in Sulaco that up there "at the mountain" Don Pepe walked about precipitous paths, girt with a

great sword and in a shabby uniform with tarnished bullion epaulettes of a senior major. Most miners being

Indians, with big wild eyes, addressed him as Taita (father), as these barefooted people of Costaguana will

address anybody who wears shoes; but it was Basilio, Mr. Gould's own mozo and the head servant of the

Casa, who, in all good faith and from a sense of propriety, announced him once in the solemn words, "El

Don Jose Avellanos, then in the drawingroom, was delighted beyond measure at the aptness of the title, with

which he greeted the old major banteringly as soon as the latter's soldierly figure appeared in the doorway.

Don Pepe only smiled in his long moustaches, as much as to say, "You might have found a worse name for

And El Senor Gobernador he had remained, with his small jokes upon his function and upon his domain,

"No two stones could come together anywhere without the Gobernador hearing the click, senora."

And he would tap his ear with the tip of his forefinger knowingly. Even when the number of the miners alone

rose to over six hundred he seemed to know each of them individually, all the innumerable Joses, Manuels,

Ignacios, from the villages primerosegundoor tercero (there were three mining villages) under his

government. He could distinguish them not only by their flat, joyless faces, which to Mrs. Gould looked all

alike, as if run into the same ancestral mould of suffering and patience, but apparently also by the infinitely

graduated shades of reddishbrown, of blackishbrown, of copperybrown backs, as the two shifts, stripped

to linen drawers and leather skullcaps, mingled together with a confusion of naked limbs, of shouldered

picks, swinging lamps, in a great shuffle of sandalled feet on the open plateau before the entrance of the main

tunnel. It was a time of pause. The Indian boys leaned idly against the long line of little cradle wagons

standing empty; the screeners and orebreakers squatted on their heels smoking long cigars; the great

wooden shoots slanting over the edge of the tunnel plateau were silent; and only the ceaseless, violent rush of

water in the open flumes could be heard, murmuring fiercely, with the splash and rumble of revolving

turbinewheels, and the thudding march of the stamps pounding to powder the treasure rock on the plateau

below. The heads of gangs, distinguished by brass medals hanging on their bare breasts, marshalled their

squads; and at last the mountain would swallow onehalf of the silent crowd, while the other half would

move off in long files down the zigzag paths leading to the bottom of the gorge. It was deep; and, far below, a

thread of vegetation winding between the blazing rock faces resembled a slender green cord, in which three

lumpy knots of banana patches, palmleaf roots, and shady trees marked the Village One, Village Two,

Whole families had been moving from the first towards the spot in the Higuerota range, whence the rumour

of work and safety had spread over the pastoral Campo, forcing its way also, even as the waters of a high

flood, into the nooks and crannies of the distant blue walls of the Sierras. Father first, in a pointed straw hat,

then the mother with the bigger children, generally also a diminutive donkey, all under burdens, except the

leader himself, or perhaps some grown girl, the pride of the family, stepping barefooted and straight as an

arrow, with braids of raven hair, a thick, haughty profile, and no load to carry but the small guitar of the

country and a pair of soft leather sandals tied together on her back. At the sight of such parties strung out on

the cross trails between the pastures, or camped by the side of the royal road, travellers on horseback would

And spurring on in the dusk they would discuss the great news of the province, the news of the San Tome

mine. A rich Englishman was going to work itand perhaps not an Englishman, Quien sabe! A foreigner

with much money. Oh, yes, it had begun. A party of men who had been to Sulaco with a herd of black bulls

for the next corrida had reported that from the porch of the posada in Rincon, only a short league from the

town, the lights on the mountain were visible, twinkling above the trees. And there was a woman seen riding

a horse sideways, not in the chair seat, but upon a sort of saddle, and a man's hat on her head. She walked

"Ah, well! if your worship is informed. Una Americana; it need be something of that sort."

And they would laugh a little with astonishment and scorn, keeping a wary eye on the shadows of the road,

And it was not only the men that Don Pepe knew so well, but he seemed able, with one attentive, thoughtful

glance, to classify each woman, girl, or growing youth of his domain. It was only the small fry that puzzled

him sometimes. He and the padre could be seen frequently side by side, meditative and gazing across the

street of a village at a lot of sedate brown children, trying to sort them out, as it were, in low, consulting

tones, or else they would together put searching questions as to the parentage of some small, staid urchin met

wandering, naked and grave, along the road with a cigar in his baby mouth, and perhaps his mother's rosary,

purloined for purposes of ornamentation, hanging in a loop of beads low down on his rotund little stomach.

The spiritual and temporal pastors of the mine flock were very good friends. With Dr. Monygham, the

medical pastor, who had accepted the charge from Mrs. Gould, and lived in the hospital building, they were

on not so intimate terms. But no one could be on intimate terms with El Senor Doctor, who, with his twisted

shoulders, drooping head, sardonic mouth, and sidelong bitter glance, was mysterious and uncanny. The

other two authorities worked in harmony. Father Roman, driedup, small, alert, wrinkled, with big round

eyes, a sharp chin, and a great snufftaker, was an old campaigner, too; he had shriven many simple souls on

the battlefields of the Republic, kneeling by the dying on hillsides, in the long grass, in the gloom of the

forests, to hear the last confession with the smell of gunpowder smoke in his nostrils, the rattle of muskets,

the hum and spatter of bullets in his ears. And where was the harm if, at the presbytery, they had a game with

a pack of greasy cards in the early evening, before Don Pepe went his last rounds to see that all the watchmen

of the minea body organized by himselfwere at their posts? For that last duty before he slept Don Pepe

did actually gird his old sword on the verandah of an unmistakable American white frame house, which

Father Roman called the presbytery. Near by, a long, low, dark building, steepleroofed, like a vast barn with

a wooden cross over the gable, was the miners' chapel. There Father Roman said Mass every day before a

sombre altarpiece representing the Resurrection, the grey slab of the tombstone balanced on one corner, a

figure soaring upwards, longlimbed and livid, in an oval of pallid light, and a helmeted brown legionary

smitten down, right across the bituminous foreground. "This picture, my children, muy linda e maravillosa,"

Father Roman would say to some of his flock, "which you behold here through the munificence of the wife of

our Senor Administrador, has been painted in Europe, a country of saints and miracles, and much greater than

our Costaguana." And he would take a pinch of snuff with unction. But when once an inquisitive spirit

desired to know in what direction this Europe was situated, whether up or down the coast, Father Roman, to

conceal his perplexity, became very reserved and severe. "No doubt it is extremely far away. But ignorant

sinners like you of the San Tome mine should think earnestly of everlasting punishment instead of inquiring

into the magnitude of the earth, with its countries and populations altogether beyond your understanding."

With a "Goodnight, Padre," "Goodnight, Don Pepe," the Gobernador would go off, holding up his sabre

against his side, his body bent forward, with a long, plodding stride in the dark. The jocularity proper to an

innocent card game for a few cigars or a bundle of yerba was replaced at once by the stern duty mood of an

officer setting out to visit the outposts of an encamped army. One loud blast of the whistle that hung from his

neck provoked instantly a great shrilling of responding whistles, mingled with the barking of dogs, that would

calm down slowly at last, away up at the head of the gorge; and in the stillness two serenos, on guard by the

bridge, would appear walking noiselessly towards him. On one side of the road a long frame buildingthe

storewould be closed and barricaded from end to end; facing it another white frame house, still longer, and

with a verandahthe hospitalwould have lights in the two windows of Dr. Monygham's quarters. Even

the delicate foliage of a clump of pepper trees did not stir, so breathless would be the darkness warmed by the

radiation of the overheated rocks. Don Pepe would stand still for a moment with the two motionless serenos

before him, and, abruptly, high up on the sheer face of the mountain, dotted with single torches, like drops of

fire fallen from the two great blazing clusters of lights above, the ore shoots would begin to rattle. The great

clattering, shuffling noise, gathering speed and weight, would be caught up by the walls of the gorge, and

sent upon the plain in a growl of thunder. The pasadero in Rincon swore that on calm nights, by listening

intently, he could catch the sound in his doorway as of a storm in the mountains.

To Charles Gould's fancy it seemed that the sound must reach the uttermost limits of the province. Riding at

night towards the mine, it would meet him at the edge of a little wood just beyond Rincon. There was no

mistaking the growling mutter of the mountain pouring its stream of treasure under the stamps; and it came to

his heart with the peculiar force of a proclamation thundered forth over the land and the marvellousness of an

accomplished fact fulfilling an audacious desire. He had heard this very sound in his imagination on that

faroff evening when his wife and himself, after a tortuous ride through a strip of forest, had reined in their

horses near the stream, and had gazed for the first time upon the junglegrown solitude of the gorge. The

head of a palm rose here and there. In a high ravine round the corner of the San Tome mountain (which is

square like a blockhouse) the thread of a slender waterfall flashed bright and glassy through the dark green of

the heavy fronds of treeferns. Don Pepe, in attendance, rode up, and, stretching his arm up the gorge, had

And then they had wheeled their horses and ridden back to sleep that night at Rincon. The alcaldean old,

skinny Moreno, a sergeant of Guzman Bento's timehad cleared respectfully out of his house with his three

pretty daughters, to make room for the foreign senora and their worships the Caballeros. All he asked Charles

Gould (whom he took for a mysterious and official person) to do for him was to remind the supreme

GovernmentEl Gobierno supremeof a pension (amounting to about a dollar a month) to which he

believed himself entitled. It had been promised to him, he affirmed, straightening his bent back martially,

"many years ago, for my valour in the wars with the wild Indios when a young man, senor."

The waterfall existed no longer. The treeferns that had luxuriated in its spray had died around the driedup

pool, and the high ravine was only a big trench half filled up with the refuse of excavations and tailings. The

torrent, dammed up above, sent its water rushing along the open flumes of scooped tree trunks striding on

trestlelegs to the turbines working the stamps on the lower plateauthe mesa grande of the San Tome

mountain. Only the memory of the waterfall, with its amazing fernery, like a hanging garden above the rocks

of the gorge, was preserved in Mrs. Gould's watercolour sketch; she had made it hastily one day from a

cleared patch in the bushes, sitting in the shade of a roof of straw erected for her on three rough poles under

Mrs. Gould had seen it all from the beginning: the clearing of the wilderness, the making of the road, the

cutting of new paths up the cliff face of San Tome. For weeks together she had lived on the spot with her

husband; and she was so little in Sulaco during that year that the appearance of the Gould carriage on the

Alameda would cause a social excitement. From the heavy family coaches full of stately senoras and

blackeyed senoritas rolling solemnly in the shaded alley white hands were waved towards her with

But not for long. Dona Emilia would be gone "up to the mountain" in a day or two, and her sleek carriage

mules would have an easy time of it for another long spell. She had watched the erection of the first

framehouse put up on the lower mesa for an office and Don Pepe's quarters; she heard with a thrill of

thankful emotion the first wagon load of ore rattle down the then only shoot; she had stood by her husband's

side perfectly silent, and gone cold all over with excitement at the instant when the first battery of only fifteen

stamps was put in motion for the first time. On the occasion when the fires under the first set of retorts in

their shed had glowed far into the night she did not retire to rest on the rough cadre set up for her in the as yet

bare framehouse till she had seen the first spongy lump of silver yielded to the hazards of the world by the

dark depths of the Gould Concession; she had laid her unmercenary hands, with an eagerness that made them

tremble, upon the first silver ingot turned out still warm from the mould; and by her imaginative estimate of

its power she endowed that lump of metal with a justificative conception, as though it were not a mere fact,

but something farreaching and impalpable, like the true expression of an emotion or the emergence of a

Don Pepe, extremely interested, too, looked over her shoulder with a smile that, making longitudinal folds on

his face, caused it to resemble a leathern mask with a benignantly diabolic expression.

"Would not the muchachos of Hernandez like to get hold of this insignificant object, that looks, por Dios,

Hernandez, the robber, had been an inoffensive, small ranchero, kidnapped with circumstances of peculiar

atrocity from his home during one of the civil wars, and forced to serve in the army. There his conduct as

soldier was exemplary, till, watching his chance, he killed his colonel, and managed to get clear away. With a

band of deserters, who chose him for their chief, he had taken refuge beyond the wild and waterless Bolson

de Tonoro. The haciendas paid him blackmail in cattle and horses; extraordinary stories were told of his

powers and of his wonderful escapes from capture. He used to ride, singlehanded, into the villages and the

little towns on the Campo, driving a pack mule before him, with two revolvers in his belt, go straight to the

shop or store, select what he wanted, and ride away unopposed because of the terror his exploits and his

audacity inspired. Poor country people he usually left alone; the upper class were often stopped on the roads

and robbed; but any unlucky official that fell into his hands was sure to get a severe flogging. The army

officers did not like his name to be mentioned in their presence. His followers, mounted on stolen horses,

laughed at the pursuit of the regular cavalry sent to hunt them down, and whom they took pleasure to ambush

most scientifically in the broken ground of their own fastness. Expeditions had been fitted out; a price had

been put upon his head; even attempts had been made, treacherously of course, to open negotiations with

him, without in the slightest way affecting the even tenor of his career. At last, in true Costaguana fashion,

the Fiscal of Tonoro, who was ambitious of the glory of having reduced the famous Hernandez, offered him a

sum of money and a safe conduct out of the country for the betrayal of his band. But Hernandez evidently

was not of the stuff of which the distinguished military politicians and conspirators of Costaguana are made.

This clever but common device (which frequently works like a charm in putting down revolutions) failed

with the chief of vulgar Salteadores. It promised well for the Fiscal at first, but ended very badly for the

squadron of lanceros posted (by the Fiscal's directions) in a fold of the ground into which Hernandez had

promised to lead his unsuspecting followers They came, indeed, at the appointed time, but creeping on their

hands and knees through the bush, and only let their presence be known by a general discharge of firearms,

which emptied many saddles. The troopers who escaped came riding very hard into Tonoro. It is said that

their commanding officer (who, being better mounted, rode far ahead of the rest) afterwards got into a state of

despairing intoxication and beat the ambitious Fiscal severely with the flat of his sabre in the presence of his

wife and daughters, for bringing this disgrace upon the National Army. The highest civil official of Tonoro,

falling to the ground in a swoon, was further kicked all over the body and rowelled with sharp spurs about the

neck and face because of the great sensitiveness of his military colleague. This gossip of the inland Campo,

so characteristic of the rulers of the country with its story of oppression, inefficiency, fatuous methods,

treachery, and savage brutality, was perfectly known to Mrs. Gould. That it should be accepted with no

indignant comment by people of intelligence, refinement, and character as something inherent in the nature of

things was one of the symptoms of degradation that had the power to exasperate her almost to the verge of

despair. Still looking at the ingot of silver, she shook her head at Don Pepe's remark

"If it had not been for the lawless tyranny of your Government, Don Pepe, many an outlaw now with

"Senora," cried Don Pepe, with enthusiasm, "it is true! It is as if God had given you the power to look into the

very breasts of people. You have seen them working round you, Dona Emiliameek as lambs, patient like

their own burros, brave like lions. I have led them to the very muzzles of gunsI, who stand here before

you, senorain the time of Paez, who was full of generosity, and in courage only approached by the uncle of

Don Carlos here, as far as I know. No wonder there are bandits in the Campo when there are none but

thieves, swindlers, and sanguinary macaques to rule us in Sta. Marta. However, all the same, a bandit is a

bandit, and we shall have a dozen good straight Winchesters to ride with the silver down to Sulaco."

Mrs. Gould's ride with the first silver escort to Sulaco was the closing episode of what she called "my camp

life" before she had settled in her townhouse permanently, as was proper and even necessary for the wife of

the administrator of such an important institution as the San Tome mine. For the San Tome mine was to

become an institution, a rallying point for everything in the province that needed order and stability to live.

Security seemed to flow upon this land from the mountaingorge. The authorities of Sulaco had learned that

the San Tome mine could make it worth their while to leave things and people alone. This was the nearest

approach to the rule of commonsense and justice Charles Gould felt it possible to secure at first. In fact, the

mine, with its organization, its population growing fiercely attached to their position of privileged safety,

with its armoury, with its Don Pepe, with its armed body of serenos (where, it was said, many an outlaw and

deserterand even some members of Hernandez's bandhad found a place), the mine was a power in the

land. As a certain prominent man in Sta. Marta had exclaimed with a hollow laugh, once, when discussing the

"You call these men Government officials? They? Never! They are officials of the mineofficials of the

The prominent man (who was then a person in power, with a lemoncoloured face and a very short and curly,

not to say woolly, head of hair) went so far in his temporary discontent as to shake his yellow fist under the

"Yes! All! Silence! All! I tell you! The political Gefe, the chief of the police, the chief of the customs, the

Thereupon an intrepid but low and argumentative murmur would flow on for a space in the ministerial

cabinet, and the prominent man's passion would end in a cynical shrug of the shoulders. After all, he seemed

to say, what did it matter as long as the minister himself was not forgotten during his brief day of authority?

But all the same, the unofficial agent of the San Tome mine, working for a good cause, had his moments of

anxiety, which were reflected in his letters to Don Jose Avellanos, his maternal uncle.

"No sanguinary macaque from Sta. Marta shall set foot on that part of Costaguana which lies beyond the San

Tome bridge," Don Pepe used to assure Mrs. Gould. "Except, of course, as an honoured guestfor our Senor

Administrador is a deep politico." But to Charles Gould, in his own room, the old Major would remark with a

Don Jose Avellanos would mutter "Imperium in imperio, Emilia, my soul," with an air of profound

selfsatisfaction which, somehow, in a curious way, seemed to contain a queer admixture of bodily

discomfort. But that, perhaps, could only be visible to the initiated. And for the initiated it was a wonderful

place, this drawingroom of the Casa Gould, with its momentary glimpses of the masterEl Senor

Administradorolder, harder, mysteriously silent, with the lines deepened on his English, ruddy,

outofdoors complexion; flitting on his thin cavalryman's legs across the doorways, either just "back from

the mountain" or with jingling spurs and ridingwhip under his arm, on the point of starting "for the

mountain." Then Don Pepe, modestly martial in his chair, the llanero who seemed somehow to have found

his martial jocularity, his knowledge of the world, and his manner perfect for his station, in the midst of

savage armed contests with his kind; Avellanos, polished and familiar, the diplomatist with his loquacity

covering much caution and wisdom in delicate advice, with his manuscript of a historical work on

Costaguana, entitled "Fifty Years of Misrule," which, at present, he thought it was not prudent (even if it

were possible) "to give to the world"; these three, and also Dona Emilia amongst them, gracious, small, and

fairylike, before the glittering teaset, with one common masterthought in their heads, with one common

feeling of a tense situation, with one everpresent aim to preserve the inviolable character of the mine at

every cost. And there was also to be seen Captain Mitchell, a little apart, near one of the long windows, with

an air of oldfashioned neat old bachelorhood about him, slightly pompous, in a white waistcoat, a little

disregarded and unconscious of it; utterly in the dark, and imagining himself to be in the thick of things. The

good man, having spent a clear thirty years of his life on the high seas before getting what he called a "shore

billet," was astonished at the importance of transactions (other than relating to shipping) which take place on

dry land. Almost every event out of the usual daily course "marked an epoch" for him or else was "history";

unless with his pomposity struggling with a discomfited droop of his rubicund, rather handsome face, set off

The reception of the first consignment of San Tome silver for shipment to San Francisco in one of the O.S.N.

Co.'s mailboats had, of course, "marked an epoch" for Captain Mitchell. The ingots packed in boxes of stiff

oxhide with plaited handles, small enough to be carried easily by two men, were brought down by the

serenos of the mine walking in careful couples along the halfmile or so of steep, zigzag paths to the foot of

the mountain. There they would be loaded into a string of twowheeled carts, resembling roomy coffers with

a door at the back, and harnessed tandem with two mules each, waiting under the guard of armed and

mounted serenos. Don Pepe padlocked each door in succession, and at the signal of his whistle the string of

carts would move off, closely surrounded by the clank of spur and carbine, with jolts and cracking of whips,

with a sudden deep rumble over the boundary bridge ("into the land of thieves and sanguinary macaques,"

Don Pepe defined that crossing); hats bobbing in the first light of the dawn, on the heads of cloaked figures;

Winchesters on hip; bridle hands protruding lean and brown from under the falling folds of the ponchos. The

convoy skirting a little wood, along the mine trail, between the mud huts and low walls of Rincon, increased

its pace on the camino real, mules urged to speed, escort galloping, Don Carlos riding alone ahead of a dust

storm affording a vague vision of long ears of mules, of fluttering little green and white flags stuck upon each

cart; of raised arms in a mob of sombreros with the white gleam of ranging eyes; and Don Pepe, hardly

visible in the rear of that rattling dust trail, with a stiff seat and impassive face, rising and falling rhythmically

The sleepy people in the little clusters of huts, in the small ranches near the road, recognized by the headlong

sound the charge of the San Tome silver escort towards the crumbling wall of the city on the Campo side.

They came to the doors to see it dash by over ruts and stones, with a clatter and clank and cracking of whips,

with the reckless rush and precise driving of a field battery hurrying into action, and the solitary English

In the fenced roadside paddocks loose horses galloped wildly for a while; the heavy cattle stood up breast

deep in the grass, lowing mutteringly at the flying noise; a meek Indian villager would glance back once and

hasten to shove his loaded little donkey bodily against a wall, out of the way of the San Tome silver escort

going to the sea; a small knot of chilly leperos under the Stone Horse of the Alameda would mutter:

"Caramba!" on seeing it take a wide curve at a gallop and dart into the empty Street of the Constitution; for it

was considered the correct thing, the only proper style by the muledrivers of the San Tome mine to go

through the waking town from end to end without a check in the speed as if chased by a devil.

The early sunshine glowed on the delicate primrose, pale pink, pale blue fronts of the big houses with all their

gates shut yet, and no face behind the iron bars of the windows. In the whole sunlit range of empty balconies

along the street only one white figure would be visible high up above the clear pavementthe wife of the

Senor Administradorleaning over to see the escort go by to the harbour, a mass of heavy, fair hair twisted

up negligently on her little head, and a lot of lace about the neck of her muslin wrapper. With a smile to her

husband's single, quick, upward glance, she would watch the whole thing stream past below her feet with an

orderly uproar, till she answered by a friendly sign the salute of the galloping Don Pepe, the stiff, deferential

The string of padlocked carts lengthened, the size of the escort grew bigger as the years went on. Every three

months an increasing stream of treasure swept through the streets of Sulaco on its way to the strong room in

the O.S.N. Co.'s building by the harbour, there to await shipment for the North. Increasing in volume, and of

immense value also; for, as Charles Gould told his wife once with some exultation, there had never been seen

anything in the world to approach the vein of the Gould Concession. For them both, each passing of the

escort under the balconies of the Casa Gould was like another victory gained in the conquest of peace for

No doubt the initial action of Charles Gould had been helped at the beginning by a period of comparative

peace which occurred just about that time; and also by the general softening of manners as compared with the

epoch of civil wars whence had emerged the iron tyranny of Guzman Bento of fearful memory. In the

contests that broke out at the end of his rule (which had kept peace in the country for a whole fifteen years)

there was more fatuous imbecility, plenty of cruelty and suffering still, but much less of the oldtime fierce

and blindly ferocious political fanaticism. It was all more vile, more base, more contemptible, and infinitely

more manageable in the very outspoken cynicism of motives. It was more clearly a brazenfaced scramble

for a constantly diminishing quantity of booty; since all enterprise had been stupidly killed in the land. Thus

it came to pass that the province of Sulaco, once the field of cruel party vengeances, had become in a way one

of the considerable prizes of political career. The great of the earth (in Sta. Marta) reserved the posts in the

old Occidental State to those nearest and dearest to them: nephews, brothers, husbands of favourite sisters,

bosom friends, trusty supportersor prominent supporters of whom perhaps they were afraid. It was the

blessed province of great opportunities and of largest salaries; for the San Tome mine had its own unofficial

pay list, whose items and amounts, fixed in consultation by Charles Gould and Senor Avellanos, were known

to a prominent business man in the United States, who for twenty minutes or so in every month gave his

undivided attention to Sulaco affairs. At the same time the material interests of all sorts, backed up by the

influence of the San Tome mine, were quietly gathering substance in that part of the Republic. If, for

instance, the Sulaco Collectorship was generally understood, in the political world of the capital, to open the

way to the Ministry of Finance, and so on for every official post, then, on the other hand, the despondent

business circles of the Republic had come to consider the Occidental Province as the promised land of safety,

especially if a man managed to get on good terms with the administration of the mine. "Charles Gould;

excellent fellow! Absolutely necessary to make sure of him before taking a single step. Get an introduction to

No wonder, then, that Sir John, coming from Europe to smooth the path for his railway, had been meeting the

name (and even the nickname) of Charles Gould at every turn in Costaguana. The agent of the San Tome

Administration in Sta. Marta (a polished, wellinformed gentleman, Sir John thought him) had certainly

helped so greatly in bringing about the presidential tour that he began to think that there was something in the

faint whispers hinting at the immense occult influence of the Gould Concession. What was currently

whispered was thisthat the San Tome Administration had, in part, at least, financed the last revolution,

which had brought into a fiveyear dictatorship Don Vincente Ribiera, a man of culture and of unblemished

character, invested with a mandate of reform by the best elements of the State. Serious, wellinformed men

seemed to believe the fact, to hope for better things, for the establishment of legality, of good faith and order

in public life. So much the better, then, thought Sir John. He worked always on a great scale; there was a loan

to the State, and a project for systematic colonization of the Occidental Province, involved in one vast scheme

with the construction of the National Central Railway. Good faith, order, honesty, peace, were badly wanted

for this great development of material interests. Anybody on the side of these things, and especially if able to

help, had an importance in Sir John's eyes. He had not been disappointed in the "King of Sulaco." The local

difficulties had fallen away, as the engineerinchief had foretold they would, before Charles Gould's

mediation. Sir John had been extremely feted in Sulaco, next to the PresidentDictator, a fact which might

have accounted for the evident illhumour General Montero displayed at lunch given on board the Juno just

before she was to sail, taking away from Sulaco the PresidentDictator and the distinguished foreign guests

The Excellentissimo ("the hope of honest men," as Don Jose had addressed him in a public speech delivered

in the name of the Provincial Assembly of Sulaco) sat at the head of the long table; Captain Mitchell,

positively stonyeyed and purple in the face with the solemnity of this "historical event," occupied the foot as

the representative of the O.S.N. Company in Sulaco, the hosts of that informal function, with the captain of

the ship and some minor officials from the shore around him. Those cheery, swarthy little gentlemen cast

jovial sideglances at the bottles of champagne beginning to pop behind the guests' backs in the hands of the

Charles Gould had his place next to a foreign envoy, who, in a listless undertone, had been talking to him

fitfully of hunting and shooting. The wellnourished, pale face, with an eyeglass and drooping yellow

moustache, made the Senor Administrador appear by contrast twice as sunbaked, more flaming red, a

hundred times more intensely and silently alive. Don Jose Avellanos touched elbows with the other foreign

diplomat, a dark man with a quiet, watchful, selfconfident demeanour, and a touch of reserve. All etiquette

being laid aside on the occasion, General Montero was the only one there in full uniform, so stiff with

embroideries in front that his broad chest seemed protected by a cuirass of gold. Sir John at the beginning had

The great financier was trying to express to her his grateful sense of her hospitality and of his obligation to

her husband's "enormous influence in this part of the country," when she interrupted him by a low "Hush!"

The Excellentissimo was on his legs. He said only a few words, evidently deeply felt, and meant perhaps

mostly for Avellanoshis old friendas to the necessity of unremitting effort to secure the lasting welfare

of the country emerging after this last struggle, he hoped, into a period of peace and material prosperity.

Mrs. Gould, listening to the mellow, slightly mournful voice, looking at this rotund, dark, spectacled face, at

the short body, obese to the point of infirmity, thought that this man of delicate and melancholy mind,

physically almost a cripple, coming out of his retirement into a dangerous strife at the call of his fellows, had

the right to speak with the authority of his selfsacrifice. And yet she was made uneasy. He was more

pathetic than promising, this first civilian Chief of the State Costaguana had ever known, pronouncing, glass

in hand, his simple watchwords of honesty, peace, respect for law, political good faith abroad and at

He sat down. During the respectful, appreciative buzz of voices that followed the speech, General Montero

raised a pair of heavy, drooping eyelids and rolled his eyes with a sort of uneasy dullness from face to face.

The military backwoods hero of the party, though secretly impressed by the sudden novelties and splendours

of his position (he had never been on board a ship before, and had hardly ever seen the sea except from a

distance), understood by a sort of instinct the advantage his surly, unpolished attitude of a savage fighter gave

him amongst all these refined Blanco aristocrats. But why was it that nobody was looking at him? he

wondered to himself angrily. He was able to spell out the print of newspapers, and knew that he had

"My husband wanted the railway," Mrs. Gould said to Sir John in the general murmur of resumed

conversations. "All this brings nearer the sort of future we desire for the country, which has waited for it in

sorrow long enough, God knows. But I will confess that the other day, during my afternoon drive when I

suddenly saw an Indian boy ride out of a wood with the red flag of a surveying party in his hand, I felt

something of a shock. The future means changean utter change. And yet even here there are simple and

"General Montero is going to speak," he whispered, and almost immediately added, in comic alarm,

General Montero had risen with a jingle of steel scabbard and a ripple of glitter on his goldembroidered

breast; a heavy swordhilt appeared at his side above the edge of the table. In this gorgeous uniform, with his

bull neck, his hooked nose flattened on the tip upon a blueblack, dyed moustache, he looked like a disguised

and sinister vaquero. The drone of his voice had a strangely rasping, soulless ring. He floundered, lowering,

through a few vague sentences; then suddenly raising his big head and his voice together, burst out harshly

"The honour of the country is in the hands of the army. I assure you I shall be faithful to it." He hesitated till

his roaming eyes met Sir John's face upon which he fixed a lurid, sleepy glance; and the figure of the lately

negotiated loan came into his mind. He lifted his glass. "I drink to the health of the man who brings us a

He tossed off his champagne, and sat down heavily with a halfsurprised, halfbullying look all round the

faces in the profound, as if appalled, silence which succeeded the felicitous toast. Sir John did not move.

"I don't think I am called upon to rise," he murmured to Mrs. Gould. "That sort of thing speaks for itself." But

Don Jose Avellanos came to the rescue with a short oration, in which he alluded pointedly to England's

goodwill towards Costaguana"a goodwill," he continued, significantly, "of which I, having been in my

time accredited to the Court of St. James, am able to speak with some knowledge."

Only then Sir John thought fit to respond, which he did gracefully in bad French, punctuated by bursts of

applause and the "Hear! Hears!" of Captain Mitchell, who was able to understand a word now and then.

"You were good enough to say that you intended to ask me for something," he reminded her, gallantly. "What

is it? Be assured that any request from you would be considered in the light of a favour to myself."

"Let us go on deck," she proposed, "where I'll be able to point out to you the very object of my request."

An enormous national flag of Costaguana, diagonal red and yellow, with two green palm trees in the middle,

floated lazily at the mainmast head of the Juno. A multitude of fireworks being let off in their thousands at

the water's edge in honour of the President kept up a mysterious crepitating noise half round the harbour.

Now and then a lot of rockets, swishing upwards invisibly, detonated overhead with only a puff of smoke in

the bright sky. Crowds of people could be seen between the town gate and the harbour, under the bunches of

multicoloured flags fluttering on tall poles. Faint bursts of military music would be heard suddenly, and the

remote sound of shouting. A knot of ragged negroes at the end of the wharf kept on loading and firing a small

iron cannon time after time. A greyish haze of dust hung thin and motionless against the sun.

Don Vincente Ribiera made a few steps under the deckawning, leaning on the arm of Senor Avellanos; a

wide circle was formed round him, where the mirthless smile of his dark lips and the sightless glitter of his

spectacles could be seen turning amiably from side to side. The informal function arranged on purpose on

board the Juno to give the PresidentDictator an opportunity to meet intimately some of his most notable

adherents in Sulaco was drawing to an end. On one side, General Montero, his bald head covered now by a

plumed cocked hat, remained motionless on a skylight seat, a pair of big gauntleted hands folded on the hilt

of the sabre standing upright between his legs. The white plume, the coppery tint of his broad face, the

blueblack of the moustaches under the curved beak, the mass of gold on sleeves and breast, the high shining

boots with enormous spurs, the working nostrils, the imbecile and domineering stare of the glorious victor of

Rio Seco had in them something ominous and incredible; the exaggeration of a cruel caricature, the fatuity of

solemn masquerading, the atrocious grotesqueness of some military idol of Aztec conception and European

bedecking, awaiting the homage of worshippers. Don Jose approached diplomatically this weird and

Charles, coming up to take leave of Sir John, heard him say, as he bent over his wife's hand, "Certainly. Of

course, my dear Mrs. Gould, for a protege of yours! Not the slightest difficulty. Consider it done."

Going ashore in the same boat with the Goulds, Don Jose Avellanos was very silent. Even in the Gould

carriage he did not open his lips for a long time. The mules trotted slowly away from the wharf between the

extended hands of the beggars, who for that day seemed to have abandoned in a body the portals of churches.

Charles Gould sat on the back seat and looked away upon the plain. A multitude of booths made of green

boughs, of rushes, of odd pieces of plank eked out with bits of canvas had been erected all over it for the sale

of cana, of dulces, of fruit, of cigars. Over little heaps of glowing charcoal Indian women, squatting on mats,

cooked food in black earthen pots, and boiled the water for the mate gourds, which they offered in soft,

caressing voices to the country people. A racecourse had been staked out for the vaqueros; and away to the

left, from where the crowd was massed thickly about a huge temporary erection, like a circus tent of wood

with a conical grass roof, came the resonant twanging of harp strings, the sharp ping of guitars, with the grave

drumming throb of an Indian gombo pulsating steadily through the shrill choruses of the dancers.

"All this piece of land belongs now to the Railway Company. There will be no more popular feasts held here."

Mrs. Gould was rather sorry to think so. She took this opportunity to mention how she had just obtained from

Sir John the promise that the house occupied by Giorgio Viola should not be interfered with. She declared she

could never understand why the survey engineers ever talked of demolishing that old building. It was not in

She stopped the carriage before the door to reassure at once the old Genoese, who came out bareheaded and

stood by the carriage step. She talked to him in Italian, of course, and he thanked her with calm dignity. An

old Garibaldino was grateful to her from the bottom of his heart for keeping the roof over the heads of his

He smiled ruggedly, with a running together of wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. "I shall set about the

"Albergo d'Italia Una," said the old Garibaldino, looking away for a moment. "More in memory of those who

have died," he added, "than for the country stolen from us soldiers of liberty by the craft of that accursed

Mrs. Gould smiled slightly, and, bending over a little, began to inquire about his wife and children. He had

sent them into town on that day. The padrona was better in health; many thanks to the signora for inquiring.

People were passing in twos and threes, in whole parties of men and women attended by trotting children. A

horseman mounted on a silvergrey mare drew rein quietly in the shade of the house after taking off his hat

to the party in the carriage, who returned smiles and familiar nods. Old Viola, evidently very pleased with the

news he had just heard, interrupted himself for a moment to tell him rapidly that the house was secured, by

the kindness of the English signora, for as long as he liked to keep it. The other listened attentively, but made

When the carriage moved on he took off his hat again, a grey sombrero with a silver cord and tassels. The

bright colours of a Mexican serape twisted on the cantle, the enormous silver buttons on the embroidered

leather jacket, the row of tiny silver buttons down the seam of the trousers, the snowy linen, a silk sash with

embroidered ends, the silver plates on headstall and saddle, proclaimed the unapproachable style of the

famous Capataz de Cargadoresa Mediterranean sailorgot up with more finished splendour than any

"It is a great thing for me," murmured old Giorgio, still thinking of the house, for now he had grown weary of

"The old Englishman who has enough money to pay for a railway? He is going off in an hour," remarked

Nostromo, carelessly. "Buon viaggio, then. I've guarded his bones all the way from the Entrada pass down to

Old Giorgio only moved his head sideways absently. Nostromo pointed after the Goulds' carriage, nearing the

"And I have sat alone at night with my revolver in the Company's warehouse time and again by the side of

that other Englishman's heap of silver, guarding it as though it had been my own."

Viola seemed lost in thought. "It is a great thing for me," he repeated again, as if to himself.

"It is," agreed the magnificent Capataz de Cargadores, calmly. "Listen, Vecchiogo in and bring me, out a

Viola stepped into the cafe and came out directly, still absorbed in his idea, and tendered him a cigar,

mumbling thoughtfully in his moustache, "Children growing upand girls, too! Girls!" He sighed and fell

"What, only one?" remarked Nostromo, looking down with a sort of comic inquisitiveness at the unconscious

old man. "No matter," he added, with lofty negligence; "one is enough till another is wanted."

He lit it and let the match drop from his passive fingers. Giorgio Viola looked up, and said abruptly

"My son would have been just such a fine young man as you, Gian' Battista, if he had lived."

"What? Your son? But you are right, padrone. If he had been like me he would have been a man."

He turned his horse slowly, and paced on between the booths, checking the mare almost to a standstill now

and then for children, for the groups of people from the distant Campo, who stared after him with admiration.

The Company's lightermen saluted him from afar; and the greatly envied Capataz de Cargadores advanced,

amongst murmurs of recognition and obsequious greetings, towards the huge circuslike erection. The throng

thickened; the guitars tinkled louder; other horsemen sat motionless, smoking calmly above the heads of the

crowd; it eddied and pushed before the doors of the highroofed building, whence issued a shuffle and

thumping of feet in time to the dance music vibrating and shrieking with a racking rhythm, overhung by the

tremendous, sustained, hollow roar of the gombo. The barbarous and imposing noise of the big drum, that can

madden a crowd, and that even Europeans cannot hear without a strange emotion, seemed to draw Nostromo

on to its source, while a man, wrapped up in a faded, torn poncho, walked by his stirrup, and, buffeted right

and left, begged "his worship" insistently for employment on the wharf. He whined, offering the Senor

Capataz half his daily pay for the privilege of being admitted to the swaggering fraternity of Cargadores; the

other half would be enough for him, he protested. But Captain Mitchell's righthand man"invaluable for

our worka perfectly incorruptible fellow"after looking down critically at the ragged mozo, shook his

The man fell back; and a little further on Nostromo had to pull up. From the doors of the dance hall men and

women emerged tottering, streaming with sweat, trembling in every limb, to lean, panting, with staring eyes

and parted lips, against the wall of the structure, where the harps and guitars played on with mad speed in an

incessant roll of thunder. Hundreds of hands clapped in there; voices shrieked, and then all at once would

sink low, chanting in unison the refrain of a love song, with a dying fall. A red flower, flung with a good aim

He caught it as it fell, neatly, but for some time did not turn his head. When at last he condescended to look

round, the throng near him had parted to make way for a pretty Morenita, her hair held up by a small golden

Her arms and neck emerged plump and bare from a snowy chemisette; the blue woollen skirt, with all the

fullness gathered in front, scanty on the hips and tight across the back, disclosed the provoking action of her

walk. She came straight on and laid her hand on the mare's neck with a timid, coquettish look upwards out of

"Querido," she murmured, caressingly, "why do you pretend not to see me when I pass?"

"Because I don't love thee any more," said Nostromo, deliberately, after a moment of reflective silence.

The hand on the mare's neck trembled suddenly. She dropped her head before all the eyes in the wide circle

formed round the generous, the terrible, the inconstant Capataz de Cargadores, and his Morenita.

"No," said Nostromo, looking away carelessly. "It was a lie. I love thee as much as ever."

"As true as that; but thou must not ask me to swear it on the Madonna that stands in thy room." And the

"No, I will not ask for that. I can see love in your eyes." She laid her hand on his knee. "Why are you

trembling like this? From love?" she continued, while the cavernous thundering of the gombo went on

without a pause. "But if you love her as much as that, you must give your Paquita a goldmounted rosary of

"No," said Nostromo, looking into her uplifted, begging eyes, which suddenly turned stony with surprise.

"No? Then what else will your worship give me on the day of the fiesta?" she asked, angrily; "so as not to

"True! The shame is your worship'smy poor lover's," she flared up, sarcastically.

Laughs were heard at her anger, at her retort. What an audacious spitfire she was! The people aware of this

scene were calling out urgently to others in the crowd. The circle round the silvergrey mare narrowed

The girl went off a pace or two, confronting the mocking curiosity of the eyes, then flung back to the stirrup,

tiptoeing, her enraged face turned up to Nostromo with a pair of blazing eyes. He bent low to her in the

The dreaded Capataz de Cargadores, magnificent and carelessly public in his amours, flung his arm round her

Twenty blades flashed out together in the circle. A young man in holiday attire, bounding in, thrust one in

Nostromo's hand and bounded back into the ranks, very proud of himself. Nostromo had not even looked at

"Stand on my foot," he commanded the girl, who, suddenly subdued, rose lightly, and when he had her up,

encircling her waist, her face near to his, he pressed the knife into her little hand.

"No, Morenita! You shall not put me to shame," he said. "You shall have your present; and so that everyone

should know who is your lover today, you may cut all the silver buttons off my coat."

There were shouts of laughter and applause at this witty freak, while the girl passed the keen blade, and the

impassive rider jingled in his palm the increasing hoard of silver buttons. He eased her to the ground with

both her hands full. After whispering for a while with a very strenuous face, she walked away, staring

The circle had broken up, and the lordly Capataz de Cargadores, the indispensable man, the tried and trusty

Nostromo, the Mediterranean sailor come ashore casually to try his luck in Costaguana, rode slowly towards

the harbour. The Juno was just then swinging round; and even as Nostromo reined up again to look on, a flag

ran up on the improvised flagstaff erected in an ancient and dismantled little fort at the harbour entrance. Half

a battery of field guns had been hurried over there from the Sulaco barracks for the purpose of firing the

regulation salutes for the PresidentDictator and the War Minister. As the mailboat headed through the

pass, the badly timed reports announced the end of Don Vincente Ribiera's first official visit to Sulaco, and

for Captain Mitchell the end of another "historic occasion." Next time when the "Hope of honest men" was to

come that way, a year and a half later, it was unofficially, over the mountain tracks, fleeing after a defeat on a

lame mule, to be only just saved by Nostromo from an ignominious death at the hands of a mob. It was a very

"It was historyhistory, sir! And that fellow of mine, Nostromo, you know, was right in it. Absolutely

But this event, creditable to Nostromo, was to lead immediately to another, which could not be classed either

as "history" or as "a mistake" in Captain Mitchell's phraseology. He had another word for it.

"Sir" he used to say afterwards, "that was no mistake. It was a fatality. A misfortune, pure and simple, sir.

And that poor fellow of mine was right in itright in the middle of it! A fatality, if ever there was oneand

THROUGH good and evil report in the varying fortune of that struggle which Don Jose had characterized in

the phrase, "the fate of national honesty trembles in the balance," the Gould Concession, "Imperium in

Imperio," had gone on working; the square mountain had gone on pouring its treasure down the wooden

shoots to the unresting batteries of stamps; the lights of San Tome had twinkled night after night upon the

great, limitless shadow of the Campo; every three months the silver escort had gone down to the sea as if

neither the war nor its consequences could ever affect the ancient Occidental State secluded beyond its high

barrier of the Cordillera. All the fighting took place on the other side of that mighty wall of serrated peaks

lorded over by the white dome of Higuerota and as yet unbreached by the railway, of which only the first

part, the easy Campo part from Sulaco to the Ivie Valley at the foot of the pass, had been laid. Neither did the

telegraph line cross the mountains yet; its poles, like slender beacons on the plain, penetrated into the forest

fringe of the foothills cut by the deep avenue of the track; and its wire ended abruptly in the construction

camp at a white deal table supporting a Morse apparatus, in a long hut of planks with a corrugated iron roof

overshadowed by gigantic cedar treesthe quarters of the engineer in charge of the advance section.

The harbour was busy, too, with the traffic in railway material, and with the movements of troops along the

coast. The O.S.N. Company found much occupation for its fleet. Costaguana had no navy, and, apart from a

few coastguard cutters, there were no national ships except a couple of old merchant steamers used as

Captain Mitchell, feeling more and more in the thick of history, found time for an hour or so during an

afternoon in the drawingroom of the Casa Gould, where, with a strange ignorance of the real forces at work

around him, he professed himself delighted to get away from the strain of affairs. He did not know what he

would have done without his invaluable Nostromo, he declared. Those confounded Costaguana politics gave

Don Jose Avellanos had displayed in the service of the endangered Ribiera Government an organizing

activity and an eloquence of which the echoes reached even Europe. For, after the new loan to the Ribiera

Government, Europe had become interested in Costaguana. The Sala of the Provincial Assembly (in the

Municipal Buildings of Sulaco), with its portraits of the Liberators on the walls and an old flag of Cortez

preserved in a glass case above the President's chair, had heard all these speechesthe early one containing

the impassioned declaration "Militarism is the enemy," the famous one of the "trembling balance" delivered

on the occasion of the vote for the raising of a second Sulaco regiment in the defence of the reforming

Government; and when the provinces again displayed their old flags (proscribed in Guzman Bento's time)

there was another of those great orations, when Don Jose greeted these old emblems of the war of

Independence, brought out again in the name of new Ideals. The old idea of Federalism had disappeared. For

his part he did not wish to revive old political doctrines. They were perishable. They died. But the doctrine of

political rectitude was immortal. The second Sulaco regiment, to whom he was presenting this flag, was

going to show its valour in a contest for order, peace, progress; for the establishment of national selfrespect

without whichhe declared with energy"we are a reproach and a byword amongst the powers of the

Don Jose Avellanos loved his country. He had served it lavishly with his fortune during his diplomatic career,

and the later story of his captivity and barbarous illusage under Guzman Bento was well known to his

listeners. It was a wonder that he had not been a victim of the ferocious and summary executions which

marked the course of that tyranny; for Guzman had ruled the country with the sombre imbecility of political

fanaticism. The power of Supreme Government had become in his dull mind an object of strange worship, as

if it were some sort of cruel deity. It was incarnated in himself, and his adversaries, the Federalists, were the

supreme sinners, objects of hate, abhorrence, and fear, as heretics would be to a convinced Inquisitor. For

years he had carried about at the tail of the Army of Pacification, all over the country, a captive band of such

atrocious criminals, who considered themselves most unfortunate at not having been summarily executed. It

was a diminishing company of nearly naked skeletons, loaded with irons, covered with dirt, with vermin,

with raw wounds, all men of position, of education, of wealth, who had learned to fight amongst themselves

for scraps of rotten beef thrown to them by soldiers, or to beg a negro cook for a drink of muddy water in

pitiful accents. Don Jose Avellanos, clanking his chains amongst the others, seemed only to exist in order to

prove how much hunger, pain, degradation, and cruel torture a human body can stand without parting with

the last spark of life. Sometimes interrogatories, backed by some primitive method of torture, were

administered to them by a commission of officers hastily assembled in a hut of sticks and branches, and made

pitiless by the fear for their own lives. A lucky one or two of that spectral company of prisoners would

perhaps be led tottering behind a bush to be shot by a file of soldiers. Always an army chaplainsome

unshaven, dirty man, girt with a sword and with a tiny cross embroidered in white cotton on the left breast of

a lieutenant's uniformwould follow, cigarette in the corner of the mouth, wooden stool in hand, to hear the

confession and give absolution; for the Citizen Saviour of the Country (Guzman Bento was called thus

officially in petitions) was not averse from the exercise of rational clemency. The irregular report of the firing

squad would be heard, followed sometimes by a single finishing shot; a little bluish cloud of smoke would

float up above the green bushes, and the Army of Pacification would move on over the savannas, through the

forests, crossing rivers, invading rural pueblos, devastating the haciendas of the horrid aristocrats, occupying

the inland towns in the fulfilment of its patriotic mission, and leaving behind a united land wherein the evil

taint of Federalism could no longer be detected in the smoke of burning houses and the smell of spilt blood.

Don Jose Avellanos had survived that time. Perhaps, when contemptuously signifying to him his release, the

Citizen Saviour of the Country might have thought this benighted aristocrat too broken in health and spirit

and fortune to be any longer dangerous. Or, perhaps, it may have been a simple caprice. Guzman Bento,

usually full of fanciful fears and brooding suspicions, had sudden accesses of unreasonable selfconfidence

when he perceived himself elevated on a pinnacle of power and safety beyond the reach of mere mortal

plotters. At such times he would impulsively command the celebration of a solemn Mass of thanksgiving,

which would be sung in great pomp in the cathedral of Sta. Marta by the trembling, subservient Archbishop

of his creation. He heard it sitting in a gilt armchair placed before the high altar, surrounded by the civil and

military heads of his Government. The unofficial world of Sta. Marta would crowd into the cathedral, for it

was not quite safe for anybody of mark to stay away from these manifestations of presidential piety. Having

thus acknowledged the only power he was at all disposed to recognize as above himself, he would scatter acts

of political grace in a sardonic wantonness of clemency. There was no other way left now to enjoy his power

but by seeing his crushed adversaries crawl impotently into the light of day out of the dark, noisome cells of

the Collegio. Their harmlessness fed his insatiable vanity, and they could always be got hold of again. It was

the rule for all the women of their families to present thanks afterwards in a special audience. The incarnation

of that strange god, El Gobierno Supremo, received them standing, cocked hat on head, and exhorted them in

a menacing mutter to show their gratitude by bringing up their children in fidelity to the democratic form of

government, "which I have established for the happiness of our country." His front teeth having been

knocked out in some accident of his former herdsman's life, his utterance was spluttering and indistinct. He

had been working for Costaguana alone in the midst of treachery and opposition. Let it cease now lest he

He was broken in health and fortune deplorably enough to present a truly gratifying spectacle to the supreme

chief of democratic institutions. He retired to Sulaco. His wife had an estate in that province, and she nursed

him back to life out of the house of death and captivity. When she died, their daughter, an only child, was old

Miss Avellanos, born in Europe and educated partly in England, was a tall, grave girl, with a selfpossessed

The other young ladies of Sulaco stood in awe of her character and accomplishments. She was reputed to be

terribly learned and serious. As to pride, it was well known that all the Corbelans were proud, and her mother

was a Corbelan. Don Jose Avellanos depended very much upon the devotion of his beloved Antonia. He

accepted it in the benighted way of men, who, though made in God's image, are like stone idols without sense

before the smoke of certain burnt offerings. He was ruined in every way, but a man possessed of passion is

not a bankrupt in life. Don Jose Avellanos desired passionately for his country: peace, prosperity, and (as the

end of the preface to "Fifty Years of Misrule" has it) "an honourable place in the comity of civilized nations."

In this last phrase the Minister Plenipotentiary, cruelly humiliated by the bad faith of his Government towards

The fatuous turmoil of greedy factions succeeding the tyranny of Guzman Bento seemed to bring his desire to

the very door of opportunity. He was too old to descend personally into the centre of the arena at Sta. Marta.

But the men who acted there sought his advice at every step. He himself thought that he could be most useful

at a distance, in Sulaco. His name, his connections, his former position, his experience commanded the

respect of his class. The discovery that this man, living in dignified poverty in the Corbelan town residence

(opposite the Casa Gould), could dispose of material means towards the support of the cause increased his

influence. It was his open letter of appeal that decided the candidature of Don Vincente Ribiera for the

Presidency. Another of these informal State papers drawn up by Don Jose (this time in the shape of an

address from the Province) induced that scrupulous constitutionalist to accept the extraordinary powers

conferred upon him for five years by an overwhelming vote of congress in Sta. Marta. It was a specific

mandate to establish the prosperity of the people on the basis of firm peace at home, and to redeem the

On the afternoon the news of that vote had reached Sulaco by the usual roundabout postal way through Cayta,

and up the coast by steamer. Don Jose, who had been waiting for the mail in the Goulds' drawingroom, got

out of the rockingchair, letting his hat fall off his knees. He rubbed his silvery, short hair with both hands,

Captain Mitchell, had he been there, would no doubt have made an apt remark about the dawn of a new era;

but if Don Jose thought something of the kind, his eloquence failed him on this occasion. The inspirer of that

revival of the Blanco party tottered where he stood. Mrs. Gould moved forward quickly and, as she offered

her cheek with a smile to her old friend, managed very cleverly to give him the support of her arm he really

Don Jose had recovered himself at once, but for a time he could do no more than murmur, "Oh, you two

patriots! Oh, you two patriots!"looking from one to the other. Vague plans of another historical work,

wherein all the devotions to the regeneration of the country he loved would be enshrined for the reverent

worship of posterity, flitted through his mind. The historian who had enough elevation of soul to write of

Guzman Bento: "Yet this monster, imbrued in the blood of his countrymen, must not be held unreservedly to

the execration of future years. It appears to be true that he, too, loved his country. He had given it twelve

years of peace; and, absolute master of lives and fortunes as he was, he died poor. His worst fault, perhaps,

was not his ferocity, but his ignorance;" the man who could write thus of a cruel persecutor (the passage

occurs in his "History of Misrule") felt at the foreshadowing of success an almost boundless affection for his

Just as years ago, calmly, from the conviction of practical necessity, stronger than any abstract political

doctrine, Henry Gould had drawn the sword, so now, the times being changed, Charles Gould had flung the

silver of the San Tome into the fray. The Inglez of Sulaco, the "Costaguana Englishman" of the third

generation, was as far from being a political intriguer as his uncle from a revolutionary swashbuckler.

Springing from the instinctive uprightness of their natures their action was reasoned. They saw an

Charles Gould's positiona commanding position in the background of that attempt to retrieve the peace and

the credit of the Republicwas very clear. At the beginning he had had to accommodate himself to existing

circumstances of corruption so naively brazen as to disarm the hate of a man courageous enough not to be

afraid of its irresponsible potency to ruin everything it touched. It seemed to him too contemptible for hot

anger even. He made use of it with a cold, fearless scorn, manifested rather than concealed by the forms of

stony courtesy which did away with much of the ignominy of the situation. At bottom, perhaps, he suffered

from it, for he was not a man of cowardly illusions, but he refused to discuss the ethical view with his wife.

He trusted that, though a little disenchanted, she would be intelligent enough to understand that his character

safeguarded the enterprise of their lives as much or more than his policy. The extraordinary development of

the mine had put a great power into his hands. To feel that prosperity always at the mercy of unintelligent

greed had grown irksome to him. To Mrs. Gould it was humiliating. At any rate, it was dangerous. In the

confidential communications passing between Charles Gould, the King of Sulaco, and the head of the silver

and steel interests far away in California, the conviction was growing that any attempt made by men of

education and integrity ought to be discreetly supported. "You may tell your friend Avellanos that I think so,"

Mr. Holroyd had written at the proper moment from his inviolable sanctuary within the elevenstorey high

factory of great affairs. And shortly afterwards, with a credit opened by the Third Southern Bank (located

next door but one to the Holroyd Building), the Ribierist party in Costaguana took a practical shape under the

eye of the administrator of the San Tome mine. And Don Jose, the hereditary friend of the Gould family,

AFTER another armed struggle, decided by Montero's victory of Rio Seco, had been added to the tale of civil

wars, the "honest men," as Don Jose called them, could breathe freely for the first time in half a century. The

FiveYearMandate law became the basis of that regeneration, the passionate desire and hope for which had

And when it was suddenlyand not quite unexpectedlyendangered by that "brute Montero," it was a

passionate indignation that gave him a new lease of life, as it were. Already, at the time of the

PresidentDictator's visit to Sulaco, Moraga had sounded a note of warning from Sta. Marta about the War

Minister. Montero and his brother made the subject of an earnest talk between the DictatorPresident and the

Nestorinspirer of the party. But Don Vincente, a doctor of philosophy from the Cordova University, seemed

to have an exaggerated respect for military ability, whose mysteriousnesssince it appeared to be altogether

independent of intellectimposed upon his imagination. The victor of Rio Seco was a popular hero. His

services were so recent that the PresidentDictator quailed before the obvious charge of political ingratitude.

Great regenerating transactions were being initiatedthe fresh loan, a new railway line, a vast colonization

scheme. Anything that could unsettle the public opinion in the capital was to be avoided. Don Jose bowed to

these arguments and tried to dismiss from his mind the goldlaced portent in boots, and with a sabre, made

Less than six months after the PresidentDictator's visit, Sulaco learned with stupefaction of the military

revolt in the name of national honour. The Minister of War, in a barracksquare allocution to the officers of

the artillery regiment he had been inspecting, had declared the national honour sold to foreigners. The

Dictator, by his weak compliance with the demands of the European powersfor the settlement of long

outstanding money claimshad showed himself unfit to rule. A letter from Moraga explained afterwards

that the initiative, and even the very text, of the incendiary allocution came, in reality, from the other

Montero, the exguerillero, the Commandante de Plaza. The energetic treatment of Dr. Monygham, sent for

in haste "to the mountain," who came galloping three leagues in the dark, saved Don Jose from a dangerous

After getting over the shock, Don Jose refused to let himself be prostrated. Indeed, better news succeeded at

first. The revolt in the capital had been suppressed after a night of fighting in the streets. Unfortunately, both

the Monteros had been able to make their escape south, to their native province of EntreMontes. The hero of

the forest march, the victor of Rio Seco, had been received with frenzied acclamations in Nicoya, the

provincial capital. The troops in garrison there had gone to him in a body. The brothers were organizing an

army, gathering malcontents, sending emissaries primed with patriotic lies to the people, and with promises

of plunder to the wild llaneros. Even a Monterist press had come into existence, speaking oracularly of the

secret promises of support given by "our great sister Republic of the North" against the sinister

landgrabbing designs of European powers, cursing in every issue the "miserable Ribiera," who had plotted

Sulaco, pastoral and sleepy, with its opulent Campo and the rich silver mine, heard the din of arms fitfully in

its fortunate isolation. It was nevertheless in the very forefront of the defence with men and money; but the

very rumours reached it circuitouslyfrom abroad even, so much was it cut off from the rest of the

Republic, not only by natural obstacles, but also by the vicissitudes of the war. The Monteristos were

besieging Cayta, an important postal link. The overland couriers ceased to come across the mountains, and no

muleteer would consent to risk the journey at last; even Bonifacio on one occasion failed to return from Sta.

Marta, either not daring to start, or perhaps captured by the parties of the enemy raiding the country between

the Cordillera and the capital. Monterist publications, however, found their way into the province,

mysteriously enough; and also Monterist emissaries preaching death to aristocrats in the villages and towns

of the Campo. Very early, at the beginning of the trouble, Hernandez, the bandit, had proposed (through the

agency of an old priest of a village in the wilds) to deliver two of them to the Ribierist authorities in Tonoro.

They had come to offer him a free pardon and the rank of colonel from General Montero in consideration of

joining the rebel army with his mounted band. No notice was taken at the time of the proposal. It was joined,

as an evidence of good faith, to a petition praying the Sulaco Assembly for permission to enlist, with all his

followers, in the forces being then raised in Sulaco for the defence of the FiveYear Mandate of regeneration.

The petition, like everything else, had found its way into Don Jose's hands. He had showed to Mrs. Gould

these pages of dirtygreyish rough paper (perhaps looted in some village store), covered with the crabbed,

illiterate handwriting of the old padre, carried off from his hut by the side of a mudwalled church to be the

secretary of the dreaded Salteador. They had both bent in the lamplight of the Gould drawingroom over the

document containing the fierce and yet humble appeal of the man against the blind and stupid barbarity

turning an honest ranchero into a bandit. A postscript of the priest stated that, but for being deprived of his

liberty for ten days, he had been treated with humanity and the respect due to his sacred calling. He had been,

it appears, confessing and absolving the chief and most of the band, and he guaranteed the sincerity of their

good disposition. He had distributed heavy penances, no doubt in the way of litanies and fasts; but he argued

shrewdly that it would be difficult for them to make their peace with God durably till they had made peace

Never before, perhaps, had Hernandez's head been in less jeopardy than when he petitioned humbly for

permission to buy a pardon for himself and his gang of deserters by armed service. He could range afar from

the waste lands protecting his fastness, unchecked, because there were no troops left in the whole province.

The usual garrison of Sulaco had gone south to the war, with its brass band playing the Bolivar march on the

bridge of one of the O.S.N. Company's steamers. The great family coaches drawn up along the shore of the

harbour were made to rock on the high leathern springs by the enthusiasm of the senoras and the senoritas

standing up to wave their lace handkerchiefs, as lighter after lighter packed full of troops left the end of the

Nostromo directed the embarkation, under the superintendendence of Captain Mitchell, redfaced in the sun,

conspicuous in a white waistcoat, representing the allied and anxious goodwill of all the material interests of

civilization. General Barrios, who commanded the troops, assured Don Jose on parting that in three weeks he

would have Montero in a wooden cage drawn by three pair of oxen ready for a tour through all the towns of

"And then, senora," he continued, baring his curly irongrey head to Mrs. Gould in her landau"and then,

senora, we shall convert our swords into ploughshares and grow rich. Even I, myself, as soon as this little

business is settled, shall open a fundacion on some land I have on the llanos and try to make a little money in

peace and quietness. Senora, you know, all Costaguana knowswhat do I say?this whole South American

Charles Gould was not present at the anxious and patriotic sendoff. It was not his part to see the soldiers

embark. It was neither his part, nor his inclination, nor his policy. His part, his inclination, and his policy

were united in one endeavour to keep unchecked the flow of treasure he had started singlehanded from the

reopened scar in the flank of the mountain. As the mine developed he had trained for himself some native

help. There were foremen, artificers and clerks, with Don Pepe for the gobernador of the mining population.

For the rest his shoulders alone sustained the whole weight of the "Imperium in Imperio," the great Gould

Concession whose mere shadow had been enough to crush the life out of his father.

Mrs. Gould had no silver mine to look after. In the general life of the Gould Concession she was represented

by her two lieutenants, the doctor and the priest, but she fed her woman's love of excitement on events whose

significance was purified to her by the fire of her imaginative purpose. On that day she had brought the

Amongst his other activities of that stirring time, Don Jose had become the chairman of a Patriotic

Committee which had armed a great proportion of troops in the Sulaco command with an improved model of

a military rifle. It had been just discarded for something still more deadly by one of the great European

powers. How much of the marketprice for secondhand weapons was covered by the voluntary

contributions of the principal families, and how much came from those funds Don Jose was understood to

command abroad, remained a secret which he alone could have disclosed; but the Ricos, as the populace

called them, had contributed under the pressure of their Nestor's eloquence. Some of the more enthusiastic

ladies had been moved to bring offerings of jewels into the hands of the man who was the life and soul of the

There were moments when both his life and his soul seemed overtaxed by so many years of undiscouraged

belief in regeneration. He appeared almost inanimate, sitting rigidly by the side of Mrs. Gould in the landau,

with his fine, old, cleanshaven face of a uniform tint as if modelled in yellow wax, shaded by a soft felt hat,

the dark eyes looking out fixedly. Antonia, the beautiful Antonia, as Miss Avellanos was called in Sulaco,

leaned back, facing them; and her full figure, the grave oval of her face with full red lips, made her look more

mature than Mrs. Gould, with her mobile expression and small, erect person under a slightly swaying

Whenever possible Antonia attended her father; her recognized devotion weakened the shocking effect of her

scorn for the rigid conventions regulating the life of SpanishAmerican girlhood. And, in truth, she was no

longer girlish. It was said that she often wrote State papers from her father's dictation, and was allowed to

read all the books in his library. At the receptions where the situation was saved by the presence of a very

decrepit old lady (a relation of the Corbelans), quite deaf and motionless in an armchairAntonia could hold

her own in a discussion with two or three men at a time. Obviously she was not the girl to be content with

peeping through a barred window at a cloaked figure of a lover ensconced in a doorway oppositewhich is

the correct form of Costaguana courtship. It was generally believed that with her foreign upbringing and

foreign ideas the learned and proud Antonia would never marryunless, indeed, she married a foreigner

from Europe or North America, now that Sulaco seemed on the point of being invaded by all the world.

WHEN General Barrios stopped to address Mrs. Gould, Antonia raised negligently her hand holding an open

fan, as if to shade from the sun her head, wrapped in a light lace shawl. The clear gleam of her blue eyes

gliding behind the black fringe of eyelashes paused for a moment upon her father, then travelled further to the

figure of a young man of thirty at most, of medium height, rather thickset, wearing a light overcoat. Bearing

down with the open palm of his hand upon the knob of a flexible cane, he had been looking on from a

distance; but directly he saw himself noticed, he approached quietly and put his elbow over the door of the

The shirt collar, cut low in the neck, the big bow of his cravat, the style of his clothing, from the round hat to

the varnished shoes, suggested an idea of French elegance; but otherwise he was the very type of a fair

Spanish creole. The fluffy moustache and the short, curly, golden beard did not conceal his lips, rosy, fresh,

almost pouting in expression. His full, round face was of that warm, healthy creole white which is never

tanned by its native sunshine. Martin Decoud was seldom exposed to the Costaguana sun under which he was

born. His people had been long settled in Paris, where he had studied law, had dabbled in literature, had

hoped now and then in moments of exaltation to become a poet like that other foreigner of Spanish blood,

Jose Maria Heredia. In other moments he had, to pass the time, condescended to write articles on European

affairs for the Semenario, the principal newspaper in Sta. Marta, which printed them under the heading "From

our special correspondent," though the authorship was an open secret. Everybody in Costaguana, where the

tale of compatriots in Europe is jealously kept, knew that it was "the son Decoud," a talented young man,

supposed to be moving in the higher spheres of Society. As a matter of fact, he was an idle boulevardier, in

touch with some smart journalists, made free of a few newspaper offices, and welcomed in the pleasure

haunts of pressmen. This life, whose dreary superficiality is covered by the glitter of universal blague, like

the stupid clowning of a harlequin by the spangles of a motley costume, induced in him a Frenchifiedbut

most unFrenchcosmopolitanism, in reality a mere barren indifferentism posing as intellectual superiority.

Of his own country he used to say to his French associates: "Imagine an atmosphere of operabouffe in

which all the comic business of stage statesmen, brigands, etc., etc., all their farcical stealing, intriguing, and

stabbing is done in dead earnest. It is screamingly funny, the blood flows all the time, and the actors believe

themselves to be influencing the fate of the universe. Of course, government in general, any government

anywhere, is a thing of exquisite comicality to a discerning mind; but really we SpanishAmericans do

overstep the bounds. No man of ordinary intelligence can take part in the intrigues of une farce macabre.

However, these Ribierists, of whom we hear so much just now, are really trying in their own comical way to

make the country habitable, and even to pay some of its debts. My friends, you had better write up Senor

Ribiera all you can in kindness to your own bondholders. Really, if what I am told in my letters is true, there

And he would explain with railing verve what Don Vincente Ribiera stood fora mournful little man

oppressed by his own good intentions, the significance of battles won, who Montero was (un grotesque

vaniteux et feroce), and the manner of the new loan connected with railway development, and the

And his French friends would remark that evidently this little fellow Decoud connaissait la question a fond.

An important Parisian review asked him for an article on the situation. It was composed in a serious tone and

"Have you read my thing about the regeneration of Costaguanaune bonne blague, hein?"

He imagined himself Parisian to the tips of his fingers. But far from being that he was in danger of remaining

a sort of nondescript dilettante all his life. He had pushed the habit of universal raillery to a point where it

blinded him to the genuine impulses of his own nature. To be suddenly selected for the executive member of

the patriotic smallarms committee of Sulaco seemed to him the height of the unexpected, one of those

"It's like a tile falling on my head. IIexecutive member! It's the first I hear of it! What do I know of

military rifles? C'est funambulesque!" he had exclaimed to his favourite sister; for the Decoud

familyexcept the old father and motherused the French language amongst themselves. "And you should

This letter, in Antonia's handwriting, was signed by Don Jose, who appealed to the "young and gifted

Costaguanero" on public grounds, and privately opened his heart to his talented godson, a man of wealth

and leisure, with wide relations, and by his parentage and bringingup worthy of all confidence.

"Which means," Martin commented, cynically, to his sister, "that I am not likely to misappropriate the funds,

The whole thing was being carried out behind the back of the War Minister, Montero, a mistrusted member

of the Ribiera Government, but difficult to get rid of at once. He was not to know anything of it till the troops

under Barrios's command had the new rifle in their hands. The PresidentDictator, whose position was very

"How funny!" commented Martin's sister and confidante; to which the brother, with an air of best Parisian

"It's immense! The idea of that Chief of the State engaged, with the help of private citizens, in digging a mine

under his own indispensable War Minister. No! We are unapproachable!" And he laughed immoderately.

Afterwards his sister was surprised at the earnestness and ability he displayed in carrying out his mission,

which circumstances made delicate, and his want of special knowledge rendered difficult. She had never seen

"It amuses me," he had explained, briefly. "I am beset by a lot of swindlers trying to sell all sorts of gaspipe

weapons. They are charming; they invite me to expensive luncheons; I keep up their hopes; it's extremely

entertaining. Meanwhile, the real affair is being carried through in quite another quarter."

When the business was concluded he declared suddenly his intention of seeing the precious consignment

delivered safely in Sulaco. The whole burlesque business, he thought, was worth following up to the end. He

mumbled his excuses, tugging at his golden beard, before the acute young lady who (after the first wide stare

"What Antonia?" asked the Costaguana boulevardier, in a vexed and disdainful tone. He shrugged his

"The Antonia you used to know when she wore her hair in two plaits down her back."

He had known her some eight years since, shortly before the Avellanos had left Europe for good, as a tall girl

of sixteen, youthfully austere, and of a character already so formed that she ventured to treat slightingly his

pose of disabused wisdom. On one occasion, as though she had lost all patience, she flew out at him about the

aimlessness of his life and the levity of his opinions. He was twenty then, an only son, spoiled by his adoring

family. This attack disconcerted him so greatly that he had faltered in his affectation of amused superiority

before that insignificant chit of a schoolgirl. But the impression left was so strong that ever since all the girl

friends of his sisters recalled to him Antonia Avellanos by some faint resemblance, or by the great force of

contrast. It was, he told himself, like a ridiculous fatality. And, of course, in the news the Decouds received

regularly from Costaguana, the name of their friends, the Avellanos, cropped up frequentlythe arrest and

the abominable treatment of the exMinister, the dangers and hardships endured by the family, its withdrawal

The Monterist pronunciamento had taken place before Martin Decoud reached Costaguana. He came out in a

roundabout way, through Magellan's Straits by the main line and the West Coast Service of the O.S.N.

Company. His precious consignment arrived just in time to convert the first feelings of consternation into a

mood of hope and resolution. Publicly he was made much of by the familias principales. Privately Don Jose,

"You have come out yourself! No less could be expected from a Decoud. Alas! our worst fears have been

realized," he moaned, affectionately. And again he hugged his godson. This was indeed the time for men of

It was then that Martin Decoud, the adopted child of Western Europe, felt the absolute change of atmosphere.

He submitted to being embraced and talked to without a word. He was moved in spite of himself by that note

of passion and sorrow unknown on the more refined stage of European politics. But when the tall Antonia,

advancing with her light step in the dimness of the big bare Sala of the Avellanos house, offered him her hand

(in her emancipated way), and murmured, "I am glad to see you here, Don Martin," he felt how impossible it

would be to tell these two people that he had intended to go away by the next month's packet. Don Jose,

meantime, continued his praises. Every accession added to public confidence, and, besides, what an example

to the young men at home from the brilliant defender of the country's regeneration, the worthy expounder of

the party's political faith before the world! Everybody had read the magnificent article in the famous Parisian

Review. The world was now informed: and the author's appearance at this moment was like a public act of

faith. Young Decoud felt overcome by a feeling of impatient confusion. His plan had been to return by way

of the United States through California, visit Yellowstone Park, see Chicago, Niagara, have a look at Canada,

perhaps make a short stay in New York, a longer one in Newport, use his letters of introduction. The pressure

of Antonia's hand was so frank, the tone of her voice was so unexpectedly unchanged in its approving

"I am inexpressibly grateful for your welcome; but why need a man be thanked for returning to his native

"Certainly not, senor," she said, with that perfectly calm openness of manner which characterized all her

utterances. "But when he returns, as you return, one may be gladfor the sake of both."

Martin Decoud said nothing of his plans. He not only never breathed a word of them to any one, but only a

fortnight later asked the mistress of the Casa Gould (where he had of course obtained admission at once),

leaning forward in his chair with an air of wellbred familiarity, whether she could not detect in him that day

a marked changean air, he explained, of more excellent gravity. At this Mrs. Gould turned her face full

towards him with the silent inquiry of slightly widened eyes and the merest ghost of a smile, an habitual

movement with her, which was very fascinating to men by something subtly devoted, finely selfforgetful in

its lively readiness of attention. Because, Decoud continued imperturbably, he felt no longer an idle cumberer

of the earth. She was, he assured her, actually beholding at that moment the Journalist of Sulaco. At once

Mrs. Gould glanced towards Antonia, posed upright in the corner of a high, straightbacked Spanish sofa, a

large black fan waving slowly against the curves of her fine figure, the tips of crossed feet peeping from

under the hem of the black skirt. Decoud's eyes also remained fixed there, while in an undertone he added

that Miss Avellanos was quite aware of his new and unexpected vocation, which in Costaguana was generally

the speciality of halfeducated negroes and wholly penniless lawyers. Then, confronting with a sort of urbane

effrontery Mrs. Gould's gaze, now turned sympathetically upon himself, he breathed out the words, "Pro

What had happened was that he had all at once yielded to Don Jose's pressing entreaties to take the direction

of a newspaper that would "voice the aspirations of the province." It had been Don Jose's old and cherished

idea. The necessary plant (on a modest scale) and a large consignment of paper had been received from

America some time before; the right man alone was wanted. Even Senor Moraga in Sta. Marta had not been

able to find one, and the matter was now becoming pressing; some organ was absolutely needed to counteract

the effect of the lies disseminated by the Monterist press: the atrocious calumnies, the appeals to the people

calling upon them to rise with their knives in their hands and put an end once for all to the Blancos, to these

Gothic remnants, to these sinister mummies, these impotent paraliticos, who plotted with foreigners for the

The clamour of this Negro Liberalism frightened Senor Avellanos. A newspaper was the only remedy. And

now that the right man had been found in Decoud, great black letters appeared painted between the windows

above the arcaded ground floor of a house on the Plaza. It was next to Anzani's great emporium of boots,

silks, ironware, muslins, wooden toys, tiny silver arms, legs, heads, hearts (for exvoto offerings), rosaries,

champagne, women's hats, patent medicines, even a few dusty books in paper covers and mostly in the

French language. The big black letters formed the words, "Offices of the Porvenir." From these offices a

single folded sheet of Martin's journalism issued three times a week; and the sleek yellow Anzani prowling in

a suit of ample black and carpet slippers, before the many doors of his establishment, greeted by a deep,

sidelong inclination of his body the Journalist of Sulaco going to and fro on the business of his august

PERHAPS it was in the exercise of his calling that he had come to see the troops depart. The Porvenir of the

day after next would no doubt relate the event, but its editor, leaning his side against the landau, seemed to

look at nothing. The front rank of the company of infantry drawn up three deep across the shore end of the

jetty when pressed too close would bring their bayonets to the charge ferociously, with an awful rattle; and

then the crowd of spectators swayed back bodily, even under the noses of the big white mules.

Notwithstanding the great multitude there was only a low, muttering noise; the dust hung in a brown haze, in

which the horsemen, wedged in the throng here and there, towered from the hips upwards, gazing all one way

over the heads. Almost every one of them had mounted a friend, who steadied himself with both hands

grasping his shoulders from behind; and the rims of their hats touching, made like one disc sustaining the

cones of two pointed crowns with a double face underneath. A hoarse mozo would bawl out something to an

acquaintance in the ranks, or a woman would shriek suddenly the word Adios! followed by the Christian

General Barrios, in a shabby blue tunic and white pegtop trousers falling upon strange red boots, kept his

head uncovered and stooped slightly, propping himself up with a thick stick. No! He had earned enough

military glory to satiate any man, he insisted to Mrs. Gould, trying at the same time to put an air of gallantry

into his attitude. A few jetty hairs hung sparsely from his upper lip, he had a salient nose, a thin, long jaw,

and a black silk patch over one eye. His other eye, small and deepset, twinkled erratically in all directions,

aimlessly affable. The few European spectators, all men, who had naturally drifted into the neighbourhood of

the Gould carriage, betrayed by the solemnity of their faces their impression that the general must have had

too much punch (Swedish punch, imported in bottles by Anzani) at the Amarilla Club before he had started

with his Staff on a furious ride to the harbour. But Mrs. Gould bent forward, selfpossessed, and declared her

"Senora!" he remonstrated, with great feeling, "in the name of God, reflect! How can there be any glory for a

Pablo Ignacio Barrios, son of a village alcalde, general of division, commanding in chief the Occidental

Military district, did not frequent the higher society of the town. He preferred the unceremonious gatherings

of men where he could tell jaguarhunt stories, boast of his powers with the lasso, with which he could

perform extremely difficult feats of the sort "no married man should attempt," as the saying goes amongst the

llaneros; relate tales of extraordinary night rides, encounters with wild bulls, struggles with crocodiles,

adventures in the great forests, crossings of swollen rivers. And it was not mere boastfulness that prompted

the general's reminiscences, but a genuine love of that wild life which he had led in his young days before he

turned his back for ever on the thatched roof of the parental tolderia in the woods. Wandering away as far as

Mexico he had fought against the French by the side (as he said) of Juarez, and was the only military man of

Costaguana who had ever encountered European troops in the field. That fact shed a great lustre upon his

name till it became eclipsed by the rising star of Montero. All his life he had been an inveterate gambler. He

alluded himself quite openly to the current story how once, during some campaign (when in command of a

brigade), he had gambled away his horses, pistols, and accoutrements, to the very epaulettes, playing monte

with his colonels the night before the battle. Finally, he had sent under escort his sword (a presentation sword,

with a gold hilt) to the town in the rear of his position to be immediately pledged for five hundred pesetas

with a sleepy and frightened shopkeeper. By daybreak he had lost the last of that money, too, when his only

remark, as he rose calmly, was, "Now let us go and fight to the death." From that time he had become aware

that a general could lead his troops into battle very well with a simple stick in his hand. "It has been my

He was always overwhelmed with debts; even during the periods of splendour in his varied fortunes of a

Costaguana general, when he held high military commands, his goldlaced uniforms were almost always in

pawn with some tradesman. And at last, to avoid the incessant difficulties of costume caused by the anxious

lenders, he had assumed a disdain of military trappings, an eccentric fashion of shabby old tunics, which had

become like a second nature. But the faction Barrios joined needed to fear no political betrayal. He was too

much of a real soldier for the ignoble traffic of buying and selling victories. A member of the foreign

diplomatic body in Sta. Marta had once passed a judgment upon him: "Barrios is a man of perfect honesty

and even of some talent for war, mais il manque de tenue." After the triumph of the Ribierists he had obtained

the reputedly lucrative Occidental command, mainly through the exertions of his creditors (the Sta. Marta

shopkeepers, all great politicians), who moved heaven and earth in his interest publicly, and privately

besieged Senor Moraga, the influential agent of the San Tome mine, with the exaggerated lamentations that if

the general were passed over, "We shall all be ruined." An incidental but favourable mention of his name in

Mr. Gould senior's long correspondence with his son had something to do with his appointment, too; but most

of all undoubtedly his established political honesty. No one questioned the personal bravery of the

Tigerkiller, as the populace called him. He was, however, said to be unlucky in the fieldbut this was to be

the beginning of an era of peace. The soldiers liked him for his humane temper, which was like a strange and

precious flower unexpectedly blooming on the hotbed of corrupt revolutions; and when he rode slowly

through the streets during some military display, the contemptuous good humour of his solitary eye roaming

over the crowds extorted the acclamations of the populace. The women of that class especially seemed

positively fascinated by the long drooping nose, the peaked chin, the heavy lower lip, the black silk eyepatch

and band slanting rakishly over the forehead. His high rank always procured an audience of Caballeros for his

sporting stories, which he detailed very well with a simple, grave enjoyment. As to the society of ladies, it

was irksome by the restraints it imposed without any equivalent, as far as he could see. He had not, perhaps,

spoken three times on the whole to Mrs. Gould since he had taken up his high command; but he had observed

her frequently riding with the Senor Administrador, and had pronounced that there was more sense in her

little bridlehand than in all the female heads in Sulaco. His impulse had been to be very civil on parting to a

woman who did not wobble in the saddle, and happened to be the wife of a personality very important to a

man always short of money. He even pushed his attentions so far as to desire the aidedecamp at his side (a

thickset, short captain with a Tartar physiognomy) to bring along a corporal with a file of men in front of

the carriage, lest the crowd in its backward surges should "incommode the mules of the senora." Then,

turning to the small knot of silent Europeans looking on within earshot, he raised his voice protectingly

"Senores, have no apprehension. Go on quietly making your Ferro Carrilyour railways, your telegraphs.

YourThere's enough wealth in Costaguana to pay for everythingor else you would not be here. Ha! ha!

Don't mind this little picardia of my friend Montero. In a little while you shall behold his dyed moustaches

through the bars of a strong wooden cage. Si, senores! Fear nothing, develop the country, work, work!"

The little group of engineers received this exhortation without a word, and after waving his hand at them

"That is what Don Jose says we must do. Be enterprising! Work! Grow rich! To put Montero in a cage is my

work; and when that insignificant piece of business is done, then, as Don Jose wishes us, we shall grow rich,

one and all, like so many Englishmen, because it is money that saves a country, and"

But a young officer in a very new uniform, hurrying up from the direction of the jetty, interrupted his

interpretation of Senor Avellanos's ideals. The general made a movement of impatience; the other went on

talking to him insistently, with an air of respect. The horses of the Staff had been embarked, the steamer's gig

was awaiting the general at the boat steps; and Barrios, after a fierce stare of his one eye, began to take leave.

Don Jose roused himself for an appropriate phrase pronounced mechanically. The terrible strain of hope and

fear was telling on him, and he seemed to husband the last sparks of his fire for those oratorical efforts of

which even the distant Europe was to hear. Antonia, her red lips firmly closed, averted her head behind the

raised fan; and young Decoud, though he felt the girl's eyes upon him, gazed away persistently, hooked on his

elbow, with a scornful and complete detachment. Mrs. Gould heroically concealed her dismay at the

appearance of men and events so remote from her racial conventions, dismay too deep to be uttered in words

even to her husband. She understood his voiceless reserve better now. Their confidential intercourse fell, not

in moments of privacy, but precisely in public, when the quick meeting of their glances would comment upon

some fresh turn of events. She had gone to his school of uncompromising silence, the only one possible, since

so much that seemed shocking, weird, and grotesque in the working out of their purposes had to be accepted

as normal in this country. Decidedly, the stately Antonia looked more mature and infinitely calm; but she

would never have known how to reconcile the sudden sinkings of her heart with an amiable mobility of

Mrs. Gould smiled a goodbye at Barrios, nodded round to the Europeans (who raised their hats

simultaneously) with an engaging invitation, "I hope to see you all presently, at home"; then said nervously to

Decoud, "Get in, Don Martin," and heard him mutter to himself in French, as he opened the carriage door,

"Le sort en est jete." She heard him with a sort of exasperation. Nobody ought to have known better than

himself that the first cast of dice had been already thrown long ago in a most desperate game. Distant

acclamations, words of command yelled out, and a roll of drums on the jetty greeted the departing general.

Something like a slight faintness came over her, and she looked blankly at Antonia's still face, wondering

what would happen to Charley if that absurd man failed. "A la casa, Ignacio," she cried at the motionless

broad back of the coachman, who gathered the reins without haste, mumbling to himself under his breath,

The carriage rolled noiselessly on the soft track, the shadows fell long on the dusty little plain interspersed

with dark bushes, mounds of turnedup earth, low wooden buildings with iron roofs of the Railway

Company; the sparse row of telegraph poles strode obliquely clear of the town, bearing a single, almost

invisible wire far into the great campolike a slender, vibrating feeler of that progress waiting outside for a

The cafe window of the Albergo d'ltalia Una was full of sunburnt, whiskered faces of railway men. But at the

other end of the house, the end of the Signori Inglesi, old Giorgio, at the door with one of his girls on each

side, bared his bushy head, as white as the snows of Higuerota. Mrs. Gould stopped the carriage. She seldom

failed to speak to her protege; moreover, the excitement, the heat, and the dust had made her thirsty. She

asked for a glass of water. Giorgio sent the children indoors for it, and approached with pleasure expressed in

his whole rugged countenance. It was not often that he had occasion to see his benefactress, who was also an

Englishwomananother title to his regard. He offered some excuses for his wife. It was a bad day with her;

her oppressionshe tapped his own broad chest. She could not move from her chair that day.

Decoud, ensconced in the corner of his seat, observed gloomily Mrs. Gould's old revolutionist, then,

Old Giorgio, looking at him with some curiosity, said civilly that the troops had marched very well.

Oneeyed Barrios and his officers had done wonders with the recruits in a short time. Those Indios, only

caught the other day, had gone swinging past in double quick time, like bersaglieri; they looked well fed, too,

and had whole uniforms. "Uniforms!" he repeated with a halfsmile of pity. A look of grim retrospect stole

over his piercing, steady eyes. It had been otherwise in his time when men fought against tyranny, in the

forests of Brazil, or on the plains of Uruguay, starving on halfraw beef without salt, half naked, with often

only a knife tied to a stick for a weapon. "And yet we used to prevail against the oppressor," he concluded,

His animation fell; the slight gesture of his hand expressed discouragement; but he added that he had asked

one of the sergeants to show him the new rifle. There was no such weapon in his fighting days; and if Barrios

"Yes, yes," broke in Don Jose, almost trembling with eagerness. "We are safe. The good Senor Viola is a man

of experience. Extremely deadlyis it not so? You have accomplished your mission admirably, my dear

Mrs. Gould leaned over to the children. Linda had brought out a glass of water on a tray, with extreme care;

"Yes," muttered old Viola, savagely. "And meantime they fight for you. Blind. Esclavos!"

At that moment young Scarfe of the railway staff emerged from the door of the part reserved for the Signori

Inglesi. He had come down to headquarters from somewhere up the line on a light engine, and had had just

time to get a bath and change his clothes. He was a nice boy, and Mrs. Gould welcomed him.

"It's a delightful surprise to see you, Mrs. Gould. I've just come down. Usual luck. Missed everything, of

course. This show is just over, and I hear there has been a great dance at Don Juste Lopez's last night. Is it

"The young patricians," Decoud began suddenly in his precise English, "have indeed been dancing before

Young Scarfe stared, astounded. "You haven't met before," Mrs. Gould intervened. "Mr. DecoudMr.

"Ah! But we are not going to Pharsalia," protested Don Jose, with nervous haste, also in English. "You

Antonia's breast rose and fell with a deeper breath. The young engineer was utterly in the dark. "Great what?"

"Luckily, Montero is not a Caesar," Decoud continued. "Not the two Monteros put together would make a

decent parody of a Caesar." He crossed his arms on his breast, looking at Senor Avellanos, who had returned

to his immobility. "It is only you, Don Jose, who are a genuine old Romanvir Romanuseloquent and

Since he had heard the name of Montero pronounced, young Scarfe had been eager to express his simple

feelings. In a loud and youthful tone he hoped that this Montero was going to be licked once for all and done

with. There was no saying what would happen to the railway if the revolution got the upper hand. Perhaps it

would have to be abandoned. It would not be the first railway gone to pot in Costaguana. "You know, it's one

of their socalled national things," he ran on, wrinkling up his nose as if the word had a suspicious flavour to

his profound experience of South American affairs. And, of course, he chatted with animation, it had been

such an immense piece of luck for him at his age to get appointed on the staff "of a big thing like thatdon't

you know." It would give him the pull over a lot of chaps all through life, he asserted. "Thereforedown

with Montero! Mrs. Gould." His artless grin disappeared slowly before the unanimous gravity of the faces

turned upon him from the carriage; only that "old chap," Don Jose, presenting a motionless, waxy profile,

stared straight on as if deaf. Scarfe did not know the Avellanos very well. They did not give balls, and

Antonia never appeared at a groundfloor window, as some other young ladies used to do attended by elder

women, to chat with the caballeros on horseback in the Calle. The stares of these creoles did not matter much;

but what on earth had come to Mrs. Gould? She said, "Go on, Ignacio," and gave him a slow inclination of

the head. He heard a short laugh from that roundfaced, Frenchified fellow. He coloured up to the eyes, and

"Si, senor. There are plenty of horses," murmured the Garibaldino, smoothing absently, with his brown

hands, the two heads, one dark with bronze glints, the other fair with a coppery ripple, of the two girls by his

side. The returning stream of sightseers raised a great dust on the road. Horsemen noticed the group. "Go to

your mother," he said. "They are growing up as I am growing older, and there is nobody"

He looked at the young engineer and stopped, as if awakened from a dream; then, folding his arms on his

breast, took up his usual position, leaning back in the doorway with an upward glance fastened on the white

In the carriage Martin Decoud, shifting his position as though he could not make himself comfortable,

muttered as he swayed towards Antonia, "I suppose you hate me." Then in a loud voice he began to

congratulate Don Jose upon all the engineers being convinced Ribierists. The interest of all those foreigners

was gratifying. "You have heard this one. He is an enlightened wellwisher. It is pleasant to think that the

"And so very wise for his age," retorted Decoud. "But here we have the naked truth from the mouth of that

child. You are right, Don Jose. The natural treasures of Costaguana are of importance to the progressive

Europe represented by this youth, just as three hundred years ago the wealth of our Spanish fathers was a

serious object to the rest of Europeas represented by the bold buccaneers. There is a curse of futility upon

our character: Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, chivalry and materialism, highsounding sentiments and a

supine morality, violent efforts for an idea and a sullen acquiescence in every form of corruption. We

convulsed a continent for our independence only to become the passive prey of a democratic parody, the

helpless victims of scoundrels and cutthroats, our institutions a mockery, our laws a farcea Guzman

Bento our master! And we have sunk so low that when a man like you has awakened our conscience, a stupid

barbarian of a MonteroGreat Heavens! a Montero!becomes a deadly danger, and an ignorant, boastful

But Don Jose, disregarding the general indictment as though he had not heard a word of it, took up the

defence of Barrios. The man was competent enough for his special task in the plan of campaign. It consisted

in an offensive movement, with Cayta as base, upon the flank of the Revolutionist forces advancing from the

south against Sta. Marta, which was covered by another army with the PresidentDictator in its midst. Don

Jose became quite animated with a great flow of speech, bending forward anxiously under the steady eyes of

his daughter. Decoud, as if silenced by so much ardour, did not make a sound. The bells of the city were

striking the hour of Oracion when the carriage rolled under the old gateway facing the harbour like a

shapeless monument of leaves and stones. The rumble of wheels under the sonorous arch was traversed by a

strange, piercing shriek, and Decoud, from his back seat, had a view of the people behind the carriage

trudging along the road outside, all turning their heads, in sombreros and rebozos, to look at a locomotive

which rolled quickly out of sight behind Giorgio Viola's house, under a white trail of steam that seemed to

vanish in the breathless, hysterically prolonged scream of warlike triumph. And it was all like a fleeting

vision, the shrieking ghost of a railway engine fleeing across the frame of the archway, behind the startled

movement of the people streaming back from a military spectacle with silent footsteps on the dust of the road.

It was a material train returning from the Campo to the palisaded yards. The empty cars rolled lightly on the

single track; there was no rumble of wheels, no tremor of the ground. The enginedriver, running past the

Casa Viola with the salute of an uplifted arm, checked his speed smartly before entering the yard; and when

the earsplitting screech of the steamwhistle for the brakes had stopped, a series of hard, battering shocks,

mingled with the clanking of chaincouplings, made a tumult of blows and shaken fetters under the vault of

THE Gould carriage was the first to return from the harbour to the empty town. On the ancient pavement, laid

out in patterns, sunk into ruts and holes, the portly Ignacio, mindful of the springs of the Parisianbuilt

landau, had pulled up to a walk, and Decoud in his corner contemplated moodily the inner aspect of the gate.

The squat turreted sides held up between them a mass of masonry with bunches of grass growing at the top,

and a grey, heavily scrolled, armorial shield of stone above the apex of the arch with the arms of Spain nearly

smoothed out as if in readiness for some new device typical of the impending progress.

The explosive noise of the railway trucks seemed to augment Decoud's irritation. He muttered something to

himself, then began to talk aloud in curt, angry phrases thrown at the silence of the two women. They did not

look at him at all; while Don Jose, with his semitranslucent, waxy complexion, overshadowed by the soft

grey hat, swayed a little to the jolts of the carriage by the side of Mrs. Gould.

Decoud spoke in French, perhaps because of Ignacio on the box above him; the old coachman, with his broad

back filling a short, silverbraided jacket, had a big pair of ears, whose thick rims stood well away from his

He ruminated his discontent for a while, then began afresh with a sidelong glance at Antonia

"No, but just imagine our forefathers in morions and corselets drawn up outside this gate, and a band of

adventurers just landed from their ships in the harbour there. Thieves, of course. Speculators, too. Their

expeditions, each one, were the speculations of grave and reverend persons in England. That is history, as that

"Mitchell's arrangements for the embarkation of the troops were excellent!" exclaimed Don Jose.

"That!that! oh, that's really the work of that Genoese seaman! But to return to my noises; there used to be

in the old days the sound of trumpets outside that gate. War trumpets! I'm sure they were trumpets. I have

read somewhere that Drake, who was the greatest of these men, used to dine alone in his cabin on board ship

to the sound of trumpets. In those days this town was full of wealth. Those men came to take it. Now the

whole land is like a treasurehouse, and all these people are breaking into it, whilst we are cutting each

other's throats. The only thing that keeps them out is mutual jealousy. But they'll come to an agreement some

dayand by the time we've settled our quarrels and become decent and honourable, there'll be nothing left

for us. It has always been the same. We are a wonderful people, but it has always been our fate to be"he

Mrs. Gould said, "Oh, this is unjust!" And Antonia interjected, "Don't answer him, Emilia. He is attacking

And then the carriage stopped before the door of the Casa Gould. The young man offered his hand to the

ladies. They went in first together; Don Jose walked by the side of Decoud, and the gouty old porter tottered

"The Porvenir must have a long and confident article upon Barrios and the irresistibleness of his army of

Cayta! The moral effect should be kept up in the country. We must cable encouraging extracts to Europe and

The long open gallery was in shadow, with its screen of plants in vases along the balustrade, holding out

motionless blossoms, and all the glass doors of the receptionrooms thrown open. A jingle of spurs died out

Basilio, standing aside against the wall, said in a soft tone to the passing ladies, "The Senor Administrador is

In the great sala, with its groups of ancient Spanish and modern European furniture making as if different

centres under the high white spread of the ceiling, the silver and porcelain of the teaservice gleamed among

a cluster of dwarf chairs, like a bit of a lady's boudoir, putting in a note of feminine and intimate delicacy.

Don Jose in his rockingchair placed his hat on his lap, and Decoud walked up and down the whole length of

the room, passing between tables loaded with knickknacks and almost disappearing behind the high backs

of leathern sofas. He was thinking of the angry face of Antonia; he was confident that he would make his

Martin Decoud was angry with himself. All he saw and heard going on around him exasperated the

preconceived views of his European civilization. To contemplate revolutions from the distance of the Parisian

Boulevards was quite another matter. Here on the spot it was not possible to dismiss their tragic comedy with

The reality of the political action, such as it was, seemed closer, and acquired poignancy by Antonia's belief

in the cause. Its crudeness hurt his feelings. He was surprised at his own sensitiveness.

"I suppose I am more of a Costaguanero than I would have believed possible," he thought to himself.

His disdain grew like a reaction of his scepticism against the action into which he was forced by his

infatuation for Antonia. He soothed himself by saying he was not a patriot, but a lover.

The ladies came in bareheaded, and Mrs. Gould sank low before the little teatable. Antonia took up her

usual place at the reception hourthe corner of a leathern couch, with a rigid grace in her pose and a fan in

her hand. Decoud, swerving from the straight line of his march, came to lean over the high back of her seat.

For a long time he talked into her ear from behind, softly, with a half smile and an air of apologetic

familiarity. Her fan lay half grasped on her knees. She never looked at him. His rapid utterance grew more

"No, really. You must forgive me. One must be serious sometimes." He paused. She turned her head a little;

her blue eyes glided slowly towards him, slightly upwards, mollified and questioning.

"You can't think I am serious when I call Montero a gran' bestia every second day in the Porvenir? That is not

a serious occupation. No occupation is serious, not even when a bullet through the heart is the penalty of

"Some reason, you understand, I mean some sense, may creep into thinking; some glimpse of truth. I mean

some effective truth, for which there is no room in politics or journalism. I happen to have said what I

thought. And you are angry! If you do me the kindness to think a little you will see that I spoke like a patriot."

"Yes, but you never see the aim. Men must be used as they are. I suppose nobody is really disinterested,

"God forbid! It's the last thing I should like you to believe of me." He spoke lightly, and paused.

She began to fan herself with a slow movement without raising her hand. After a time he whispered

She smiled, and extended her hand after the English manner towards Charles Gould, who was bowing before

her; while Decoud, with his elbows spread on the back of the sofa, dropped his eyes and murmured,

The Senor Administrador of the San Tome mine bent over his wife for a moment. They exchanged a few

words, of which only the phrase, "The greatest enthusiasm," pronounced by Mrs. Gould, could be heard.

"You just ask him to throw his mine into the meltingpot for the great cause," Decoud whispered.

Don Jose had raised his voice. He rubbed his hands cheerily. The excellent aspect of the troops and the great

quantity of new deadly rifles on the shoulders of those brave men seemed to fill him with an ecstatic

Charles Gould, very tall and thin before his chair, listened, but nothing could be discovered in his face except

Meantime, Antonia had risen, and, crossing the room, stood looking out of one of the three long windows

giving on the street. Decoud followed her. The window was thrown open, and he leaned against the thickness

of the wall. The long folds of the damask curtain, falling straight from the broad brass cornice, hid him partly

from the room. He folded his arms on his breast, and looked steadily at Antonia's profile.

The people returning from the harbour filled the pavements; the shuffle of sandals and a low murmur of

voices ascended to the window. Now and then a coach rolled slowly along the disjointed roadway of the

Calle de la Constitucion. There were not many private carriages in Sulaco; at the most crowded hour on the

Alameda they could be counted with one glance of the eye. The great family arks swayed on high leathern

springs, full of pretty powdered faces in which the eyes looked intensely alive and black. And first Don Juste

Lopez, the President of the Provincial Assembly, passed with his three lovely daughters, solemn in a black

frockcoat and stiff white tie, as when directing a debate from a high tribune. Though they all raised their

eyes, Antonia did not make the usual greeting gesture of a fluttered hand, and they affected not to see the two

young people, Costaguaneros with European manners, whose eccentricities were discussed behind the barred

windows of the first families in Sulaco. And then the widowed Senora Gavilaso de Valdes rolled by,

handsome and dignified, in a great machine in which she used to travel to and from her country house,

surrounded by an armed retinue in leather suits and big sombreros, with carbines at the bows of their saddles.

She was a woman of most distinguished family, proud, rich, and kindhearted. Her second son, Jaime, had

just gone off on the Staff of Barrios. The eldest, a worthless fellow of a moody disposition, filled Sulaco with

the noise of his dissipations, and gambled heavily at the club. The two youngest boys, with yellow Ribierist

cockades in their caps, sat on the front seat. She, too, affected not to see the Senor Decoud talking publicly

with Antonia in defiance of every convention. And he not even her novio as far as the world knew! Though,

even in that case, it would have been scandal enough. But the dignified old lady, respected and admired by

the first families, would have been still more shocked if she could have heard the words they were

She made an almost imperceptible negative movement of her head, still staring across the street at the

"And it would be so easy of attainment," he continued, "this aim which, whether knowingly or not, I have

always had in my heartever since the day when you snubbed me so horribly once in Paris, you remember."

"You know you were a very terrible person, a sort of Charlotte Corday in a schoolgirl's dress; a ferocious

"At any rate," he said, changing suddenly to a tone of bitter levity, "you would have sent me to stab him

"Well," he argued, mockingly, "you do keep me here writing deadly nonsense. Deadly to me! It has already

killed my selfrespect. And you may imagine," he continued, his tone passing into light banter, "that

Montero, should he be successful, would get even with me in the only way such a brute can get even with a

man of intelligence who condescends to call him a gran' bestia three times a week. It's a sort of intellectual

death; but there is the other one in the background for a journalist of my ability."

"You seem satisfied to see my life hang on a thread," Decoud replied, with a broad smile. "And the other

Montero, the 'my trusted brother' of the proclamations, the guerrillerohaven't I written that he was taking

the guests' overcoats and changing plates in Paris at our Legation in the intervals of spying on our refugees

there, in the time of Rojas? He will wash out that sacred truth in blood. In my blood! Why do you look

annoyed? This is simply a bit of the biography of one of our great men. What do you think he will do to me?

There is a certain convent wall round the corner of the Plaza, opposite the door of the Bull Ring. You know?

Opposite the door with the inscription, Intrada de la Sombra.' Appropriate, perhaps! That's where the uncle of

our host gave up his AngloSouthAmerican soul. And, note, he might have run away. A man who has

fought with weapons may run away. You might have let me go with Barrios if you had cared for me. I would

have carried one of those rifles, in which Don Jose believes, with the greatest satisfaction, in the ranks of

poor peons and Indios, that know nothing either of reason or politics. The most forlorn hope in the most

forlorn army on earth would have been safer than that for which you made me stay here. When you make war

you may retreat, but not when you spend your time in inciting poor ignorant fools to kill and to die."

His tone remained light, and as if unaware of his presence she stood motionless, her hands clasped lightly, the

Even that declaration did not make her look at him. Her head remained still, her eyes fixed upon the house of

the Avellanos, whose chipped pilasters, broken cornices, the whole degradation of dignity was hidden now by

the gathering dusk of the street. In her whole figure her lips alone moved, forming the words

He remained silent for a minute, startled, as if overwhelmed by a sort of awed happiness, with the lines of the

mocking smile still stiffened about his mouth, and incredulous surprise in his eyes. The value of a sentence is

in the personality which utters it, for nothing new can be said by man or woman; and those were the last

words, it seemed to him, that could ever have been spoken by Antonia. He had never made it up with her so

completely in all their intercourse of small encounters; but even before she had time to turn towards him,

"My sister is only waiting to embrace you. My father is transported with joy. I won't say anything of my

mother! Our mothers were like sisters. There is the mailboat for the south next weeklet us go. That

Moraga is a fool! A man like Montero is bribed. It's the practice of the country. It's tradition it's politics.

"I have the greatest tenderness for your father," he began, hurriedly. "But I love you, Antonia! And Moraga

has miserably mismanaged this business. Perhaps your father did, too; I don't know. Montero was bribeable.

Why, I suppose he only wanted his share of this famous loan for national development. Why didn't the stupid

Sta. Marta people give him a mission to Europe, or something? He would have taken five years' salary in

"The man," she said, thoughtfully, and very calm before this outburst, "was intoxicated with vanity. We had

all the information, not from Moraga only; from others, too. There was his brother intriguing, too."

"Oh, yes!" he said. "Of course you know. You know everything. You read all the correspondence, you write

all the papersall those State papers that are inspired here, in this room, in blind deference to a theory of

political purity. Hadn't you Charles Gould before your eyes? Rey de Sulaco! He and his mine are the practical

demonstration of what could have been done. Do you think he succeeded by his fidelity to a theory of virtue?

And all those railway people, with their honest work! Of course, their work is honest! But what if you cannot

work honestly till the thieves are satisfied? Could he not, a gentleman, have told this Sir John

what'shisname that Montero had to be bought offhe and all his Negro Liberals hanging on to his

goldlaced sleeve? He ought to have been bought off with his own stupid weight of goldhis weight of

She was facing him now in the deep recess of the window, very close and motionless. Her lips moved

rapidly. Decoud, leaning his back against the wall, listened with crossed arms and lowered eyelids. He drank

the tones of her even voice, and watched the agitated life of her throat, as if waves of emotion had run from

her heart to pass out into the air in her reasonable words. He also had his aspirations, he aspired to carry her

away out of these deadly futilities of pronunciamientos and reforms. All this was wrongutterly wrong; but

she fascinated him, and sometimes the sheer sagacity of a phrase would break the charm, replace the

fascination by a sudden unwilling thrill of interest. Some women hovered, as it were, on the threshold of

genius, he reflected. They did not want to know, or think, or understand. Passion stood for all that, and he

was ready to believe that some startlingly profound remark, some appreciation of character, or a judgment

upon an event, bordered on the miraculous. In the mature Antonia he could see with an extraordinary

vividness the austere schoolgirl of the earlier days. She seduced his attention; sometimes he could not restrain

a murmur of assent; now and then he advanced an objection quite seriously. Gradually they began to argue;

Outside it had grown dark. From the deep trench of shadow between the houses, lit up vaguely by the

glimmer of street lamps, ascended the evening silence of Sulaco; the silence of a town with few carriages, of

unshod horses, and a softly sandalled population. The windows of the Casa Gould flung their shining

parallelograms upon the house of the Avellanos. Now and then a shuffle of feet passed below with the

pulsating red glow of a cigarette at the foot of the walls; and the night air, as if cooled by the snows of

"We Occidentals," said Martin Decoud, using the usual term the provincials of Sulaco applied to themselves,

"have been always distinct and separated. As long as we hold Cayta nothing can reach us. In all our troubles

no army has marched over those mountains. A revolution in the central provinces isolates us at once. Look

how complete it is now! The news of Barrios' movement will be cabled to the United States, and only in that

way will it reach Sta. Marta by the cable from the other seaboard. We have the greatest riches, the greatest

fertility, the purest blood in our great families, the most laborious population. The Occidental Province

should stand alone. The early Federalism was not bad for us. Then came this union which Don Henrique

Gould resisted. It opened the road to tyranny; and, ever since, the rest of Costaguana hangs like a millstone

round our necks. The Occidental territory is large enough to make any man's country. Look at the mountains!

"Oh, yes, I know it's contrary to the doctrine laid down in the 'History of Fifty Years' Misrule.' I am only

trying to be sensible. But my sense seems always to give you cause for offence. Have I startled you very

She shook her head. No, she was not startled, but the idea shocked her early convictions. Her patriotism was

"It may yet be the means of saving some of your convictions," he said, prophetically.

She did not answer. She seemed tired. They leaned side by side on the rail of the little balcony, very friendly,

having exhausted politics, giving themselves up to the silent feeling of their nearness, in one of those

profound pauses that fall upon the rhythm of passion. Towards the plaza end of the street the glowing coals in

the brazeros of the market women cooking their evening meal gleamed red along the edge of the pavement. A

man appeared without a sound in the light of a street lamp, showing the coloured inverted triangle of his

bordered poncho, square on his shoulders, hanging to a point below his knees. From the harbour end of the

Calle a horseman walked his softstepping mount, gleaming silvergrey abreast each lamp under the dark

"Behold the illustrious Capataz de Cargadores," said Decoud, gently, "coming in all his splendour after his

work is done. The next great man of Sulaco after Don Carlos Gould. But he is goodnatured, and let me

"A journalist ought to have his finger on the popular pulse, and this man is one of the leaders of the populace.

A journalist ought to know remarkable menand this man is remarkable in his way."

"Ah, yes!" said Antonia, thoughtfully. "It is known that this Italian has a great influence."

The horseman had passed below them, with a gleam of dim light on the shining broad quarters of the grey

mare, on a bright heavy stirrup, on a long silver spur; but the short flick of yellowish flame in the dusk was

powerless against the muffledup mysteriousness of the dark figure with an invisible face concealed by a

Decoud and Antonia remained leaning over the balcony, side by side, touching elbows, with their heads

overhanging the darkness of the street, and the brilliantly lighted sala at their backs. This was a teteatete of

extreme impropriety; something of which in the whole extent of the Republic only the extraordinary Antonia

could be capablethe poor, motherless girl, never accompanied, with a careless father, who had thought

only of making her learned. Even Decoud himself seemed to feel that this was as much as he could expect of

having her to himself tilltill the revolution was over and he could carry her off to Europe, away from the

endlessness of civil strife, whose folly seemed even harder to bear than its ignominy. After one Montero there

would be another, the lawlessness of a populace of all colours and races, barbarism, irremediable tyranny. As

the great Liberator Bolivar had said in the bitterness of his spirit, "America is ungovernable. Those who

worked for her independence have ploughed the sea." He did not care, he declared boldly; he seized every

opportunity to tell her that though she had managed to make a Blanco journalist of him, he was no patriot.

First of all, the word had no sense for cultured minds, to whom the narrowness of every belief is odious; and

secondly, in connection with the everlasting troubles of this unhappy country it was hopelessly besmirched; it

had been the cry of dark barbarism, the cloak of lawlessness, of crimes, of rapacity, of simple thieving.

He was surprised at the warmth of his own utterance. He had no need to drop his voice; it had been low all

the time, a mere murmur in the silence of dark houses with their shutters closed early against the night air, as

is the custom of Sulaco. Only the sala of the Casa Gould flung out defiantly the blaze of its four windows, the

bright appeal of light in the whole dumb obscurity of the street. And the murmur on the little balcony went on

"But we are labouring to change all that," Antonia protested. "It is exactly what we desire. It is our object. It

is the great cause. And the word you despise has stood also for sacrifice, for courage, for constancy, for

"Your uncle, the grandvicar of the cathedral, has just turned under the gate," observed Decoud. "He said

Mass for the troops in the Plaza this morning. They had built for him an altar of drums, you know. And they

brought outside all the painted blocks to take the air. All the wooden saints stood militarily in a row at the top

of the great flight of steps. They looked like a gorgeous escort attending the VicarGeneral. I saw the great

function from the windows of the Porvenir. He is amazing, your uncle, the last of the Corbelans. He glittered

exceedingly in his vestments with a great crimson velvet cross down his back. And all the time our saviour

Barrios sat in the Amarilla Club drinking punch at an open window. Esprit fortour Barrios. I expected

every moment your uncle to launch an excommunication there and then at the black eyepatch in the window

across the Plaza. But not at all. Ultimately the troops marched off. Later Barrios came down with some of the

officers, and stood with his uniform all unbuttoned, discoursing at the edge of the pavement. Suddenly your

uncle appeared, no longer glittering, but all black, at the cathedral door with that threatening aspect he

hasyou know, like a sort of avenging spirit. He gives one look, strides over straight at the group of

uniforms, and leads away the general by the elbow. He walked him for a quarter of an hour in the shade of a

wall. Never let go his elbow for a moment, talking all the time with exaltation, and gesticulating with a long

black arm. It was a curious scene. The officers seemed struck with astonishment. Remarkable man, your

missionary uncle. He hates an infidel much less than a heretic, and prefers a heathen many times to an infidel.

Antonia listened with her hands over the balustrade, opening and shutting the fan gently; and Decoud talked a

little nervously, as if afraid that she would leave him at the first pause. Their comparative isolation, the

precious sense of intimacy, the slight contact of their arms, affected him softly; for now and then a tender

"Any slight sign of favour from a relative of yours is welcome, Antonia. And perhaps he understands me,

after all! But I know him, too, our Padre Corbelan. The idea of political honour, justice, and honesty for him

consists in the restitution of the confiscated Church property. Nothing else could have drawn that fierce

converter of savage Indians out of the wilds to work for the Ribierist cause! Nothing else but that wild hope!

He would make a pronunciamiento himself for such an object against any Government if he could only get

followers! What does Don Carlos Gould think of that? But, of course, with his English impenetrability,

nobody can tell what he thinks. Probably he thinks of nothing apart from his mine; of his 'Imperium in

Imperio.' As to Mrs. Gould, she thinks of her schools, of her hospitals, of the mothers with the young babies,

of every sick old man in the three villages. If you were to turn your head now you would see her extracting a

report from that sinister doctor in a check shirtwhat's his name? Monyghamor else catechising Don

Pepe or perhaps listening to Padre Roman. They are all down here todayall her ministers of state. Well,

she is a sensible woman, and perhaps Don Carlos is a sensible man. It's a part of solid English sense not to

think too much; to see only what may be of practical use at the moment. These people are not like ourselves.

We have no political reason; we have political passionssometimes. What is a conviction? A particular view

of our personal advantage either practical or emotional. No one is a patriot for nothing. The word serves us

well. But I am clearsighted, and I shall not use that word to you, Antonia! I have no patriotic illusions. I

He paused, then muttered almost inaudibly, "That can lead one very far, though."

Behind their backs the political tide that once in every twentyfour hours set with a strong flood through the

Gould drawingroom could be heard, rising higher in a hum of voices. Men had been dropping in singly, or

in twos and threes: the higher officials of the province, engineers of the railway, sunburnt and in tweeds, with

the frosted head of their chief smiling with slow, humorous indulgence amongst the young eager faces.

Scarfe, the lover of fandangos, had already slipped out in search of some dance, no matter where, on the

outskirts of the town. Don Juste Lopez, after taking his daughters home, had entered solemnly, in a black

creased coat buttoned up under his spreading brown beard. The few members of the Provincial Assembly

present clustered at once around their President to discuss the news of the war and the last proclamation of

the rebel Montero, the miserable Montero, calling in the name of "a justly incensed democracy" upon all the

Provincial Assemblies of the Republic to suspend their sittings till his sword had made peace and the will of

the people could be consulted. It was practically an invitation to dissolve: an unheardof audacity of that evil

The indignation ran high in the knot of deputies behind Jose Avellanos. Don Jose, lifting up his voice, cried

out to them over the high back of his chair, "Sulaco has answered by sending today an army upon his flank.

A great outburst of acclamations covered the vibrating treble of the life and soul of the party. Yes! Yes! This

was true! A great truth! Sulaco was in the forefront, as ever! It was a boastful tumult, the hopefulness inspired

by the event of the day breaking out amongst those caballeros of the Campo thinking of their herds, of their

lands, of the safety of their families. Everything was at stake. . . . No! It was impossible that Montero should

succeed! This criminal, this shameless Indio! The clamour continued for some time, everybody else in the

room looking towards the group where Don Juste had put on his air of impartial solemnity as if presiding at a

sitting of the Provincial Assembly. Decoud had turned round at the noise, and, leaning his back on the

balustrade, shouted into the room with all the strength of his lungs, "Gran' bestia!"

This unexpected cry had the effect of stilling the noise. All the eyes were directed to the window with an

approving expectation; but Decoud had already turned his back upon the room, and was again leaning out

"This is the quintessence of my journalism; that is the supreme argument," he said to Antonia. "I have

invented this definition, this last word on a great question. But I am no patriot. I am no more of a patriot than

the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores, this Genoese who has done such great things for this harbourthis

active usherin of the material implements for our progress. You have heard Captain Mitchell confess over

and over again that till he got this man he could never tell how long it would take to unload a ship. That is

bad for progress. You have seen him pass by after his labours on his famous horse to dazzle the girls in some

ballroom with an earthen floor. He is a fortunate fellow! His work is an exercise of personal powers; his

leisure is spent in receiving the marks of extraordinary adulation. And he likes it, too. Can anybody be more

"I was speaking of a man of that sort," said Decoud, curtly. "The heroes of the world have been feared and

Decoud had often felt his familiar habit of ironic thought fall shattered against Antonia's gravity. She irritated

him as if she, too, had suffered from that inexplicable feminine obtuseness which stands so often between a

man and a woman of the more ordinary sort. But he overcame his vexation at once. He was very far from

thinking Antonia ordinary, whatever verdict his scepticism might have pronounced upon himself. With a

touch of penetrating tenderness in his voice he assured her that his only aspiration was to a felicity so high

She coloured invisibly, with a warmth against which the breeze from the sierra seemed to have lost its

cooling power in the sudden melting of the snows. His whisper could not have carried so far, though there

was enough ardour in his tone to melt a heart of ice. Antonia turned away abruptly, as if to carry his

The tide of political speculation was beating high within the four walls of the great sala, as if driven beyond

the marks by a great gust of hope. Don Juste's fanshaped beard was still the centre of loud and animated

discussions. There was a selfconfident ring in all the voices. Even the few Europeans around Charles

Goulda Dane, a couple of Frenchmen, a discreet fat German, smiling, with downcast eyes, the

representatives of those material interests that had got a footing in Sulaco under the protecting might of the

San Tome minehad infused a lot of good humour into their deference. Charles Gould, to whom they were

paying their court, was the visible sign of the stability that could be achieved on the shifting ground of

revolutions. They felt hopeful about their various undertakings. One of the two Frenchmen, small, black, with

glittering eyes lost in an immense growth of bushy beard, waved his tiny brown hands and delicate wrists. He

had been travelling in the interior of the province for a syndicate of European capitalists. His forcible

"Monsieur l' Administrateur" returning every minute shrilled above the steady hum of conversations. He was

relating his discoveries. He was ecstatic. Charles Gould glanced down at him courteously.

At a given moment of these necessary receptions it was Mrs. Gould's habit to withdraw quietly into a little

drawingroom, especially her own, next to the great sala. She had risen, and, waiting for Antonia, listened

with a slightly worried graciousness to the engineerinchief of the railway, who stooped over her, relating

slowly, without the slightest gesture, something apparently amusing, for his eyes had a humorous twinkle.

Antonia, before she advanced into the room to join Mrs. Gould, turned her head over her shoulder towards

"Why should any one of us think his aspirations unrealizable?" she said, rapidly.

"I am going to cling to mine to the end, Antonia," he answered, through clenched teeth, then bowed very low,

The engineerinchief had not finished telling his amusing story. The humours of railway building in South

America appealed to his keen appreciation of the absurd, and he told his instances of ignorant prejudice and

as ignorant cunning very well. Now, Mrs. Gould gave him all her attention as he walked by her side escorting

the ladies out of the room. Finally all three passed unnoticed through the glass doors in the gallery. Only a tall

priest stalking silently in the noise of the sala checked himself to look after them. Father Corbelan, whom

Decoud had seen from the balcony turning into the gateway of the Casa Gould, had addressed no one since

coming in. The long, skimpy soutane accentuated the tallness of his stature; he carried his powerful torso

thrown forward; and the straight, black bar of his joined eyebrows, the pugnacious outline of the bony face,

the white spot of a scar on the bluish shaven cheeks (a testimonial to his apostolic zeal from a party of

unconverted Indians), suggested something unlawful behind his priesthood, the idea of a chaplain of bandits.

He separated his bony, knotted hands clasped behind his back, to shake his finger at Martin.

Decoud had stepped into the room after Antonia. But he did not go far. He had remained just within, against

the curtain, with an expression of not quite genuine gravity, like a grownup person taking part in a game of

"I have watched your reverence converting General Barrios by a special sermon on the Plaza," he said,

"What miserable nonsense!" Father Corbelan's deep voice resounded all over the room, making all the heads

turn on the shoulders. "The man is a drunkard. Senores, the God of your General is a bottle!"

His contemptuous, arbitrary voice caused an uneasy suspension of every sound, as if the selfconfidence of

the gathering had been staggered by a blow. But nobody took up Father Corbelan's declaration.

It was known that Father Corbelan had come out of the wilds to advocate the sacred rights of the Church with

the same fanatical fearlessness with which he had gone preaching to bloodthirsty savages, devoid of human

compassion or worship of any kind. Rumours of legendary proportions told of his successes as a missionary

beyond the eye of Christian men. He had baptized whole nations of Indians, living with them like a savage

himself. It was related that the padre used to ride with his Indians for days, half naked, carrying a

bullockhide shield, and, no doubt, a long lance, toowho knows? That he had wandered clothed in skins,

seeking for proselytes somewhere near the snow line of the Cordillera. Of these exploits Padre Corbelan

himself was never known to talk. But he made no secret of his opinion that the politicians of Sta. Marta had

harder hearts and more corrupt minds than the heathen to whom he had carried the word of God. His

injudicious zeal for the temporal welfare of the Church was damaging the Ribierist cause. It was common

knowledge that he had refused to be made titular bishop of the Occidental diocese till justice was done to a

despoiled Church. The political Gefe of Sulaco (the same dignitary whom Captain Mitchell saved from the

mob afterwards) hinted with naive cynicism that doubtless their Excellencies the Ministers sent the padre

over the mountains to Sulaco in the worst season of the year in the hope that he would be frozen to death by

the icy blasts of the high paramos. Every year a few hardy muleteersmen inured to exposurewere known

to perish in that way. But what would you have? Their Excellencies possibly had not realized what a tough

priest he was. Meantime, the ignorant were beginning to murmur that the Ribierist reforms meant simply the

taking away of the land from the people. Some of it was to be given to foreigners who made the railway; the

These were the results of the Grand Vicar's zeal. Even from the short allocution to the troops on the Plaza

(which only the first ranks could have heard) he had not been able to keep out his fixed idea of an outraged

Church waiting for reparation from a penitent country. The political Gefe had been exasperated. But he could

not very well throw the brotherinlaw of Don Jose into the prison of the Cabildo. The chief magistrate, an

easygoing and popular official, visited the Casa Gould, walking over after sunset from the Intendencia,

unattended, acknowledging with dignified courtesy the salutations of high and low alike. That evening he had

walked up straight to Charles Gould and had hissed out to him that he would have liked to deport the Grand

Vicar out of Sulaco, anywhere, to some desert island, to the Isabels, for instance. "The one without water

preferablyeh, Don Carlos?" he had added in a tone between jest and earnest. This uncontrollable priest,

who had rejected his offer of the episcopal palace for a residence and preferred to hang his shabby hammock

amongst the rubble and spiders of the sequestrated Dominican Convent, had taken into his head to advocate

an unconditional pardon for Hernandez the Robber! And this was not enough; he seemed to have entered into

communication with the most audacious criminal the country had known for years. The Sulaco police knew,

of course, what was going on. Padre Corbelan had got hold of that reckless Italian, the Capataz de

Cargadores, the only man fit for such an errand, and had sent a message through him. Father Corbelan had

studied in Rome, and could speak Italian. The Capataz was known to visit the old Dominican Convent at

night. An old woman who served the Grand Vicar had heard the name of Hernandez pronounced; and only

last Saturday afternoon the Capataz had been observed galloping out of town. He did not return for two days.

The police would have laid the Italian by the heels if it had not been for fear of the Cargadores, a turbulent

body of men, quite apt to raise a tumult. Nowadays it was not so easy to govern Sulaco. Bad characters

flocked into it, attracted by the money in the pockets of the railway workmen. The populace was made

restless by Father Corbelan's discourses. And the first magistrate explained to Charles Gould that now the

province was stripped of troops any outbreak of lawlessness would find the authorities with their boots off, as

Then he went away moodily to sit in an armchair, smoking a long, thin cigar, not very far from Don Jose,

with whom, bending over sideways, he exchanged a few words from time to time. He ignored the entrance of

the priest, and whenever Father Corbelan's voice was raised behind him, he shrugged his shoulders

Father Corbelan had remained quite motionless for a time with that something vengeful in his immobility

which seemed to characterize all his attitudes. A lurid glow of strong convictions gave its peculiar aspect to

the black figure. But its fierceness became softened as the padre, fixing his eyes upon Decoud, raised his

He made a step nearer, pointing a forefinger at the young man's breast. Decoud, very calm, felt the wall

behind the curtain with the back of his head. Then, with his chin tilted well up, he smiled.

"Very well," he agreed with the slightly weary nonchalance of a man well used to these passages. "But is it

perhaps that you have not discovered yet what is the God of my worship? It was an easier task with our

The priest suppressed a gesture of discouragement. "You believe neither in stick nor stone," he said.

"Nor bottle," added Decoud without stirring. "Neither does the other of your reverence's confidants. I mean

the Capataz of the Cargadores. He does not drink. Your reading of my character does honour to your

"True," retorted the priest. "You are ten times worse. A miracle could not convert you."

"I certainly do not believe in miracles," said Decoud, quietly. Father Corbelan shrugged his high, broad

"A sort of Frenchmangodlessa materialist," he pronounced slowly, as if weighing the terms of a careful

analysis. "Neither the son of his own country nor of any other," he continued, thoughtfully.

"Scarcely human, in fact," Decoud commented under his breath, his head at rest against the wall, his eyes

"The victim of this faithless age," Father Corbelan resumed in a deep but subdued voice.

"But of some use as a journalist." Decoud changed his pose and spoke in a more animated tone. "Has your

worship neglected to read the last number of the Porvenir? I assure you it is just like the others. On the

general policy it continues to call Montero a gran' bestia, and stigmatize his brother, the guerrillero, for a

combination of lackey and spy. What could be more effective? In local affairs it urges the Provincial

Government to enlist bodily into the national army the band of Hernandez the Robberwho is apparently the

protege of the Churchor at least of the Grand Vicar. Nothing could be more sound."

The priest nodded and turned on the heels of his squaretoed shoes with big steel buckles. Again, with his

hands clasped behind his back, he paced to and fro, planting his feet firmly. When he swung about, the skirt

The great sala had been emptying itself slowly. When the Gefe Politico rose to go, most of those still

remaining stood up suddenly in sign of respect, and Don Jose Avellanos stopped the rocking of his chair. But

the goodnatured First Official made a deprecatory gesture, waved his hand to Charles Gould, and went out

In the comparative peace of the room the screaming "Monsieur l'Administrateur" of the frail, hairy

Frenchman seemed to acquire a preternatural shrillness. The explorer of the Capitalist syndicate was still

enthusiastic. "Ten million dollars' worth of copper practically in sight, Monsieur l'Administrateur. Ten

millions in sight! And a railway cominga railway! They will never believe my report. C'est trop beau." He

fell a prey to a screaming ecstasy, in the midst of sagely nodding heads, before Charles Gould's imperturbable

And only the priest continued his pacing, flinging round the skirt of his soutane at each end of his beat.

Father Corbelan stopped short, looked at the journalist of Sulaco fixedly for a moment, shrugged his

And now the Europeans were dropping off from the group around Charles Gould till the Administrador of the

Great Silver Mine could be seen in his whole lank length, from head to foot, left stranded by the ebbing tide

of his guests on the great square of carpet, as it were a multicoloured shoal of flowers and arabesques under

his brown boots. Father Corbelan approached the rockingchair of Don Jose Avellanos.

"Come, brother," he said, with kindly brusqueness and a touch of relieved impatience a man may feel at the

end of a perfectly useless ceremony. "A la Casa! A la Casa! This has been all talk. Let us now go and think

He rolled his black eyes upwards. By the side of the frail diplomatistthe life and soul of the partyhe

seemed gigantic, with a gleam of fanaticism in the glance. But the voice of the party, or, rather, its

mouthpiece, the "son Decoud" from Paris, turned journalist for the sake of Antonia's eyes, knew very well

that it was not so, that he was only a strenuous priest with one idea, feared by the women and execrated by

the men of the people. Martin Decoud, the dilettante in life, imagined himself to derive an artistic pleasure

from watching the picturesque extreme of wrongheadedness into which an honest, almost sacred, conviction

may drive a man. "It is like madness. It must bebecause it's selfdestructive," Decoud had said to himself

often. It seemed to him that every conviction, as soon as it became effective, turned into that form of

dementia the gods send upon those they wish to destroy. But he enjoyed the bitter flavour of that example

with the zest of a connoisseur in the art of his choice. Those two men got on well together, as if each had felt

respectively that a masterful conviction, as well as utter scepticism, may lead a man very far on the bypaths

Don Jose obeyed the touch of the big hairy hand. Decoud followed out the brothersinlaw. And there

remained only one visitor in the vast empty sala, bluishly hazy with tobacco smoke, a heavyeyed,

roundcheeked man, with a drooping moustache, a hide merchant from Esmeralda, who had come overland

to Sulaco, riding with a few peons across the coast range. He was very full of his journey, undertaken mostly

for the purpose of seeing the Senor Administrador of San Tome in relation to some assistance he required in

his hideexporting business. He hoped to enlarge it greatly now that the country was going to be settled. It

was going to be settled, he repeated several times, degrading by a strange, anxious whine the sonority of the

Spanish language, which he pattered rapidly, like some sort of cringing jargon. A plain man could carry on

his little business now in the country, and even think of enlarging itwith safety. Was it not so? He seemed

to beg Charles Gould for a confirmatory word, a grunt of assent, a simple nod even.

He could get nothing. His alarm increased, and in the pauses he would dart his eyes here and there; then, loth

to give up, he would branch off into feeling allusion to the dangers of his journey. The audacious Hernandez,

leaving his usual haunts, had crossed the Campo of Sulaco, and was known to be lurking in the ravines of the

coast range. Yesterday, when distant only a few hours from Sulaco, the hide merchant and his servants had

seen three men on the road arrested suspiciously, with their horses' heads together. Two of these rode off at

once and disappeared in a shallow quebrada to the left. "We stopped," continued the man from Esmeralda,

"and I tried to hide behind a small bush. But none of my mozos would go forward to find out what it meant,

and the third horseman seemed to be waiting for us to come up. It was no use. We had been seen. So we rode

slowly on, trembling. He let us passa man on a grey horse with his hat down on his eyeswithout a word

of greeting; but byandby we heard him galloping after us. We faced about, but that did not seem to

intimidate him. He rode up at speed, and touching my foot with the toe of his boot, asked me for a cigar, with

a bloodcurdling laugh. He did not seem armed, but when he put his hand back to reach for the matches I

saw an enormous revolver strapped to his waist. I shuddered. He had very fierce whiskers, Don Carlos, and as

he did not offer to go on we dared not move. At last, blowing the smoke of my cigar into the air through his

nostrils, he said, 'Senor, it would be perhaps better for you if I rode behind your party. You are not very far

from Sulaco now. Go you with God.' What would you? We went on. There was no resisting him. He might

have been Hernandez himself; though my servant, who has been many times to Sulaco by sea, assured me

that he had recognized him very well for the Capataz of the Steamship Company's Cargadores. Later, that

same evening, I saw that very man at the corner of the Plaza talking to a girl, a Morenita, who stood by the

"I assure you, Senor Hirsch," murmured Charles Gould, "that you ran no risk on this occasion."

"That may be, senor, though I tremble yet. A most fierce manto look at. And what does it mean? A person

employed by the Steamship Company talking with salteadoresno less, senor; the other horsemen were

salteadoresin a lonely place, and behaving like a robber himself! A cigar is nothing, but what was there to

"No, no, Senor Hirsch," Charles Gould murmured, letting his glance stray away a little vacantly from the

round face, with its hooked beak upturned towards him in an almost childlike appeal. "If it was the Capataz

"Thank you. You are very good. A very fiercelooking man, Don Carlos. He asked me for a cigar in a most

familiar manner. What would have happened if I had not had a cigar? I shudder yet. What business had he to

But Charles Gould, openly preoccupied now, gave not a sign, made no sound. The impenetrability of the

embodied Gould Concession had its surface shades. To be dumb is merely a fatal affliction; but the King of

Sulaco had words enough to give him all the mysterious weight of a taciturn force. His silences, backed by

the power of speech, had as many shades of significance as uttered words in the way of assent, of doubt, of

negationeven of simple comment. Some seemed to say plainly, "Think it over"; others meant clearly, "Go

ahead"; a simple, low "I see," with an affirmative nod, at the end of a patient listening halfhour was the

equivalent of a verbal contract, which men had learned to trust implicitly, since behind it all there was the

great San Tome mine, the head and front of the material interests, so strong that it depended on no man's

goodwill in the whole length and breadth of the Occidental Provincethat is, on no goodwill which it could

not buy ten times over. But to the little hooknosed man from Esmeralda, anxious about the export of hides,

the silence of Charles Gould portended a failure. Evidently this was no time for extending a modest man's

business. He enveloped in a swift mental malediction the whole country, with all its inhabitants, partisans of

Ribiera and Montero alike; and there were incipient tears in his mute anger at the thought of the innumerable

oxhides going to waste upon the dreamy expanse of the Campo, with its single palms rising like ships at sea

within the perfect circle of the horizon, its clumps of heavy timber motionless like solid islands of leaves

above the running waves of grass. There were hides there, rotting, with no profit to anybodyrotting where

they had been dropped by men called away to attend the urgent necessities of political revolutions. The

practical, mercantile soul of Senor Hirsch rebelled against all that foolishness, while he was taking a

respectful but disconcerted leave of the might and majesty of the San Tome mine in the person of Charles

Gould. He could not restrain a heartbroken murmur, wrung out of his very aching heart, as it were.

"It is a great, great foolishness, Don Carlos, all this. The price of hides in Hamburg is gone upup. Of

course the Ribierist Government will do away with all thatwhen it gets established firmly. Meantime"

The other shrugged his shoulders. But he was not ready to go yet. There was a little matter he would like to

mention very much if permitted. It appeared he had some good friends in Hamburg (he murmured the name

of the firm) who were very anxious to do business, in dynamite, he explained. A contract for dynamite with

the San Tome mine, and then, perhaps, later on, other mines, which were sure toThe little man from

Esmeralda was ready to enlarge, but Charles interrupted him. It seemed as though the patience of the Senor

"Senor Hirsch," he said, "I have enough dynamite stored up at the mountain to send it down crashing into the

Charles Gould smiled at the round, startled eyes of the dealer in hides, who was murmuring hastily, "Just so.

Just so." And now he was going. It was impossible to do business in explosives with an Administrador so

well provided and so discouraging. He had suffered agonies in the saddle and had exposed himself to the

atrocities of the bandit Hernandez for nothing at all. Neither hides nor dynamiteand the very shoulders of

the enterprising Israelite expressed dejection. At the door he bowed low to the engineerinchief. But at the

bottom of the stairs in the patio he stopped short, with his podgy hand over his lips in an attitude of

"What does he want to keep so much dynamite for?" he muttered. "And why does he talk like this to me?"

The engineerinchief, looking in at the door of the empty sala, whence the political tide had ebbed out to

the last insignificant drop, nodded familiarly to the master of the house, standing motionless like a tall beacon

"Goodnight, I am going. Got my bike downstairs. The railway will know where to go for dynamite should

we get short at any time. We have done cutting and chopping for a while now. We shall begin soon to blast

"Don't come to me," said Charles Gould, with perfect serenity. "I shan't have an ounce to spare for anybody.

Not an ounce. Not for my own brother, if I had a brother, and he were the engineerinchief of the most

"I mean, going to the roots, you know," the engineer explained, with an air of enjoyment.

"Why, yes," Charles pronounced, slowly. "The Gould Concession has struck such deep roots in this country,

in this province, in that gorge of the mountains, that nothing but dynamite shall be allowed to dislodge it from

The engineerinchief whistled low. "A pretty game," he said, with a shade of discretion. "And have you told

"Card only when it's played; when it falls at the end of the game. Till then you may call it aa"

"No. You may call it rather an argument," corrected Charles Gould, gently. "And that's how I've presented it

"He"Charles Gould spoke after a slight pause"he said something about holding on like grim death and

putting our trust in God. I should imagine he must have been rather startled. But then"pursued the

Administrador of the San Tome mine"but then, he is very far away, you know, and, as they say in this

The engineer's appreciative laugh died away down the stairs, where the Madonna with the Child on her arm

A PROFOUND stillness reigned in the Casa Gould. The master of the house, walking along the corredor,

opened the door of his room, and saw his wife sitting in a big armchairhis own smoking

armchairthoughtful, contemplating her little shoes. And she did not raise her eyes when he walked in.

"A little," said Mrs. Gould. Still without looking up, she added with feeling, "There is an awful sense of

Charles Gould, before the long table strewn with papers, on which lay a hunting crop and a pair of spurs,

stood looking at his wife: "The heat and dust must have been awful this afternoon by the waterside," he

murmured, sympathetically. "The glare on the water must have been simply terrible."

"One could close one's eyes to the glare," said Mrs. Gould. "But, my dear Charley, it is impossible for me to

She raised her eyes and looked at her husband's face, from which all sign of sympathy or any other feeling

"I thought you had understood me perfectly from the first," Charles Gould said, slowly. "I thought we had

said all there was to say a long time ago. There is nothing to say now. There were things to be done. We have

done them; we have gone on doing them. There is no going back now. I don't suppose that, even from the

first, there was really any possible way back. And, what's more, we can't even afford to stand still."

"Ah, if one only knew how far you mean to go," said his wife. inwardly trembling, but in an almost playful

"Any distance, any length, of course," was the answer, in a matteroffact tone, which caused Mrs. Gould to

She stood up, smiling graciously, and her little figure seemed to be diminished still more by the heavy mass

Charles Gould, enveloping her in the steely blue glance of his attentive eyes, answered without hesitation

He put an immense assurance into his tone. As to the words, this was all that his conscience would allow him

"I will leave you; I've a slight headache. The heat, the dust, were indeedI suppose you are going back to

"At midnight," said Charles Gould. "We are bringing down the silver tomorrow. Then I shall take three

"Ah, you are going to meet the escort. I shall be on the balcony at five o'clock to see you pass. Till then,

Charles Gould walked rapidly round the table, and, seizing her hands, bent down, pressing them both to his

lips. Before he straightened himself up again to his full height she had disengaged one to smooth his cheek

"Try to get some rest for a couple of hours," she murmured, with a glance at a hammock stretched in a distant

part of the room. Her long train swished softly after her on the red tiles. At the door she looked back.

Two big lamps with unpolished glass globes bathed in a soft and abundant light the four white walls of the

room, with a glass case of arms, the brass hilt of Henry Gould's cavalry sabre on its square of velvet, and the

watercolour sketch of the San Tome gorge. And Mrs. Gould, gazing at the last in its black wooden frame,

"Perhaps it was impossible," Mrs. Gould admitted, slowly. Her lips quivered a little, but she smiled with an

air of dainty bravado. "We have disturbed a good many snakes in that Paradise, Charley, haven't we?"

"Yes, I remember," said Charles Gould, "it was Don Pepe who called the gorge the Paradise of snakes. No

doubt we have disturbed a great many. But remember, my dear, that it is not now as it was when you made

that sketch." He waved his hand towards the small watercolour hanging alone upon the great bare wall. "It is

no longer a Paradise of snakes. We have brought mankind into it, and we cannot turn our backs upon them to

He confronted his wife with a firm, concentrated gaze, which Mrs. Gould returned with a brave assumption

In contrast with the white glaring room the dimly lit corredor had a restful mysteriousness of a forest glade,

suggested by the stems and the leaves of the plants ranged along the balustrade of the open side. In the streaks

of light falling through the open doors of the receptionrooms, the blossoms, white and red and pale lilac,

came out vivid with the brilliance of flowers in a stream of sunshine; and Mrs. Gould, passing on, had the

vividness of a figure seen in the clear patches of sun that chequer the gloom of open glades in the woods. The

stones in the rings upon her hand pressed to her forehead glittered in the lamplight abreast of the door of the

"Who's there?" she asked, in a startled voice. "Is that you, Basilio?" She looked in, and saw Martin Decoud

walking about, with an air of having lost something, amongst the chairs and tables.

"Antonia has forgotten her fan in here," said Decoud, with a strange air of distraction; "so I entered to see."

But, even as he said this, he had obviously given up his search, and walked straight towards Mrs. Gould, who

"What is it, Don Martin?" asked Mrs. Gould. And then she added, with a slight laugh, "I am so nervous

"Nothing immediately dangerous," said Decoud, who now could not conceal his agitation. "Pray don't

Mrs. Gould, with her candid eyes very wide open, her lips composed into a smile, was steadying herself with

"I! Alarming!" he protested, sincerely vexed and surprised. "I assure you that I am not in the least alarmed

myself. A fan is lost; well, it will be found again. But I don't think it is here. It is a fan I am looking for. I

"No, senor," said behind Mrs. Gould the soft voice of Basilio, the head servant of the Casa. "I don't think the

"Go and look for it in the patio again. Go now, my friend; look for it on the steps, under the gate; examine

every flagstone; search for it till I come down again. . . . That fellow"he addressed himself in English to

Mrs. Gould"is always stealing up behind one's back on his bare feet. I set him to look for that fan directly I

He paused and Mrs. Gould said, amiably, "You are always welcome." She paused for a second, too. "But I

"I can't bear to be spied upon. Oh, the cause? Yes, there is a cause; there is something else that is lost besides

Antonia's favourite fan. As I was walking home after seeing Don Jose and Antonia to their house, the Capataz

"The Violas? You mean the old Garibaldino who keeps the hotel where the engineers live? Nothing happened

there. The Capataz said nothing of them; he only told me that the telegraphist of the Cable Company was

walking on the Plaza, bareheaded, looking out for me. There is news from the interior, Mrs. Gould. I should

"Worthless, I should think. But if I must define them, I would say bad. They are to the effect that a two days'

battle had been fought near Sta. Marta, and that the Ribierists are defeated. It must have happened a few days

agoperhaps a week. The rumour has just reached Cayta, and the man in charge of the cable station there

has telegraphed the news to his colleague here. We might just as well have kept Barrios in Sulaco."

"Nothing. He's at sea with the troops. He will get to Cayta in a couple of days' time and learn the news there.

What he will do then, who can say? Hold Cayta? Offer his submission to Montero? Disband his armythis

last most likely, and go himself in one of the O.S.N. Company's steamers, north or southto Valparaiso or to

San Francisco, no matter where. Our Barrios has a great practice in exiles and repatriations, which mark the

Decoud, exchanging a steady stare with Mrs. Gould, added, tentatively, as it were, "And yet, if we had could

"Montero victorious, completely victorious!" Mrs. Gould breathed out in a tone of unbelief.

"A canard, probably. That sort of bird is hatched in great numbers in such times as these. And even if it were

Suddenly she seemed to divine, she seemed to see Decoud's tremendous excitement under its cloak of studied

carelessness. It was, indeed, becoming visible in his audacious and watchful stare, in the curve, halfreckless,

halfcontemptuous, of his lips. And a French phrase came upon them as if, for this Costaguanero of the

It electrified Mrs. Gould out of her benumbed attitude, and she said, vivaciously

"What would you expect a true Costaguanero to do? Another revolution, of course. On my word of honour,

Mrs. Gould, I believe I am a true hijo del pays, a true son of the country, whatever Father Corbelan may say.

And I'm not so much of an unbeliever as not to have faith in my own ideas, in my own remedies, in my own

"You don't seem convinced," Decoud went on again in French. "Say, then, in my passions."

Mrs. Gould received this addition unflinchingly. To understand it thoroughly she did not require to hear his

"There is nothing I would not do for the sake of Antonia. There is nothing I am not prepared to undertake.

Decoud seemed to find a fresh audacity in this voicing of his thoughts. "You would not believe me if I were

She made a sort of discouraged protest with her arm, as if to express that she had given up expecting that

"A Sulaco revolution," Decoud pursued in a forcible undertone. "The Great Cause may be served here, on the

Frowning, and biting her lower lip thoughtfully, she made a step away from the door.

"No doubt," Decoud admitted without hesitation. "Everything turns upon the San Tome mine, but I would

A puzzled look came upon Mrs. Gould's face, and Decoud, approaching, explained confidentially

"Charley an idealist!" she said, as if to herself, wonderingly. "What on earth do you mean?"

"Yes," conceded Decoud, "it's a wonderful thing to say with the sight of the San Tome mine, the greatest fact

in the whole of South America, perhaps, before our very eyes. But look even at that, he has idealized this fact

to a point" He paused. "Mrs. Gould, are you aware to what point he has idealized the existence, the worth,

The effect he expected was produced. Mrs. Gould, ready to take fire, gave it up suddenly with a low little

"Nothing," answered Decoud, firmly. "But, then, don't you see, he's an Englishman?"

"Simply that he cannot act or exist without idealizing every simple feeling, desire, or achievement. He could

not believe his own motives if he did not make them first a part of some fairy tale. The earth is not quite good

enough for him, I fear. Do you excuse my frankness? Besides, whether you excuse it or not, it is part of the

truth of things which hurts thewhat do you call them?the AngloSaxon's susceptibilities, and at the

present moment I don't feel as if I could treat seriously either his conception of things orif you allow me to

Mrs. Gould gave no sign of being offended. "I suppose Antonia understands you thoroughly?"

"Understands? Well, yes. But I am not sure that she approves. That, however, makes no difference. I am

"Separation, of course," declared Martin. "Yes; separation of the whole Occidental Province from the rest of

the unquiet body. But my true idea, the only one I care for, is not to be separated from Antonia."

"Absolutely. I am not deceiving myself about my motives. She won't leave Sulaco for my sake, therefore

Sulaco must leave the rest of the Republic to its fate. Nothing could be clearer than that. I like a clearly

defined situation. I cannot part with Antonia, therefore the one and indivisible Republic of Costaguana must

be made to part with its western province. Fortunately it happens to be also a sound policy. The richest, the

most fertile part of this land may be saved from anarchy. Personally, I care little, very little; but it's a fact that

the establishment of Montero in power would mean death to me. In all the proclamations of general pardon

which I have seen, my name, with a few others, is specially excepted. The brothers hate me, as you know

very well, Mrs. Gould; and behold, here is the rumour of them having won a battle. You say that supposing it

The slight, protesting murmur on the part of Mrs. Gould made him pause for a moment, while he looked at

"Ah, but I would, Mrs. Gould. I would run away if it served that which at present is my only desire. I am

courageous enough to say that, and to do it, too. But women, even our women, are idealists. It is Antonia that

"Say pride, then, which. Father Corbelan would tell you, is a mortal sin. But I am not proud. I am simply too

much in love to run away. At the same time I want to live. There is no love for a dead man. Therefore it is

"I think he can be drawn into it, like all idealists, when he once sees a sentimental basis for his action. But I

wouldn't talk to him. Mere clear facts won't appeal to his sentiment. It is much better for him to convince

himself in his own way. And, frankly, I could not, perhaps, just now pay sufficient respect to either his

It was evident that Mrs. Gould was very determined not to be offended. She smiled vaguely, while she

seemed to think the matter over. As far as she could judge from the girl's halfconfidences, Antonia

understood that young man. Obviously there was promise of safety in his plan, or rather in his idea.

Moreover, right or wrong, the idea could do no harm. And it was quite possible, also, that the rumour was

"Simplicity itself. Barrios has started, let him go on then; he will hold Cayta, which is the door of the sea

route to Sulaco. They cannot send a sufficient force over the mountains. No; not even to cope with the band

of Hernandez. Meantime we shall organize our resistance here. And for that, this very Hernandez will be

useful. He has defeated troops as a bandit; he will no doubt accomplish the same thing if he is made a colonel

or even a general. You know the country well enough not to be shocked by what I say, Mrs. Gould. I have

heard you assert that this poor bandit was the living,breathing example of cruelty, injustice, stupidity, and

oppression, that ruin men's souls as well as their fortunes in this country. Well, there would be some poetical

retribution in that man arising to crush the evils which had driven an honest ranchero into a life of crime. A

Decoud had dropped easily into English, which he spoke with precision, very correctly, but with too many z

"Think also of your hospitals, of your schools, of your ailing mothers and feeble old men, of all that

population which you and your husband have brought into the rocky gorge of San Tome. Are you not

responsible to your conscience for all these people? Is it not worth while to make another effort, which is not

Decoud finished his thought with an upward toss of the arm, suggesting annihilation; and Mrs. Gould turned

"Why don't you say all this to my husband?" she asked, without looking at Decoud, who stood watching the

"Leave that alone, Don Martin. He's as much a CostaguaneroNo! He's more of a Costaguanero than

"Sentimentalist, sentimentalist," Decoud almost cooed, in a tone of gentle and soothing deference.

"Sentimentalist, after the amazing manner of your people. I have been watching El Rey de Sulaco since I

came here on a fool's errand, and perhaps impelled by some treason of fate lurking behind the unaccountable

turns of a man's life. But I don't matter, I am not a sentimentalist, I cannot endow my personal desires with a

shining robe of silk and jewels. Life is not for me a moral romance derived from the tradition of a pretty fairy

tale. No, Mrs. Gould; I am practical. I am not afraid of my motives. But, pardon me, I have been rather

carried away. What I wish to say is that I have been observing. I won't tell you what I have discovered"

"It is. Except one little fact, that your husband does not like me. It's a small matter, which, in the

circumstances, seems to acquire a perfectly ridiculous importance. Ridiculous and immense; for, clearly,

money is required for my plan," he reflected; then added, meaningly, "and we have two sentimentalists to

"I don't know that I understand you, Don Martin," said Mrs. Gould, coldly, preserving the low key of their

"The great Holroyd in San Francisco, of course," Decoud whispered, lightly. "I think you understand me very

But whatever was the reason of that remark, disparaging and complimentary at the same time, Mrs. Gould

seemed not to pay attention to it. The name of Holroyd had given a new tone to her anxiety.

"The silver escort is coming down to the harbour tomorrow; a whole six months' working, Don Martin!" she

"But if the rumour should get about, and especially if it turned out true, troubles might break out in the town,"

Decoud admitted that it was possible. He knew well the town children of the Sulaco Campo: sullen, thievish,

vindictive, and bloodthirsty, whatever great qualities their brothers of the plain might have had. But then

there was that other sentimentalist, who attached a strangely idealistic meaning to concrete facts. This stream

of silver must be kept flowing north to return in the form of financial backing from the great house of

Holroyd. Up at the mountain in the strong room of the mine the silver bars were worth less for his purpose

than so much lead, from which at least bullets may be run. Let it come down to the harbour, ready for

The next northgoing steamer would carry it off for the very salvation of the San Tome mine, which had

produced so much treasure. And, moreover, the rumour was probably false, he remarked, with much

"Besides, senora," concluded Decoud, "we may suppress it for many days. I have been talking with the

telegraphist in the middle of the Plaza Mayor; thus I am certain that we could not have been overheard. There

was not even a bird in the air near us. And also let me tell you something more. I have been making friends

with this man called Nostromo, the Capataz. We had a conversation this very evening, I walking by the side

of his horse as he rode slowly out of the town just now. He promised me that if a riot took place for any

reasoneven for the most political of reasons, you understandhis Cargadores, an important part of the

"He has promised you that?" Mrs. Gould inquired, with interest. "What made him make that promise to you?"

"Upon my word, I don't know," declared Decoud, in a slightly surprised tone. "He certainly promised me that,

but now you ask me why, I could not tell you his reasons. He talked with his usual carelessness, which, if he

had been anything else but a common sailor, I would call a pose or an affectation."

"Upon the whole," he continued, "I suppose he expects something to his advantage from it. You mustn't

forget that he does not exercise his extraordinary power over the lower classes without a certain amount of

personal risk and without a great profusion in spending his money. One must pay in some way or other for

such a solid thing as individual prestige. He told me after we made friends at a dance, in a Posada kept by a

Mexican just outside the walls, that he had come here to make his fortune. I suppose he looks upon his

"Perhaps he prizes it for its own sake," Mrs. Gould said in a tone as if she were repelling an undeserved

aspersion. "Viola, the Garibaldino, with whom he has lived for some years, calls him the Incorruptible."

"Ah! he belongs to the group of your proteges out there towards the harbour, Mrs. Gould. Muy bien. And

Captain Mitchell calls him wonderful. I have heard no end of tales of his strength, his audacity, his fidelity.

No end of fine things. H'm! incorruptible! It is indeed a name of honour for the Capataz of the Cargadores of

Sulaco. Incorruptible! Fine, but vague. However, I suppose he's sensible, too. And I talked to him upon that

"I prefer to think him disinterested, and therefore trustworthy," Mrs. Gould said, with the nearest approach to

"Well, if so, then the silver will be still more safe. Let it come down, senora. Let it come down, so that it may

Mrs. Gould glanced along the corredor towards the door of her husband's room. Decoud, watching her as if

she had his fate in her hands, detected an almost imperceptible nod of assent. He bowed with a smile, and,

putting his hand into the breast pocket of his coat, pulled out a fan of light feathers set upon painted leaves of

sandalwood. "I had it in my pocket," he murmured, triumphantly, "for a plausible pretext." He bowed again.

Mrs. Gould continued along the corredor away from her husband's room. The fate of the San Tome mine was

lying heavy upon her heart. It was a long time now since she had begun to fear it. It had been an idea. She had

watched it with misgivings turning into a fetish, and now the fetish had grown into a monstrous and crushing

weight. It was as if the inspiration of their early years had left her heart to turn into a wall of silverbricks,

erected by the silent work of evil spirits, between her and her husband. He seemed to dwell alone within a

circumvallation of precious metal, leaving her outside with her school, her hospital, the sick mothers and the

feeble old men, mere insignificant vestiges of the initial inspiration. "Those poor people!" she murmured to

IT WAS part of what Decoud would have called his sane materialism that he did not believe in the possibility

The one exception he allowed confirmed, he maintained, that absolute rule. Friendship was possible between

brother and sister, meaning by friendship the frank unreserve, as before another human being, of thoughts and

sensations; all the objectless and necessary sincerity of one's innermost life trying to react upon the

His favourite sister, the handsome, slightly arbitrary and resolute angel, ruling the father and mother Decoud

in the firstfloor apartments of a very fine Parisian house, was the recipient of Martin Decoud's confidences

"Prepare our little circle in Paris for the birth of another South American Republic. One more or less, what

does it matter? They may come into the world like evil flowers on a hotbed of rotten institutions; but the seed

of this one has germinated in your brother's brain, and that will be enough for your devoted assent. I am

writing this to you by the light of a single candle, in a sort of inn, near the harbour, kept by an Italian called

Viola, a protege of Mrs. Gould. The whole building, which, for all I know, may have been contrived by a

Conquistador farmer of the pearl fishery three hundred years ago, is perfectly silent. So is the plain between

the town and the harbour; silent, but not so dark as the house, because the pickets of Italian workmen

guarding the railway have lighted little fires all along the line. It was not so quiet around here yesterday. We

had an awful riota sudden outbreak of the populace, which was not suppressed till late today. Its object, no

doubt, was loot, and that was defeated, as you may have learned already from the cablegram sent via San

Francisco and New York last night, when the cables were still open. You have read already there that the

energetic action of the Europeans of the railway has saved the town from destruction, and you may believe

that. I wrote out the cable myself. We have no Reuter's agency man here. I have also fired at the mob from

the windows of the club, in company with some other young men of position. Our object was to keep the

Calle de la Constitucion clear for the exodus of the ladies and children, who have taken refuge on board a

couple of cargo ships now in the harbour here. That was yesterday. You should also have learned from the

cable that the missing President, Ribiera, who had disappeared after the battle of Sta. Marta, has turned up

here in Sulaco by one of those strange coincidences that are almost incredible, riding on a lame mule into the

very midst of the street fighting. It appears that he had fled, in company of a muleteer called Bonifacio,

across the mountains from the threats of Montero into the arms of an enraged mob.

"The Capataz of Cargadores, that Italian sailor of whom I have written to you before, has saved him from an

ignoble death. That man seems to have a particular talent for being on the spot whenever there is something

"He was with me at four o'clock in the morning at the offices of the Porvenir, where he had turned up so early

in order to warn me of the coming trouble, and also to assure me that he would keep his Cargadores on the

side of order. When the full daylight came we were looking together at the crowd on foot and on horseback,

demonstrating on the Plaza and shying stones at the windows of the Intendencia. Nostromo (that is the name

they call him by here) was pointing out to me his Cargadores interspersed in the mob.

"The sun shines late upon Sulaco, for it has first to climb above the mountains. In that clear morning light,

brighter than twilight, Nostromo saw right across the vast Plaza, at the end of the street beyond the cathedral,

a mounted man apparently in difficulties with a yelling knot of leperos. At once he said to me, 'That's a

stranger. What is it they are doing to him?' Then he took out the silver whistle he is in the habit of using on

the wharf (this man seems to disdain the use of any metal less precious than silver) and blew into it twice,

evidently a preconcerted signal for his Cargadores. He ran out immediately, and they rallied round him. I ran

out, too, but was too late to follow them and help in the rescue of the stranger, whose animal had fallen. I was

set upon at once as a hated aristocrat, and was only too glad to get into the club, where Don Jaime Berges

(you may remember him visiting at our house in Paris some three years ago) thrust a sporting gun into my

hands. They were already firing from the windows. There were little heaps of cartridges lying about on the

open cardtables. I remember a couple of overturned chairs, some bottles rolling on the floor amongst the

packs of cards scattered suddenly as the caballeros rose from their game to open fire upon the mob. Most of

the young men had spent the night at the club in the expectation of some such disturbance. In two of the

candelabra, on the consoles, the candles were burning down in their sockets. A large iron nut, probably stolen

from the railway workshops, flew in from the street as I entered, and broke one of the large mirrors set in the

wall. I noticed also one of the club servants tied up hand and foot with the cords of the curtain and flung in a

corner. I have a vague recollection of Don Jaime assuring me hastily that the fellow had been detected putting

poison into the dishes at supper. But I remember distinctly he was shrieking for mercy, without stopping at

all, continuously, and so absolutely disregarded that nobody even took the trouble to gag him. The noise he

made was so disagreeable that I had half a mind to do it myself. But there was no time to waste on such

"I didn't learn till later in the afternoon whom it was that Nostromo, with his Cargadores and some Italian

workmen as well, had managed to save from those drunken rascals. That man has a peculiar talent when

anything striking to the imagination has to be done. I made that remark to him afterwards when we met after

some sort of order had been restored in the town, and the answer he made rather surprised me. He said quite

moodily, 'And how much do I get for that, senor?' Then it dawned upon me that perhaps this man's vanity has

been satiated by the adulation of the common people and the confidence of his superiors!"

Decoud paused to light a cigarette, then, with his head still over his writing, he blew a cloud of smoke, which

"That was yesterday evening on the Plaza, while he sat on the steps of the cathedral, his hands between his

knees, holding the bridle of his famous silvergrey mare. He had led his body of Cargadores splendidly all

day long. He looked fatigued. I don't know how I looked. Very dirty, I suppose. But I suppose I also looked

pleased. From the time the fugitive President had been got off to the S. S. Minerva, the tide of success had

turned against the mob. They had been driven off the harbour, and out of the better streets of the town, into

their own maze of ruins and tolderias. You must understand that this riot, whose primary object was

undoubtedly the getting hold of the San Tome silver stored in the lower rooms of the Custom House (besides

the general looting of the Ricos), had acquired a political colouring from the fact of two Deputies to the

Provincial Assembly, Senores Gamacho and Fuentes, both from Bolson, putting themselves at the head of

itlate in the afternoon, it is true, when the mob, disappointed in their hopes of loot, made a stand in the

narrow streets to the cries of 'Viva la Libertad! Down with Feudalism!' (I wonder what they imagine

feudalism to be?) 'Down with the Goths and Paralytics.' I suppose the Senores Gamacho and Fuentes knew

what they were doing. They are prudent gentlemen. In the Assembly they called themselves Moderates, and

opposed every energetic measure with philanthropic pensiveness. At the first rumours of Montero's victory,

they showed a subtle change of the pensive temper, and began to defy poor Don Juste Lopez in his

Presidential tribune with an effrontery to which the poor man could only respond by a dazed smoothing of his

beard and the ringing of the presidential bell. Then, when the downfall of the Ribierist cause became

confirmed beyond the shadow of a doubt, they have blossomed into convinced Liberals, acting together as if

they were Siamese twins, and ultimately taking charge, as it were, of the riot in the name of Monterist

"Their last move of eight o'clock last night was to organize themselves into a Monterist Committee which

sits, as far as I know, in a posada kept by a retired Mexican bullfighter, a great politician, too, whose name I

have forgotten. Thence they have issued a communication to us, the Goths and Paralytics of the Amarilla

Club (who have our own committee), inviting us to come to some provisional understanding for a truce, in

order, they have the impudence to say, that the noble cause of Liberty 'should not be stained by the criminal

excesses of Conservative selfishness!' As I came out to sit with Nostromo on the cathedral steps the club was

busy considering a proper reply in the principal room, littered with exploded cartridges, with a lot of broken

glass, blood smears, candlesticks, and all sorts of wreckage on the floor. But all this is nonsense. Nobody in

the town has any real power except the railway engineers, whose men occupy the dismantled houses acquired

by the Company for their town station on one side of the Plaza, and Nostromo, whose Cargadores were

sleeping under the arcades along the front of Anzani's shops. A fire of broken furniture out of the Intendencia

saloons, mostly gilt, was burning on the Plaza, in a high flame swaying right upon the statue of Charles IV.

The dead body of a man was lying on the steps of the pedestal, his arms thrown wide open, and his sombrero

covering his facethe attention of some friend, perhaps. The light of the flames touched the foliage of the

first trees on the Alameda, and played on the end of a side street near by, blocked up by a jumble of oxcarts

and dead bullocks. Sitting on one of the carcasses, a lepero, muffled up, smoked a cigarette. It was a truce,

you understand. The only other living being on the Plaza besides ourselves was a Cargador walking to and

fro, with a long, bare knife in his hand, like a sentry before the Arcades, where his friends were sleeping. And

the only other spot of light in the dark town were the lighted windows of the club, at the corner of the Calle."

After having written so far, Don Martin Decoud, the exotic dandy of the Parisian boulevard, got up and

walked across the sanded floor of the cafe at one end of the Albergo of United Italy, kept by Giorgio Viola,

the old companion of Garibaldi. The highly coloured lithograph of the Faithful Hero seemed to look dimly, in

the light of one candle, at the man with no faith in anything except the truth of his own sensations. Looking

out of the window, Decoud was met by a darkness so impenetrable that he could see neither the mountains

nor the town, nor yet the buildings near the harbour; and there was not a sound, as if the tremendous

obscurity of the Placid Gulf, spreading from the waters over the land, had made it dumb as well as blind.

Presently Decoud felt a light tremor of the floor and a distant clank of iron. A bright white light appeared,

deep in the darkness, growing bigger with a thundering noise. The rolling stock usually kept on the sidings in

Rincon was being run back to the yards for safe keeping. Like a mysterious stirring of the darkness behind

the headlight of the engine, the train passed in a gust of hollow uproar, by the end of the house, which seemed

to vibrate all over in response. And nothing was clearly visible but, on the end of the last flat car, a negro, in

white trousers and naked to the waist, swinging a blazing torch basket incessantly with a circular movement

Behind him, on the back of the chair from which he had risen, hung his elegant Parisian overcoat, with a

pearlgrey silk lining. But when he turned back to come to the table the candlelight fell upon a face that was

grimy and scratched. His rosy lips were blackened with heat, the smoke of gunpowder. Dirt and rust

tarnished the lustre of his short beard. His shirt collar and cuffs were crumpled; the blue silken tie hung down

his breast like a rag; a greasy smudge crossed his white brow. He had not taken off his clothing nor used

water, except to snatch a hasty drink greedily, for some forty hours. An awful restlessness had made him its

own, had marked him with all the signs of desperate strife, and put a dry, sleepless stare into his eyes. He

murmured to himself in a hoarse voice, "I wonder if there's any bread here," looked vaguely about him, then

dropped into the chair and took the pencil up again. He became aware he had not eaten anything for many

It occurred to him that no one could understand him so well as his sister. In the most sceptical heart there

lurks at such moments, when the chances of existence are involved, a desire to leave a correct impression of

the feelings, like a light by which the action may be seen when personality is gone, gone where no light of

investigation can ever reach the truth which every death takes out of the world. Therefore, instead of looking

for something to eat, or trying to snatch an hour or so of sleep, Decoud was filling the pages of a large

In the intimacy of that intercourse he could not keep out his weariness, his great fatigue, the close touch of his

bodily sensations. He began again as if he were talking to her. With almost an illusion of her presence, he

"I have the feeling of a great solitude around me," he continued. "Is it, perhaps, because I am the only man

with a definite idea in his head, in the complete collapse of every resolve, intention, and hope about me? But

the solitude is also very real. All the engineers are out, and have been for two days, looking after the property

of the National Central Railway, of that great Costaguana undertaking which is to put money into the pockets

of Englishmen, Frenchmen, Americans, Germans, and God knows who else. The silence about me is

ominous. There is above the middle part of this house a sort of first floor, with narrow openings like

loopholes for windows, probably used in old times for the better defence against the savages, when the

persistent barbarism of our native continent did not wear the black coats of politicians, but went about

yelling, halfnaked, with bows and arrows in its hands. The woman of the house is dying up there, I believe,

all alone with her old husband. There is a narrow staircase, the sort of staircase one man could easily defend

against a mob, leading up there, and I have just heard, through the thickness of the wall, the old fellow going

down into their kitchen for something or other. It was a sort of noise a mouse might make behind the plaster

of a wall. All the servants they had ran away yesterday and have not returned yet, if ever they do. For the rest,

there are only two children here, two girls. The father has sent them downstairs, and they have crept into this

cafe, perhaps because I am here. They huddle together in a corner, in each other's arms; I just noticed them a

Linda's dark head was shaken negatively in response, above the fair head of her sister nestling on her breast.

"You couldn't get me some bread?" insisted Decoud. The child did not move; he saw her large eyes stare at

"No," said Linda, "we are not afraid of you. You came here with Gian' Battista."

"The English call him so, but that is no name either for man or beast," said the girl, passing her hand gently

Decoud gave up the point, and after writing steadily for a while turned round again.

"After he brought you here he rode off to fetch the Senor Doctor from the town for mother. He will be back

"He stands a good chance of getting shot somewhere on the road," Decoud murmured to himself audibly; and

"I know it," said the child, with conviction. "There is no one in this place brave enough to attack Gian'

"It doesn't require much bravery to pull a trigger behind a bush," muttered Decoud to himself. "Fortunately,

the night is dark, or there would be but little chance of saving the silver of the mine."

He turned again to his pocketbook, glanced back through the pages, and again started his pencil.

"That was the position yesterday, after the Minerva with the fugitive President had gone out of harbour, and

the rioters had been driven back into the side lanes of the town. I sat on the steps of the cathedral with

Nostromo, after sending out the cable message for the information of a more or less attentive world.

Strangely enough, though the offices of the Cable Company are in the same building as the Porvenir, the

mob, which has thrown my presses out of the window and scattered the type all over the Plaza, has been kept

from interfering with the instruments on the other side of the courtyard. As I sat talking with Nostromo,

Bernhardt, the telegraphist, came out from under the Arcades with a piece of paper in his hand. The little man

had tied himself up to an enormous sword and was hung all over with revolvers. He is ridiculous, but the

bravest German of his size that ever tapped the key of a Morse transmitter. He had received the message from

Cayta reporting the transports with Barrios's army just entering the port, and ending with the words, 'The

greatest enthusiasm prevails.' I walked off to drink some water at the fountain, and I was shot at from the

Alameda by somebody hiding behind a tree. But I drank, and didn't care; with Barrios in Cayta and the great

Cordillera between us and Montero's victorious army I seemed, notwithstanding Messrs. Gamacho and

Fuentes, to hold my new State in the hollow of my hand. I was ready to sleep, but when I got as far as the

Casa Gould I found the patio full of wounded laid out on straw. Lights were burning, and in that enclosed

courtyard on that hot night a faint odour of chloroform and blood hung about. At one end Doctor Monygham,

the doctor of the mine, was dressing the wounds; at the other, near the stairs, Father Corbelan, kneeling,

listened to the confession of a dying Cargador. Mrs. Gould was walking about through these shambles with a

large bottle in one hand and a lot of cotton wool in the other. She just looked at me and never even winked.

Her camerista was following her, also holding a bottle, and sobbing gently to herself.

"I busied myself for some time in fetching water from the cistern for the wounded. Afterwards I wandered

upstairs, meeting some of the first ladies of Sulaco, paler than I had ever seen them before, with bandages

over their arms. Not all of them had fled to the ships. A good many had taken refuge for the day in the Casa

Gould. On the landing a girl, with her hair half down, was kneeling against the wall under the niche where

stands a Madonna in blue robes and a gilt crown on her head. I think it was the eldest Miss Lopez; I couldn't

see her face, but I remember looking at the high French heel of her little shoe. She did not make a sound, she

did not stir, she was not sobbing; she remained there, perfectly still, all black against the white wall, a silent

figure of passionate piety. I am sure she was no more frightened than the other whitefaced ladies I met

carrying bandages. One was sitting on the top step tearing a piece of linen hastily into stripsthe young wife

of an elderly man of fortune here. She interrupted herself to wave her hand to my bow, as though she were in

her carriage on the Alameda. The women of our country are worth looking at during a revolution. The rouge

and pearl powder fall off, together with that passive attitude towards the outer world which education,

tradition, custom impose upon them from the earliest infancy. I thought of your face, which from your

infancy had the stamp of intelligence instead of that patient and resigned cast which appears when some

"In the great sala upstairs a sort of Junta of Notables was sitting, the remnant of the vanished Provincial

Assembly. Don Juste Lopez had had half his beard singed off at the muzzle of a trabuco loaded with slugs, of

which every one missed him, providentially. And as he turned his head from side to side it was exactly as if

there had been two men inside his frockcoat, one nobly whiskered and solemn, the other untidy and scared.

"They raised a cry of 'Decoud! Don Martin!' at my entrance. I asked them, 'What are you deliberating upon,

gentlemen?' There did not seem to be any president, though Don Jose Avellanos sat at the head of the table.

They all answered together, 'On the preservation of life and property.' 'Till the new officials arrive,' Don Juste

explained to me, with the solemn side of his face offered to my view. It was as if a stream of water had been

poured upon my glowing idea of a new State. There was a hissing sound in my ears, and the room grew dim,

"I walked up to the table blindly, as though I had been drunk. 'You are deliberating upon surrender,' I said.

They all sat still, with their noses over the sheet of paper each had before him, God only knows why. Only

Don Jose hid his face in his hands, muttering, 'Never, never!' But as I looked at him, it seemed to me that I

could have blown him away with my breath, he looked so frail, so weak, so worn out. Whatever happens, he

will not survive. The deception is too great for a man of his age; and hasn't he seen the sheets of 'Fifty Years

of Misrule,' which we have begun printing on the presses of the Porvenir, littering the Plaza, floating in the

gutters, fired out as wads for trabucos loaded with handfuls of type, blown in the wind, trampled in the mud?

I have seen pages floating upon the very waters of the harbour. It would be unreasonable to expect him to

"'Do you know,' I cried, 'what surrender means to you, to your women, to your children, to your property?'

"I declaimed for five minutes without drawing breath, it seems to me, harping on our best chances, on the

ferocity of Montero, whom I made out to be as great a beast as I have no doubt he would like to be if he had

intelligence enough to conceive a systematic reign of terror. And then for another five minutes or more I

poured out an impassioned appeal to their courage and manliness, with all the passion of my love for

Antonia. For if ever man spoke well, it would be from a personal feeling, denouncing an enemy, defending

himself, or pleading for what really may be dearer than life. My dear girl, I absolutely thundered at them. It

seemed as if my voice would burst the walls asunder, and when I stopped I saw all their scared eyes looking

at me dubiously. And that was all the effect I had produced! Only Don Jose's head had sunk lower and lower

on his breast. I bent my ear to his withered lips, and made out his whisper, something like, 'In God's name,

then, Martin, my son!' I don't know exactly. There was the name of God in it, I am certain. It seems to me I

"He lives yet, it is true. I have seen him since; but it was only a senile body, lying on its back, covered to the

chin, with open eyes, and so still that you might have said it was breathing no longer. I left him thus, with

Antonia kneeling by the side of the bed, just before I came to this Italian's posada, where the ubiquitous death

is also waiting. But I know that Don Jose has really died there, in the Casa Gould, with that whisper urging

me to attempt what no doubt his soul, wrapped up in the sanctity of diplomatic treaties and solemn

declarations, must have abhorred. I had exclaimed very loud, 'There is never any God in a country where men

"Meanwhile, Don Juste had begun a pondered oration whose solemn effect was spoiled by the ridiculous

disaster to his beard. I did not wait to make it out. He seemed to argue that Montero's (he called him The

General) intentions were probably not evil, though, he went on, 'that distinguished man' (only a week ago we

used to call him a gran' bestia) 'was perhaps mistaken as to the true means.' As you may imagine, I didn't stay

to hear the rest. I know the intentions of Montero's brother, Pedrito, the guerrillero, whom I exposed in Paris,

some years ago, in a cafe frequented by South American students, where he tried to pass himself off for a

Secretary of Legation. He used to come in and talk for hours, twisting his felt hat in his hairy paws, and his

ambition seemed to become a sort of Duc de Morny to a sort of Napoleon. Already, then, he used to talk of

his brother in inflated terms. He seemed fairly safe from being found out, because the students, all of the

Blanco families, did not, as you may imagine, frequent the Legation. It was only Decoud, a man without faith

and principles, as they used to say, that went in there sometimes for the sake of the fun, as it were to an

assembly of trained monkeys. I know his intentions. I have seen him change the plates at table. Whoever is

"No, I didn't stay to the end to hear Don Juste Lopez trying to persuade himself in a grave oration of the

clemency and justice, and honesty, and purity of the brothers Montero. I went out abruptly to seek Antonia. I

saw her in the gallery. As I opened the door, she extended to me her clasped hands.

"'Empty speeches,' I interrupted her. 'Hiding their fears behind imbecile hopes. They are all great

Parliamentarians thereon the English model, as you know.' I was so furious that I could hardly speak. She

"Through the door I held a little ajar behind me, we heard Dun Juste's measured mouthing monotone go on

"'After all, the Democratic aspirations have, perhaps, their legitimacy. The ways of human progress are

inscrutable, and if the fate of the country is in the hand of Montero, we ought'

"I crashed the door to on that; it was enough; it was too much. There was never a beautiful face expressing

more horror and despair than the face of Antonia. I couldn't bear it; I seized her wrists.

"Her eyes blazed with indignation, but as I looked on, fascinated, the light in them went out.

"'It is a surrender,' I said. And I remember I was shaking her wrists I held apart in my hands. 'But it's more

"My dear girl, there is that in Antonia which would make me believe in the feasibility of anything. One look

at her face is enough to set my brain on fire. And yet I love her as any other man wouldwith the heart, and

with that alone. She is more to me than his Church to Father Corbelan (the Grand Vicar disappeared last night

from the town; perhaps gone to join the band of Hernandez). She is more to me than his precious mine to that

sentimental Englishman. I won't speak of his wife. She may have been sentimental once. The San Tome mine

stands now between those two people. 'Your father himself, Antonia,' I repeated; 'your father, do you

"She freed her wrists from my clutch and began to cry in her handkerchief. I disregarded her sorrow; I would

rather see her miserable than not see her at all, never any more; for whether I escaped or stayed to die, there

was for us no coming together, no future. And that being so, I had no pity to waste upon the passing moments

of her sorrow. I sent her off in tears to fetch Dona Emilia and Don Carlos, too. Their sentiment was necessary

to the very life of my plan; the sentimentalism of the people that will never do anything for the sake of their

passionate desire, unless it comes to them clothed in the fair robes of an idea.

"Late at night we formed a small junta of fourthe two women, Don Carlos, and myselfin Mrs. Gould's

"El Rey de Sulaco thinks himself, no doubt, a very honest man. And so he is, if one could look behind his

taciturnity. Perhaps he thinks that this alone makes his honesty unstained. Those Englishmen live on illusions

which somehow or other help them to get a firm hold of the substance. When he speaks it is by a rare 'yes' or

'no' that seems as impersonal as the words of an oracle. But he could not impose on me by his dumb reserve. I

knew what he had in his head; he has his mine in his head; and his wife had nothing in her head but his

precious person, which he has bound up with the Gould Concession and tied up to that little woman's neck.

No matter. The thing was to make him present the affair to Holroyd (the Steel and Silver King) in such a

manner as to secure his financial support. At that time last night, just twentyfour hours ago, we thought the

silver of the mine safe in the Custom House vaults till the northbound steamer came to take it away. And as

long as the treasure flowed north, without a break, that utter sentimentalist, Holroyd, would not drop his idea

of introducing, not only justice, industry, peace, to the benighted continents, but also that pet dream of his of

a purer form of Christianity. Later on, the principal European really in Sulaco, the engineerinchief of the

railway, came riding up the Calle, from the harbour, and was admitted to our conclave. Meantime, the Junta

of the Notables in the great sala was still deliberating; only, one of them had run out in the corredor to ask the

servant whether something to eat couldn't be sent in. The first words the engineerinchief said as he came

into the boudoir were, 'What is your house, dear Mrs. Gould? A war hospital below, and apparently a

"'And here, in this boudoir,' I said, 'you behold the inner cabinet of the Occidental Republic that is to be.'

"He was so preoccupied that he didn't smile at that, he didn't even look surprised.

"He told us that he was attending to the general dispositions for the defence of the railway property at the

railway yards when he was sent for to go into the railway telegraph office. The engineer of the railhead, at the

foot of the mountains, wanted to talk to him from his end of the wire. There was nobody in the office but

himself and the operator of the railway telegraph, who read off the clicks aloud as the tape coiled its length

upon the floor. And the purport of that talk, clicked nervously from a wooden shed in the depths of the

forests, had informed the chief that President Ribiera had been, or was being, pursued. This was news,

indeed, to all of us in Sulaco. Ribiera himself, when rescued, revived, and soothed by us, had been inclined to

"Ribiera had yielded to the urgent solicitations of his friends, and had left the headquarters of his discomfited

army alone, under the guidance of Bonifacio, the muleteer, who had been willing to take the responsibility

with the risk. He had departed at daybreak of the third day. His remaining forces had melted away during the

night. Bonifacio and he rode hard on horses towards the Cordillera; then they obtained mules, entered the

passes, and crossed the Paramo of Ivie just before a freezing blast swept over that stony plateau, burying in a

drift of snow the little shelterhut of stones in which they had spent the night. Afterwards poor Ribiera had

many adventures, got separated from his guide, lost his mount, struggled down to the Campo on foot, and if

he had not thrown himself on the mercy of a ranchero would have perished a long way from Sulaco. That

man, who, as a matter of fact, recognized him at once, let him have a fresh mule, which the fugitive, heavy

and unskilful, had ridden to death. And it was true he had been pursued by a party commanded by no less a

person than Pedro Montero, the brother of the general. The cold wind of the Paramo luckily caught the

pursuers on the top of the pass. Some few men, and all the animals, perished in the icy blast. The stragglers

died, but the main body kept on. They found poor Bonifacio lying halfdead at the foot of a snow slope, and

bayoneted him promptly in the true Civil War style. They would have had Ribiera, too, if they had not, for

some reason or other, turned off the track of the old Camino Real, only to lose their way in the forests at the

foot of the lower slopes. And there they were at last, having stumbled in unexpectedly upon the construction

camp. The engineer at the railhead told his chief by wire that he had Pedro Montero absolutely there, in the

very office, listening to the clicks. He was going to take possession of Sulaco in the name of the Democracy.

He was very overbearing. His men slaughtered some of the Railway Company's cattle without asking leave,

and went to work broiling the meat on the embers. Pedrito made many pointed inquiries as to the silver mine,

and what had become of the product of the last six months' working. He had said peremptorily, "Ask your

chief up there by wire, he ought to know; tell him that Don Pedro Montero, Chief of the Campo and Minister

"He had his feet wrapped up in bloodstained rags, a lean, haggard face, ragged beard and hair, and had

walked in limping, with a crooked branch of a tree for a staff. His followers were perhaps in a worse plight,

but apparently they had not thrown away their arms, and, at any rate, not all their ammunition. Their lean

faces filled the door and the windows of the telegraph hut. As it was at the same time the bedroom of the

engineerincharge there, Montero had thrown himself on his clean blankets and lay there shivering and

dictating requisitions to be transmitted by wire to Sulaco. He demanded a train of cars to be sent down at

"'To this I answered from my end,' the engineerinchief related to us, 'that I dared not risk the rollingstock

in the interior, as there had been attempts to wreck trains all along the line several times. I did that for your

sake, Gould,' said the chief engineer. 'The answer to this was, in the words of my subordinate, "The filthy

brute on my bed said, 'Suppose I were to have you shot?'" To which my subordinate, who, it appears, was

himself operating, remarked that it would not bring the cars up. Upon that, the other, yawning, said, "Never

mind, there is no lack of horses on the Campo." And, turning over, went to sleep on Harris's bed.'

"This is why, my dear girl, I am a fugitive tonight. The last wire from railhead says that Pedro Montero and

his men left at daybreak, after feeding on asado beef all night. They took all the horses; they will find more

on the road; they'll be here in less than thirty hours, and thus Sulaco is no place either for me or the great

"But that is not the worst. The garrison of Esmeralda has gone over to the victorious party. We have heard

this by means of the telegraphist of the Cable Company, who came to the Casa Gould in the early morning

with the news. In fact, it was so early that the day had not yet quite broken over Sulaco. His colleague in

Esmeralda had called him up to say that the garrison, after shooting some of their officers, had taken

possession of a Government steamer laid up in the harbour. It is really a heavy blow for me. I thought I could

depend on every man in this province. It was a mistake. It was a Monterist Revolution in Esmeralda, just such

as was attempted in Sulaco, only that that one came off. The telegraphist was signalling to Bernhardt all the

time, and his last transmitted words were, 'They are bursting in the door, and taking possession of the cable

"But, as a matter of fact, he managed somehow to escape the vigilance of his captors, who had tried to stop

the communication with the outer world. He did manage it. How it was done I don't know, but a few hours

afterwards he called up Sulaco again, and what he said was, 'The insurgent army has taken possession of the

Government transport in the bay and are filling her with troops, with the intention of going round the coast to

Sulaco. Therefore look out for yourselves. They will be ready to start in a few hours, and may be upon you

"This is all he could say. They drove him away from his instrument this time for good, because Bernhardt has

After setting these words down in the pocketbook which he was filling up for the benefit of his sister,

Decoud lifted his head to listen. But there were no sounds, neither in the room nor in the house, except the

drip of the water from the filter into the vast earthenware jar under the wooden stand. And outside the house

"I am not running away, you understand," he wrote on. "I am simply going away with that great treasure of

silver which must be saved at all costs. Pedro Montero from the Campo and the revolted garrison of

Esmeralda from the sea are converging upon it. That it is there lying ready for them is only an accident. The

real objective is the San Tome mine itself, as you may well imagine; otherwise the Occidental Province

would have been, no doubt, left alone for many weeks, to be gathered at leisure into the arms of the victorious

party. Don Carlos Gould will have enough to do to save his mine, with its organization and its people; this

'Imperium in Imperio,' this wealthproducing thing, to which his sentimentalism attaches a strange idea of

justice. He holds to it as some men hold to the idea of love or revenge. Unless I am much mistaken in the

man, it must remain inviolate or perish by an act of his will alone. A passion has crept into his cold and

idealistic life. A passion which I can only comprehend intellectually. A passion that is not like the passions

"His wife has understood it, too. That is why she is such a good ally of mine. She seizes upon all my

suggestions with a sure instinct that in the end they make for the safety of the Gould Concession. And he

defers to her because he trusts her perhaps, but I fancy rather as if he wished to make up for some subtle

wrong, for that sentimental unfaithfulness which surrenders her happiness, her life, to the seduction of an

idea. The little woman has discovered that he lives for the mine rather than for her. But let them be. To each

his fate, shaped by passion or sentiment. The principal thing is that she has backed up my advice to get the

silver out of the town, out of the country, at once, at any cost, at any risk. Don Carlos' mission is to preserve

unstained the fair fame of his mine; Mrs. Gould's mission is to save him from the effects of that cold and

overmastering passion, which she dreads more than if it were an infatuation for another woman. Nostromo's

mission is to save the silver. The plan is to load it into the largest of the Company's lighters, and send it

across the gulf to a small port out of Costaguana territory just on the other side the Azuera, where the first

northbound steamer will get orders to pick it up. The waters here are calm. We shall slip away into the

darkness of the gulf before the Esmeralda rebels arrive; and by the time the day breaks over the ocean we

shall be out of sight, invisible, hidden by Azuera, which itself looks from the Sulaco shore like a faint blue

"The incorruptible Capataz de Cargadores is the man for that work; and I, the man with a passion, but without

a mission, I go with him to returnto play my part in the farce to the end, and, if successful, to receive my

"I shall not see her again now before I depart. I left her, as I have said, by Don Jose's bedside. The street was

dark, the houses shut up, and I walked out of the town in the night. Not a single streetlamp had been lit for

two days, and the archway of the gate was only a mass of darkness in the vague form of a tower, in which I

"I recognized something impassive and careless in its tone, characteristic of that Genoese sailor who, like me,

has come casually here to be drawn into the events for which his scepticism as well as mine seems to

entertain a sort of passive contempt. The only thing he seems to care for, as far as I have been able to

discover, is to be well spoken of. An ambition fit for noble souls, but also a profitable one for an

exceptionally intelligent scoundrel. Yes. His very words, 'To be well spoken of. Si, senor.' He does not seem

to make any difference between speaking and thinking. Is it sheer naiveness or the practical point of view, I

wonder? Exceptional individualities always interest me, because they are true to the general formula

"He joined me on the harbour road after I had passed them under the dark archway without stopping. It was a

woman in trouble he had been talking to. Through discretion I kept silent while he walked by my side. After a

time he began to talk himself. It was not what I expected. It was only an old woman, an old lacemaker, in

search of her son, one of the streetsweepers employed by the municipality. Friends had come the day before

at daybreak to the door of their hovel calling him out. He had gone with them, and she had not seen him

since; so she had left the food she had been preparing halfcooked on the extinct embers and had crawled out

as far as the harbour, where she had heard that some town mozos had been killed on the morning of the riot.

One of the Cargadores guarding the Custom House had brought out a lantern, and had helped her to look at

the few dead left lying about there. Now she was creeping back, having failed in her search. So she sat down

on the stone seat under the arch, moaning, because she was very tired. The Capataz had questioned her, and

after hearing her broken and groaning tale had advised her to go and look amongst the wounded in the patio

of the Casa Gould. He had also given her a quarter dollar, he mentioned carelessly."

"'No, senor. I don't suppose I have ever seen her before. How should I? She has not probably been out in the

streets for years. She is one of those old women that you find in this country at the back of huts, crouching

over fireplaces, with a stick on the ground by their side, and almost too feeble to drive away the stray dogs

from their cookingpots. Caramba! I could tell by her voice that death had forgotten her. But, old or young,

they like money, and will speak well of the man who gives it to them.' He laughed a little. 'Senor, you should

have felt the clutch of her paw as I put the piece in her palm.' He paused. 'My last, too,' he added.

"I made no comment. He's known for his liberality and his bad luck at the game of monte, which keeps him

"'I suppose, Don Martin,' he began, in a thoughtful, speculative tone, 'that the Senor Administrador of San

"I said that it could not be otherwise, surely. He walked on, muttering to himself. 'Si, si, without doubt,

without doubt; and, look you, Senor Martin, what it is to be well spoken of! There is not another man that

could have been even thought of for such a thing. I shall get something great for it some day. And let it come

"This, soeur cherie, is my companion in the great escape for the sake of the great cause. He is more naive

than shrewd, more masterful than crafty, more generous with his personality than the people who make use of

him are with their money. At least, that is what he thinks himself with more pride than sentiment. I am glad I

have made friends with him. As a companion he acquires more importance than he ever had as a sort of

minor genius in his wayas an original Italian sailor whom I allowed to come in in the small hours and talk

familiarly to the editor of the Porvenir while the paper was going through the press. And it is curious to have

"I am waiting for him here now. On arriving at the posada kept by Viola we found the children alone down

below, and the old Genoese shouted to his countryman to go and fetch the doctor. Otherwise we would have

gone on to the wharf, where it appears Captain Mitchell with some volunteer Europeans and a few picked

Cargadores are loading the lighter with the silver that must be saved from Montero's clutches in order to be

used for Montero's defeat. Nostromo galloped furiously back towards the town. He has been long gone

already. This delay gives me time to talk to you. By the time this pocketbook reaches your hands much will

have happened. But now it is a pause under the hovering wing of death in this silent house buried in the black

night, with this dying woman, the two children crouching without a sound, and that old man whom I can hear

through the thickness of the wall passing up and down with a light rubbing noise no louder than a mouse.

And I, the only other with them, don't really know whether to count myself with the living or with the dead.

'Quien sabe?' as the people here are prone to say in answer to every question. But no! feeling for you is

certainly not dead, and the whole thing, the house, the dark night, the silent children in this dim room, my

very presence hereall this is life, must be life, since it is so much like a dream."

With the writing of the last line there came upon Decoud a moment of sudden and complete oblivion. He

swayed over the table as if struck by a bullet. The next moment he sat up, confused, with the idea that he had

heard his pencil roll on the floor. The low door of the cafe, wide open, was filled with the glare of a torch in

which was visible half of a horse, switching its tail against the leg of a rider with a long iron spur strapped to

the naked heel. The two girls were gone, and Nostromo, standing in the middle of the room, looked at him

"I have brought that sourfaced English doctor in Senora Gould's carriage," said Nostromo. "I doubt if, with

all his wisdom, he can save the Padrona this time. They have sent for the children. A bad sign that."

He sat down on the end of a bench. "She wants to give them her blessing, I suppose."

Dazedly Decoud observed that he must have fallen sound asleep, and Nostromo said, with a vague smile, that

he had looked in at the window and had seen him lying still across the table with his head on his arms. The

English senora had also come in the carriage, and went upstairs at once with the doctor. She had told him not

to wake up Don Martin yet; but when they sent for the children he had come into the cafe.

The half of the horse with its half of the rider swung round outside the door; the torch of tow and resin in the

iron basket which was carried on a stick at the saddlebow flared right into the room for a moment, and Mrs.

Gould entered hastily with a very white, tired face. The hood of her dark, blue cloak had fallen back. Both

"Teresa wants to see you, Nostromo," she said. The Capataz did not move. Decoud, with his back to the table,

"The silver, Mrs. Gould, the silver," he murmured in English. "Don't forget that the Esmeralda garrison have

"The doctor says there is no hope," Mrs. Gould spoke rapidly, also in English. "I shall take you down to the

wharf in my carriage and then come back to fetch away the girls." She changed swiftly into Spanish to

address Nostromo. "Why are you wasting time? Old Giorgio's wife wishes to see you."

"I am going to her, senora," muttered the Capataz. Dr. Monygham now showed himself, bringing back the

children. To Mrs. Gould's inquiring glance he only shook his head and went outside at once, followed by

The horse of the torchbearer, motionless, hung his head low, and the rider had dropped the reins to light a

cigarette. The glare of the torch played on the front of the house crossed by the big black letters of its

inscription in which only the word ITALIA was lighted fully. The patch of wavering glare reached as far as

Mrs. Gould's carriage waiting on the road, with the yellowfaced, portly Ignacio apparently dozing on the

box. By his side Basilio, dark and skinny, held a Winchester carbine in front of him, with both hands, and

peered fearfully into the darkness. Nostromo touched lightly the doctor's shoulder.

"Yes," said the doctor, with a strange twitch of his scarred cheek. "And why she wants to see you I cannot

"Well, Capataz, I can assure you she will never be like that again," snarled Dr. Monygham. "You may go to

her or stay away. There is very little to be got from talking to the dying. But she told Dona Emilia in my

hearing that she has been like a mother to you ever since you first set foot ashore here."

"Si! And she never had a good word to say for me to anybody. It is more as if she could not forgive me for

"Maybe!" exclaimed a mournful deep voice near them. "Women have their own ways of tormenting

themselves." Giorgio Viola had come out of the house. He threw a heavy black shadow in the torchlight, and

the glare fell on his big face, on the great bushy head of white hair. He motioned the Capataz indoors with his

Dr. Monygham, after busying himself with a little medicament box of polished wood on the seat of the

landau, turned to old Giorgio and thrust into his big, trembling hand one of the glassstoppered bottles out of

"Give her a spoonful of this now and then, in water," he said. "It will make her easier."

"No. Not on earth," said the doctor, with his back to him, clicking the lock of the medicine case.

Nostromo slowly crossed the large kitchen, all dark but for the glow of a heap of charcoal under the heavy

mantel of the cookingrange, where water was boiling in an iron pot with a loud bubbling sound. Between

the two walls of a narrow staircase a bright light streamed from the sickroom above; and the magnificent

Capataz de Cargadores stepping noiselessly in soft leather sandals, bushy whiskered, his muscular neck and

bronzed chest bare in the open check shirt, resembled a Mediterranean sailor just come ashore from some

wine or fruitladen felucca. At the top he paused, broad shouldered, narrow hipped and supple, looking at the

large bed, like a white couch of state, with a profusion of snowy linen, amongst which the Padrona sat

unpropped and bowed, her handsome, blackbrowed face bent over her chest. A mass of raven hair with only

a few white threads in it covered her shoulders; one thick strand fallen forward half veiled her cheek.

Perfectly motionless in that pose, expressing physical anxiety and unrest, she turned her eyes alone towards

The Capataz had a red sash wound many times round his waist, and a heavy silver ring on the forefinger of

"Their revolutions, their revolutions," gasped Senora Teresa. "Look, Gian' Battista, it has killed me at last!"

Nostromo said nothing, and the sick woman with an upward glance insisted. "Look, this one has killed me,

"Why talk like this?" mumbled the Capataz between his teeth. "Will you never believe in my good sense? It

"You never change, indeed," she said, bitterly. "Always thinking of yourself and taking your pay out in fine

There was between them an intimacy of antagonism as close in its way as the intimacy of accord and

affection. He had not walked along the way of Teresa's expectations. It was she who had encouraged him to

leave his ship, in the hope of securing a friend and defender for the girls. The wife of old Giorgio was aware

of her precarious health, and was haunted by the fear of her aged husband's loneliness and the unprotected

state of the children. She had wanted to annex that apparently quiet and steady young man, affectionate and

pliable, an orphan from his tenderest age, as he had told her, with no ties in Italy except an uncle, owner and

master of a felucca, from whose illusage he had run away before he was fourteen. He had seemed to her

courageous, a hard worker, determined to make his way in the world. From gratitude and the ties of habit he

would become like a son to herself and Giorgio; and then, who knows, when Linda had grown up. . . . Ten

years' difference between husband and wife was not so much. Her own great man was nearly twenty years

older than herself. Gian' Battista was an attractive young fellow, besides; attractive to men, women, and

children, just by that profound quietness of personality which, like a serene twilight, rendered more seductive

Old Giorgio, in profound ignorance of his wife's views and hopes, had a great regard for his young

countryman. "A man ought not to be tame," he used to tell her, quoting the Spanish proverb in defence of the

splendid Capataz. She was growing jealous of his success. He was escaping from her, she feared. She was

practical, and he seemed to her to be an absurd spendthrift of these qualities which made him so valuable. He

got too little for them. He scattered them with both hands amongst too many people, she thought. He laid no

money by. She railed at his poverty, his exploits, his adventures, his loves and his reputation; but in her heart

Even now, ill as she was, ill enough to feel the chill, black breath of the approaching end, she had wished to

see him. It was like putting out her benumbed hand to regain her hold. But she had presumed too much on her

strength. She could not command her thoughts; they had become dim, like her vision. The words faltered on

her lips, and only the paramount anxiety and desire of her life seemed to be too strong for death.

The Capataz said, "I have heard these things many times. You are unjust, but it does not hurt me. Only now

you do not seem to have much strength to talk, and I have but little time to listen. I am engaged in a work of

She made an effort to ask him whether it was true that he had found time to go and fetch a doctor for her.

She was pleased: it relieved her sufferings to know that the man had condescended to do so much for those

who really wanted his help. It was a proof of his friendship. Her voice become stronger.

"I want a priest more than a doctor," she said, pathetically. She did not move her head; only her eyes ran into

the corners to watch the Capataz standing by the side of her bed. "Would you go to fetch a priest for me now?

Nostromo shook his head resolutely. He did not believe in priests in their sacerdotal character. A doctor was

an efficacious person; but a priest, as priest, was nothing, incapable of doing either good or harm. Nostromo

did not even dislike the sight of them as old Giorgio did. The utter uselessness of the errand was what struck

"Padrona," he said, "you have been like this before, and got better after a few days. I have given you already

He was feeling uneasy at the impiety of this refusal. The Padrona believed in priests, and confessed herself to

them. But all women did that. It could not be of much consequence. And yet his heart felt oppressed for a

momentat the thought what absolution would mean to her if she believed in it only ever so little. No

matter. It was quite true that he had given her already the very last moment he could spare.

"Listen to reason, Padrona," he said. "I am needed to save the silver of the mine. Do you hear? A greater

treasure than the one which they say is guarded by ghosts and devils on Azuera. It is true. I am resolved to

She felt a despairing indignation. The supreme test had failed. Standing above her, Nostromo did not see the

distorted features of her face, distorted by a paroxysm of pain and anger. Only she began to tremble all over.

"Then God, perhaps, will have mercy upon me! But do you look to it, man, that you get something for

She laughed feebly. "Get riches at least for once, you indispensable, admired Gian' Battista, to whom the

peace of a dying woman is less than the praise of people who have given you a silly nameand nothing

"Leave my soul alone, Padrona, and I shall know how to take care of my body. Where is the harm of people

having need of me? What are you envying me that I have robbed you and the children of? Those very people

you are throwing in my teeth have done more for old Giorgio than they ever thought of doing for me."

He struck his breast with his open palm; his voice had remained low though he had spoken in a forcible tone.

He twisted his moustaches one after another, and his eyes wandered a little about the room.

"Is it my fault that I am the only man for their purposes? What angry nonsense are you talking, mother?

Would you rather have me timid and foolish, selling watermelons on the marketplace or rowing a boat for

passengers along the harbour, like a soft Neapolitan without courage or reputation? Would you have a young

man live like a monk? I do not believe it. Would you want a monk for your eldest girl? Let her grow. What

are you afraid of? You have been angry with me for everything I did for years; ever since you first spoke to

me, in secret from old Giorgio, about your Linda. Husband to one and brother to the other, did you say? Well,

why not! I like the little ones, and a man must marry some time. But ever since that time you have been

making little of me to everyone. Why? Did you think you could put a collar and chain on me as if I were one

of the watchdogs they keep over there in the railway yards? Look here, Padrona, I am the same man who

came ashore one evening and sat down in the thatched ranche you lived in at that time on the other side of the

town and told you all about himself. You were not unjust to me then. What has happened since? I am no

longer an insignificant youth. A good name, Giorgio says, is a treasure, Padrona."

"They have turned your head with their praises," gasped the sick woman. "They have been paying you with

words. Your folly shall betray you into poverty, misery, starvation. The very leperos shall laugh at youthe

Nostromo stood for a time as if struck dumb. She never looked at him. A selfconfident, mirthless smile

passed quickly from his lips, and then he backed away. His disregarded figure sank down beyond the

doorway. He descended the stairs backwards, with the usual sense of having been somehow baffled by this

Downstairs in the big kitchen a candle was burning, surrounded by the shadows of the walls, of the ceiling,

but no ruddy glare filled the open square of the outer door. The carriage with Mrs. Gould and Don Martin,

preceded by the horseman bearing the torch, had gone on to the jetty. Dr. Monygham, who had remained, sat

on the corner of a hard wood table near the candlestick, his seamed, shaven face inclined sideways, his arms

crossed on his breast, his lips pursed up, and his prominent eyes glaring stonily upon the floor of black earth.

Near the overhanging mantel of the fireplace, where the pot of water was still boiling violently, old Giorgio

held his chin in his hand, one foot advanced, as if arrested by a sudden thought.

"Adios, viejo," said Nostromo, feeling the handle of his revolver in the belt and loosening his knife in its

sheath. He picked up a blue poncho lined with red from the table, and put it over his head. "Adios, look after

the things in my sleepingroom, and if you hear from me no more, give up the box to Paquita. There is not

much of value there, except my new serape from Mexico, and a few silver buttons on my best jacket. No

matter! The things will look well enough on the next lover she gets, and the man need not be afraid I shall

Dr. Monygham twisted his lips into a bitter smile. After old Giorgio, with an almost imperceptible nod and

Nostromo, glancing contemptuously at the doctor, lingered in the doorway rolling a cigarette, then struck a

match, and, after lighting it, held the burning piece of wood above his head till the flame nearly touched his

"No wind!" he muttered to himself. "Look here, senordo you know the nature of my undertaking?"

"It is as if I were taking up a curse upon me, senor doctor. A man with a treasure on this coast will have every

knife raised against him in every place upon the shore. You see that, senor doctor? I shall float along with a

spell upon my life till I meet somewhere the northbound steamer of the Company, and then indeed they will

talk about the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores from one end of America to another."

Dr. Monygham laughed his short, throaty laugh. Nostromo turned round in the doorway.

"But if your worship can find any other man ready and fit for such business I will stand back. I am not

exactly tired of my life, though I am so poor that I can carry all I have with myself on my horse's back."

"You gamble too much, and never say 'no' to a pretty face, Capataz," said Dr. Monygham, with sly simplicity.

"That's not the way to make a fortune. But nobody that I know ever suspected you of being poor. I hope you

"What bargain would your worship have made?" asked Nostromo, blowing the smoke out of his lips through

Dr. Monygham listened up the staircase for a moment before he answered, with another of his short, abrupt

"Illustrious Capataz, for taking the curse of death upon my back, as you call it, nothing else but the whole

Nostromo vanished out of the doorway with a grunt of discontent at this jeering answer. Dr. Monygham

heard him gallop away. Nostromo rode furiously in the dark. There were lights in the buildings of the O.S.N.

Company near the wharf, but before he got there he met the Gould carriage. The horseman preceded it with

the torch, whose light showed the white mules trotting, the portly Ignacio driving, and Basilio with the

carbine on the box. From the dark body of the landau Mrs. Gould's voice cried, "They are waiting for you,

Capataz!" She was returning, chilly and excited, with Decoud's pocketbook still held in her hand. He had

confided it to her to send to his sister. "Perhaps my last words to her," he had said, pressing Mrs. Gould's

The Capataz never checked his speed. At the head of the wharf vague figures with rifles leapt to the head of

his horse; others closed upon himcargadores of the company posted by Captain Mitchell on the watch. At a

word from him they fell back with subservient murmurs, recognizing his voice. At the other end of the jetty,

near a cargo crane, in a dark group with glowing cigars, his name was pronounced in a tone of relief. Most of

the Europeans in Sulaco were there, rallied round Charles Gould, as if the silver of the mine had been the

emblem of a common cause, the symbol of the supreme importance of material interests. They had loaded it

into the lighter with their own hands. Nostromo recognized Don Carlos Gould, a thin, tall shape standing a

little apart and silent, to whom another tall shape, the engineerinchief, said aloud, "If it must be lost, it is a

Martin Decoud called out from the lighter, "Au revoir, messieurs, till we clasp hands again over the

newborn Occidental Republic." Only a subdued murmur responded to his clear, ringing tones; and then it

seemed to him that the wharf was floating away into the night; but it was Nostromo, who was already

pushing against a pile with one of the heavy sweeps. Decoud did not move; the effect was that of being

launched into space. After a splash or two there was not a sound but the thud of Nostromo's feet leaping

about the boat. He hoisted the big sail; a breath of wind fanned Decoud's cheek. Everything had vanished but

the light of the lantern Captain Mitchell had hoisted upon the post at the end of the jetty to guide Nostromo

The two men, unable to see each other, kept silent till the lighter, slipping before the fitful breeze, passed out

between almost invisible headlands into the still deeper darkness of the gulf. For a time the lantern on the

jetty shone after them. The wind failed, then fanned up again, but so faintly that the big, halfdecked boat

"We are out in the gulf now," said the calm voice of Nostromo. A moment after he added, "Senor Mitchell

A great recrudescence of obscurity embraced the boat. The sea in the gulf was as black as the clouds above.

Nostromo, after striking a couple of matches to get a glimpse of the boatcompass he had with him in the

It was a new experience for Decoud, this mysteriousness of the great waters spread out strangely smooth, as

if their restlessness had been crushed by the weight of that dense night. The Placido was sleeping profoundly

The main thing now for success was to get away from the coast and gain the middle of the gulf before day

broke. The Isabels were somewhere at hand. "On your left as you look forward, senor," said Nostromo,

suddenly. When his voice ceased, the enormous stillness, without light or sound, seemed to affect Decoud's

senses like a powerful drug. He didn't even know at times whether he were asleep or awake. Like a man lost

in slumber, he heard nothing, he saw nothing. Even his hand held before his face did not exist for his eyes.

The change from the agitation, the passions and the dangers, from the sights and sounds of the shore, was so

complete that it would have resembled death had it not been for the survival of his thoughts. In this foretaste

of eternal peace they floated vivid and light, like unearthly clear dreams of earthly things that may haunt the

souls freed by death from the misty atmosphere of regrets and hopes. Decoud shook himself, shuddered a bit,

though the air that drifted past him was warm. He had the strangest sensation of his soul having just returned

into his body from the circumambient darkness in which land, sea, sky, the mountains, and the rocks were as

Nostromo's voice was speaking, though he, at the tiller, was also as if he were not. "Have you been asleep,

Don Martin? Caramba! If it were possible I would think that I, too, have dozed off. I have a strange notion

somehow of having dreamt that there was a sound of blubbering, a sound a sorrowing man could make,

"Strange!" muttered Decoud, stretched upon the pile of treasure boxes covered by many tarpaulins. "Could it

be that there is another boat near us in the gulf? We could not see it, you know."

Nostromo laughed a little at the absurdity of the idea. They dismissed it from their minds. The solitude could

almost be felt. And when the breeze ceased, the blackness seemed to weigh upon Decoud like a stone.

"Not so fast as a crawling beetle tangled in the grass," answered Nostromo, and his voice seemed deadened

by the thick veil of obscurity that felt warm and hopeless all about them. There were long periods when he

made no sound, invisible and inaudible as if he had mysteriously stepped out of the lighter.

In the featureless night Nostromo was not even certain which way the lighter headed after the wind had

completely died out. He peered for the islands. There was not a hint of them to be seen, as if they had sunk to

the bottom of the gulf. He threw himself down by the side of Decoud at last, and whispered into his ear that if

daylight caught them near the Sulaco shore through want of wind, it would be possible to sweep the lighter

behind the cliff at the high end of the Great Isabel, where she would lie concealed. Decoud was surprised at

the grimness of his anxiety. To him the removal of the treasure was a political move. It was necessary for

several reasons that it should not fall into the hands of Montero, but here was a man who took another view

of this enterprise. The Caballeros over there did not seem to have the slightest idea of what they had given

him to do. Nostromo, as if affected by the gloom around, seemed nervously resentful. Decoud was surprised.

The Capataz, indifferent to those dangers that seemed obvious to his companion, allowed himself to become

scornfully exasperated by the deadly nature of the trust put, as a matter of course, into his hands. It was more

dangerous, Nostromo said, with a laugh and a curse, than sending a man to get the treasure that people said

was guarded by devils and ghosts in the deep ravines of Azuera. "Senor," he said, "we must catch the steamer

at sea. We must keep out in the open looking for her till we have eaten and drunk all that has been put on

board here. And if we miss her by some mischance, we must keep away from the land till we grow weak, and

perhaps mad, and die, and drift dead, until one or another of the steamers of the Compania comes upon the

boat with the two dead men who have saved the treasure. That, senor, is the only way to save it; for, don't you

see? for us to come to the land anywhere in a hundred miles along this coast with this silver in our possession

is to run the naked breast against the point of a knife. This thing has been given to me like a deadly disease. If

men discover it I am dead, and you, too, senor, since you would come with me. There is enough silver to

make a whole province rich, let alone a seaboard pueblo inhabited by thieves and vagabonds. Senor, they

would think that heaven itself sent these riches into their hands, and would cut our throats without hesitation.

I would trust no fair words from the best man around the shores of this wild gulf. Reflect that, even by giving

up the treasure at the first demand, we would not be able to save our lives. Do you understand this, or must I

"No, you needn't explain," said Decoud, a little listlessly. "I can see it well enough myself, that the possession

of this treasure is very much like a deadly disease for men situated as we are. But it had to be removed from

"I was; but I cannot believe," said Nostromo, "that its loss would have impoverished Don Carlos Gould very

much. There is more wealth in the mountain. I have heard it rolling down the shoots on quiet nights when I

used to ride to Rincon to see a certain girl, after my work at the harbour was done. For years the rich rocks

have been pouring down with a noise like thunder, and the miners say that there is enough at the heart of the

mountain to thunder on for years and years to come. And yet, the day before yesterday, we have been fighting

to save it from the mob, and tonight I am sent out with it into this darkness, where there is no wind to get

away with; as if it were the last lot of silver on earth to get bread for the hungry with. Ha! ha! Well, I am

going to make it the most famous and desperate affair of my lifewind or no wind. It shall be talked about

when the little children are grown up and the grown men are old. Aha! the Monterists must not get hold of it,

I am told, whatever happens to Nostromo the Capataz; and they shall not have it, I tell you, since it has been

"I see it," murmured Decoud. He saw, indeed, that his companion had his own peculiar view of this enterprise.

Nostromo interrupted his reflections upon the way men's qualities are made use of, without any fundamental

knowledge of their nature, by the proposal they should slip the long oars out and sweep the lighter in the

direction of the Isabels. It wouldn't do for daylight to reveal the treasure floating within a mile or so of the

harbour entrance. The denser the darkness generally, the smarter were the puffs of wind on which he had

reckoned to make his way; but tonight the gulf, under its poncho of clouds, remained breathless, as if dead

Don Martin's soft hands suffered cruelly, tugging at the thick handle of the enormous oar. He stuck to it

manfully, setting his teeth. He, too, was in the toils of an imaginative existence, and that strange work of

pulling a lighter seemed to belong naturally to the inception of a new state, acquired an ideal meaning from

his love for Antonia. For all their efforts, the heavily laden lighter hardly moved. Nostromo could be heard

swearing to himself between the regular splashes of the sweeps. "We are making a crooked path," he

In his unskilfulness Don Martin overexerted himself. Now and then a sort of muscular faintness would run

from the tips of his aching fingers through every fibre of his body, and pass off in a flush of heat. He had

fought, talked, suffered mentally and physically, exerting his mind and body for the last fortyeight hours

without intermission. He had had no rest, very little food, no pause in the stress of his thoughts and his

feelings. Even his love for Antonia, whence he drew his strength and his inspiration, had reached the point of

tragic tension during their hurried interview by Don Jose's bedside. And now, suddenly, he was thrown out of

all this into a dark gulf, whose very gloom, silence, and breathless peace added a torment to the necessity for

physical exertion. He imagined the lighter sinking to the bottom with an extraordinary shudder of delight. "I

am on the verge of delirium," he thought. He mastered the trembling of all his limbs, of his breast, the inward

"Shall we rest, Capataz?" he proposed in a careless tone. "There are many hours of night yet before us."

"True. It is but a mile or so, I suppose. Rest your arms, senor, if that is what you mean. You will find no other

sort of rest, I can promise you, since you let yourself be bound to this treasure whose loss would make no

poor man poorer. No, senor; there is no rest till we find a northbound steamer, or else some ship finds us

drifting about stretched out dead upon the Englishman's silver. Or ratherno; por Dios! I shall cut down the

gunwale with the axe right to the water's edge before thirst and hunger rob me of my strength. By all the

saints and devils I shall let the sea have the treasure rather than give it up to any stranger. Since it was the

good pleasure of the Caballeros to send me off on such an errand, they shall learn I am just the man they take

Decoud lay on the silver boxes panting. All his active sensations and feelings from as far back as he could

remember seemed to him the maddest of dreams. Even his passionate devotion to Antonia into which he had

worked himself up out of the depths of his scepticism had lost all appearance of reality. For a moment he was

"I am sure they didn't mean you to take such a desperate view of this affair," he said.

"What was it, then? A joke?" snarled the man, who on the paysheets of the O.S.N. Company's establishment

in Sulaco was described as "Foreman of the wharf" against the figure of his wages. "Was it for a joke they

woke me up from my sleep after two days of street fighting to make me stake my life upon a bad card?

"Yes, everybody knows of your good luck with women, Capataz," Decoud propitiated his companion in a

"Look here, senor," Nostromo went on. "I never even remonstrated about this affair. Directly I heard what

was wanted I saw what a desperate affair it must be, and I made up my mind to see it out. Every minute was

of importance. I had to wait for you first. Then, when we arrived at the Italia Una, old Giorgio shouted to me

to go for the English doctor. Later on, that poor dying woman wanted to see me, as you know. Senor, I was

reluctant to go. I felt already this cursed silver growing heavy upon my back, and I was afraid that, knowing

herself to be dying, she would ask me to ride off again for a priest. Father Corbelan, who is fearless, would

have come at a word; but Father Corbelan is far away, safe with the band of Hernandez, and the populace,

that would have liked to tear him to pieces, are much incensed against the priests. Not a single fat padre

would have consented to put his head out of his hidingplace tonight to save a Christian soul, except,

perhaps, under my protection. That was in her mind. I pretended I did not believe she was going to die. Senor,

"You did, Capataz!" he exclaimed. His tone changed. "Well, you knowit was rather fine."

"You do not believe in priests, Don Martin? Neither do I. What was the use of wasting time? But sheshe

believes in them. The thing sticks in my throat. She may be dead already, and here we are floating helpless

with no wind at all. Curse on all superstition. She died thinking I deprived her of Paradise, I suppose. It shall

Decoud remained lost in reflection. He tried to analyze the sensations awaked by what he had been told. The

"Now, Don Martin, let us take up the sweeps and try to find the Isabels. It is either that or sinking the lighter

if the day overtakes us. We must not forget that the steamer from Esmeralda with the soldiers may be coming

along. We will pull straight on now. I have discovered a bit of a candle here, and we must take the risk of a

small light to make a course by the boat compass. There is not enough wind to blow it outmay the curse of

A small flame appeared burning quite straight. It showed fragmentarily the stout ribs and planking in the

hollow, empty part of the lighter. Decoud could see Nostromo standing up to pull. He saw him as high as the

red sash on his waist, with a gleam of a whitehandled revolver and the wooden haft of a long knife

protruding on his left side. Decoud nerved himself for the effort of rowing. Certainly there was not enough

wind to blow the candle out, but its flame swayed a little to the slow movement of the heavy boat. It was so

big that with their utmost efforts they could not move it quicker than about a mile an hour. This was

sufficient, however, to sweep them amongst the Isabels long before daylight came. There was a good six

hours of darkness before them, and the distance from the harbour to the Great Isabel did not exceed two

miles. Decoud put this heavy toil to the account of the Capataz's impatience. Sometimes they paused, and

then strained their ears to hear the boat from Esmeralda. In this perfect quietness a steamer moving would

have been heard from far off. As to seeing anything it was out of the question. They could not see each other.

Even the lighter's sail, which remained set, was invisible. Very often they rested.

"Caramba!" said Nostromo, suddenly, during one of those intervals when they lolled idly against the heavy

Decoud assured him that he was not distressed in the least. Nostromo for a time kept perfectly still, and then

With his lips touching Decoud's ear he declared his belief that there was somebody else besides themselves

"Senor," he whispered with awed wonder, "I am certain that there is somebody weeping in this lighter."

Decoud had heard nothing. He expressed his incredulity. However, it was easy to ascertain the truth of the

"It is most amazing," muttered Nostromo. "Could anybody have concealed himself on board while the lighter

"And you say it was like sobbing?" asked Decoud, lowering his voice, too. "If he is weeping, whoever he is

Clambering over the precious pile in the middle, they crouched low on the foreside of the mast and groped

under the halfdeck. Right forward, in the narrowest part, their hands came upon the limbs of a man, who

remained as silent as death. Too startled themselves to make a sound, they dragged him aft by one arm and

The light of the bit of candle fell upon a round, hooknosed face with black moustaches and little

sidewhiskers. He was extremely dirty. A greasy growth of beard was sprouting on the shaven parts of the

cheeks. The thick lips were slightly parted, but the eyes remained closed. Decoud, to his immense

astonishment, recognized Senor Hirsch, the hide merchant from Esmeralda. Nostromo, too, had recognized

him. And they gazed at each other across the body, lying with its naked feet higher than its head, in an absurd

FOR a moment, before this extraordinary find, they forgot their own concerns and sensations. Senor Hirsch's

sensations as he lay there must have been those of extreme terror. For a long time he refused to give a sign of

life, till at last Decoud's objurgations, and, perhaps more, Nostromo's impatient suggestion that he should be

thrown overboard, as he seemed to be dead, induced him to raise one eyelid first, and then the other.

It appeared that he had never found a safe opportunity to leave Sulaco. He lodged with Anzani, the universal

storekeeper, on the Plaza Mayor. But when the riot broke out he had made his escape from his host's house

before daylight, and in such a hurry that he had forgotten to put on his shoes. He had run out impulsively in

his socks, and with his hat in his hand, into the garden of Anzani's house. Fear gave him the necessary agility

to climb over several low walls, and afterwards he blundered into the overgrown cloisters of the ruined

Franciscan convent in one of the bystreets. He forced himself into the midst of matted bushes with the

recklessness of desperation, and this accounted for his scratched body and his torn clothing. He lay hidden

there all day, his tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth with all the intensity of thirst engendered by heat

and fear. Three times different bands of men invaded the place with shouts and imprecations, looking for

Father Corbelan; but towards the evening, still lying on his face in the bushes, he thought he would die from

the fear of silence. He was not very clear as to what had induced him to leave the place, but evidently he had

got out and slunk successfully out of town along the deserted back lanes. He wandered in the darkness near

the railway, so maddened by apprehension that he dared not even approach the fires of the pickets of Italian

workmen guarding the line. He had a vague idea evidently of finding refuge in the railway yards, but the dogs

rushed upon him, barking; men began to shout; a shot was fired at random. He fled away from the gates. By

the merest accident, as it happened, he took the direction of the O.S.N. Company's offices. Twice he

stumbled upon the bodies of men killed during the day. But everything living frightened him much more. He

crouched, crept, crawled, made dashes, guided by a sort of animal instinct, keeping away from every light

and from every sound of voices. His idea was to throw himself at the feet of Captain Mitchell and beg for

shelter in the Company's offices. It was all dark there as he approached on his hands and knees, but suddenly

someone on guard challenged loudly, "Quien vive?" There were more dead men lying about, and he flattened

himself down at once by the side of a cold corpse. He heard a voice saying, "Here is one of those wounded

rascals crawling about. Shall I go and finish him?" And another voice objected that it was not safe to go out

without a lantern upon such an errand; perhaps it was only some negro Liberal looking for a chance to stick a

knife into the stomach of an honest man. Hirsch didn't stay to hear any more, but crawling away to the end of

the wharf, hid himself amongst a lot of empty casks. After a while some people came along, talking, and with

glowing cigarettes. He did not stop to ask himself whether they would be likely to do him any harm, but

bolted incontinently along the jetty, saw a lighter lying moored at the end, and threw himself into it. In his

desire to find cover he crept right forward under the halfdeck, and he had remained there more dead than

alive, suffering agonies of hunger and thirst, and almost fainting with terror, when he heard numerous

footsteps and the voices of the Europeans who came in a body escorting the wagonload of treasure, pushed

along the rails by a squad of Cargadores. He understood perfectly what was being done from the talk, but did

not disclose his presence from the fear that he would not be allowed to remain. His only idea at the time,

overpowering and masterful, was to get away from this terrible Sulaco. And now he regretted it very much.

He had heard Nostromo talk to Decoud, and wished himself back on shore. He did not desire to be involved

in any desperate affairin a situation where one could not run away. The involuntary groans of his

They had propped him up in a sitting posture against the side of the lighter, and he went on with the moaning

account of his adventures till his voice broke, his head fell forward. "Water," he whispered, with difficulty.

Decoud held one of the cans to his lips. He revived after an extraordinarily short time, and scrambled up to

his feet wildly. Nostromo, in an angry and threatening voice, ordered him forward. Hirsch was one of those

men whom fear lashes like a whip, and he must have had an appalling idea of the Capataz's ferocity. He

displayed an extraordinary agility in disappearing forward into the darkness. They heard him getting over the

tarpaulin; then there was the sound of a heavy fall, followed by a weary sigh. Afterwards all was still in the

forepart of the lighter, as though he had killed himself in his headlong tumble. Nostromo shouted in a

"Lie still there! Do not move a limb. If I hear as much as a loud breath from you I shall come over there and

The mere presence of a coward, however passive, brings an element of treachery into a dangerous situation.

Nostromo's nervous impatience passed into gloomy thoughtfulness. Decoud, in an undertone, as if speaking

to himself, remarked that, after all, this bizarre event made no great difference. He could not conceive what

harm the man could do. At most he would be in the way, like an inanimate and useless objectlike a block

"I would think twice before getting rid of a piece of wood," said Nostromo, calmly. "Something may happen

unexpectedly where you could make use of it. But in an affair like ours a man like this ought to be thrown

overboard. Even if he were as brave as a lion we would not want him here. We are not running away for our

lives. Senor, there is no harm in a brave man trying to save himself with ingenuity and courage; but you have

heard his tale, Don Martin. His being here is a miracle of fear" Nostromo paused. "There is no room for

Decoud had no answer to make. It was not a position for argument, for a display of scruples or feelings.

There were a thousand ways in which a panicstricken man could make himself dangerous. It was evident

that Hirsch could not be spoken to, reasoned with, or persuaded into a rational line of conduct. The story of

his own escape demonstrated that clearly enough. Decoud thought that it was a thousand pities the wretch had

not died of fright. Nature, who had made him what he was, seemed to have calculated cruelly how much he

could bear in the way of atrocious anguish without actually expiring. Some compassion was due to so much

terror. Decoud, though imaginative enough for sympathy, resolved not to interfere with any action that

Nostromo would take. But Nostromo did nothing. And the fate of Senor Hirsch remained suspended in the

The Capataz, extending his hand, put out the candle suddenly. It was to Decoud as if his companion had

destroyed, by a single touch, the world of affairs, of loves, of revolution, where his complacent superiority

He gasped a little. Decoud was affected by the novelty of his position. Intellectually selfconfident, he

suffered from being deprived of the only weapon he could use with effect. No intelligence could penetrate the

darkness of the Placid Gulf. There remained only one thing he was certain of, and that was the overweening

vanity of his companion. It was direct, uncomplicated, naive, and effectual. Decoud, who had been making

use of him, had tried to understand his man thoroughly. He had discovered a complete singleness of motive

behind the varied manifestations of a consistent character. This was why the man remained so astonishingly

simple in the jealous greatness of his conceit. And now there was a complication. It was evident that he

resented having been given a task in which there were so many chances of failure. "I wonder," thought

He heard Nostromo mutter again, "No! there is no room for fear on this lighter. Courage itself does not seem

good enough. I have a good eye and a steady hand; no man can say he ever saw me tired or uncertain what to

do; but por Dios, Don Martin, I have been sent out into this black calm on a business where neither a good

eye, nor a steady hand, nor judgment are any use. . . ." He swore a string of oaths in Spanish and Italian under

These words were in strange contrast to the prevailing peaceto this almost solid stillness of the gulf. A

shower fell with an abrupt whispering sound all round the boat, and Decoud took off his hat, and, letting his

Presently a steady little draught of air caressed his cheek. The lighter began to move, but the shower

distanced it. The drops ceased to fall upon his head and hands, the whispering died out in the distance.

Nostromo emitted a grunt of satisfaction, and grasping the tiller, chirruped softly, as sailors do, to encourage

the wind. Never for the last three days had Decoud felt less the need for what the Capataz would call

"I fancy I hear another shower on the water," he observed in a tone of quiet content. "I hope it will catch us

Nostromo ceased chirruping at once. "You hear another shower?" he said, doubtfully. A sort of thinning of

the darkness seemed to have taken place, and Decoud could see now the outline of his companion's figure,

The sound which Decoud had detected came along the water harshly. Nostromo recognized that noise

partaking of a hiss and a rustle which spreads out on all sides of a steamer making her way through a smooth

water on a quiet night. It could be nothing else but the captured transport with troops from Esmeralda. She

carried no lights. The noise of her steaming, growing louder every minute, would stop at times altogether, and

then begin again abruptly, and sound startlingly nearer; as if that invisible vessel, whose position could not be

precisely guessed, were making straight for the lighter. Meantime, that last kept on sailing slowly and

noiselessly before a breeze so faint that it was only by leaning over the side and feeling the water slip through

his fingers that Decoud convinced himself they were moving at all. His drowsy feeling had departed. He was

glad to know that the lighter was moving. After so much stillness the noise of the steamer seemed uproarious

and distracting. There was a weirdness in not being able to see her. Suddenly all was still. She had stopped,

but so close to them that the steam, blowing off, sent its rumbling vibration right over their heads.

"They are trying to make out where they are," said Decoud in a whisper. Again he leaned over and put his

"We seem to be crossing her bows," said the Capataz in a cautious tone. "But this is a blind game with death.

His whisper was hoarse with excitement. Of all his face there was nothing visible but a gleam of white

eyeballs. His fingers gripped Decoud's shoulder. "That is the only way to save this treasure from this steamer

full of soldiers. Any other would have carried lights. But you observe there is not a gleam to show us where

Decoud stood as if paralyzed; only his thoughts were wildly active. In the space of a second he remembered

the desolate glance of Antonia as he left her at the bedside of her father in the gloomy house of Avellanos,

with shuttered windows, but all the doors standing open, and deserted by all the servants except an old negro

at the gate. He remembered the Casa Gould on his last visit, the arguments, the tones of his voice, the

impenetrable attitude of Charles, Mrs. Gould's face so blanched with anxiety and fatigue that her eyes seemed

to have changed colour, appearing nearly black by contrast. Even whole sentences of the proclamation which

he meant to make Barrios issue from his headquarters at Cayta as soon as he got there passed through his

mind; the very germ of the new State, the Separationist proclamation which he had tried before he left to read

hurriedly to Don Jose, stretched out on his bed under the fixed gaze of his daughter. God knows whether the

old statesman had understood it; he was unable to speak, but he had certainly lifted his arm off the coverlet;

his hand had moved as if to make the sign of the cross in the air, a gesture of blessing, of consent. Decoud

had that very draft in his pocket, written in pencil on several loose sheets of paper, with the heavilyprinted

heading, "Administration of the San Tome Silver Mine. Sulaco. Republic of Costaguana." He had written it

furiously, snatching page after page on Charles Gould's table. Mrs. Gould had looked several times over his

shoulder as he wrote; but the Senor Administrador, standing straddlelegged, would not even glance at it

when it was finished. He had waved it away firmly. It must have been scorn, and not caution, since he never

made a remark about the use of the Administration's paper for such a compromising document. And that

showed his disdain, the true English disdain of common prudence, as if everything outside the range of their

own thoughts and feelings were unworthy of serious recognition. Decoud had the time in a second or two to

become furiously angry with Charles Gould, and even resentful against Mrs. Gould, in whose care, tacitly it

is true, he had left the safety of Antonia. Better perish a thousand times than owe your preservation to such

people, he exclaimed mentally. The grip of Nostromo's fingers never removed from his shoulder, tightening

"The darkness is our friend," the Capataz murmured into his ear. "I am going to lower the sail, and trust our

escape to this black gulf. No eyes could make us out lying silent with a naked mast. I will do it now, before

this steamer closes still more upon us. The faint creak of a block would betray us and the San Tome treasure

He moved about as warily as a cat. Decoud heard no sound; and it was only by the disappearance of the

square blotch of darkness that he knew the yard had come down, lowered as carefully as if it had been made

"You had better not move at all from where you are, Don Martin," advised the Capataz, earnestly. "You

might stumble or displace something which would make a noise. The sweeps and the punting poles are lying

about. Move not for your life. Por Dios, Don Martin," he went on in a keen but friendly whisper, "I am so

desperate that if I didn't know your worship to be a man of courage, capable of standing stock still whatever

A deathlike stillness surrounded the lighter. It was difficult to believe that there was near a steamer full of

men with many pairs of eyes peering from her bridge for some hint of land in the night. Her steam had ceased

blowing off, and she remained stopped too far off apparently for any other sound to reach the lighter.

"Perhaps you would, Capataz," Decoud began in a whisper. "However, you need not trouble. There are other

things than the fear of your knife to keep my heart steady. It shall not betray you. Only, have you

"I spoke to you openly as to a man as desperate as myself," explained the Capataz. "The silver must be saved

from the Monterists. I told Captain Mitchell three times that I preferred to go alone. I told Don Carlos Gould,

too. It was in the Casa Gould. They had sent for me. The ladies were there; and when I tried to explain why I

did not wish to have you with me, they promised me, both of them, great rewards for your safety. A strange

way to talk to a man you are sending out to an almost certain death. Those gentlefolk do not seem to have

sense enough to understand what they are giving one to do. I told them I could do nothing for you. You

would have been safer with the bandit Hernandez. It would have been possible to ride out of the town with no

greater risk than a chance shot sent after you in the dark. But it was as if they had been deaf. I had to promise

I would wait for you under the harbour gate. I did wait. And now because you are a brave man you are as safe

At that moment, as if by way of comment upon Nostromo's words, the invisible steamer went ahead at half

speed only, as could be judged by the leisurely beat of her propeller. The sound shifted its place markedly,

but without coming nearer. It even grew a little more distant right abeam of the lighter, and then ceased again.

"They are trying for a sight of the Isabels," muttered Nostromo, "in order to make for the harbour in a straight

line and seize the Custom House with the treasure in it. Have you ever seen the Commandant of Esmeralda,

Sotillo? A handsome fellow, with a soft voice. When I first came here I used to see him in the Calle talking to

the senoritas at the windows of the houses, and showing his white teeth all the time. But one of my

Cargadores, who had been a soldier, told me that he had once ordered a man to be flayed alive in the remote

Campo, where he was sent recruiting amongst the people of the Estancias. It has never entered his head that

The murmuring loquacity of the Capataz disturbed Decoud like a hint of weakness. And yet, talkative

"Sotillo is not baffled so far," he said. "Have you forgotten that crazy man forward?"

Nostromo had not forgotten Senor Hirsch. He reproached himself bitterly for not having visited the lighter

carefully before leaving the wharf. He reproached himself for not having stabbed and flung Hirsch overboard

at the very moment of discovery without even looking at his face. That would have been consistent with the

desperate character of the affair. Whatever happened, Sotillo was already baffled. Even if that wretch, now as

silent as death, did anything to betray the nearness of the lighter, Sotilloif Sotillo it was in command of the

"I have an axe in my hand," Nostromo whispered, wrathfully, "that in three strokes would cut through the

side down to the water's edge. Moreover, each lighter has a plug in the stern, and I know exactly where it is. I

Decoud recognized the ring of genuine determination in the nervous murmurs, the vindictive excitement of

the famous Capataz. Before the steamer, guided by a shriek or two (for there could be no more than that,

Nostromo said, gnashing his teeth audibly), could find the lighter there would be plenty of time to sink this

The last words he hissed into Decoud's ear. Decoud said nothing. He was perfectly convinced. The usual

characteristic quietness of the man was gone. It was not equal to the situation as he conceived it. Something

deeper, something unsuspected by everyone, had come to the surface. Decoud, with careful movements,

slipped off his overcoat and divested himself of his boots; he did not consider himself bound in honour to

sink with the treasure. His object was to get down to Barrios, in Cayta, as the Capataz knew very well; and

he, too, meant, in his own way, to put into that attempt all the desperation of which he was capable.

Nostromo muttered, "True, true! You are a politician, senor. Rejoin the army, and start another revolution."

He pointed out, however, that there was a little boat belonging to every lighter fit to carry two men, if not

Of that Decoud had not been aware. Of course, it was too dark to see, and it was only when Nostromo put his

hand upon its painter fastened to a cleat in the stern that he experienced a full measure of relief. The prospect

of finding himself in the water and swimming, overwhelmed by ignorance and darkness, probably in a circle,

till he sank from exhaustion, was revolting. The barren and cruel futility of such an end intimidated his

affectation of careless pessimism. In comparison to it, the chance of being left floating in a boat, exposed to

thirst, hunger, discovery, imprisonment, execution, presented itself with an aspect of amenity worth securing

even at the cost of some selfcontempt. He did not accept Nostromo's proposal that he should get into the

boat at once. "Something sudden may overwhelm us, senor," the Capataz remarked promising faithfully, at

the same time, to let go the painter at the moment when the necessity became manifest.

But Decoud assured him lightly that he did not mean to take to the boat till the very last moment, and that

then he meant the Capataz to come along, too. The darkness of the gulf was no longer for him the end of all

things. It was part of a living world since, pervading it, failure and death could be felt at your elbow. And at

the same time it was a shelter. He exulted in its impenetrable obscurity. "Like a wall, like a wall," he

The only thing which checked his confidence was the thought of Senor Hirsch. Not to have bound and

gagged him seemed to Decoud now the height of improvident folly. As long as the miserable creature had the

power to raise a yell he was a constant danger. His abject terror was mute now, but there was no saying from

This very madness of fear which both Decoud and Nostromo had seen in the wild and irrational glances, and

in the continuous twitchings of his mouth, protected Senor Hirsch from the cruel necessities of this desperate

affair. The moment of silencing him for ever had passed. As Nostromo remarked, in answer to Decoud's

regrets, it was too late! It could not be done without noise, especially in the ignorance of the man's exact

position. Wherever he had elected to crouch and tremble, it was too hazardous to go near him. He would

begin probably to yell for mercy. It was much better to leave him quite alone since he was keeping so still.

But to trust to his silence became every moment a greater strain upon Decoud's composure.

"What! To silence him for ever? I thought it good to hear first how he came to be here. It was too strange.

Who could imagine that it was all an accident? Afterwards, senor, when I saw you giving him water to drink,

I could not do it. Not after I had seen you holding up the can to his lips as though he were your brother.

Senor, that sort of necessity must not be thought of too long. And yet it would have been no cruelty to take

away from him his wretched life. It is nothing but fear. Your compassion saved him then, Don Martin, and

In the steamer they were keeping a perfect silence, and the stillness was so profound that Decoud felt as if the

slightest sound conceivable must travel unchecked and audible to the end of the world. What if Hirsch

coughed or sneezed? To feel himself at the mercy of such an idiotic contingency was too exasperating to be

looked upon with irony. Nostromo, too, seemed to be getting restless. Was it possible, he asked himself, that

the steamer, finding the night too dark altogether, intended to remain stopped where she was till daylight? He

began to think that this, after all, was the real danger. He was afraid that the darkness, which was his

Sotillo, as Nostromo had surmised, was in command on board the transport. The events of the last fortyeight

hours in Sulaco were not known to him; neither was he aware that the telegraphist in Esmeralda had managed

to warn his colleague in Sulaco. Like a good many officers of the troops garrisoning the province, Sotillo had

been influenced in his adoption of the Ribierist cause by the belief that it had the enormous wealth of the

Gould Concession on its side. He had been one of the frequenters of the Casa Gould, where he had aired his

Blanco convictions and his ardour for reform before Don Jose Avellanos, casting frank, honest glances

towards Mrs. Gould and Antonia the while. He was known to belong to a good family persecuted and

impoverished during the tyranny of Guzman Bento. The opinions he expressed appeared eminently natural

and proper in a man of his parentage and antecedents. And he was not a deceiver; it was perfectly natural for

him to express elevated sentiments while his whole faculties were taken up with what seemed then a solid

and practical notionthe notion that the husband of Antonia Avellanos would be, naturally, the intimate

friend of the Gould Concession. He even pointed this out to Anzani once, when negotiating the sixth or

seventh small loan in the gloomy, damp apartment with enormous iron bars, behind the principal shop in the

whole row under the Arcades. He hinted to the universal shopkeeper at the excellent terms he was on with the

emancipated senorita, who was like a sister to the Englishwoman. He would advance one leg and put his arms

"Look, miserable shopkeeper! How can a man like me fail with any woman, let alone an emancipated girl

His manner in the Casa Gould was, of course, very differentdevoid of all truculence, and even slightly

mournful. Like most of his countrymen, he was carried away by the sound of fine words, especially if uttered

by himself. He had no convictions of any sort upon anything except as to the irresistible power of his

personal advantages. But that was so firm that even Decoud's appearance in Sulaco, and his intimacy with the

Goulds and the Avellanos, did not disquiet him. On the contrary, he tried to make friends with that rich

Costaguanero from Europe in the hope of borrowing a large sum byandby. The only guiding motive of his

life was to get money for the satisfaction of his expensive tastes, which he indulged recklessly, having no

selfcontrol. He imagined himself a master of intrigue, but his corruption was as simple as an animal instinct.

At times, in solitude, he had his moments of ferocity, and also on such occasions as, for instance, when alone

He had talked himself into the command of the Esmeralda garrison. That small seaport had its importance as

the station of the main submarine cable connecting the Occidental Provinces with the outer world, and the

junction with it of the Sulaco branch. Don Jose Avellanos proposed him, and Barrios, with a rude and jeering

guffaw, had said, "Oh, let Sotillo go. He is a very good man to keep guard over the cable, and the ladies of

Esmeralda ought to have their turn." Barrios, an indubitably brave man, had no great opinion of Sotillo.

It was through the Esmeralda cable alone that the San Tome mine could be kept in constant touch with the

great financier, whose tacit approval made the strength of the Ribierist movement. This movement had its

adversaries even there. Sotillo governed Esmeralda with repressive severity till the adverse course of events

upon the distant theatre of civil war forced upon him the reflection that, after all, the great silver mine was

fated to become the spoil of the victors. But caution was necessary. He began by assuming a dark and

mysterious attitude towards the faithful Ribierist municipality of Esmeralda. Later on, the information that

the commandant was holding assemblies of officers in the dead of night (which had leaked out somehow)

caused those gentlemen to neglect their civil duties altogether, and remain shut up in their houses. Suddenly

one day all the letters from Sulaco by the overland courier were carried off by a file of soldiers from the post

office to the Commandancia, without disguise, concealment, or apology. Sotillo had heard through Cayta of

This was the first open sign of the change in his convictions. Presently notorious democrats, who had been

living till then in constant fear of arrest, leg irons, and even floggings, could be observed going in and out at

the great door of the Commandancia, where the horses of the orderlies doze under their heavy saddles, while

the men, in ragged uniforms and pointed straw hats, lounge on a bench, with their naked feet stuck out

beyond the strip of shade; and a sentry, in a red baize coat with holes at the elbows, stands at the top of the

steps glaring haughtily at the common people, who uncover their heads to him as they pass.

Sotillo's ideas did not soar above the care for his personal safety and the chance of plundering the town in his

charge, but he feared that such a late adhesion would earn but scant gratitude from the victors. He had

believed just a little too long in the power of the San Tome mine. The seized correspondence had confirmed

his previous information of a large amount of silver ingots lying in the Sulaco Custom House. To gain

possession of it would be a clear Monterist move; a sort of service that would have to be rewarded. With the

silver in his hands he could make terms for himself and his soldiers. He was aware neither of the riots, nor of

the President's escape to Sulaco and the close pursuit led by Montero's brother, the guerrillero. The game

seemed in his own hands. The initial moves were the seizure of the cable telegraph office and the securing of

the Government steamer lying in the narrow creek which is the harbour of Esmeralda. The last was effected

without difficulty by a company of soldiers swarming with a rush over the gangways as she lay alongside the

quay; but the lieutenant charged with the duty of arresting the telegraphist halted on the way before the only

cafe in Esmeralda, where he distributed some brandy to his men, and refreshed himself at the expense of the

owner, a known Ribierist. The whole party became intoxicated, and proceeded on their mission up the street

yelling and firing random shots at the windows. This little festivity, which might have turned out dangerous

to the telegraphist's life, enabled him in the end to send his warning to Sulaco. The lieutenant, staggering

upstairs with a drawn sabre, was before long kissing him on both cheeks in one of those swift changes of

mood peculiar to a state of drunkenness. He clasped the telegraphist close round the neck, assuring him that

all the officers of the Esmeralda garrison were going to be made colonels, while tears of happiness streamed

down his sodden face. Thus it came about that the town major, coming along later, found the whole party

sleeping on the stairs and in passages, and the telegraphist (who scorned this chance of escape) very busy

clicking the key of the transmitter. The major led him away bareheaded, with his hands tied behind his back,

but concealed the truth from Sotillo, who remained in ignorance of the warning despatched to Sulaco.

The colonel was not the man to let any sort of darkness stand in the way of the planned surprise. It appeared

to him a dead certainty; his heart was set upon his object with an ungovernable, childlike impatience. Ever

since the steamer had rounded Punta Mala, to enter the deeper shadow of the gulf, he had remained on the

bridge in a group of officers as excited as himself. Distracted between the coaxings and menaces of Sotillo

and his Staff, the miserable commander of the steamer kept her moving with as much prudence as they would

let him exercise. Some of them had been drinking heavily, no doubt; but the prospect of laying hands on so

much wealth made them absurdly foolhardy, and, at the same time, extremely anxious. The old major of the

battalion, a stupid, suspicious man, who had never been afloat in his life, distinguished himself by putting out

suddenly the binnacle light, the only one allowed on board for the necessities of navigation. He could not

understand of what use it could be for finding the way. To the vehement protestations of the ship's captain, he

stamped his foot and tapped the handle of his sword. "Aha! I have unmasked you," he cried, triumphantly.

"You are tearing your hair from despair at my acuteness. Am I a child to believe that a light in that brass box

can show you where the harbour is? I am an old soldier, I am. I can smell a traitor a league off. You wanted

that gleam to betray our approach to your friend the Englishman. A thing like that show you the way! What a

miserable lie! Que picardia! You Sulaco people are all in the pay of those foreigners. You deserve to be run

through the body with my sword." Other officers, crowding round, tried to calm his indignation, repeating

persuasively, "No, no! This is an appliance of the mariners, major. This is no treachery." The captain of the

transport flung himself face downwards on the bridge, and refused to rise. "Put an end to me at once," he

The uproar and confusion on the bridge became so great that the helmsman fled from the wheel. He took

refuge in the engineroom, and alarmed the engineers, who, disregarding the threats of the soldiers set on

guard over them, stopped the engines, protesting that they would rather be shot than run the risk of being

This was the first time Nostromo and Decoud heard the steamer stop. After order had been restored, and the

binnacle lamp relighted, she went ahead again, passing wide of the lighter in her search for the Isabels. The

group could not be made out, and, at the pitiful entreaties of the captain, Sotillo allowed the engines to be

stopped again to wait for one of those periodical lightenings of darkness caused by the shifting of the cloud

Sotillo, on the bridge, muttered from time to time angrily to the captain. The other, in an apologetic and

cringing tone, begged su merced the colonel to take into consideration the limitations put upon human

faculties by the darkness of the night. Sotillo swelled with rage and impatience. It was the chance of a

"If your eyes are of no more use to you than this, I shall have them put out," he yelled.

The captain of the steamer made no answer, for just then the mass of the Great Isabel loomed up darkly after

a passing shower, then vanished, as if swept away by a wave of greater obscurity preceding another

downpour. This was enough for him. In the voice of a man come back to life again, he informed Sotillo that

in an hour he would be alongside the Sulaco wharf. The ship was put then full speed on the course, and a

It was heard distinctly by Decoud and Nostromo. The Capataz understood its meaning. They had made out

the Isabels, and were going on now in a straight line for Sulaco. He judged that they would pass close; but

believed that lying still like this, with the sail lowered, the lighter could not be seen. "No, not even if they

The rain began to fall again; first like a wet mist, then with a heavier touch, thickening into a smart,

perpendicular downpour; and the hiss and thump of the approaching steamer was coming extremely near.

Decoud, with his eyes full of water, and lowered head, asked himself how long it would be before she drew

past, when unexpectedly he felt a lurch. An inrush of foam broke swishing over the stern, simultaneously

with a crack of timbers and a staggering shock. He had the impression of an angry hand laying hold of the

lighter and dragging it along to destruction. The shock, of course, had knocked him down, and he found

rolling in a lot of water at the bottom of the lighter. A violent churning went on alongside; a strange and

amazed voice cried out something above him in the night. He heard a piercing shriek for help from Senor

The steamer had struck the lighter obliquely, heeling her over till she was half swamped, starting some of her

timbers, and swinging her head parallel to her own course with the force of the blow. The shock of it on

board of her was hardly perceptible. All the violence of that collision was, as usual, felt only on board the

smaller craft. Even Nostromo himself thought that this was perhaps the end of his desperate adventure. He,

too, had been flung away from the long tiller, which took charge in the lurch. Next moment the steamer

would have passed on, leaving the lighter to sink or swim after having shouldered her thus out of her way,

and without even getting a glimpse of her form, had it not been that, being deeply laden with stores and the

great number of people on board, her anchor was low enough to hook itself into one of the wire shrouds of

the lighter's mast. For the space of two or three gasping breaths that new rope held against the sudden strain.

It was this that gave Decoud the sensation of the snatching pull, dragging the lighter away to destruction. The

cause of it, of course, was inexplicable to him. The whole thing was so sudden that he had no time to think.

But all his sensations were perfectly clear; he had kept complete possession of himself; in fact, he was even

pleasantly aware of that calmness at the very moment of being pitched head first over the transom, to struggle

on his back in a lot of water. Senor Hirsch's shriek he had heard and recognized while he was regaining his

feet, always with that mysterious sensation of being dragged headlong through the darkness. Not a word, not

a cry escaped him; he had no time to see anything; and following upon the despairing screams for help, the

dragging motion ceased so suddenly that he staggered forward with open arms and fell against the pile of the

treasure boxes. He clung to them instinctively, in the vague apprehension of being flung about again; and

immediately he heard another lot of shrieks for help, prolonged and despairing, not near him at all, but

unaccountably in the distance, away from the lighter altogether, as if some spirit in the night were mocking at

Then all was stillas still as when you wake up in your bed in a dark room from a bizarre and agitated

dream. The lighter rocked slightly; the rain was still falling. Two groping hands took hold of his bruised sides

from behind, and the Capataz's voice whispered, in his ear, "Silence, for your life! Silence! The steamer has

Decoud listened. The gulf was dumb. He felt the water nearly up to his knees. "Are we sinking?" he asked in

"I don't know," Nostromo breathed back to him. "Senor, make not the slightest sound."

Hirsch, when ordered forward by Nostromo, had not returned into his first hidingplace. He had fallen near

the mast, and had no strength to rise; moreover, he feared to move. He had given himself up for dead, but not

on any rational grounds. It was simply a cruel and terrifying feeling. Whenever he tried to think what would

become of him his teeth would start chattering violently. He was too absorbed in the utter misery of his fear

Though he was stifling under the lighter's sail which Nostromo had unwittingly lowered on top of him, he did

not even dare to put out his head till the very moment of the steamer striking. Then, indeed, he leaped right

out, spurred on to new miracles of bodily vigour by this new shape of danger. The inrush of water when the

lighter heeled over unsealed his lips. His shriek, "Save me!" was the first distinct warning of the collision for

the people on board the steamer. Next moment the wire shroud parted, and the released anchor swept over the

lighter's forecastle. It came against the breast of Senor Hirsch, who simply seized hold of it, without in the

least knowing what it was, but curling his arms and legs upon the part above the fluke with an invincible,

unreasonable tenacity. The lighter yawed off wide, and the steamer, moving on, carried him away, clinging

hard, and shouting for help. It was some time, however, after the steamer had stopped that his position was

discovered. His sustained yelping for help seemed to come from somebody swimming in the water. At last a

couple of men went over the bows and hauled him on board. He was carried straight off to Sotillo on the

bridge. His examination confirmed the impression that some craft had been run over and sunk, but it was

impracticable on such a dark night to look for the positive proof of floating wreckage. Sotillo was more

anxious than ever now to enter the harbour without loss of time; the idea that he had destroyed the principal

object of his expedition was too intolerable to be accepted. This feeling made the story he had heard appear

the more incredible. Senor Hirsch, after being beaten a little for telling lies, was thrust into the chartroom. But

he was beaten only a little. His tale had taken the heart out of Sotillo's Staff, though they all repeated round

their chief, "Impossible! impossible!" with the exception of the old major, who triumphed gloomily.

"I told you; I told you," he mumbled. "I could smell some treachery, some diableria a league off."

Meantime, the steamer had kept on her way towards Sulaco, where only the truth of that matter could be

ascertained. Decoud and Nostromo heard the loud churning of her propeller diminish and die out; and then,

with no useless words, busied themselves in making for the Isabels. The last shower had brought with it a

gentle but steady breeze. The danger was not over yet, and there was no time for talk. The lighter was leaking

like a sieve. They splashed in the water at every step. The Capataz put into Decoud's hands the handle of the

pump which was fitted at the side aft, and at once, without question or remark, Decoud began to pump in

utter forgetfulness of every desire but that of keeping the treasure afloat. Nostromo hoisted the sail, flew back

to the tiller, pulled at the sheet like mad. The short flare of a match (they had been kept dry in a tight tin box,

though the man himself was completely wet), disclosed to the toiling Decoud the eagerness of his face, bent

low over the box of the compass, and the attentive stare of his eyes. He knew now where he was, and he

hoped to run the sinking lighter ashore in the shallow cove where the high, clifflike end of the Great Isabel

Decoud pumped without intermission. Nostromo steered without relaxing for a second the intense, peering

effort of his stare. Each of them was as if utterly alone with his task. It did not occur to them to speak. There

was nothing in common between them but the knowledge that the damaged lighter must be slowly but surely

sinking. In that knowledge, which was like the crucial test of their desires, they seemed to have become

completely estranged, as if they had discovered in the very shock of the collision that the loss of the lighter

would not mean the same thing to them both. This common danger brought their differences in aim, in view,

in character, and in position, into absolute prominence in the private vision of each. There was no bond of

conviction, of common idea; they were merely two adventurers pursuing each his own adventure, involved in

the same imminence of deadly peril. Therefore they had nothing to say to each other. But this peril, this only

incontrovertible truth in which they shared, seemed to act as an inspiration to their mental and bodily powers.

There was certainly something almost miraculous in the way the Capataz made the cove with nothing but the

shadowy hint of the island's shape and the vague gleam of a small sandy strip for a guide. Where the ravine

opens between the cliffs, and a slender, shallow rivulet meanders out of the bushes to lose itself in the sea, the

lighter was run ashore; and the two men, with a taciturn, undaunted energy, began to discharge her precious

freight, carrying each oxhide box up the bed of the rivulet beyond the bushes to a hollow place which the

caving in of the soil had made below the roots of a large tree. Its big smooth trunk leaned like a falling

A couple of years before Nostromo had spent a whole Sunday, all alone, exploring the island. He explained

this to Decoud after their task was done, and they sat, weary in every limb, with their legs hanging down the

low bank, and their backs against the tree, like a pair of blind men aware of each other and their surroundings

"Yes," Nostromo repeated, "I never forget a place I have carefully looked at once." He spoke slowly, almost

lazily, as if there had been a whole leisurely life before him, instead of the scanty two hours before daylight.

The existence of the treasure, barely concealed in this improbable spot, laid a burden of secrecy upon every

contemplated step, upon every intention and plan of future conduct. He felt the partial failure of this desperate

affair entrusted to the great reputation he had known how to make for himself. However, it was also a partial

"You never know what may be of use," he pursued with his usual quietness of tone and manner. "I spent a

"A misanthropic sort of occupation," muttered Decoud, viciously. "You had no money, I suppose, to gamble

"e vero!" exclaimed the Capataz, surprised into the use of his native tongue by so much perspicacity. "I had

not! Therefore I did not want to go amongst those beggarly people accustomed to my generosity. It is looked

for from the Capataz of the Cargadores, who are the rich men, and, as it were, the Caballeros amongst the

common people. I don't care for cards but as a pastime; and as to those girls that boast of having opened their

doors to my knock, you know I wouldn't look at any one of them twice except for what the people would say.

They are queer, the good people of Sulaco, and I have got much useful information simply by listening

patiently to the talk of the women that everybody believed I was in love with. Poor Teresa could never

understand that. On that particular Sunday, senor, she scolded so that I went out of the house swearing that I

would never darken their door again unless to fetch away my hammock and my chest of clothes. Senor, there

is nothing more exasperating than to hear a woman you respect rail against your good reputation when you

have not a single brass coin in your pocket. I untied one of the small boats and pulled myself out of the

harbour with nothing but three cigars in my pocket to help me spend the day on this island. But the water of

this rivulet you hear under your feet is cool and sweet and good, senor, both before and after a smoke." He

was silent for a while, then added reflectively, "That was the first Sunday after I brought down the

whitewhiskered English rico all the way down the mountains from the Paramo on the top of the Entrada

Passand in the coach, too! No coach had gone up or down that mountain road within the memory of man,

senor, till I brought this one down in charge of fifty peons working like one man with ropes, pickaxes, and

poles under my direction. That was the rich Englishman who, as people say, pays for the making of this

railway. He was very pleased with me. But my wages were not due till the end of the month."

He slid down the bank suddenly. Decoud heard the splash of his feet in the brook and followed his footsteps

down the ravine. His form was lost among the bushes till he had reached the strip of sand under the cliff. As

often happens in the gulf when the showers during the first part of the night had been frequent and heavy, the

darkness had thinned considerably towards the morning though there were no signs of daylight as yet.

The cargolighter, relieved of its precious burden, rocked feebly, halfafloat, with her forefoot on the sand.

A long rope stretched away like a black cotton thread across the strip of white beach to the grapnel Nostromo

had carried ashore and hooked to the stem of a treelike shrub in the very opening of the ravine.

There was nothing for Decoud but to remain on the island. He received from Nostromo's hands whatever

food the foresight of Captain Mitchell had put on board the lighter and deposited it temporarily in the little

dinghy which on their arrival they had hauled up out of sight amongst the bushes. It was to be left with him.

The island was to be a hidingplace, not a prison; he could pull out to a passing ship. The O.S.N. Company's

mail boats passed close to the islands when going into Sulaco from the north. But the Minerva, carrying off

the expresident, had taken the news up north of the disturbances in Sulaco. It was possible that the next

steamer down would get instructions to miss the port altogether since the town, as far as the Minerva's

officers knew, was for the time being in the hands of the rabble. This would mean that there would be no

steamer for a month, as far as the mail service went; but Decoud had to take his chance of that. The island

was his only shelter from the proscription hanging over his head. The Capataz was, of course, going back.

The unloaded lighter leaked much less, and he thought that she would keep afloat as far as the harbour.

He passed to Decoud, standing kneedeep alongside, one of the two spades which belonged to the equipment

of each lighter for use when ballasting ships. By working with it carefully as soon as there was daylight

enough to see, Decoud could loosen a mass of earth and stones overhanging the cavity in which they had

deposited the treasure, so that it would look as if it had fallen naturally. It would cover up not only the cavity,

but even all traces of their work, the footsteps, the displaced stones, and even the broken bushes.

"Besides, who would think of looking either for you or the treasure here?" Nostromo continued, as if he could

not tear himself away from the spot. "Nobody is ever likely to come here. What could any man want with this

piece of earth as long as there is room for his feet on the mainland! The people in this country are not curious.

There are even no fishermen here to intrude upon your worship. All the fishing that is done in the gulf goes

on near Zapiga, over there. Senor, if you are forced to leave this island before anything can be arranged for

you, do not try to make for Zapiga. It is a settlement of thieves and matreros, where they would cut your

throat promptly for the sake of your gold watch and chain. And, senor, think twice before confiding in any

one whatever; even in the officers of the Company's steamers, if you ever get on board one. Honesty alone is

not enough for security. You must look to discretion and prudence in a man. And always remember, senor,

before you open your lips for a confidence, that this treasure may be left safely here for hundreds of years.

Time is on its side, senor. And silver is an incorruptible metal that can be trusted to keep its value for ever. . .

. An incorruptible metal," he repeated, as if the idea had given him a profound pleasure.

"As some men are said to be," Decoud pronounced, inscrutably, while the Capataz, who busied himself in

baling out the lighter with a wooden bucket, went on throwing the water over the side with a regular splash.

Decoud, incorrigible in his scepticism, reflected, not cynically, but with general satisfaction, that this man

was made incorruptible by his enormous vanity, that finest form of egoism which can take on the aspect of

Nostromo ceased baling, and, as if struck with a sudden thought, dropped the bucket with a clatter into the

"Have you any message?" he asked in a lowered voice. "Remember, I shall be asked questions."

"You must find the hopeful words that ought to be spoken to the people in town. I trust for that your

"Yes, yes," said Decoud, hastily. "Your wonderful reputation will make them attach great value to your

words; therefore be careful what you say. I am looking forward," he continued, feeling the fatal touch of

contempt for himself to which his complex nature was subject, "I am looking forward to a glorious and

successful ending to my mission. Do you hear, Capataz? Use the words glorious and successful when you

speak to the senorita. Your own mission is accomplished gloriously and successfully. You have indubitably

saved the silver of the mine. Not only this silver, but probably all the silver that shall ever come out of it."

Nostromo detected the ironic tone. "I dare say, Senor Don Martin," he said, moodily. "There are very few

things that I am not equal to. Ask the foreign signori. I, a man of the people, who cannot always understand

what you mean. But as to this lot which I must leave here, let me tell you that I would believe it in greater

An exclamation escaped Decoud, and a short pause followed. "Shall I go back with you to Sulaco?" he asked

"Shall I strike you dead with my knife where you stand?" retorted Nostromo, contemptuously. "It would be

the same thing as taking you to Sulaco. Come, senor. Your reputation is in your politics, and mine is bound

up with the fate of this silver. Do you wonder I wish there had been no other man to share my knowledge? I

"You could not have kept the lighter afloat without me," Decoud almost shouted. "You would have gone to

Here was a man, Decoud reflected, that seemed as though he would have preferred to die rather than deface

the perfect form of his egoism. Such a man was safe. In silence he helped the Capataz to get the grapnel on

board. Nostromo cleared the shelving shore with one push of the heavy oar, and Decoud found himself

solitary on the beach like a man in a dream. A sudden desire to hear a human voice once more seized upon

his heart. The lighter was hardly distinguishable from the black water upon which she floated.

"Knocked overboard and drowned," cried Nostromo's voice confidently out of the black wastes of sky and

sea around the islet. "Keep close in the ravine, senor. I shall try to come out to you in a night or two."

A slight swishing rustle showed that Nostromo was setting the sail. It filled all at once with a sound as of a

single loud drumtap. Decoud went back to the ravine. Nostromo, at the tiller, looked back from time to time

at the vanishing mass of the Great Isabel, which, little by little, merged into the uniform texture of the night.

At last, when he turned his head again, he saw nothing but a smooth darkness, like a solid wall.

Then he, too, experienced that feeling of solitude which had weighed heavily on Decoud after the lighter had

slipped off the shore. But while the man on the island was oppressed by a bizarre sense of unreality affecting

the very ground upon which he walked, the mind of the Capataz of the Cargadores turned alertly to the

problem of future conduct. Nostromo's faculties, working on parallel lines, enabled him to steer straight, to

keep a lookout for Hermosa, near which he had to pass, and to try to imagine what would happen tomorrow

in Sulaco. Tomorrow, or, as a matter of fact, today, since the dawn was not very far, Sotillo would find out

in what way the treasure had gone. A gang of Cargadores had been employed in loading it into a railway

truck from the Custom House storerooms, and running the truck on to the wharf. There would be arrests

made, and certainly before noon Sotillo would know in what manner the silver had left Sulaco, and who it

Nostromo's intention had been to sail right into the harbour; but at this thought by a sudden touch of the tiller

he threw the lighter into the wind and checked her rapid way. His reappearance with the very boat would

raise suspicions, would cause surmises, would absolutely put Sotillo on the track. He himself would be

arrested; and once in the Calabozo there was no saying what they would do to him to make him speak. He

trusted himself, but he stood up to look round. Near by, Hermosa showed low its white surface as flat as a

table, with the slight run of the sea raised by the breeze washing over its edges noisily. The lighter must be

He allowed her to drift with her sail aback. There was already a good deal of water in her. He allowed her to

drift towards the harbour entrance, and, letting the tiller swing about, squatted down and busied himself in

loosening the plug. With that out she would fill very quickly, and every lighter carried a little iron

ballastenough to make her go down when full of water. When he stood up again the noisy wash about the

Hermosa sounded far away, almost inaudible; and already he could make out the shape of land about the

harbour entrance. This was a desperate affair, and he was a good swimmer. A mile was nothing to him, and

he knew of an easy place for landing just below the earthworks of the old abandoned fort. It occurred to him

with a peculiar fascination that this fort was a good place in which to sleep the day through after so many

With one blow of the tiller he unshipped for the purpose, he knocked the plug out, but did not take the trouble

to lower the sail. He felt the water welling up heavily about his legs before he leaped on to the taffrail. There,

upright and motionless, in his shirt and trousers only, he stood waiting. When he had felt her settle he sprang

At once he turned his head. The gloomy, clouded dawn from behind the mountains showed him on the

smooth waters the upper corner of the sail, a dark wet triangle of canvas waving slightly to and fro. He saw it

DIRECTLY the cargo boat had slipped away from the wharf and got lost in the darkness of the harbour the

Europeans of Sulaco separated, to prepare for the coming of the Monterist regime, which was approaching

This bit of manual work in loading the silver was their last concerted action. It ended the three days of

danger, during which, according to the newspaper press of Europe, their energy had preserved the town from

the calamities of popular disorder. At the shore end of the jetty, Captain Mitchell said goodnight and turned

back. His intention was to walk the planks of the wharf till the steamer from Esmeralda turned up. The

engineers of the railway staff, collecting their Basque and Italian workmen, marched them away to the

railway yards, leaving the Custom House, so well defended on the first day of the riot, standing open to the

four winds of heaven. Their men had conducted themselves bravely and faithfully during the famous "three

days" of Sulaco. In a great part this faithfulness and that courage had been exercised in selfdefence rather

than in the cause of those material interests to which Charles Gould had pinned his faith. Amongst the cries

of the mob not the least loud had been the cry of death to foreigners. It was, indeed, a lucky circumstance for

Sulaco that the relations of those imported workmen with the people of the country had been uniformly bad

Doctor Monygham, going to the door of Viola's kitchen, observed this retreat marking the end of the foreign

interference, this withdrawal of the army of material progress from the field of Costaguana revolutions.

Algarrobe torches carried on the outskirts of the moving body sent their penetrating aroma into his nostrils.

Their light, sweeping along the front of the house, made the letters of the inscription, "Albergo d'ltalia Una,"

leap out black from end to end of the long wall. His eyes blinked in the clear blaze. Several young men,

mostly fair and tall, shepherding this mob of dark bronzed heads, surmounted by the glint of slanting rifle

barrels, nodded to him familiarly as they went by. The doctor was a wellknown character. Some of them

wondered what he was doing there. Then, on the flank of their workmen they tramped on, following the line

"Withdrawing your people from the harbour?" said the doctor, addressing himself to the chief engineer of the

railway, who had accompanied Charles Gould so far on his way to the town, walking by the side of the horse,

with his hand on the saddlebow. They had stopped just outside the open door to let the workmen cross the

"As quick as I can. We are not a political faction," answered the engineer, meaningly. "And we are not going

"Absolutely," said Charles Gould's impassive voice, high up and outside the dim parallelogram of light

With Sotillo expected from one side, and Pedro Montero from the other, the engineerinchief's only anxiety

now was to avoid a collision with either. Sulaco, for him, was a railway station, a terminus, workshops, a

great accumulation of stores. As against the mob the railway defended its property, but politically the railway

was neutral. He was a brave man; and in that spirit of neutrality he had carried proposals of truce to the

selfappointed chiefs of the popular party, the deputies Fuentes and Gamacho. Bullets were still flying about

when he had crossed the Plaza on that mission, waving above his head a white napkin belonging to the table

He was rather proud of this exploit; and reflecting that the doctor, busy all day with the wounded in the patio

of the Casa Gould, had not had time to hear the news, he began a succinct narrative. He had communicated to

them the intelligence from the Construction Camp as to Pedro Montero. The brother of the victorious general,

he had assured them, could be expected at Sulaco at any time now. This news (as he anticipated), when

shouted out of the window by Senor Gamacho, induced a rush of the mob along the Campo Road towards

Rincon. The two deputies also, after shaking hands with him effusively, mounted and galloped off to meet the

great man. "I have misled them a little as to the time," the chief engineer confessed. "However hard he rides,

he can scarcely get here before the morning. But my object is attained. I've secured several hours' peace for

the losing party. But I did not tell them anything about Sotillo, for fear they would take it into their heads to

try to get hold of the harbour again, either to oppose him or welcome himthere's no saying which. There

was Gould's silver, on which rests the remnant of our hopes. Decoud's retreat had to be thought of, too. I

think the railway has done pretty well by its friends without compromising itself hopelessly. Now the parties

"Costaguana for the Costaguaneros," interjected the doctor, sardonically. "It is a fine country, and they have

raised a fine crop of hates, vengeance, murder, and rapinethose sons of the country."

"Well, I am one of them," Charles Gould's voice sounded, calmly, "and I must be going on to see to my own

"That man is calmness personified," he said, appreciatively, dropping on a bench, and stretching his

wellshaped legs in cycling stockings nearly across the doorway. "He must be extremely sure of himself."

"If that's all he is sure of, then he is sure of nothing," said the doctor. He had perched himself again on the

end of the table. He nursed his cheek in the palm of one hand, while the other sustained the elbow. "It is the

last thing a man ought to be sure of." The candle, halfconsumed and burning dimly with a long wick, lighted

up from below his inclined face, whose expression affected by the drawnin cicatrices in the cheeks, had

something vaguely unnatural, an exaggerated remorseful bitterness. As he sat there he had the air of

meditating upon sinister things. The engineerinchief gazed at him for a time before he protested.

He was a wise man, but he could not quite conceal his contempt for that sort of paradox; in fact. Dr.

Monygham was not liked by the Europeans of Sulaco. His outward aspect of an outcast, which he preserved

even in Mrs. Gould's drawingroom, provoked unfavourable criticism. There could be no doubt of his

intelligence; and as he had lived for over twenty years in the country, the pessimism of his outlook could not

be altogether ignored. But instinctively, in selfdefence of their activities and hopes, his hearers put it to the

account of some hidden imperfection in the man's character. It was known that many years before, when

quite young, he had been made by Guzman Bento chief medical officer of the army. Not one of the

Europeans then in the service of Costaguana had been so much liked and trusted by the fierce old Dictator.

Afterwards his story was not so clear. It lost itself amongst the innumerable tales of conspiracies and plots

against the tyrant as a stream is lost in an arid belt of sandy country before it emerges, diminished and

troubled, perhaps, on the other side. The doctor made no secret of it that he had lived for years in the wildest

parts of the Republic, wandering with almost unknown Indian tribes in the great forests of the far interior

where the great rivers have their sources. But it was mere aimless wandering; he had written nothing,

collected nothing, brought nothing for science out of the twilight of the forests, which seemed to cling to his

battered personality limping about Sulaco, where it had drifted in casually, only to get stranded on the shores

It was also known that he had lived in a state of destitution till the arrival of the Goulds from Europe. Don

Carlos and Dona Emilia had taken up the mad English doctor, when it became apparent that for all his savage

independence he could be tamed by kindness. Perhaps it was only hunger that had tamed him. In years gone

by he had certainly been acquainted with Charles Gould's father in Sta. Marta; and now, no matter what were

the dark passages of his history, as the medical officer of the San Tome mine he became a recognized

personality. He was recognized, but not unreservedly accepted. So much defiant eccentricity and such an

outspoken scorn for mankind seemed to point to mere recklessness of judgment, the bravado of guilt.

Besides, since he had become again of some account, vague whispers had been heard that years ago, when

fallen into disgrace and thrown into prison by Guzman Bento at the time of the socalled Great Conspiracy,

he had betrayed some of his best friends amongst the conspirators. Nobody pretended to believe that whisper;

the whole story of the Great Conspiracy was hopelessly involved and obscure; it is admitted in Costaguana

that there never had been a conspiracy except in the diseased imagination of the Tyrant; and, therefore,

nothing and no one to betray; though the most distinguished Costaguaneros had been imprisoned and

executed upon that accusation. The procedure had dragged on for years, decimating the better class like a

pestilence. The mere expression of sorrow for the fate of executed kinsmen had been punished with death.

Don Jose Avellanos was perhaps the only one living who knew the whole story of those unspeakable

cruelties. He had suffered from them himself, and he, with a shrug of the shoulders and a nervous, jerky

gesture of the arm, was wont to put away from him, as it were, every allusion to it. But whatever the reason,

Dr. Monygham, a personage in the administration of the Gould Concession, treated with reverent awe by the

miners, and indulged in his peculiarities by Mrs. Gould, remained somehow outside the pale.

It was not from any liking for the doctor that the engineerinchief had lingered in the inn upon the plain. He

liked old Viola much better. He had come to look upon the Albergo d'ltalia Una as a dependence of the

railway. Many of his subordinates had their quarters there. Mrs. Gould's interest in the family conferred upon

it a sort of distinction. The engineerinchief, with an army of workers under his orders, appreciated the

moral influence of the old Garibaldino upon his countrymen. His austere, oldworld Republicanism had a

severe, soldierlike standard of faithfulness and duty, as if the world were a battlefield where men had to

fight for the sake of universal love and brotherhood, instead of a more or less large share of booty.

"Poor old chap!" he said, after he had heard the doctor's account of Teresa. "He'll never be able to keep the

"He's quite alone up there," grunted Doctor Monygham, with a toss of his heavy head towards the narrow

staircase. "Every living soul has cleared out, and Mrs. Gould took the girls away just now. It might not be

oversafe for them out here before very long. Of course, as a doctor I can do nothing more here; but she has

asked me to stay with old Viola, and as I have no horse to get back to the mine, where I ought to be, I made

"I have a good mind to remain with you, doctor, till we see whether anything happens tonight at the

harbour," declared the engineerinchief. "He must not be molested by Sotillo's soldiery, who may push on

as far as this at once. Sotillo used to be very cordial to me at the Goulds' and at the club. How that man'll ever

"He'll no doubt begin by shooting some of them to get over the first awkwardness," said the doctor. "Nothing

in this country serves better your military man who has changed sides than a few summary executions." He

spoke with a gloomy positiveness that left no room for protest. The engineerinchief did not attempt any.

"I think we shall be able to mount you in the morning, doctor. Our peons have recovered some of our

stampeded horses. By riding hard and taking a wide circuit by Los Hatos and along the edge of the forest,

clear of Rincon altogether, you may hope to reach the San Tome bridge without being interfered with. The

mine is just now, to my mind, the safest place for anybody at all compromised. I only wish the railway was as

"The whole Gould Concession is compromised. It could not have remained for ever outside the political life

of the countryif those convulsions may be called life. The thing iscan it be touched? The moment was

bound to come when neutrality would become impossible, and Charles Gould understood this well. I believe

he is prepared for every extremity. A man of his sort has never contemplated remaining indefinitely at the

mercy of ignorance and corruption. It was like being a prisoner in a cavern of banditti with the price of your

ransom in your pocket, and buying your life from day to day. Your mere safety, not your liberty, mind,

doctor. I know what I am talking about. The image at which you shrug your shoulders is perfectly correct,

especially if you conceive such a prisoner endowed with the power of replenishing his pocket by means as

remote from the faculties of his captors as if they were magic. You must have understood that as well as I do,

doctor. He was in the position of the goose with the golden eggs. I broached this matter to him as far back as

Sir John's visit here. The prisoner of stupid and greedy banditti is always at the mercy of the first imbecile

ruffian, who may blow out his brains in a fit of temper or for some prospect of an immediate big haul. The

tale of killing the goose with the golden eggs has not been evolved for nothing out of the wisdom of mankind.

It is a story that will never grow old. That is why Charles Gould in his deep, dumb way has countenanced the

Ribierist Mandate, the first public act that promised him safety on other than venal grounds. Ribierism has

failed, as everything merely rational fails in this country. But Gould remains logical in wishing to save this

big lot of silver. Decoud's plan of a counterrevolution may be practicable or not, it may have a chance, or it

may not have a chance. With all my experience of this revolutionary continent, I can hardly yet look at their

methods seriously. Decoud has been reading to us his draft of a proclamation, and talking very well for two

hours about his plan of action. He had arguments which should have appeared solid enough if we, members

of old, stable political and national organizations, were not startled by the mere idea of a new State evolved

like this out of the head of a scoffing young man fleeing for his life, with a proclamation in his pocket, to a

rough, jeering, halfbred swashbuckler, who in this part of the world is called a general. It sounds like a

comic fairy taleand behold, it may come off; because it is true to the very spirit of the country."

The chief engineer pulled out his watch. "By Captain Mitchell's reckoningand he ought to knowit has

been gone long enough now to be some three or four miles outside the harbour; and, as Mitchell says,

Nostromo is the sort of seaman to make the best of his opportunities." Here the doctor grunted so heavily that

"You have a poor opinion of that move, doctor? But why? Charles Gould has got to play his game out,

though he is not the man to formulate his conduct even to himself, perhaps, let alone to others. It may be that

the game has been partly suggested to him by Holroyd; but it accords with his character, too; and that is why

it has been so successful. Haven't they come to calling him 'El Rey de Sulaco' in Sta. Marta? A nickname

may be the best record of a success. That's what I call putting the face of a joke upon the body of a truth. My

dear sir, when I first arrived in Sta. Marta I was struck by the way all those journalists, demagogues, members

of Congress, and all those generals and judges cringed before a sleepyeyed advocate without practice simply

because he was the plenipotentiary of the Gould Concession. Sir John when he came out was impressed, too."

"A new State, with that plump dandy, Decoud, for the first President," mused Dr. Monygham, nursing his

"Upon my word, and why not?" the chief engineer retorted in an unexpectedly earnest and confidential voice.

It was as if something subtle in the air of Costaguana had inoculated him with the local faith in

"pronunciamientos." All at once he began to talk, like an expert revolutionist, of the instrument ready to hand

in the intact army at Cayta, which could be brought back in a few days to Sulaco if only Decoud managed to

make his way at once down the coast. For the military chief there was Barrios, who had nothing but a bullet

to expect from Montero, his former professional rival and bitter enemy. Barrios's concurrence was assured.

As to his army, it had nothing to expect from Montero either; not even a month's pay. From that point of view

the existence of the treasure was of enormous importance. The mere knowledge that it had been saved from

the Monterists would be a strong inducement for the Cayta troops to embrace the cause of the new State.

"This Decoud, I see, is a persuasive young beggar," he remarked at last. "And pray is it for this, then, that

Charles Gould has let the whole lot of ingots go out to sea in charge of that Nostromo?"

"Charles Gould," said the engineerinchief, "has said no more about his motive than usual. You know, he

doesn't talk. But we all here know his motive, and he has only onethe safety of the San Tome mine with

the preservation of the Gould Concession in the spirit of his compact with Holroyd. Holroyd is another

uncommon man. They understand each other's imaginative side. One is thirty, the other nearly sixty, and they

have been made for each other. To be a millionaire, and such a millionaire as Holroyd, is like being eternally

young. The audacity of youth reckons upon what it fancies an unlimited time at its disposal; but a millionaire

has unlimited means in his handwhich is better. One's time on earth is an uncertain quantity, but about the

long reach of millions there is no doubt. The introduction of a pure form of Christianity into this continent is

a dream for a youthful enthusiast, and I have been trying to explain to you why Holroyd at fiftyeight is like

a man on the threshold of life, and better, too. He's not a missionary, but the San Tome mine holds just that

for him. I assure you, in sober truth, that he could not manage to keep this out of a strictly business

conference upon the finances of Costaguana he had with Sir John a couple of years ago. Sir John mentioned it

with amazement in a letter he wrote to me here, from San Francisco, when on his way home. Upon my word,

doctor, things seem to be worth nothing by what they are in themselves. I begin to believe that the only solid

thing about them is the spiritual value which everyone discovers in his own form of activity"

"Bah!" interrupted the doctor, without stopping for an instant the idle swinging movement of his legs.

"Selfflattery. Food for that vanity which makes the world go round. Meantime, what do you think is going

to happen to the treasure floating about the gulf with the great Capataz and the great politician?"

"I uneasy! And what the devil is it to me? I put no spiritual value into my desires, or my opinions, or my

actions. They have not enough vastness to give me room for selfflattery. Look, for instance, I should

certainly have liked to ease the last moments of that poor woman. And I can't. It's impossible. Have you met

the impossible face to faceor have you, the Napoleon of railways, no such word in your dictionary?"

"Is she bound to have a very bad time of it?" asked the chief engineer, with humane concern.

Slow, heavy footsteps moved across the planks above the heavy hard wood beams of the kitchen. Then down

the narrow opening of the staircase made in the thickness of the wall, and narrow enough to be defended by

one man against twenty enemies, came the murmur of two voices, one faint and broken, the other deep and

The two men remained still and silent till the murmurs ceased, then the doctor shrugged his shoulders and

"I fancy," began the engineer, in a subdued voice, "that you mistrust Captain Mitchell's Capataz."

"Mistrust him!" muttered the doctor through his teeth. "I believe him capable of anythingeven of the most

absurd fidelity. I am the last person he spoke to before he left the wharf, you know. The poor woman up there

wanted to see him, and I let him go up to her. The dying must not be contradicted, you know. She seemed

then fairly calm and resigned, but the scoundrel in those ten minutes or so has done or said something which

seems to have driven her into despair. You know," went on the doctor, hesitatingly, "women are so very

unaccountable in every position, and at all times of life, that I thought sometimes she was in a way, don't you

see? in love with himthe Capataz. The rascal has his own charm indubitably, or he would not have made

the conquest of all the populace of the town. No, no, I am not absurd. I may have given a wrong name to

some strong sentiment for him on her part, to an unreasonable and simple attitude a woman is apt to take up

emotionally towards a man. She used to abuse him to me frequently, which, of course, is not inconsistent

with my idea. Not at all. It looked to me as if she were always thinking of him. He was something important

in her life. You know, I have seen a lot of those people. Whenever I came down from the mine Mrs. Gould

used to ask me to keep my eye on them. She likes Italians; she has lived a long time in Italy, I believe, and

she took a special fancy to that old Garibaldino. A remarkable chap enough. A rugged and dreamy character,

living in the republicanism of his young days as if in a cloud. He has encouraged much of the Capataz's

"What sort of nonsense?" wondered the chief engineer. "I found the Capataz always a very shrewd and

sensible fellow, absolutely fearless, and remarkably useful. A perfect handy man. Sir John was greatly

impressed by his resourcefulness and attention when he made that overland journey from Sta. Marta. Later

on, as you might have heard, he rendered us a service by disclosing to the then chief of police the presence in

the town of some professional thieves, who came from a distance to wreck and rob our monthly pay train. He

has certainly organized the lighterage service of the harbour for the O.S.N. Company with great ability. He

knows how to make himself obeyed, foreigner though he is. It is true that the Cargadores are strangers here,

"The man has proved his trustworthiness up to the hilt on innumerable occasions and in all sorts of ways,"

argued the engineer. "When this question of the silver arose, Captain Mitchell naturally was very warmly of

the opinion that his Capataz was the only man fit for the trust. As a sailor, of course, I suppose so. But as a

man, don't you know, Gould, Decoud, and myself judged that it didn't matter in the least who went. Any

boatman would have done just as well. Pray, what could a thief do with such a lot of ingots? If he ran off with

them he would have in the end to land somewhere, and how could he conceal his cargo from the knowledge

of the people ashore? We dismissed that consideration from our minds. Moreover, Decoud was going. There

"He took a slightly different view," the doctor said. "I heard him declare in this very room that it would be the

most desperate affair of his life. He made a sort of verbal will here in my hearing, appointing old Viola his

executor; and, by Jove! do you know, hehe's not grown rich by his fidelity to you good people of the

railway and the harbour. I suppose he obtains somehow do you say that?some spiritual value for his

labours, or else I don't know why the devil he should be faithful to you, Gould, Mitchell, or anybody else. He

knows this country well. He knows, for instance, that Gamacho, the Deputy from Javira, has been nothing

else but a 'tramposo' of the commonest sort, a petty pedlar of the Campo, till he managed to get enough goods

on credit from Anzani to open a little store in the wilds, and got himself elected by the drunken mozos that

hang about the Estancias and the poorest sort of rancheros who were in his debt. And Gamacho, who

tomorrow will be probably one of our high officials, is a stranger, tooan Isleno. He might have been a

Cargador on the O. S. N. wharf had he not (the posadero of Rincon is ready to swear it) murdered a pedlar in

the woods and stolen his pack to begin life on. And do you think that Gamacho, then, would have ever

become a hero with the democracy of this place, like our Capataz? Of course not. He isn't half the man. No;

The doctor's talk was distasteful to the builder of railways. "It is impossible to argue that point," he said,

philosophically. "Each man has his gifts. You should have heard Gamacho haranguing his friends in the

street. He has a howling voice, and he shouted like mad, lifting his clenched fist right above his head, and

throwing his body half out of the window. At every pause the rabble below yelled, 'Down with the Oligarchs!

Viva la Libertad!' Fuentes inside looked extremely miserable. You know, he is the brother of Jorge Fuentes,

who has been Minister of the Interior for six months or so, some few years back. Of course, he has no

conscience; but he is a man of birth and educationat one time the director of the Customs of Cayta. That

idiotbrute Gamacho fastened himself upon him with his following of the lowest rabble. His sickly fear of

He got up and went to the door to look out towards the harbour. "All quiet," he said; "I wonder if Sotillo

CAPTAIN MITCHELL, pacing the wharf, was asking himself the same question. There was always the

doubt whether the warning of the Esmeralda telegraphista fragmentary and interrupted messagehad

been properly understood. However, the good man had made up his mind not to go to bed till daylight, if

even then. He imagined himself to have rendered an enormous service to Charles Gould. When he thought of

the saved silver he rubbed his hands together with satisfaction. In his simple way he was proud at being a

party to this extremely clever expedient. It was he who had given it a practical shape by suggesting the

possibility of intercepting at sea the northbound steamer. And it was advantageous to his Company, too,

which would have lost a valuable freight if the treasure had been left ashore to be confiscated. The pleasure

of disappointing the Monterists was also very great. Authoritative by temperament and the long habit of

command, Captain Mitchell was no democrat. He even went so far as to profess a contempt for

parliamentarism itself. "His Excellency Don Vincente Ribiera," he used to say, "whom I and that fellow of

mine, Nostromo, had the honour, sir, and the pleasure of saving from a cruel death, deferred too much to his

The guileless old seaman superintending the O.S.N. service imagined that the last three days had exhausted

every startling surprise the political life of Costaguana could offer. He used to confess afterwards that the

events which followed surpassed his imagination. To begin with, Sulaco (because of the seizure of the cables

and the disorganization of the steam service) remained for a whole fortnight cut off from the rest of the world

"One would not have believed it possible; but so it was, sir. A full fortnight."

The account of the extraordinary things that happened during that time, and the powerful emotions he

experienced, acquired a comic impressiveness from the pompous manner of his personal narrative. He

opened it always by assuring his hearer that he was "in the thick of things from first to last." Then he would

begin by describing the getting away of the silver, and his natural anxiety lest "his fellow" in charge of the

lighter should make some mistake. Apart from the loss of so much precious metal, the life of Senor Martin

Decoud, an agreeable, wealthy, and wellinformed young gentleman, would have been jeopardized through

his falling into the hands of his political enemies. Captain Mitchell also admitted that in his solitary vigil on

the wharf he had felt a certain measure of concern for the future of the whole country.

"A feeling, sir," he explained, "perfectly comprehensible in a man properly grateful for the many kindnesses

received from the best families of merchants and other native gentlemen of independent means, who, barely

saved by us from the excesses of the mob, seemed, to my mind's eye, destined to become the prey in person

and fortune of the native soldiery, which, as is well known, behave with regrettable barbarity to the

inhabitants during their civil commotions. And then, sir, there were the Goulds, for both of whom, man and

wife, I could not but entertain the warmest feelings deserved by their hospitality and kindness. I felt, too, the

dangers of the gentlemen of the Amarilla Club, who had made me honorary member, and had treated me with

uniform regard and civility, both in my capacity of Consular Agent and as Superintendent of an important

Steam Service. Miss Antonia Avellanos, the most beautiful and accomplished young lady whom it had ever

been my privilege to speak to, was not a little in my mind, I confess. How the interests of my Company

would be affected by the impending change of officials claimed a large share of my attention, too. In short,

sir, I was extremely anxious and very tired, as you may suppose, by the exciting and memorable events in

which I had taken my little part. The Company's building containing my residence was within five minutes'

walk, with the attraction of some supper and of my hammock (I always take my nightly rest in a hammock, as

the most suitable to the climate); but somehow, sir, though evidently I could do nothing for any one by

remaining about, I could not tear myself away from that wharf, where the fatigue made me stumble painfully

at times. The night was excessively darkthe darkest I remember in my life; so that I began to think that the

arrival of the transport from Esmeralda could not possibly take place before daylight, owing to the difficulty

of navigating the gulf. The mosquitoes bit like fury. We have been infested here with mosquitoes before the

late improvements; a peculiar harbour brand, sir, renowned for its ferocity. They were like a cloud about my

head, and I shouldn't wonder that but for their attacks I would have dozed off as I walked up and down, and

got a heavy fall. I kept on smoking cigar after cigar, more to protect myself from being eaten up alive than

from any real relish for the weed. Then, sir, when perhaps for the twentieth time I was approaching my watch

to the lighted end in order to see the time, and observing with surprise that it wanted yet ten minutes to

midnight, I heard the splash of a ship's propelleran unmistakable sound to a sailor's ear on such a calm

night. It was faint indeed, because they were advancing with precaution and dead slow, both on account of

the darkness and from their desire of not revealing too soon their presence: a very unnecessary care, because,

I verily believe, in all the enormous extent of this harbour I was the only living soul about. Even the usual

staff of watchmen and others had been absent from their posts for several nights owing to the disturbances. I

stood stock still, after dropping and stamping out my cigara circumstance highly agreeable, I should think,

to the mosquitoes, if I may judge from the state of my face next morning. But that was a trifling

inconvenience in comparison with the brutal proceedings I became victim of on the part of Sotillo.

Something utterly inconceivable, sir; more like the proceedings of a maniac than the action of a sane man,

however lost to all sense of honour and decency. But Sotillo was furious at the failure of his thievish scheme."

In this Captain Mitchell was right. Sotillo was indeed infuriated. Captain Mitchell, however, had not been

arrested at once; a vivid curiosity induced him to remain on the wharf (which is nearly four hundred feet

long) to see, or rather hear, the whole process of disembarkation. Concealed by the railway truck used for the

silver, which had been run back afterwards to the shore end of the jetty, Captain Mitchell saw the small

detachment thrown forward, pass by, taking different directions upon the plain. Meantime, the troops were

being landed and formed into a column, whose head crept up gradually so close to him that he made it out,

barring nearly the whole width of the wharf, only a very few yards from him. Then the low, shuffling,

murmuring, clinking sounds ceased, and the whole mass remained for about an hour motionless and silent,

awaiting the return of the scouts. On land nothing was to be heard except the deep baying of the mastiffs at

the railway yards, answered by the faint barking of the curs infesting the outer limits of the town. A detached

Presently the picket at the end of the wharf began to challenge in undertones single figures approaching from

the plain. Those messengers sent back from the scouting parties flung to their comrades brief sentences and

passed on rapidly, becoming lost in the great motionless mass, to make their report to the Staff. It occurred to

Captain Mitchell that his position could become disagreeable and perhaps dangerous, when suddenly, at the

head of the jetty, there was a shout of command, a bugle call, followed by a stir and a rattling of arms, and a

murmuring noise that ran right up the column. Near by a loud voice directed hurriedly, "Push that railway car

out of the way!" At the rush of bare feet to execute the order Captain Mitchell skipped back a pace or two; the

car, suddenly impelled by many hands, flew away from him along the rails, and before he knew what had

happened he found himself surrounded and seized by his arms and the collar of his coat.

"Hold him on one side till the rearguard comes along," answered the voice. The whole column streamed past

Captain Mitchell at a run, the thundering noise of their feet dying away suddenly on the shore. His captors

held him tightly, disregarding his declaration that he was an Englishman and his loud demands to be taken at

once before their commanding officer. Finally he lapsed into dignified silence. With a hollow rumble of

wheels on the planks a couple of field guns, dragged by hand, rolled by. Then, after a small body of men had

marched past escorting four or five figures which walked in advance, with a jingle of steel scabbards, he felt a

tug at his arms, and was ordered to come along. During the passage from the wharf to the Custom House it is

to be feared that Captain Mitchell was subjected to certain indignities at the hands of the soldierssuch as

jerks, thumps on the neck, forcible application of the butt of a rifle to the small of his back. Their ideas of

speed were not in accord with his notion of his dignity. He became flustered, flushed, and helpless. It was as

The long building was surrounded by troops, which were already piling arms by companies and preparing to

pass the night lying on the ground in their ponchos with their sacks under their heads. Corporals moved with

swinging lanterns posting sentries all round the walls wherever there was a door or an opening. Sotillo was

taking his measures to protect his conquest as if it had indeed contained the treasure. His desire to make his

fortune at one audacious stroke of genius had overmastered his reasoning faculties. He would not believe in

the possibility of failure; the mere hint of such a thing made his brain reel with rage. Every circumstance

pointing to it appeared incredible. The statement of Hirsch, which was so absolutely fatal to his hopes, could

by no means be admitted. It is true, too, that Hirsch's story had been told so incoherently, with such excessive

signs of distraction, that it really looked improbable. It was extremely difficult, as the saying is, to make head

or tail of it. On the bridge of the steamer, directly after his rescue, Sotillo and his officers, in their impatience

and excitement, would not give the wretched man time to collect such few wits as remained to him. He ought

to have been quieted, soothed, and reassured, whereas he had been roughly handled, cuffed, shaken, and

addressed in menacing tones. His struggles, his wriggles, his attempts to get down on his knees, followed by

the most violent efforts to break away, as if he meant incontinently to jump overboard, his shrieks and

shrinkings and cowering wild glances had filled them first with amazement, then with a doubt of his

genuineness, as men are wont to suspect the sincerity of every great passion. His Spanish, too, became so

mixed up with German that the better half of his statements remained incomprehensible. He tried to propitiate

them by calling them hochwohlgeboren herren, which in itself sounded suspicious. When admonished sternly

not to trifle he repeated his entreaties and protestations of loyalty and innocence again in German,

obstinately, because he was not aware in what language he was speaking. His identity, of course, was

perfectly known as an inhabitant of Esmeralda, but this made the matter no clearer. As he kept on forgetting

Decoud's name, mixing him up with several other people he had seen in the Casa Gould, it looked as if they

all had been in the lighter together; and for a moment Sotillo thought that he had drowned every prominent

Ribierist of Sulaco. The improbability of such a thing threw a doubt upon the whole statement. Hirsch was

either mad or playing a partpretending fear and distraction on the spur of the moment to cover the truth.

Sotillo's rapacity, excited to the highest pitch by the prospect of an immense booty, could believe in nothing

adverse. This Jew might have been very much frightened by the accident, but he knew where the silver was

concealed, and had invented this story, with his Jewish cunning, to put him entirely off the track as to what

Sotillo had taken up his quarters on the upper floor in a vast apartment with heavy black beams. But there

was no ceiling, and the eye lost itself in the darkness under the high pitch of the roof. The thick shutters stood

open. On a long table could be seen a large inkstand, some stumpy, inky quill pens, and two square wooden

boxes, each holding half a hundredweight of sand. Sheets of grey coarse official paper bestrewed the floor.

It must have been a room occupied by some higher official of the Customs, because a large leathern armchair

stood behind the table, with other highbacked chairs scattered about. A net hammock was swung under one

of the beamsfor the official's afternoon siesta, no doubt. A couple of candles stuck into tall iron

candlesticks gave a dim reddish light. The colonel's hat, sword, and revolver lay between them, and a couple

of his more trusty officers lounged gloomily against the table. The colonel threw himself into the armchair,

and a big negro with a sergeant's stripes on his ragged sleeve, kneeling down, pulled off his boots. Sotillo's

ebony moustache contrasted violently with the livid colouring of his cheeks. His eyes were sombre and as if

sunk very far into his head. He seemed exhausted by his perplexities, languid with disappointment; but when

the sentry on the landing thrust his head in to announce the arrival of a prisoner, he revived at once.

The door flew open, and Captain Mitchell, bareheaded, his waistcoat open, the bow of his tie under his ear,

Sotillo recognized him at once. He could not have hoped for a more precious capture; here was a man who

could tell him, if he chose, everything he wished to knowand directly the problem of how best to make

him talk to the point presented itself to his mind. The resentment of a foreign nation had no terrors for Sotillo.

The might of the whole armed Europe would not have protected Captain Mitchell from insults and illusage,

so well as the quick reflection of Sotillo that this was an Englishman who would most likely turn obstinate

under bad treatment, and become quite unmanageable. At all events, the colonel smoothed the scowl on his

"What! The excellent Senor Mitchell!" he cried, in affected dismay. The pretended anger of his swift advance

and of his shout, "Release the caballero at once," was so effective that the astounded soldiers positively

sprang away from their prisoner. Thus suddenly deprived of forcible support, Captain Mitchell reeled as

though about to fall. Sotillo took him familiarly under the arm, led him to a chair, waved his hand at the

When they had been left alone he stood looking down, irresolute and silent, watching till Captain Mitchell

Here in his very grasp was one of the men concerned in the removal of the silver. Sotillo's temperament was

of that sort that he experienced an ardent desire to beat him; just as formerly when negotiating with difficulty

a loan from the cautious Anzani, his fingers always itched to take the shopkeeper by the throat. As to Captain

Mitchell, the suddenness, unexpectedness, and general inconceivableness of this experience had confused his

"I've been knocked down three times between this and the wharf," he gasped out at last. "Somebody shall be

made to pay for this." He had certainly stumbled more than once, and had been dragged along for some

distance before he could regain his stride. With his recovered breath his indignation seemed to madden him.

He jumped up, crimson, all his white hair bristling, his eyes glaring vengefully, and shook violently the flaps

of his ruined waistcoat before the disconcerted Sotillo. "Look! Those uniformed thieves of yours downstairs

The old sailor's aspect was very threatening. Sotillo saw himself cut off from the table on which his sabre and

"I demand restitution and apologies," Mitchell thundered at him, quite beside himself. "From you! Yes, from

For the space of a second or so the colonel stood with a perfectly stony expression of face; then, as Captain

Mitchell flung out an arm towards the table as if to snatch up the revolver, Sotillo, with a yell of alarm,

bounded to the door and was gone in a flash, slamming it after him. Surprise calmed Captain Mitchell's fury.

Behind the closed door Sotillo shouted on the landing, and there was a great tumult of feet on the wooden

Captain Mitchell had just the time to glance once at the windows, with three perpendicular bars of iron each

and some twenty feet from the ground, as he well knew, before the door flew open and the rush upon him

took place. In an incredibly short time he found himself bound with many turns of a hide rope to a

highbacked chair, so that his head alone remained free. Not till then did Sotillo, who had been leaning in the

doorway trembling visibly, venture again within. The soldiers, picking up from the floor the rifles they had

dropped to grapple with the prisoner, filed out of the room. The officers remained leaning on their swords and

"The watch! the watch!" raved the colonel, pacing to and fro like a tiger in a cage. "Give me that man's

It was true, that when searched for arms in the hall downstairs, before being taken into Sotillo's presence,

Captain Mitchell had been relieved of his watch and chain; but at the colonel's clamour it was produced

quickly enough, a corporal bringing it up, carried carefully in the palms of his joined hands. Sotillo snatched

it, and pushed the clenched fist from which it dangled close to Captain Mitchell's face.

"Now then! You arrogant Englishman! You dare to call the soldiers of the army thieves! Behold your watch."

He flourished his fist as if aiming blows at the prisoner's nose. Captain Mitchell, helpless as a swathed infant,

looked anxiously at the sixtyguinea gold halfchronometer, presented to him years ago by a Committee of

Underwriters for saving a ship from total loss by fire. Sotillo, too, seemed to perceive its valuable appearance.

He became silent suddenly, stepped aside to the table, and began a careful examination in the light of the

candles. He had never seen anything so fine. His officers closed in and craned their necks behind his back.

He became so interested that for an instant he forgot his precious prisoner. There is always something

childish in the rapacity of the passionate, clearminded, Southern races, wanting in the misty idealism of the

Northerners, who at the smallest encouragement dream of nothing less than the conquest of the earth. Sotillo

was fond of jewels, gold trinkets, of personal adornment. After a moment he turned about, and with a

commanding gesture made all his officers fall back. He laid down the watch on the table, then, negligently,

"Ha!" he began, going up very close to the chair. "You dare call my valiant soldiers of the Esmeralda

regiment, thieves. You dare! What impudence! You foreigners come here to rob our country of its wealth.

He looked towards the officers, amongst whom there was an approving murmur. The older major was moved

"I shall say nothing," continued Sotillo, fixing the motionless and powerless Mitchell with an angry but

uneasy stare. "I shall say nothing of your treacherous attempt to get possession of my revolver to shoot me

while I was trying to treat you with consideration you did not deserve. You have forfeited your life. Your

He watched for the effect of his words, but there was no obvious sign of fear on Captain Mitchell's face. His

white hair was full of dust, which covered also the rest of his helpless person. As if he had heard nothing, he

Sotillo advanced one leg and put his arms akimbo. "It is you, Mitchell," he said, emphatically, "who are the

thief, not my soldiers!" He pointed at his prisoner a forefinger with a long, almondshaped nail. "Where is

the silver of the San Tome mine? I ask you, Mitchell, where is the silver that was deposited in this Custom

House? Answer me that! You stole it. You were a party to stealing it. It was stolen from the Government.

Aha! you think I do not know what I say; but I am up to your foreign tricks. It is gone, the silver! No? Gone

This time he produced his effect. "How on earth could Sotillo know that?" thought Mitchell. His head, the

"Ha! you tremble," Sotillo shouted, suddenly. "It is a conspiracy. It is a crime against the State. Did you not

know that the silver belongs to the Republic till the Government claims are satisfied? Where is it? Where

At this question Captain Mitchell's sinking spirits revived. In whatever incomprehensible manner Sotillo had

already got his information about the lighter, he had not captured it. That was clear. In his outraged heart,

Captain Mitchell had resolved that nothing would induce him to say a word while he remained so

disgracefully bound, but his desire to help the escape of the silver made him depart from this resolution. His

wits were very much at work. He detected in Sotillo a certain air of doubt, of irresolution.

"That man," he said to himself, "is not certain of what he advances." For all his pomposity in social

intercourse, Captain Mitchell could meet the realities of life in a resolute and ready spirit. Now he had got

over the first shock of the abominable treatment he was cool and collected enough. The immense contempt he

felt for Sotillo steadied him, and he said oracularly, "No doubt it is well concealed by this time."

Sotillo, too, had time to cool down. "Muy bien, Mitchell," he said in a cold and threatening manner. "But can

you produce the Government receipt for the royalty and the Custom House permit of embarkation, hey? Can

you? No. Then the silver has been removed illegally, and the guilty shall be made to suffer, unless it is

produced within five days from this." He gave orders for the prisoner to be unbound and locked up in one of

the smaller rooms downstairs. He walked about the room, moody and silent, till Captain Mitchell, with each

of his arms held by a couple of men, stood up, shook himself, and stamped his feet.

"It is the most incredible, abominable use of power!" Captain Mitchell declared in a loud voice. "And

The tall colonel, livid, with his coalblack ringlets and moustache, crouched, as it were, to look into the eyes

"That we shall see. You shall know my power a little better when I tie you up to a potalon outside in the sun

for a whole day." He drew himself up haughtily, and made a sign for Captain Mitchell to be led away.

"What about my watch?" cried Captain Mitchell, hanging back from the efforts of the men pulling him

Sotillo turned to his officers. "No! But only listen to this picaro, caballeros," he pronounced with affected

scorn, and was answered by a chorus of derisive laughter. "He demands his watch!" . . . He ran up again to

Captain Mitchell, for the desire to relieve his feelings by inflicting blows and pain upon this Englishman was

very strong within him. "Your watch! You are a prisoner in war time, Mitchell! In war time! You have no

rights and no property! Caramba! The very breath in your body belongs to me. Remember that."

Down below, in a great hall, with the earthen floor and with a tall mound thrown up by white ants in a corner,

the soldiers had kindled a small fire with broken chairs and tables near the arched gateway, through which the

faint murmur of the harbour waters on the beach could be heard. While Captain Mitchell was being led down

the staircase, an officer passed him, running up to report to Sotillo the capture of more prisoners. A lot of

smoke hung about in the vast gloomy place, the fire crackled, and, as if through a haze, Captain Mitchell

made out, surrounded by short soldiers with fixed bayonets, the heads of three tall prisonersthe doctor, the

engineerinchief, and the white leonine mane of old Viola, who stood halfturned away from the others

with his chin on his breast and his arms crossed. Mitchell's astonishment knew no bounds. He cried out; the

other two exclaimed also. But he hurried on, diagonally, across the big cavernlike hall. Lots of thoughts,

"Is he actually keeping you?" shouted the chief engineer, whose single eyeglass glittered in the firelight.

An officer from the top of the stairs was shouting urgently, "Bring them all upall three."

In the clamour of voices and the rattle of arms, Captain Mitchell made himself heard imperfectly: "By

The engineerinchief on the staircase resisted the pressure long enough to shout, "What? What did you say?"

"My chronometer!" Captain Mitchell yelled violently at the very moment of being thrust head foremost

through a small door into a sort of cell, perfectly black, and so narrow that he fetched up against the opposite

wall. The door had been instantly slammed. He knew where they had put him. This was the strong room of

the Custom House, whence the silver had been removed only a few hours earlier. It was almost as narrow as a

corridor, with a small square aperture, barred by a heavy grating, at the distant end. Captain Mitchell

staggered for a few steps, then sat down on the earthen floor with his back to the wall. Nothing, not even a

gleam of light from anywhere, interfered with Captain Mitchell's meditation. He did some hard but not very

extensive thinking. It was not of a gloomy cast. The old sailor, with all his small weaknesses and absurdities,

was constitutionally incapable of entertaining for any length of time a fear of his personal safety. It was not

so much firmness of soul as the lack of a certain kind of imaginationthe kind whose undue development

caused intense suffering to Senor Hirsch; that sort of imagination which adds the blind terror of bodily

suffering and of death, envisaged as an accident to the body alone, strictlyto all the other apprehensions on

which the sense of one's existence is based. Unfortunately, Captain Mitchell had not much penetration of any

kind; characteristic, illuminating trifles of expression, action, or movement, escaped him completely. He was

too pompously and innocently aware of his own existence to observe that of others. For instance, he could not

believe that Sotillo had been really afraid of him, and this simply because it would never have entered into his

head to shoot any one except in the most pressing case of selfdefence. Anybody could see he was not a

murdering kind of man, he reflected quite gravely. Then why this preposterous and insulting charge? he

asked himself. But his thoughts mainly clung around the astounding and unanswerable question: How the

devil the fellow got to know that the silver had gone off in the lighter? It was obvious that he had not

captured it. And, obviously, he could not have captured it! In this last conclusion Captain Mitchell was

misled by the assumption drawn from his observation of the weather during his long vigil on the wharf. He

thought that there had been much more wind than usual that night in the gulf; whereas, as a matter of fact, the

"How in the name of all that's marvellous did that confounded fellow get wind of the affair?" was the first

question he asked directly after the bang, clatter, and flash of the open door (which was closed again almost

before he could lift his dropped head) informed him that he had a companion of captivity. Dr. Monygham's

"Is that you, Mitchell?" he made answer, surlily. "I struck my forehead against this confounded wall with

Captain Mitchell, accustomed to the darkness, could make out the doctor stretching out his hands blindly.

"I am sitting here on the floor. Don't fall over my legs," Captain Mitchell's voice announced with great

dignity of tone. The doctor, entreated not to walk about in the dark, sank down to the ground, too. The two

prisoners of Sotillo, with their heads nearly touching, began to exchange confidences.

"Yes," the doctor related in a low tone to Captain Mitchell's vehement curiosity, "we have been nabbed in old

Viola's place. It seems that one of their pickets, commanded by an officer, pushed as far as the town gate.

They had orders not to enter, but to bring along every soul they could find on the plain. We had been talking

in there with the door open, and no doubt they saw the glimmer of our light. They must have been making

their approaches for some time. The engineer laid himself on a bench in a recess by the fireplace, and I went

upstairs to have a look. I hadn't heard any sound from there for a long time. Old Viola, as soon as he saw me

come up, lifted his arm for silence. I stole in on tiptoe. By Jove, his wife was lying down and had gone to

sleep. The woman had actually dropped off to sleep! 'Senor Doctor,' Viola whispers to me, 'it looks as if her

oppression was going to get better.' 'Yes,' I said, very much surprised; 'your wife is a wonderful woman,

Giorgio.' Just then a shot was fired in the kitchen, which made us jump and cower as if at a thunderclap. It

seems that the party of soldiers had stolen quite close up, and one of them had crept up to the door. He looked

in, thought there was no one there, and, holding his rifle ready, entered quietly. The chief told me that he had

just closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he saw the man already in the middle of the room

peering into the dark corners. The chief was so startled that, without thinking, he made one leap from the

recess right out in front of the fireplace. The soldier, no less startled, up with his rifle and pulls the trigger,

deafening and singeing the engineer, but in his flurry missing him completely. But, look what happens! At

the noise of the report the sleeping woman sat up, as if moved by a spring, with a shriek, 'The children, Gian'

Battista! Save the children!' I have it in my ears now. It was the truest cry of distress I ever heard. I stood as if

paralyzed, but the old husband ran across to the bedside, stretching out his hands. She clung to them! I could

see her eyes go glazed; the old fellow lowered her down on the pillows and then looked round at me. She was

dead! All this took less than five minutes, and then I ran down to see what was the matter. It was no use

thinking of any resistance. Nothing we two could say availed with the officer, so I volunteered to go up with

a couple of soldiers and fetch down old Viola. He was sitting at the foot of the bed, looking at his wife's face,

and did not seem to hear what I said; but after I had pulled the sheet over her head, he got up and followed us

downstairs quietly, in a sort of thoughtful way. They marched us off along the road, leaving the door open

and the candle burning. The chief engineer strode on without a word, but I looked back once or twice at the

feeble gleam. After we had gone some considerable distance, the Garibaldino, who was walking by my side,

suddenly said, 'I have buried many men on battlefields on this continent. The priests talk of consecrated

ground! Bah! All the earth made by God is holy; but the sea, which knows nothing of kings and priests and

tyrants, is the holiest of all. Doctor! I should like to bury her in the sea. No mummeries, candles, incense, no

holy water mumbled over by priests. The spirit of liberty is upon the waters.' . . . Amazing old man. He was

"Yes, yes," interrupted Captain Mitchell, impatiently. "Poor old chap! But have you any idea how that ruffian

Sotillo obtained his information? He did not get hold of any of our Cargadores who helped with the truck, did

he? But no, it is impossible! These were picked men we've had in our boats for these five years, and I paid

them myself specially for the job, with instructions to keep out of the way for twentyfour hours at least. I

saw them with my own eyes march on with the Italians to the railway yards. The chief promised to give them

"Well," said the doctor, slowly, "I can tell you that you may say goodbye for ever to your best lighter, and to

At this, Captain Mitchell scrambled up to his feet in the excess of his excitement. The doctor, without giving

Captain Mitchell was overcome. "Drowned!" he muttered, in a bewildered and appalled whisper. "Drowned!"

Afterwards he kept still, apparently listening, but too absorbed in the news of the catastrophe to follow the

The doctor had taken up an attitude of perfect ignorance, till at last Sotillo was induced to have Hirsch

brought in to repeat the whole story, which was got out of him again with the greatest difficulty, because

every moment he would break out into lamentations. At last, Hirsch was led away, looking more dead than

alive, and shut up in one of the upstairs rooms to be close at hand. Then the doctor, keeping up his character

of a man not admitted to the inner councils of the San Tome Administration, remarked that the story sounded

incredible. Of course, he said, he couldn't tell what had been the action of the Europeans, as he had been

exclusively occupied with his own work in looking after the wounded, and also in attending Don Jose

Avellanos. He had succeeded in assuming so well a tone of impartial indifference, that Sotillo seemed to be

completely deceived. Till then a show of regular inquiry had been kept up; one of the officers sitting at the

table wrote down the questions and the answers, the others, lounging about the room, listened attentively,

puffing at their long cigars and keeping their eyes on the doctor. But at that point Sotillo ordered everybody

DIRECTLY they were alone, the colonel's severe official manner changed. He rose and approached the

doctor. His eyes shone with rapacity and hope; he became confidential. "The silver might have been indeed

put on board the lighter, but it was not conceivable that it should have been taken out to sea." The doctor,

watching every word, nodded slightly, smoking with apparent relish the cigar which Sotillo had offered him

as a sign of his friendly intentions. The doctor's manner of cold detachment from the rest of the Europeans led

Sotillo on, till, from conjecture to conjecture, he arrived at hinting that in his opinion this was a putup job on

the part of Charles Gould, in order to get hold of that immense treasure all to himself. The doctor, observant

Here Captain Mitchell exclaimed with amazement, amusement, and indignation, "You said that of Charles

Gould!" Disgust, and even some suspicion, crept into his tone, for to him, too, as to other Europeans, there

"What on earth made you say that to this watchstealing scoundrel?" he asked. "What's the object of an

infernal lie of that sort? That confounded pickpocket was quite capable of believing you."

"Yes, that is exactly what I did say," he uttered at last, in a tone which would have made it clear enough to a

third party that the pause was not of a reluctant but of a reflective character. Captain Mitchell thought that he

"Well, well!" he muttered to himself, but he had not the heart to voice his thoughts. They were swept away by

others full of astonishment and regret. A heavy sense of discomfiture crushed him: the loss of the silver, the

death of Nostromo, which was really quite a blow to his sensibilities, because he had become attached to his

Capataz as people get attached to their inferiors from love of ease and almost unconscious gratitude. And

when he thought of Decoud being drowned, too, his sensibility was almost overcome by this miserable end.

What a heavy blow for that poor young woman! Captain Mitchell did not belong to the species of crabbed old

bachelors; on the contrary, he liked to see young men paying attentions to young women. It seemed to him a

natural and proper thing. Proper especially. As to sailors, it was different; it was not their place to marry, he

maintained, but it was on moral grounds as a matter of selfdenial, for, he explained, life on board ship is not

fit for a woman even at best, and if you leave her on shore, first of all it is not fair, and next she either suffers

from it or doesn't care a bit, which, in both cases, is bad. He couldn't have told what upset him

mostCharles Gould's immense material loss, the death of Nostromo, which was a heavy loss to himself, or

the idea of that beautiful and accomplished young woman being plunged into mourning.

"Yes," the doctor, who had been apparently reflecting, began again, "he believed me right enough. I thought

he would have hugged me. 'Si, si,' he said, 'he will write to that partner of his, the rich Americano in San

Francisco, that it is all lost. Why not? There is enough to share with many people.'"

The doctor remarked that Sotillo was imbecile, and that his imbecility was ingenious enough to lead him

"I mentioned," the doctor said, "in a sort of casual way, that treasure is generally buried in the earth rather

than set afloat upon the sea. At this my Sotillo slapped his forehead. 'Por Dios, yes,' he said; 'they must have

"Heavens and earth!" muttered Captain Mitchell, "I should not have believed that anybody could be ass

enough" He paused, then went on mournfully: "But what's the good of all this? It would have been a clever

enough lie if the lighter had been still afloat. It would have kept that inconceivable idiot perhaps from sending

out the steamer to cruise in the gulf. That was the danger that worried me no end." Captain Mitchell sighed

"Had you?" muttered Captain Mitchell. "Well, that's lucky, or else I would have thought that you went on

fooling him for the fun of the thing. And perhaps that was your object. Well, I must say I personally wouldn't

condescend to that sort of thing. It is not to my taste. No, no. Blackening a friend's character is not my idea of

Had it not been for Captain Mitchell's depression, caused by the fatal news, his disgust of Dr. Monygham

would have taken a more outspoken shape; but he thought to himself that now it really did not matter what

"I wonder," he grumbled, "why they have shut us up together, or why Sotillo should have shut you up at all,

Captain Mitchell's heart was so heavy that he would have preferred for the time being a complete solitude to

the best of company. But any company would have been preferable to the doctor's, at whom he had always

looked askance as a sort of beachcomber of superior intelligence partly reclaimed from his abased state. That

"The chief engineer he would have let go in any case," said the doctor. "He wouldn't like to have a quarrel

with the railway upon his hands. Not just yet, at any rate. I don't think, Captain Mitchell, that you understand

"No," assented the doctor, with the same grim composure. "I don't see why you should. It wouldn't help a

single human being in the world if you thought ever so hard upon any subject whatever."

"No," said Captain Mitchell, simply, and with evident depression. "A man locked up in a confounded dark

"As to old Viola," the doctor continued, as though he had not heard, "Sotillo released him for the same reason

"Eh? What?" exclaimed Captain Mitchell, staring like an owl in the darkness. "What is there in common

between me and old Viola? More likely because the old chap has no watch and chain for the pickpocket to

steal. And I tell you what, Dr. Monygham," he went on with rising choler, "he will find it more difficult than

he thinks to get rid of me. He will burn his fingers over that job yet, I can tell you. To begin with, I won't go

without my watch, and as to the restwe shall see. I dare say it is no great matter for you to be locked up.

But Joe Mitchell is a different kind of man, sir. I don't mean to submit tamely to insult and robbery. I am a

And then Captain Mitchell became aware that the bars of the opening had become visible, a black grating

upon a square of grey. The coming of the day silenced Captain Mitchell as if by the reflection that now in all

the future days he would be deprived of the invaluable services of his Capataz. He leaned against the wall

with his arms folded on his breast, and the doctor walked up and down the whole length of the place with his

peculiar hobbling gait, as if slinking about on damaged feet. At the end furthest from the grating he would be

lost altogether in the darkness. Only the slight limping shuffle could be heard. There was an air of moody

detachment in that painful prowl kept up without a pause. When the door of the prison was suddenly flung

open and his name shouted out he showed no surprise. He swerved sharply in his walk, and passed out at

once, as though much depended upon his speed; but Captain Mitchell remained for some time with his

shoulders against the wall, quite undecided in the bitterness of his spirit whether it wouldn't be better to

refuse to stir a limb in the way of protest. He had half a mind to get himself carried out, but after the officer at

the door had shouted three or four times in tones of remonstrance and surprise he condescended to walk out.

Sotillo's manner had changed. The colonel's offhand civility was slightly irresolute, as though he were in

doubt if civility were the proper course in this case. He observed Captain Mitchell attentively before he spoke

"I have concluded not to detain you, Senor Mitchell. I am of a forgiving disposition. I make allowances. Let

The peculiar dawn of Sulaco, which seems to break far away to the westward and creep back into the shade

of the mountains, mingled with the reddish light of the candles. Captain Mitchell, in sign of contempt and

indifference, let his eyes roam all over the room, and he gave a hard stare to the doctor, perched already on

the casement of one of the windows, with his eyelids lowered, careless and thoughtfulor perhaps ashamed.

Sotillo, ensconced in the vast armchair, remarked, "I should have thought that the feelings of a caballero

He waited for it, but Captain Mitchell remaining mute, more from extreme resentment than from reasoned

intention, Sotillo hesitated, glanced towards the doctor, who looked up and nodded, then went on with a

"Here, Senor Mitchell, is your watch. Learn how hasty and unjust has been your judgment of my patriotic

Lying back in his seat, he extended his arm over the table and pushed the watch away slightly. Captain

Mitchell walked up with undisguised eagerness, put it to his ear, then slipped it into his pocket coolly.

Sotillo seemed to overcome an immense reluctance. Again he looked aside at the doctor, who stared at him

But as Captain Mitchell was turning away, without as much as a nod or a glance, he hastened to say

"You may go and wait downstairs for the senor doctor, whom I am going to liberate, too. You foreigners are

He forced a slight, discordant laugh out of himself, while Captain Mitchell, for the first time, looked at him

"The law shall take note later on of your transgressions," Sotillo hurried on. "But as for me, you can live free,

unguarded, unobserved. Do you hear, Senor Mitchell? You may depart to your affairs. You are beneath my

Captain Mitchell was very nearly provoked to an answer. It displeased him to be liberated insultingly; but

want of sleep, prolonged anxieties, a profound disappointment with the fatal ending of the silversaving

business weighed upon his spirits. It was as much as he could do to conceal his uneasiness, not about himself

perhaps, but about things in general. It occurred to him distinctly that something underhand was going on. As

Dr. Monygham slipped off the windowsill, and, thrusting his hands into the pockets of the long, grey dust

Sotillo got up, too, and, putting himself in the way, examined him from head to foot.

"So your countrymen do not confide in you very much, senor doctor. They do not love you, eh? Why is that, I

The doctor, lifting his head, answered by a long, lifeless stare and the words, "Perhaps because I have lived

"If you leave them alone," the doctor said, looking with the same lifeless stare at Sotillo's handsome face,

"they will betray themselves very soon. Meantime, I may try to make Don Carlos speak?"

"Ah! senor doctor," said Sotillo, wagging his head, "you are a man of quick intelligence. We were made to

understand each other." He turned away. He could bear no longer that expressionless and motionless stare,

which seemed to have a sort of impenetrable emptiness like the black depth of an abyss.

Even in a man utterly devoid of moral sense there remains an appreciation of rascality which, being

conventional, is perfectly clear. Sotillo thought that Dr. Monygham, so different from all Europeans, was

ready to sell his countrymen and Charles Gould, his employer, for some share of the San Tome silver. Sotillo

did not despise him for that. The colonel's want of moral sense was of a profound and innocent character. It

bordered upon stupidity, moral stupidity. Nothing that served his ends could appear to him really

reprehensible. Nevertheless, he despised Dr. Monygham. He had for him an immense and satisfactory

contempt. He despised him with all his heart because he did not mean to let the doctor have any reward at all.

He despised him, not as a man without faith and honour, but as a fool. Dr. Monygham's insight into his

character had deceived Sotillo completely. Therefore he thought the doctor a fool.

Since his arrival in Sulaco the colonel's ideas had undergone some modification.

He no longer wished for a political career in Montero's administration. He had always doubted the safety of

that course. Since he had learned from the chief engineer that at daylight most likely he would be confronted

by Pedro Montero his misgivings on that point had considerably increased. The guerrillero brother of the

generalthe Pedrito of popular speechhad a reputation of his own. He wasn't safe to deal with. Sotillo had

vaguely planned seizing not only the treasure but the town itself, and then negotiating at leisure. But in the

face of facts learned from the chief engineer (who had frankly disclosed to him the whole situation) his

audacity, never of a very dashing kind, had been replaced by a most cautious hesitation.

"An armyan army crossed the mountains under Pedrito already," he had repeated, unable to hide his

consternation. "If it had not been that I am given the news by a man of your position I would never have

"An armed force," corrected the engineer, suavely. His aim was attained. It was to keep Sulaco clear of any

armed occupation for a few hours longer, to let those whom fear impelled leave the town. In the general

dismay there were families hopeful enough to fly upon the road towards Los Hatos, which was left open by

the withdrawal of the armed rabble under Senores Fuentes and Gamacho, to Rincon, with their enthusiastic

welcome for Pedro Montero. It was a hasty and risky exodus, and it was said that Hernandez, occupying with

his band the woods about Los Hatos, was receiving the fugitives. That a good many people he knew were

Father Corbelan's efforts in the cause of that most pious robber had not been altogether fruitless. The political

chief of Sulaco had yielded at the last moment to the urgent entreaties of the priest, had signed a provisional

nomination appointing Hernandez a general, and calling upon him officially in this new capacity to preserve

order in the town. The fact is that the political chief, seeing the situation desperate, did not care what he

signed. It was the last official document he signed before he left the palace of the Intendencia for the refuge

of the O.S.N. Company's office. But even had he meant his act to be effective it was already too late. The riot

which he feared and expected broke out in less than an hour after Father Corbelan had left him. Indeed,

Father Corbelan, who had appointed a meeting with Nostromo in the Dominican Convent, where he had his

residence in one of the cells, never managed to reach the place. From the Intendencia he had gone straight on

to the Avellanos's house to tell his brotherinlaw, and though he stayed there no more than half an hour he

had found himself cut off from his ascetic abode. Nostromo, after waiting there for some time, watching

uneasily the increasing uproar in the street, had made his way to the offices of the Porvenir, and stayed there

till daylight, as Decoud had mentioned in the letter to his sister. Thus the Capataz, instead of riding towards

the Los Hatos woods as bearer of Hernandez's nomination, had remained in town to save the life of the

President Dictator, to assist in repressing the outbreak of the mob, and at last to sail out with the silver of the

But Father Corbelan, escaping to Hernandez, had the document in his pocket, a piece of official writing

turning a bandit into a general in a memorable last official act of the Ribierist party, whose watchwords were

honesty, peace, and progress. Probably neither the priest nor the bandit saw the irony of it. Father Corbelan

must have found messengers to send into the town, for early on the second day of the disturbances there were

rumours of Hernandez being on the road to Los Hatos ready to receive those who would put themselves

under his protection. A strangelooking horseman, elderly and audacious, had appeared in the town, riding

slowly while his eyes examined the fronts of the houses, as though he had never seen such high buildings

before. Before the cathedral he had dismounted, and, kneeling in the middle of the Plaza, his bridle over his

arm and his hat lying in front of him on the ground, had bowed his head, crossing himself and beating his

breast for some little time. Remounting his horse, with a fearless but not unfriendly look round the little

gathering formed about his public devotions, he had asked for the Casa Avellanos. A score of hands were

The horseman had gone on with only a glance of casual curiosity upwards to the windows of the Amarilla

Club at the corner. His stentorian voice shouted periodically in the empty street, "Which is the Casa

Avellanos?" till an answer came from the scared porter, and he disappeared under the gate. The letter he was

bringing, written by Father Corbelan with a pencil by the campfire of Hernandez, was addressed to Don

Jose, of whose critical state the priest was not aware. Antonia read it, and, after consulting Charles Gould,

sent it on for the information of the gentlemen garrisoning the Amarilla Club. For herself, her mind was made

up; she would rejoin her uncle; she would entrust the last daythe last hours perhapsof her father's life to

the keeping of the bandit, whose existence was a protest against the irresponsible tyranny of all parties alike,

against the moral darkness of the land. The gloom of Los Hatos woods was preferable; a life of hardships in

the train of a robber band less debasing. Antonia embraced with all her soul her uncle's obstinate defiance of

In his message the VicarGeneral answered upon his head for Hernandez's fidelity. As to his power, he

pointed out that he had remained unsubdued for so many years. In that letter Decoud's idea of the new

Occidental State (whose flourishing and stable condition is a matter of common knowledge now) was for the

first time made public and used as an argument. Hernandez, exbandit and the last general of Ribierist

creation, was confident of being able to hold the tract of country between the woods of Los Hatos and the

coast range till that devoted patriot, Don Martin Decoud, could bring General Barrios back to Sulaco for the

"Heaven itself wills it. Providence is on our side," wrote Father Corbelan; there was no time to reflect upon or

to controvert his statement; and if the discussion started upon the reading of that letter in the Amarilla Club

was violent, it was also shortlived. In the general bewilderment of the collapse some jumped at the idea with

joyful astonishment as upon the amazing discovery of a new hope. Others became fascinated by the prospect

of immediate personal safety for their women and children. The majority caught at it as a drowning man

catches at a straw. Father Corbelan was unexpectedly offering them a refuge from Pedrito Montero with his

All the latter part of the afternoon an animated discussion went on in the big rooms of the Amarilla Club.

Even those members posted at the windows with rifles and carbines to guard the end of the street in case of

an offensive return of the populace shouted their opinions and arguments over their shoulders. As dusk fell

Don Juste Lopez, inviting those caballeros who were of his way of thinking to follow him, withdrew into the

corredor, where at a little table in the light of two candles he busied himself in composing an address, or

rather a solemn declaration to be presented to Pedrito Montero by a deputation of such members of Assembly

as had elected to remain in town. His idea was to propitiate him in order to save the form at least of

parliamentary institutions. Seated before a blank sheet of paper, a goosequill pen in his hand and surged

upon from all sides, he turned to the right and to the left, repeating with solemn insistence

"Caballeros, a moment of silence! A moment of silence! We ought to make it clear that we bow in all good

The utterance of that phrase seemed to give him a melancholy satisfaction. The hubbub of voices round him

was growing strained and hoarse. In the sudden pauses the excited grimacing of the faces would sink all at

Meantime, the exodus had begun. Carretas full of ladies and children rolled swaying across the Plaza, with

men walking or riding by their side; mounted parties followed on mules and horses; the poorest were setting

out on foot, men and women carrying bundles, clasping babies in their arms, leading old people, dragging

along the bigger children. When Charles Gould, after leaving the doctor and the engineer at the Casa Viola,

entered the town by the harbour gate, all those that had meant to go were gone, and the others had barricaded

themselves in their houses. In the whole dark street there was only one spot of flickering lights and moving

figures, where the Senor Administrador recognized his wife's carriage waiting at the door of the Avellanos's

house. He rode up, almost unnoticed, and looked on without a word while some of his own servants came out

of the gate carrying Don Jose Avellanos, who, with closed eyes and motionless features, appeared perfectly

lifeless. His wife and Antonia walked on each side of the improvised stretcher, which was put at once into the

carriage. The two women embraced; while from the other side of the landau Father Corbelan's emissary, with

his ragged beard all streaked with grey, and high, bronzed cheekbones, stared, sitting upright in the saddle.

Then Antonia, dryeyed, got in by the side of the stretcher, and, after making the sign of the cross rapidly,

lowered a thick veil upon her face. The servants and the three or four neighbours who had come to assist,

stood back, uncovering their heads. On the box, Ignacio, resigned now to driving all night (and to having

"Si, carefully; si nina," he mumbled, chewing his lips, his round leathery cheeks quivering. And the landau

"I will see them as far as the ford," said Charles Gould to his wife. She stood on the edge of the sidewalk with

her hands clasped lightly, and nodded to him as he followed after the carriage. And now the windows of the

Amarilla Club were dark. The last spark of resistance had died out. Turning his head at the corner, Charles

Gould saw his wife crossing over to their own gate in the lighted patch of the street. One of their neighbours,

a wellknown merchant and landowner of the province, followed at her elbow, talking with great gestures.

As she passed in all the lights went out in the street, which remained dark and empty from end to end.

The houses of the vast Plaza were lost in the night. High up, like a star, there was a small gleam in one of the

towers of the cathedral; and the equestrian statue gleamed pale against the black trees of the Alameda, like a

ghost of royalty haunting the scenes of revolution. The rare prowlers they met ranged themselves against the

wall. Beyond the last houses the carriage rolled noiselessly on the soft cushion of dust, and with a greater

obscurity a feeling of freshness seemed to fall from the foliage of the trees bordering the country road. The

"Caballero," he said in an interested voice, "you are he whom they call the King of Sulaco, the master of the

The man cantered for a time in silence, then said, "I have a brother, a sereno in your service in the San Tome

valley. You have proved yourself a just man. There has been no wrong done to any one since you called upon

the people to work in the mountains. My brother says that no official of the Government, no oppressor of the

Campo, has been seen on your side of the stream. Your own officials do not oppress the people in the gorge.

Doubtless they are afraid of your severity. You are a just man and a powerful one," he added.

He spoke in an abrupt, independent tone, but evidently he was communicative with a purpose. He told

Charles Gould that he had been a ranchero in one of the lower valleys, far south, a neighbour of Hernandez in

the old days, and godfather to his eldest boy; one of those who joined him in his resistance to the recruiting

raid which was the beginning of all their misfortunes. It was he that, when his compadre had been carried off,

"Si, senor," he muttered, hoarsely, "I and two or three others, the lucky ones left at liberty, buried them all in

one grave near the ashes of their ranch, under the tree that had shaded its roof."

It was to him, too, that Hernandez came after he had deserted, three years afterwards. He had still his uniform

on with the sergeant's stripes on the sleeve, and the blood of his colonel upon his hands and breast. Three

troopers followed him, of those who had started in pursuit but had ridden on for liberty. And he told Charles

Gould how he and a few friends, seeing those soldiers, lay in ambush behind some rocks ready to pull the

trigger on them, when he recognized his compadre and jumped up from cover, shouting his name, because he

knew that Hernandez could not have been coming back on an errand of injustice and oppression. Those three

soldiers, together with the party who lay behind the rocks, had formed the nucleus of the famous band, and

he, the narrator, had been the favourite lieutenant of Hernandez for many, many years. He mentioned proudly

that the officials had put a price upon his head, too; but it did not prevent it getting sprinkled with grey upon

his shoulders. And now he had lived long enough to see his compadre made a general.

He had a burst of muffled laughter. "And now from robbers we have become soldiers. But look, Caballero, at

Ignacio shouted. The light of the carriage lamps, running along the nopal hedges that crowned the bank on

each side, flashed upon the scared faces of people standing aside in the road, sunk deep, like an English

country lane, into the soft soil of the Campo. They cowered; their eyes glistened very big for a second; and

then the light, running on, fell upon the halfdenuded roots of a big tree, on another stretch of nopal hedge,

caught up another bunch of faces glaring back apprehensively. Three womenof whom one was carrying a

childand a couple of men in civilian dressone armed with a sabre and another with a gunwere

grouped about a donkey carrying two bundles tied up in blankets. Further on Ignacio shouted again to pass a

carreta, a long wooden box on two high wheels, with the door at the back swinging open. Some ladies in it

must have recognized the white mules, because they screamed out, "Is it you, Dona Emilia?"

At the turn of the road the glare of a big fire filled the short stretch vaulted over by the branches meeting

overhead. Near the ford of a shallow stream a roadside rancho of woven rushes and a roof of grass had been

set on fire by accident, and the flames, roaring viciously, lit up an open space blocked with horses, mules, and

a distracted, shouting crowd of people. When Ignacio pulled up, several ladies on foot assailed the carriage,

begging Antonia for a seat. To their clamour she answered by pointing silently to her father.

"I must leave you here," said Charles Gould, in the uproar. The flames leaped up skyhigh, and in the recoil

from the scorching heat across the road the stream of fugitives pressed against the carriage. A middleaged

lady dressed in black silk, but with a coarse manta over her head and a rough branch for a stick in her hand,

staggered against the front wheel. Two young girls, frightened and silent, were clinging to her arms. Charles

"Misericordia! We are getting terribly bruised in this crowd!" she exclaimed, smiling up courageously to him.

"We have started on foot. All our servants ran away yesterday to join the democrats. We are going to put

ourselves under the protection of Father Corbelan, of your sainted uncle, Antonia. He has wrought a miracle

She raised her voice gradually up to a scream as she was borne along by the pressure of people getting out of

the way of some carts coming up out of the ford at a gallop, with loud yells and cracking of whips. Great

masses of sparks mingled with black smoke flew over the road; the bamboos of the walls detonated in the fire

with the sound of an irregular fusillade. And then the bright blaze sank suddenly, leaving only a red dusk

crowded with aimless dark shadows drifting in contrary directions; the noise of voices seemed to die away

with the flame; and the tumult of heads, arms, quarrelling, and imprecations passed on fleeing into the

"I must leave you now," repeated Charles Gould to Antonia. She turned her head slowly and uncovered her

"Has not the master of the mine any message to send to Hernandez, the master of the Campo?"

The truth of the comparison struck Charles Gould heavily. In his determined purpose he held the mine, and

the indomitable bandit held the Campo by the same precarious tenure. They were equals before the

lawlessness of the land. It was impossible to disentangle one's activity from its debasing contacts. A

closemeshed net of crime and corruption lay upon the whole country. An immense and weary

"You are a just man," urged the emissary of Hernandez. "Look at those people who made my compadre a

general and have turned us all into soldiers. Look at those oligarchs fleeing for life, with only the clothes on

their backs. My compadre does not think of that, but our followers may be wondering greatly, and I would

speak for them to you. Listen, senor! For many months now the Campo has been our own. We need ask no

man for anything; but soldiers must have their pay to live honestly when the wars are over. It is believed that

your soul is so just that a prayer from you would cure the sickness of every beast, like the orison of the

upright judge. Let me have some words from your lips that would act like a charm upon the doubts of our

"Forgive us our misery!" she exclaimed, hurriedly. "It is your character that is the inexhaustible treasure

which may save us all yet; your character, Carlos, not your wealth. I entreat you to give this man your word

that you will accept any arrangement my uncle may make with their chief. One word. He will want no more."

On the site of the roadside hut there remained nothing but an enormous heap of embers, throwing afar a

darkening red glow, in which Antonia's face appeared deeply flushed with excitement. Charles Gould, with

only a short hesitation, pronounced the required pledge. He was like a man who had ventured on a precipitous

path with no room to turn, where the only chance of safety is to press forward. At that moment he understood

it thoroughly as he looked down at Don Jose stretched out, hardly breathing, by the side of the erect Antonia,

vanquished in a lifelong struggle with the powers of moral darkness, whose stagnant depths breed monstrous

crimes and monstrous illusions. In a few words the emissary from Hernandez expressed his complete

satisfaction. Stoically Antonia lowered her veil, resisting the longing to inquire about Decoud's escape. But

"Take a good look at the mules, mi amo," he grumbled. "You shall never see them again!"

CHARLES GOULD turned towards the town. Before him the jagged peaks of the Sierra came out all black in

the clear dawn. Here and there a muffled lepero whisked round the corner of a grassgrown street before the

ringing hoofs of his horse. Dogs barked behind the walls of the gardens; and with the colourless light the chill

of the snows seemed to fall from the mountains upon the disjointed pavements and the shuttered houses with

broken cornices and the plaster peeling in patches between the flat pilasters of the fronts. The daybreak

struggled with the gloom under the arcades on the Plaza, with no signs of country people disposing their

goods for the day's market, piles of fruit, bundles of vegetables ornamented with flowers, on low benches

under enormous mat umbrellas; with no cheery early morning bustle of villagers, women, children, and

loaded donkeys. Only a few scattered knots of revolutionists stood in the vast space, all looking one way

from under their slouched hats for some sign of news from Rincon. The largest of those groups turned about

like one man as Charles Gould passed, and shouted, "Viva la libertad!" after him in a menacing tone.

Charles Gould rode on, and turned into the archway of his house. In the patio littered with straw, a

practicante, one of Dr. Monygham's native assistants, sat on the ground with his back against the rim of the

fountain, fingering a guitar discreetly, while two girls of the lower class, standing up before him, shuffled

Most of the wounded during the two days of rioting had been taken away already by their friends and

relations, but several figures could be seen sitting up balancing their bandaged heads in time to the music.

Charles Gould dismounted. A sleepy mozo coming out of the bakery door took hold of the horse's bridle; the

practicante endeavoured to conceal his guitar hastily; the girls, unabashed, stepped back smiling; and Charles

Gould, on his way to the staircase, glanced into a dark corner of the patio at another group, a mortally

wounded Cargador with a woman kneeling by his side; she mumbled prayers rapidly, trying at the same time

The cruel futility of things stood unveiled in the levity and sufferings of that incorrigible people; the cruel

futility of lives and of deaths thrown away in the vain endeavour to attain an enduring solution of the

problem. Unlike Decoud, Charles Gould could not play lightly a part in a tragic farce. It was tragic enough

for him in all conscience, but he could see no farcical element. He suffered too much under a conviction of

irremediable folly. He was too severely practical and too idealistic to look upon its terrible humours with

amusement, as Martin Decoud, the imaginative materialist, was able to do in the dry light of his scepticism.

To him, as to all of us, the compromises with his conscience appeared uglier than ever in the light of failure.

His taciturnity, assumed with a purpose, had prevented him from tampering openly with his thoughts; but the

Gould Concession had insidiously corrupted his judgment. He might have known, he said to himself, leaning

over the balustrade of the corredor, that Ribierism could never come to anything. The mine had corrupted his

judgment by making him sick of bribing and intriguing merely to have his work left alone from day to day.

Like his father, he did not like to be robbed. It exasperated him. He had persuaded himself that, apart from

higher considerations, the backing up of Don Jose's hopes of reform was good business. He had gone forth

into the senseless fray as his poor uncle, whose sword hung on the wall of his study, had gone forthin the

defence of the commonest decencies of organized society. Only his weapon was the wealth of the mine, more

farreaching and subtle than an honest blade of steel fitted into a simple brass guard.

More dangerous to the wielder, too, this weapon of wealth, doubleedged with the cupidity and misery of

mankind, steeped in all the vices of selfindulgence as in a concoction of poisonous roots, tainting the very

cause for which it is drawn, always ready to turn awkwardly in the hand. There was nothing for it now but to

go on using it. But he promised himself to see it shattered into small bits before he let it be wrenched from his

After all, with his English parentage and English upbringing, he perceived that he was an adventurer in

Costaguana, the descendant of adventurers enlisted in a foreign legion, of men who had sought fortune in a

revolutionary war, who had planned revolutions, who had believed in revolutions. For all the uprightness of

his character, he had something of an adventurer's easy morality which takes count of personal risk in the

ethical appraising of his action. He was prepared, if need be, to blow up the whole San Tome mountain sky

high out of the territory of the Republic. This resolution expressed the tenacity of his character, the remorse

of that subtle conjugal infidelity through which his wife was no longer the sole mistress of his thoughts,

something of his father's imaginative weakness, and something, too, of the spirit of a buccaneer throwing a

Down below in the patio the wounded Cargador had breathed his last. The woman cried out once, and her

cry, unexpected and shrill, made all the wounded sit up. The practicante scrambled to his feet, and, guitar in

hand, gazed steadily in her direction with elevated eyebrows. The two girlssitting now one on each side of

their wounded relative, with their knees drawn up and long cigars between their lipsnodded at each other

Charles Gould, looking down over the balustrade, saw three men dressed ceremoniously in black frockcoats

with white shirts, and wearing European round hats, enter the patio from the street. One of them, head and

shoulders taller than the two others, advanced with marked gravity, leading the way. This was Don Juste

Lopez, accompanied by two of his friends, members of Assembly, coming to call upon the Administrador of

the San Tome mine at this early hour. They saw him, too, waved their hands to him urgently, walking up the

Don Juste, astonishingly changed by having shaved off altogether his damaged beard, had lost with it

ninetenths of his outward dignity. Even at that time of serious preoccupation Charles Gould could not help

noting the revealed ineptitude in the aspect of the man. His companions looked crestfallen and sleepy. One

kept on passing the tip of his tongue over his parched lips; the other's eyes strayed dully over the tiled floor of

the corredor, while Don Juste, standing a little in advance, harangued the Senor Administrador of the San

Tome mine. It was his firm opinion that forms had to be observed. A new governor is always visited by

deputations from the Cabildo, which is the Municipal Council, from the Consulado, the commercial Board,

and it was proper that the Provincial Assembly should send a deputation, too, if only to assert the existence of

parliamentary institutions. Don Juste proposed that Don Carlos Gould, as the most prominent citizen of the

province, should join the Assembly's deputation. His position was exceptional, his personality known through

the length and breadth of the whole Republic. Official courtesies must not be neglected, if they are gone

through with a bleeding heart. The acceptance of accomplished facts may save yet the precious vestiges of

parliamentary institutions. Don Juste's eyes glowed dully; he believed in parliamentary institutionsand the

convinced drone of his voice lost itself in the stillness of the house like the deep buzzing of some ponderous

Charles Gould had turned round to listen patiently, leaning his elbow on the balustrade. He shook his head a

little, refusing, almost touched by the anxious gaze of the President of the Provincial Assembly. It was not

Charles Gould's policy to make the San Tome mine a party to any formal proceedings.

"My advice, senores, is that you should wait for your fate in your houses. There is no necessity for you to

give yourselves up formally into Montero's hands. Submission to the inevitable, as Don Juste calls it, is all

very well, but when the inevitable is called Pedrito Montero there is no need to exhibit pointedly the whole

extent of your surrender. The fault of this country is the want of measure in political life. Flat acquiescence in

illegality, followed by sanguinary reactionthat, senores, is not the way to a stable and prosperous future."

Charles Gould stopped before the sad bewilderment of the faces, the wondering, anxious glances of the eyes.

The feeling of pity for those men, putting all their trust into words of some sort, while murder and rapine

stalked over the land, had betrayed him into what seemed empty loquacity. Don Juste murmured

He could not finish from grief. For a moment he put his hand over his eyes. Charles Gould, in his fear of

empty loquacity, made no answer to the charge. He returned in silence their ceremonious bows. His

taciturnity was his refuge. He understood that what they sought was to get the influence of the San Tome

mine on their side. They wanted to go on a conciliating errand to the victor under the wing of the Gould

Concession. Other public bodiesthe Cabildo, the Consuladowould be coming, too, presently, seeking

the support of the most stable, the most effective force they had ever known to exist in their province.

The doctor, arriving with his sharp, jerky walk, found that the master had retired into his own room with.

orders not to be disturbed on any account. But Dr. Monygham was not anxious to see Charles Gould at once.

He spent some time in a rapid examination of his wounded. He gazed down upon each in turn, rubbing his

chin between his thumb and forefinger; his steady stare met without expression their silently inquisitive look.

All these cases were doing well; but when he came to the dead Cargador he stopped a little longer, surveying

not the man who had ceased to suffer, but the woman kneeling in silent contemplation of the rigid face, with

its pinched nostrils and a white gleam in the imperfectly closed eyes. She lifted her head slowly, and said in a

"It is not long since he had become a Cargadoronly a few weeks. His worship the Capataz had accepted

Directing his course upstairs towards the door of Charles Gould's room, the doctor at the last moment

hesitated; then, turning away from the handle with a shrug of his uneven shoulders, slunk off hastily along the

Leonardo told him that the senora had not risen yet. The senora had given into her charge the girls belonging

to that Italian posadero. She, Leonarda, had put them to bed in her own room. The fair girl had cried herself

to sleep, but the dark onethe biggerhad not closed her eyes yet. She sat up in bed clutching the sheets

right up under her chin and staring before her like a little witch. Leonarda did not approve of the Viola

children being admitted to the house. She made this feeling clear by the indifferent tone in which she inquired

whether their mother was dead yet. As to the senora, she must be asleep. Ever since she had gone into her

room after seeing the departure of Dona Antonia with her dying father, there had been no sound behind her

The doctor, rousing himself out of profound reflection, told her abruptly to call her mistress at once. He

hobbled off to wait for Mrs. Gould in the sala. He was very tired, but too excited to sit down. In this great

drawingroom, now empty, in which his withered soul had been refreshed after many arid years and his

outcast spirit had accepted silently the toleration of many sideglances, he wandered haphazard amongst the

chairs and tables till Mrs. Gould, enveloped in a morning wrapper, came in rapidly.

"You know that I never approved of the silver being sent away," the doctor began at once, as a preliminary to

the narrative of his night's adventures in association with Captain Mitchell, the engineerinchief, and old

Viola, at Sotillo's headquarters. To the doctor, with his special conception of this political crisis, the removal

of the silver had seemed an irrational and illomened measure. It was as if a general were sending the best

part of his troops away on the eve of battle upon some recondite pretext. The whole lot of ingots might have

been concealed somewhere where they could have been got at for the purpose of staving off the dangers

which were menacing the security of the Gould Concession. The Administrador had acted as if the immense

and powerful prosperity of the mine had been founded on methods of probity, on the sense of usefulness. And

it was nothing of the kind. The method followed had been the only one possible. The Gould Concession had

ransomed its way through all those years. It was a nauseous process. He quite understood that Charles Gould

had got sick of it and had left the old path to back up that hopeless attempt at reform. The doctor did not

believe in the reform of Costaguana. And now the mine was back again in its old path, with the disadvantage

that henceforth it had to deal not only with the greed provoked by its wealth, but with the resentment

awakened by the attempt to free itself from its bondage to moral corruption. That was the penalty of failure.

What made him uneasy was that Charles Gould seemed to him to have weakened at the decisive moment

when a frank return to the old methods was the only chance. Listening to Decoud's wild scheme had been a

The doctor flung up his arms, exclaiming, "Decoud! Decoud!" He hobbled about the room with slight, angry

laughs. Many years ago both his ankles had been seriously damaged in the course of a certain investigation

conducted in the castle of Sta. Marta by a commission composed of military men. Their nomination had been

signified to them unexpectedly at the dead of night, with scowling brow, flashing eyes, and in a tempestuous

voice, by Guzman Bento. The old tyrant, maddened by one of his sudden accesses of suspicion, mingled

spluttering appeals to their fidelity with imprecations and horrible menaces. The cells and casements of the

castle on the hill had been already filled with prisoners. The commission was charged now with the task of

discovering the iniquitous conspiracy against the CitizenSaviour of his country.

Their dread of the raving tyrant translated itself into a hasty ferocity of procedure. The CitizenSaviour was

not accustomed to wait. A conspiracy had to be discovered. The courtyards of the castle resounded with the

clanking of legirons, sounds of blows, yells of pain; and the commission of high officers laboured

feverishly, concealing their distress and apprehensions from each other, and especially from their secretary,

Father Beron, an army chaplain, at that time very much in the confidence of the CitizenSaviour. That priest

was a big roundshouldered man, with an uncleanlooking, overgrown tonsure on the top of his flat head, of

a dingy, yellow complexion, softly fat, with greasy stains all down the front of his lieutenant's uniform, and a

small cross embroidered in white cotton on his left breast. He had a heavy nose and a pendant lip. Dr.

Monygham remembered him still. He remembered him against all the force of his will striving its utmost to

forget. Father Beron had been adjoined to the commission by Guzman Bento expressly for the purpose that

his enlightened zeal should assist them in their labours. Dr. Monygham could by no manner of means forget

the zeal of Father Beron, or his face, or the pitiless, monotonous voice in which he pronounced the words,

This memory did not make him shudder, but it had made of him what he was in the eyes of respectable

people, a man careless of common decencies, something between a clever vagabond and a disreputable

doctor. But not all respectable people would have had the necessary delicacy of sentiment to understand with

what trouble of mind and accuracy of vision Dr. Monygham, medical officer of the San Tome mine,

remembered Father Beron, army chaplain, and once a secretary of a military commission. After all these

years Dr. Monygham, in his rooms at the end of the hospital building in the San Tome gorge, remembered

Father Beron as distinctly as ever. He remembered that priest at night, sometimes, in his sleep. On such

nights the doctor waited for daylight with a candle lighted, and walking the whole length of his rooms to and

fro, staring down at his bare feet, his arms hugging his sides tightly. He would dream of Father Beron sitting

at the end of a long black table, behind which, in a row, appeared the heads, shoulders, and epaulettes of the

military members, nibbling the feather of a quill pen, and listening with weary and impatient scorn to the

protestations of some prisoner calling heaven to witness of his innocence, till he burst out, "What's the use of

wasting time over that miserable nonsense! Let me take him outside for a while." And Father Beron would go

outside after the clanking prisoner, led away between two soldiers. Such interludes happened on many days,

many times, with many prisoners. When the prisoner returned he was ready to make a full confession, Father

Beron would declare, leaning forward with that dull, surfeited look which can be seen in the eyes of

The priest's inquisitorial instincts suffered but little from the want of classical apparatus of the Inquisition At

no time of the world's history have men been at a loss how to inflict mental and bodily anguish upon their

fellowcreatures. This aptitude came to them in the growing complexity of their passions and the early

refinement of their ingenuity. But it may safely be said that primeval man did not go to the trouble of

inventing tortures. He was indolent and pure of heart. He brained his neighbour ferociously with a stone axe

from necessity and without malice. The stupidest mind may invent a rankling phrase or brand the innocent

with a cruel aspersion. A piece of string and a ramrod; a few muskets in combination with a length of hide

rope; or even a simple mallet of heavy, hard wood applied with a swing to human fingers or to the joints of a

human body is enough for the infliction of the most exquisite torture. The doctor had been a very stubborn

prisoner, and, as a natural consequence of that "bad disposition" (so Father Beron called it), his subjugation

had been very crushing and very complete. That is why the limp in his walk, the twist of his shoulders, the

scars on his cheeks were so pronounced. His confessions, when they came at last, were very complete, too.

Sometimes on the nights when he walked the floor, he wondered, grinding his teeth with shame and rage, at

the fertility of his imagination when stimulated by a sort of pain which makes truth, honour, selfrespect, and

And he could not forget Father Beron with his monotonous phrase, "Will you confess now?" reaching him in

an awful iteration and lucidity of meaning through the delirious incoherence of unbearable pain. He could not

forget. But that was not the worst. Had he met Father Beron in the street after all these years Dr. Monygham

was sure he would have quailed before him. This contingency was not to be feared now. Father Beron was

dead; but the sickening certitude prevented Dr. Monygham from looking anybody in the face.

Dr. Monygham. had become, in a manner, the slave of a ghost. It was obviously impossible to take his

knowledge of Father Beron home to Europe. When making his extorted confessions to the Military Board,

Dr. Monygham was not seeking to avoid death. He longed for it. Sitting halfnaked for hours on the wet

earth of his prison, and so motionless that the spiders, his companions, attached their webs to his matted hair,

he consoled the misery of his soul with acute reasonings that he had confessed to crimes enough for a

sentence of deaththat they had gone too far with him to let him live to tell the tale.

But, as if by a refinement of cruelty, Dr. Monygham was left for months to decay slowly in the darkness of

his gravelike prison. It was no doubt hoped that it would finish him off without the trouble of an execution;

but Dr. Monygham had an iron constitution. It was Guzman Bento who died, not by the knife thrust of a

conspirator, but from a stroke of apoplexy, and Dr. Monygham was liberated hastily. His fetters were struck

off by the light of a candle, which, after months of gloom, hurt his eyes so much that he had to cover his face

with his hands. He was raised up. His heart was beating violently with the fear of this liberty. When he tried

to walk the extraordinary lightness of his feet made him giddy, and he fell down. Two sticks were thrust into

his hands, and he was pushed out of the passage. It was dusk; candles glimmered already in the windows of

the officers' quarters round the courtyard; but the twilight sky dazed him by its enormous and overwhelming

brilliance. A thin poncho hung over his naked, bony shoulders; the rags of his trousers came down no lower

than his knees; an eighteen months' growth of hair fell in dirty grey locks on each side of his sharp

cheekbones. As he dragged himself past the guardroom door, one of the soldiers, lolling outside, moved by

some obscure impulse, leaped forward with a strange laugh and rammed a broken old straw hat on his head.

And Dr. Monygham, after having tottered, continued on his way. He advanced one stick, then one maimed

foot, then the other stick; the other foot followed only a very short distance along the ground, toilfully, as

though it were almost too heavy to be moved at all; and yet his legs under the hanging angles of the poncho

appeared no thicker than the two sticks in his hands. A ceaseless trembling agitated his bent body, all his

wasted limbs, his bony head, the conical, ragged crown of the sombrero, whose ample flat rim rested on his

In such conditions of manner and attire did Dr. Monygham go forth to take possession of his liberty. And

these conditions seemed to bind him indissolubly to the land of Costaguana like an awful procedure of

naturalization, involving him deep in the national life, far deeper than any amount of success and honour

could have done. They did away with his Europeanism; for Dr. Monygham had made himself an ideal

conception of his disgrace. It was a conception eminently fit and proper for an officer and a gentleman. Dr.

Monygham, before he went out to Costaguana, had been surgeon in one of Her Majesty's regiments of foot. It

was a conception which took no account of physiological facts or reasonable arguments; but it was not stupid

for all that. It was simple. A rule of conduct resting mainly on severe rejections is necessarily simple. Dr.

Monygham's view of what it behoved him to do was severe; it was an ideal view, in so much that it was the

imaginative exaggeration of a correct feeling. It was also, in its force, influence, and persistency, the view of

There was a great fund of loyalty in Dr. Monygham's nature. He had settled it all on Mrs. Gould's head. He

believed her worthy of every devotion. At the bottom of his heart he felt an angry uneasiness before the

prosperity of the San Tome mine, because its growth was robbing her of all peace of mind. Costaguana was

no place for a woman of that kind. What could Charles Gould have been thinking of when he brought her out

there! It was outrageous! And the doctor had watched the course of events with a grim and distant reserve

Loyalty to Mrs. Gould could not, however, leave out of account the safety of her husband. The doctor had

contrived to be in town at the critical time because he mistrusted Charles Gould. He considered him

hopelessly infected with the madness of revolutions. That is why he hobbled in distress in the drawingroom

of the Casa Gould on that morning, exclaiming, "Decoud, Decoud!" in a tone of mournful irritation.

Mrs. Gould, her colour heightened, and with glistening eyes, looked straight before her at the sudden

enormity of that disaster. The fingertips on one hand rested lightly on a low little table by her side, and the

arm trembled right up to the shoulder. The sun, which looks late upon Sulaco, issuing in all the fulness of its

power high up on the sky from behind the dazzling snowedge of Higuerota, had precipitated the delicate,

smooth, pearly greyness of light, in which the town lies steeped during the early hours, into sharpcut masses

of black shade and spaces of hot, blinding glare. Three long rectangles of sunshine fell through the windows

of the sala; while just across the street the front of the Avellanos's house appeared very sombre in its own

It was Charles Gould. They had not heard him coming along the corredor. His glance just glided over his wife

Dr. Monygham blurted it all out at once, in the rough. For some time after he had done, the Administrador of

the San Tome mine remained looking at him without a word. Mrs. Gould sank into a low chair with her hands

lying on her lap. A silence reigned between those three motionless persons. Then Charles Gould spoke

He stood aside to let his wife pass first. She caught up her husband's hand and pressed it as she went out,

raising her handkerchief to her eyes. The sight of her husband had brought Antonia's position to her mind,

and she could not contain her tears at the thought of the poor girl. When she rejoined the two men in the

diningroom after having bathed her face, Charles Gould was saying to the doctor across the table

"No, I don't see myself how we could question that wretched Hirsch's tale. It's only too true, I fear."

She sat down desolately at the head of the table and looked from one to the other. The two men, without

absolutely turning their heads away, tried to avoid her glance. The doctor even made a show of being hungry;

he seized his knife and fork, and began to eat with emphasis, as if on the stage. Charles Gould made no

pretence of the sort; with his elbows raised squarely, he twisted both ends of his flaming moustachesthey

"I am not surprised," he muttered, abandoning his moustaches and throwing one arm over the back of his

chair. His face was calm with that immobility of expression which betrays the intensity of a mental struggle.

He felt that this accident had brought to a point all the consequences involved in his line of conduct, with its

conscious and subconscious intentions. There must be an end now of this silent reserve, of that air of

impenetrability behind which he had been safeguarding his dignity. It was the least ignoble form of

dissembling forced upon him by that parody of civilized institutions which offended his intelligence, his

uprightness, and his sense of right. He was like his father. He had no ironic eye. He was not amused at the

absurdities that prevail in this world. They hurt him in his innate gravity. He felt that the miserable death of

that poor Decoud took from him his inaccessible position of a force in the background. It committed him

openly unless he wished to throw up the gameand that was impossible. The material interests required

from him the sacrifice of his aloofnessperhaps his own safety too. And he reflected that Decoud's

The only thing that was not changed was his position towards Mr. Holroyd. The head of silver and steel

interests had entered into Costaguana affairs with a sort of passion. Costaguana had become necessary to his

existence; in the San Tome mine he had found the imaginative satisfaction which other minds would get from

drama, from art, or from a risky and fascinating sport. It was a special form of the great man's extravagance,

sanctioned by a moral intention, big enough to flatter his vanity. Even in this aberration of his genius he

served the progress of the world. Charles Gould felt sure of being understood with precision and judged with

the indulgence of their common passion. Nothing now could surprise or startle this great man. And Charles

Gould imagined himself writing a letter to San Francisco in some such words: ". . . . The men at the head of

the movement are dead or have fled; the civil organization of the province is at an end for the present; the

Blanco party in Sulaco has collapsed inexcusably, but in the characteristic manner of this country. But

Barrios, untouched in Cayta, remains still available. I am forced to take up openly the plan of a provincial

revolution as the only way of placing the enormous material interests involved in the prosperity and peace of

Sulaco in a position of permanent safety. . . ." That was clear. He saw these words as if written in letters of

Mrs Gould watched his abstraction with dread. It was a domestic and frightful phenomenon that darkened and

chilled the house for her like a thundercloud passing over the sun. Charles Gould's fits of abstraction depicted

the energetic concentration of a will haunted by a fixed idea. A man haunted by a fixed idea is insane. He is

dangerous even if that idea is an idea of justice; for may he not bring the heaven down pitilessly upon a loved

head? The eyes of Mrs. Gould, watching her husband's profile, filled with tears again. And again she seemed

"What would I have done if Charley had been drowned while we were engaged?" she exclaimed, mentally,

with horror. Her heart turned to ice, while her cheeks flamed up as if scorched by the blaze of a funeral pyre

This cry fell into the silence of the room with strangely little effect. Only the doctor, crumbling up a piece of

bread, with his head inclined on one side, raised his face, and the few long hairs sticking out of his shaggy

eyebrows stirred in a slight frown. Dr. Monygham thought quite sincerely that Decoud was a singularly

unworthy object for any woman's affection. Then he lowered his head again, with a curl of his lip, and his

"She thinks of that girl," he said to himself; "she thinks of the Viola children; she thinks of me; of the

wounded; of the miners; she always thinks of everybody who is poor and miserable! But what will she do if

Charles gets the worst of it in this infernal scrimmage those confounded Avellanos have drawn him into? No

"I shall write to Holroyd that the San Tome mine is big enough to take in hand the making of a new State. It'll

But was Barrios really available? Perhaps. But he was inaccessible. To send off a boat to Cayta was no longer

possible, since Sotillo was master of the harbour, and had a steamer at his disposal. And now, with all the

democrats in the province up, and every Campo township in a state of disturbance, where could he find a man

who would make his way successfully overland to Cayta with a message, a ten days' ride at least; a man of

courage and resolution, who would avoid arrest or murder, and if arrested would faithfully eat the paper? The

Capataz de Cargadores would have been just such a man. But the Capataz of the Cargadores was no more.

And Charles Gould, withdrawing his eyes from the wall, said gently, "That Hirsch! What an extraordinary

thing! Saved himself by clinging to the anchor, did he? I had no idea that he was still in Sulaco. I thought he

had gone back overland to Esmeralda more than a week ago. He came here once to talk to me about his hide

business and some other things. I made it clear to him that nothing could be done."

"He was afraid to start back on account of Hernandez being about," remarked the doctor.

"And but for him we might not have known anything of what has happened," marvelled Charles Gould.

"Nobody's likely to carry the news," remarked the doctor. "It's no one's interest. Moreover, the people here

are afraid of Hernandez as if he were the devil." He turned to Charles Gould. "It's even awkward, because if

you wanted to communicate with the refugees you could find no messenger. When Hernandez was ranging

hundreds of miles away from here the Sulaco populace used to shudder at the tales of him roasting his

"Yes," murmured Charles Gould; "Captain Mitchell's Capataz was the only man in the town who had seen

Hernandez eye to eye. Father Corbelan employed him. He opened the communications first. It is a pity

His voice was covered by the booming of the great bell of the cathedral. Three single strokes, one after

another, burst out explosively, dying away in deep and mellow vibrations. And then all the bells in the tower

of every church, convent, or chapel in town, even those that had remained shut up for years, pealed out

together with a crash. In this furious flood of metallic uproar there was a power of suggesting images of strife

and violence which blanched Mrs. Gould's cheek. Basilio, who had been waiting at table, shrinking within

himself, clung to the sideboard with chattering teeth. It was impossible to hear yourself speak.

"Shut these windows!" Charles Gould yelled at him, angrily. All the other servants, terrified at what they took

for the signal of a general massacre, had rushed upstairs, tumbling over each other, men and women, the

obscure and generally invisible population of the ground floor on the four sides of the patio. The women,

screaming "Misericordia!" ran right into the room, and, falling on their knees against the walls, began to cross

themselves convulsively. The staring heads of men blocked the doorway in an instantmozos from the

stable, gardeners, nondescript helpers living on the crumbs of the munificent houseand Charles Gould

beheld all the extent of his domestic establishment, even to the gatekeeper. This was a halfparalyzed old

man, whose long white locks fell down to his shoulders: an heirloom taken up by Charles Gould's familial

piety. He could remember Henry Gould, an Englishman and a Costaguanero of the second generation, chief

of the Sulaco province; he had been his personal mozo years and years ago in peace and war; had been

allowed to attend his master in prison; had, on the fatal morning, followed the firing squad; and, peeping

from behind one of the cypresses growing along the wall of the Franciscan Convent, had seen, with his eyes

starting out of his head, Don Enrique throw up his hands and fall with his face in the dust. Charles Gould

noted particularly the big patriarchal head of that witness in the rear of the other servants. But he was

surprised to see a shrivelled old hag or two, of whose existence within the walls of his house he had not been

aware. They must have been the mothers, or even the grandmothers of some of his people. There were a few

children, too, more or less naked, crying and clinging to the legs of their elders. He had never before noticed

any sign of a child in his patio. Even Leonarda, the camerista, came in a fright, pushing through, with her

spoiled, pouting face of a favourite maid, leading the Viola girls by the hand. The crockery rattled on table

and sideboard, and the whole house seemed to sway in the deafening wave of sound.

DURING the night the expectant populace had taken possession of all the belfries in the town in order to

welcome Pedrito Montero, who was making his entry after having slept the night in Rincon. And first came

straggling in through the land gate the armed mob of all colours, complexions, types, and states of

raggedness, calling themselves the Sulaco National Guard, and commanded by Senor Gamacho. Through the

middle of the street streamed, like a torrent of rubbish, a mass of straw hats, ponchos, gunbarrels, with an

enormous green and yellow flag flapping in their midst, in a cloud of dust, to the furious beating of drums.

The spectators recoiled against the walls of the houses shouting their Vivas! Behind the rabble could be seen

the lances of the cavalry, the "army" of Pedro Montero. He advanced between Senores Fuentes and Gamacho

at the head of his llaneros, who had accomplished the feat of crossing the Paramos of the Higuerota in a

snowstorm. They rode four abreast, mounted on confiscated Campo horses, clad in the heterogeneous stock

of roadside stores they had looted hurriedly in their rapid ride through the northern part of the province; for

Pedro Montero had been in a great hurry to occupy Sulaco. The handkerchiefs knotted loosely around their

bare throats were glaringly new, and all the right sleeves of their cotton shirts had been cut off close to the

shoulder for greater freedom in throwing the lazo. Emaciated greybeards rode by the side of lean dark youths,

marked by all the hardships of campaigning, with strips of raw beef twined round the crowns of their hats,

and huge iron spurs fastened to their naked heels. Those that in the passes of the mountain had lost their

lances had provided themselves with the goads used by the Campo cattlemen: slender shafts of palm fully ten

feet long, with a lot of loose rings jingling under the ironshod point. They were armed with knives and

revolvers. A haggard fearlessness characterized the expression of all these sunblacked countenances; they

glared down haughtily with their scorched eyes at the crowd, or, blinking upwards insolently, pointed out to

each other some particular head amongst the women at the windows. When they had ridden into the Plaza

and caught sight of the equestrian statue of the King dazzlingly white in the sunshine, towering enormous and

motionless above the surges of the crowd, with its eternal gesture of saluting, a murmur of surprise ran

through their ranks. "What is that saint in the big hat?" they asked each other.

They were a good sample of the cavalry of the plains with which Pedro Montero had helped so much the

victorious career of his brother the general. The influence which that man, brought up in coast towns,

acquired in a short time over the plainsmen of the Republic can be ascribed only to a genius for treachery of

so effective a kind that it must have appeared to those violent men but little removed from a state of utter

savagery, as the perfection of sagacity and virtue. The popular lore of all nations testifies that duplicity and

cunning, together with bodily strength, were looked upon, even more than courage, as heroic virtues by

primitive mankind. To overcome your adversary was the great affair of life. Courage was taken for granted.

But the use of intelligence awakened wonder and respect. Stratagems, providing they did not fail, were

honourable; the easy massacre of an unsuspecting enemy evoked no feelings but those of gladness, pride, and

admiration. Not perhaps that primitive men were more faithless than their descendants of today, but that

they went straighter to their aim, and were more artless in their recognition of success as the only standard of

We have changed since. The use of intelligence awakens little wonder and less respect. But the ignorant and

barbarous plainsmen engaging in civil strife followed willingly a leader who often managed to deliver their

enemies bound, as it were, into their hands. Pedro Montero had a talent for lulling his adversaries into a sense

of security. And as men learn wisdom with extreme slowness, and are always ready to believe promises that

flatter their secret hopes, Pedro Montero was successful time after time. Whether only a servant or some

inferior official in the Costaguana Legation in Paris, he had rushed back to his country directly he heard that

his brother had emerged from the obscurity of his frontier commandancia. He had managed to deceive by his

gift of plausibility the chiefs of the Ribierist movement in the capital, and even the acute agent of the San

Tome mine had failed to understand him thoroughly. At once he had obtained an enormous influence over his

brother. They were very much alike in appearance, both bald, with bunches of crisp hair above their ears,

arguing the presence of some negro blood. Only Pedro was smaller than the general, more delicate altogether,

with an apelike faculty for imitating all the outward signs of refinement and distinction, and with a

parrotlike talent for languages. Both brothers had received some elementary instruction by the munificence

of a great European traveller, to whom their father had been a bodyservant during his journeys in the

interior of the country. In General Montero's case it enabled him to rise from the ranks. Pedrito, the younger,

incorrigibly lazy and slovenly, had drifted aimlessly from one coast town to another, hanging about

countinghouses, attaching himself to strangers as a sort of valetdeplace, picking up an easy and

disreputable living. His ability to read did nothing for him but fill his head with absurd visions. His actions

were usually determined by motives so improbable in themselves as to escape the penetration of a rational

Thus at first sight the agent of the Gould Concession in Sta. Marta had credited him with the possession of

sane views, and even with a restraining power over the general's everlastingly discontented vanity. It could

never have entered his head that Pedrito Montero, lackey or inferior scribe, lodged in the garrets of the

various Parisian hotels where the Costaguana Legation used to shelter its diplomatic dignity, had been

devouring the lighter sort of historical works in the French language, such, for instance as the books of Imbert

de Saint Amand upon the Second Empire. But Pedrito had been struck by the splendour of a brilliant court,

and had conceived the idea of an existence for himself where, like the Duc de Morny, he would associate the

command of every pleasure with the conduct of political affairs and enjoy power supremely in every way.

Nobody could have guessed that. And yet this was one of the immediate causes of the Monterist Revolution.

This will appear less incredible by the reflection that the fundamental causes were the same as ever, rooted in

the political immaturity of the people, in the indolence of the upper classes and the mental darkness of the

Pedrito Montero saw in the elevation of his brother the road wide open to his wildest imaginings. This was

what made the Monterist pronunciamiento so unpreventable. The general himself probably could have been

bought off, pacified with flatteries, despatched on a diplomatic mission to Europe. It was his brother who had

egged him on from first to last. He wanted to become the most brilliant statesman of South America. He did

not desire supreme power. He would have been afraid of its labour and risk, in fact. Before all, Pedrito

Montero, taught by his European experience, meant to acquire a serious fortune for himself. With this object

in view he obtained from his brother, on the very morrow of the successful battle, the permission to push on

over the mountains and take possession of Sulaco. Sulaco was the land of future prosperity, the chosen land

of material progress, the only province in the Republic of interest to European capitalists. Pedrito Montero,

following the example of the Duc de Morny, meant to have his share of this prosperity. This is what he meant

literally. Now his brother was master of the country, whether as President, Dictator, or even as

Emperorwhy not as an Emperor?he meant to demand a share in every enterprisein railways, in mines,

in sugar estates, in cotton mills, in land companies, in each and every undertakingas the price of his

protection. The desire to be on the spot early was the real cause of the celebrated ride over the mountains with

some two hundred llaneros, an enterprise of which the dangers had not appeared at first clearly to his

impatience. Coming from a series of victories, it seemed to him that a Montero had only to appear to be

master of the situation. This illusion had betrayed him into a rashness of which he was becoming aware. As

he rode at the head of his llaneros he regretted that there were so few of them. The enthusiasm of the

populace reassured him. They yelled "Viva Montero! Viva Pedrito!" In order to make them still more

enthusiastic, and from the natural pleasure he had in dissembling, he dropped the reins on his horse's neck,

and with a tremendous effect of familiarity and confidence slipped his hands under the arms of Senores

Fuentes and Gamacho. In that posture, with a ragged town mozo holding his horse by the bridle, he rode

triumphantly across the Plaza to the door of the Intendencia. Its old gloomy walls seemed to shake in the

acclamations that rent the air and covered the crashing peals of the cathedral bells.

Pedro Montero, the brother of the general, dismounted into a shouting and perspiring throng of enthusiasts

whom the ragged Nationals were pushing back fiercely. Ascending a few steps he surveyed the large crowd

gaping at him. and the bulletspeckled walls of the houses opposite lightly veiled by a sunny haze of dust.

The word "PORVENIR" in immense black capitals, alternating with broken windows, stared at him across

the vast space; and he thought with delight of the hour of vengeance, because he was very sure of laying his

hands upon Decoud. On his left hand, Gamacho, big and hot, wiping his hairy wet face, uncovered a set of

yellow fangs in a grin of stupid hilarity. On his right, Senor Fuentes, small and lean, looked on with

compressed lips. The crowd stared literally openmouthed, lost in eager stillness, as though they had

expected the great guerrillero, the famous Pedrito, to begin scattering at once some sort of visible largesse.

What he began was a speech. He began it with the shouted word "Citizens!" which reached even those in the

middle of the Plaza. Afterwards the greater part of the citizens remained fascinated by the orator's action

alone, his tiptoeing, the arms flung above his head with the fists clenched, a hand laid flat upon the heart,

the silver gleam of rolling eyes, the sweeping, pointing, embracing gestures, a hand laid familiarly on

Gamacho's shoulder; a hand waved formally towards the little blackcoated person of Senor Fuentes,

advocate and politician and a true friend of the people. The vivas of those nearest to the orator bursting out

suddenly propagated themselves irregularly to the confines of the crowd, like flames running over dry grass,

and expired in the opening of the streets. In the intervals, over the swarming Plaza brooded a heavy silence,

in which the mouth of the orator went on opening and shutting, and detached phrases"The happiness of the

people," "Sons of the country," "The entire world, el mundo entiero"reached even the packed steps of the

cathedral with a feeble clear ring, thin as the buzzing of a mosquito. But the orator struck his breast; he

seemed to prance between his two supporters. It was the supreme effort of his peroration. Then the two

smaller figures disappeared from the public gaze and the enormous Gamacho, left alone, advanced, raising

his hat high above his head. Then he covered himself proudly and yelled out, "Ciudadanos!" A dull roar

greeted Senor Gamacho, expedlar of the Campo, Commandante of the National Guards.

Upstairs Pedrito Montero walked about rapidly from one wrecked room of the Intendencia to another,

"It is all the work of Gamacho and his Nationals;" and then, inclining his head on his left shoulder, would

press together his lips so firmly that a little hollow would appear at each corner. He had his nomination for

Political Chief of the town in his pocket, and was all impatience to enter upon his functions.

In the long audience room, with its tall mirrors all starred by stones, the hangings torn down and the canopy

over the platform at the upper end pulled to pieces, the vast, deep muttering of the crowd and the howling

voice of Gamacho speaking just below reached them through the shutters as they stood idly in dimness and

"The brute!" observed his Excellency Don Pedro Montero through clenched teeth. "We must contrive as

quickly as possible to send him and his Nationals out there to fight Hernandez."

The new Gefe Politico only jerked his head sideways, and took a puff at his cigarette in sign of his agreement

Pedrito Montero looked with disgust at the absolutely bare floor, and at the belt of heavy gilt pictureframes

running round the room, out of which the remnants of torn and slashed canvases fluttered like dingy rags.

This was what said his Excellency, the popular Pedrito, the guerrillero skilled in the art of laying ambushes,

charged by his brother at his own demand with the organization of Sulaco on democratic principles. The

night before, during the consultation with his partisans, who had come out to meet him in Rincon, he had

"We shall organize a popular vote, by yes or no, confiding the destinies of our beloved country to the wisdom

and valiance of my heroic brother, the invincible general. A plebiscite. Do you understand?"

And Senor Fuentes, puffing out his leathery cheeks, had inclined his head slightly to the left, letting a thin,

His Excellency was exasperated at the devastation. Not a single chair, table, sofa, etagere or console had been

left in the state rooms of the Intendencia. His Excellency, though twitching all over with rage, was restrained

from bursting into violence by a sense of his remoteness and isolation. His heroic brother was very far away.

Meantime, how was he going to take his siesta? He had expected to find comfort and luxury in the

Intendencia after a year of hard camp life, ending with the hardships and privations of the daring dash upon

Sulacoupon the province which was worth more in wealth and influence than all the rest of the Republic's

territory. He would get even with Gamacho byandby. And Senor Gamacho's oration, delectable to popular

ears, went on in the heat and glare of the Plaza like the uncouth howlings of an inferior sort of devil cast into

a whitehot furnace. Every moment he had to wipe his streaming face with his bare forearm; he had flung

off his coat, and had turned up the sleeves of his shirt high above the elbows; but he kept on his head the

large cocked hat with white plumes. His ingenuousness cherished this sign of his rank as Commandante of

the National Guards. Approving and grave murmurs greeted his periods. His opinion was that war should be

declared at once against France, England, Germany, and the United States, who, by introducing railways,

mining enterprises, colonization, and under such other shallow pretences, aimed at robbing poor people of

their lands, and with the help of these Goths and paralytics, the aristocrats would convert them into toiling

and miserable slaves. And the leperos, flinging about the corners of their dirty white mantas, yelled their

approbation. General Montero, Gamacho howled with conviction, was the only man equal to the patriotic

The morning was wearing on; there were already signs of disruption, currents and eddies in the crowd. Some

were seeking the shade of the walls and under the trees of the Alameda. Horsemen spurred through, shouting;

groups of sombreros set level on heads against the vertical sun were drifting away into the streets, where the

open doors of pulperias revealed an enticing gloom resounding with the gentle tinkling of guitars. The

National Guards were thinking of siesta, and the eloquence of Gamacho, their chief, was exhausted. Later on,

when, in the cooler hours of the afternoon, they tried to assemble again for further consideration of public

affairs, detachments of Montero's cavalry camped on the Alameda charged them without parley, at speed,

with long lances levelled at their flying backs as far as the ends of the streets. The National Guards of Sulaco

were surprised by this proceeding. But they were not indignant. No Costaguanero had ever learned to

question the eccentricities of a military force. They were part of the natural order of things. This must be,

they concluded, some kind of administrative measure, no doubt. But the motive of it escaped their unaided

intelligence, and their chief and orator, Gamacho, Commandante of the National Guard, was lying drunk and

asleep in the bosom of his family. His bare feet were upturned in the shadows repulsively, in the manner of a

corpse. His eloquent mouth had dropped open. His youngest daughter, scratching her head with one hand,

THE declining sun had shifted the shadows from west to east amongst the houses of the town. It had shifted

them upon the whole extent of the immense Campo, with the white walls of its haciendas on the knolls

dominating the green distances; with its grassthatched ranches crouching in the folds of ground by the banks

of streams; with the dark islands of clustered trees on a clear sea of grass, and the precipitous range of the

Cordillera, immense and motionless, emerging from the billows of the lower forests like the barren coast of a

land of giants. The sunset rays striking the snowslope of Higuerota from afar gave it an air of rosy youth,

while the serrated mass of distant peaks remained black, as if calcined in the fiery radiance. The undulating

surface of the forests seemed powdered with pale gold dust; and away there, beyond Rincon, hidden from the

town by two wooded spurs, the rocks of the San Tome gorge, with the flat wall of the mountain itself

crowned by gigantic ferns, took on warm tones of brown and yellow, with red rusty streaks, and the dark

green clumps of bushes rooted in crevices. From the plain the stamp sheds and the houses of the mine

appeared dark and small, high up, like the nests of birds clustered on the ledges of a cliff. The zigzag paths

resembled faint tracings scratched on the wall of a cyclopean blockhouse. To the two serenos of the mine on

patrol duty, strolling, carbine in hand, and watchful eyes, in the shade of the trees lining the stream near the

bridge, Don Pepe, descending the path from the upper plateau, appeared no bigger than a large beetle.

With his air of aimless, insectlike going to and fro upon the face of the rock, Don Pepe's figure kept on

descending steadily, and, when near the bottom, sank at last behind the roofs of storehouses, forges, and

workshops. For a time the pair of serenos strolled back and forth before the bridge, on which they had

stopped a horseman holding a large white envelope in his hand. Then Don Pepe, emerging in the village

street from amongst the houses, not a stone's throw from the frontier bridge, approached, striding in wide

dark trousers tucked into boots, a white linen jacket, sabre at his side, and revolver at his belt. In this

disturbed time nothing could find the Senor Gobernador with his boots off, as the saying is.

At a slight nod from one of the serenos, the man, a messenger from the town, dismounted, and crossed the

Don Pepe received the letter from his other hand, slapped his left side and his hips in succession, feeling for

his spectacle case. After settling the heavy silvermounted affair astride his nose, and adjusting it carefully

behind his ears, he opened the envelope, holding it up at about a foot in front of his eyes. The paper he pulled

out contained some three lines of writing. He looked at them for a long time. His grey moustache moved

slightly up and down, and the wrinkles, radiating at the corners of his eyes, ran together. He nodded serenely.

Then, in his quiet, kindly way, he engaged in a cautious conversation with the man, who was willing to talk

cheerily, as if something lucky had happened to him recently. He had seen from a distance Sotillo's infantry

camped along the shore of the harbour on each side of the Custom House. They had done no damage to the

buildings. The foreigners of the railway remained shut up within the yards. They were no longer anxious to

shoot poor people. He cursed the foreigners; then he reported Montero's entry and the rumours of the town.

The poor were going to be made rich now. That was very good. More he did not know, and, breaking into

propitiatory smiles, he intimated that he was hungry and thirsty. The old major directed him to go to the

alcalde of the first village. The man rode off, and Don Pepe, striding slowly in the direction of a little wooden

belfry, looked over a hedge into a little garden, and saw Father Roman sitting in a white hammock slung

An enormous tamarind shaded with its dark foliage the whole white framehouse. A young Indian girl with

long hair, big eyes, and small hands and feet, carried out a wooden chair, while a thin old woman, crabbed

Don Pepe sat down in the chair and lighted a cigar; the priest drew in an immense quantity of snuff out of the

hollow of his palm. On his reddishbrown face, worn, hollowed as if crumbled, the eyes, fresh and candid,

Don Pepe, in a mild and humorous voice, informed Father Roman that Pedrito Montero, by the hand of Senor

Fuentes, had asked him on what terms he would surrender the mine in proper working order to a legally

constituted commission of patriotic citizens, escorted by a small military force. The priest cast his eyes up to

heaven. However, Don Pepe continued, the mozo who brought the letter said that Don Carlos Gould was

Father Roman expressed in a few words his thankfulness at hearing of the Senor Administrador's safety.

The hour of oration had gone by in the silvery ringing of a bell in the little belfry. The belt of forest closing

the entrance of the valley stood like a screen between the low sun and the street of the village. At the other

end of the rocky gorge, between the walls of basalt and granite, a forestclad mountain, hiding all the range

from the San Tome dwellers, rose steeply, lighted up and leafy to the very top. Three small rosy clouds hung

motionless overhead in the great depth of blue. Knots of people sat in the street between the wattled huts.

Before the casa of the alcalde, the foremen of the nightshift, already assembled to lead their men, squatted

on the ground in a circle of leather skullcaps, and, bowing their bronze backs, were passing round the gourd

of mate. The mozo from the town, having fastened his horse to a wooden post before the door, was telling

them the news of Sulaco as the blackened gourd of the decoction passed from hand to hand. The grave

alcalde himself, in a white waistcloth and a flowered chintz gown with sleeves, open wide upon his naked

stout person with an effect of a gaudy bathing robe, stood by, wearing a rough beaver hat at the back of his

head, and grasping a tall staff with a silver knob in his hand. These insignia of his dignity had been conferred

upon him by the Administration of the mine, the fountain of honour, of prosperity, and peace. He had been

one of the first immigrants into this valley; his sons and sonsinlaw worked within the mountain which

seemed with its treasures to pour down the thundering ore shoots of the upper mesa, the gifts of wellbeing,

security, and justice upon the toilers. He listened to the news from the town with curiosity and indifference,

as if concerning another world than his own. And it was true that they appeared to him so. In a very few years

the sense of belonging to a powerful organization had been developed in these harassed, halfwild Indians.

They were proud of, and attached to, the mine. It had secured their confidence and belief. They invested it

with a protecting and invincible virtue as though it were a fetish made by their own hands, for they were

ignorant, and in other respects did not differ appreciably from the rest of mankind which puts infinite trust in

its own creations. It never entered the alcalde's head that the mine could fail in its protection and force.

Politics were good enough for the people of the town and the Campo. His yellow, round face, with wide

nostrils, and motionless in expression, resembled a fierce full moon. He listened to the excited vapourings of

the mozo without misgivings, without surprise, without any active sentiment whatever.

Padre Roman sat dejectedly balancing himself, his feet just touching the ground, his hands gripping the edge

of the hammock. With less confidence, but as ignorant as his flock, he asked the major what did he think was

Don Pepe, bolt upright in the chair, folded his hands peacefully on the hilt of his sword, standing

perpendicular between his thighs, and answered that he did not know. The mine could be defended against

any force likely to be sent to take possession. On the other hand, from the arid character of the valley, when

the regular supplies from the Campo had been cut off, the population of the three villages could be starved

into submission. Don Pepe exposed these contingencies with serenity to Father Roman, who, as an old

campaigner, was able to understand the reasoning of a military man. They talked with simplicity and

directness. Father Roman was saddened at the idea of his flock being scattered or else enslaved. He had no

illusions as to their fate, not from penetration, but from long experience of political atrocities, which seemed

to him fatal and unavoidable in the life of a State. The working of the usual public institutions presented itself

to him most distinctly as a series of calamities overtaking private individuals and flowing logically from each

other through hate, revenge, folly, and rapacity, as though they had been part of a divine dispensation. Father

Roman's clearsightedness was served by an uninformed intelligence; but his heart, preserving its tenderness

amongst scenes of carnage, spoliation, and violence, abhorred these calamities the more as his association

with the victims was closer. He entertained towards the Indians of the valley feelings of paternal scorn. He

had been marrying, baptizing, confessing, absolving, and burying the workers of the San Tome mine with

dignity and unction for five years or more; and he believed in the sacredness of these ministrations, which

made them his own in a spiritual sense. They were dear to his sacerdotal supremacy. Mrs. Gould's earnest

interest in the concerns of these people enhanced their importance in the priest's eyes, because it really

augmented his own. When talking over with her the innumerable Marias and Brigidas of the villages, he felt

his own humanity expand. Padre Roman was incapable of fanaticism to an almost reprehensible degree. The

English senora was evidently a heretic; but at the same time she seemed to him wonderful and angelic.

Whenever that confused state of his feelings occurred to him, while strolling, for instance, his breviary under

his arm, in the wide shade of the tamarind, he would stop short to inhale with a strong snuffling noise a large

quantity of snuff, and shake his head profoundly. At the thought of what might befall the illustrious senora

presently, he became gradually overcome with dismay. He voiced it in an agitated murmur. Even Don Pepe

"Listen, Padre. The very fact that those thieving macaques in Sulaco are trying to find out the price of my

honour proves that Senor Don Carlos and all in the Casa Gould are safe. As to my honour, that also is safe, as

every man, woman, and child knows. But the negro Liberals who have snatched the town by surprise do not

And he regained his composure. He regained it easily, because whatever happened his honour of an old

officer of Paez was safe. He had promised Charles Gould that at the approach of an armed force he would

defend the gorge just long enough to give himself time to destroy scientifically the whole plant, buildings,

and workshops of the mine with heavy charges of dynamite; block with ruins the main tunnel, break down the

pathways, blow up the dam of the waterpower, shatter the famous Gould Concession into fragments, flying

sky high out of a horrified world. The mine had got hold of Charles Gould with a grip as deadly as ever it had

laid upon his father. But this extreme resolution had seemed to Don Pepe the most natural thing in the world.

His measures had been taken with judgment. Everything was prepared with a careful completeness. And Don

Pepe folded his hands pacifically on his sword hilt, and nodded at the priest. In his excitement, Father Roman

had flung snuff in handfuls at his face, and, all besmeared with tobacco, roundeyed, and beside himself, had

Don Pepe stroked his grey and pendant moustache, whose fine ends hung far below the cleancut line of his

"So, Padre, I don't know what will happen. But I know that as long as I am here Don Carlos can speak to that

macaque, Pedrito Montero, and threaten the destruction of the mine with perfect assurance that he will be

"But that is talkgood for the politicos. I am a military man. I do not know what may happen. But I know

what ought to be donethe mine should march upon the town with guns, axes, knives tied up to stickspor

His folded hands twitched on the hilt. The cigar turned faster in the corner of his lips.

"And who should lead but I? UnfortunatelyobserveI have given my word of honour to Don Carlos not

to let the mine fall into the hands of these thieves. In waryou know this, Padrethe fate of battles is

uncertain, and whom could I leave here to act for me in case of defeat? The explosives are ready. But it

would require a man of high honour, of intelligence, of judgment, of courage, to carry out the prepared

destruction. Somebody I can trust with my honour as I can trust myself. Another old officer of Paez, for

He got up, long, lank, upright, hard, with his martial moustache and the bony structure of his face, from

which the glance of the sunken eyes seemed to transfix the priest, who stood still, an empty wooden

snuffbox held upside down in his hand, and glared back, speechless, at the governor of the mine.

AT ABOUT that time, in the Intendencia of Sulaco, Charles Gould was assuring Pedrito Montero, who had

sent a request for his presence there, that he would never let the mine pass out of his hands for the profit of a

Government who had robbed him of it. The Gould Concession could not be resumed. His father had not

desired it. The son would never surrender it. He would never surrender it alive. And once dead, where was

the power capable of resuscitating such an enterprise in all its vigour and wealth out of the ashes and ruin of

destruction? There was no such power in the country. And where was the skill and capital abroad that would

condescend to touch such an illomened corpse? Charles Gould talked in the impassive tone which had for

many years served to conceal his anger and contempt. He suffered. He was disgusted with what he had to say.

It was too much like heroics. In him the strictly practical instinct was in profound discord with the almost

mystic view he took of his right. The Gould Concession was symbolic of abstract justice. Let the heavens

fall. But since the San Tome mine had developed into worldwide fame his threat had enough force and

effectiveness to reach the rudimentary intelligence of Pedro Montero, wrapped up as it was in the futilities of

historical anecdotes. The Gould Concession was a serious asset in the country's finance, and, what was more,

in the private budgets of many officials as well. It was traditional. It was known. It was said. It was credible.

Every Minister of Interior drew a salary from the San Tome mine. It was natural. And Pedrito intended to be

Minister of the Interior and President of the Council in his brother's Government. The Duc de Morny had

occupied those high posts during the Second French Empire with conspicuous advantage to himself.

A table, a chair, a wooden bedstead had been procured for His Excellency, who, after a short siesta, rendered

absolutely necessary by the labours and the pomps of his entry into Sulaco, had been getting hold of the

administrative machine by making appointments, giving orders, and signing proclamations. Alone with

Charles Gould in the audience room, His Excellency managed with his wellknown skill to conceal his

annoyance and consternation. He had begun at first to talk loftily of confiscation, but the want of all proper

feeling and mobility in the Senor Administrador's features ended by affecting adversely his power of

masterful expression. Charles Gould had repeated: "The Government can certainly bring about the

destruction of the San Tome mine if it likes; but without me it can do nothing else." It was an alarming

pronouncement, and well calculated to hurt the sensibilities of a politician whose mind is bent upon the spoils

of victory. And Charles Gould said also that the destruction of the San Tome mine would cause the ruin of

other undertakings, the withdrawal of European capital, the withholding, most probably, of the last instalment

of the foreign loan. That stony fiend of a man said all these things (which were accessible to His Excellency's

A long course of reading historical works, light and gossipy in tone, carried out in garrets of Parisian hotels,

sprawling on an untidy bed, to the neglect of his duties, menial or otherwise, had affected the manners of

Pedro Montero. Had he seen around him the splendour of the old Intendencia, the magnificent hangings, the

gilt furniture ranged along the walls; had he stood upon a dais on a noble square of red carpet, he would have

probably been very dangerous from a sense of success and elevation. But in this sacked and devastated

residence, with the three pieces of common furniture huddled up in the middle of the vast apartment, Pedrito's

imagination was subdued by a feeling of insecurity and impermanence. That feeling and the firm attitude of

Charles Gould who had not once, so far, pronounced the word "Excellency," diminished him in his own eyes.

He assumed the tone of an enlightened man of the world, and begged Charles Gould to dismiss from his mind

every cause for alarm. He was now conversing, he reminded him, with the brother of the master of the

country, charged with a reorganizing mission. The trusted brother of the master of the country, he repeated.

Nothing was further from the thoughts of that wise and patriotic hero than ideas of destruction. "I entreat you,

Don Carlos, not to give way to your antidemocratic prejudices," he cried, in a burst of condescending

Pedrito Montero surprised one at first sight by the vast development of his bald forehead, a shiny yellow

expanse between the crinkly coalblack tufts of hair without any lustre, the engaging form of his mouth, and

an unexpectedly cultivated voice. But his eyes, very glistening as if freshly painted on each side of his

hooked nose, had a round, hopeless, birdlike stare when opened fully. Now, however, he narrowed them

agreeably, throwing his square chin up and speaking with closed teeth slightly through the nose, with what he

In that attitude, he declared suddenly that the highest expression of democracy was Caesarism: the imperial

rule based upon the direct popular vote. Caesarism was conservative. It was strong. It recognized the

legitimate needs of democracy which requires orders, titles, and distinctions. They would be showered upon

deserving men. Caesarism was peace. It was progressive. It secured the prosperity of a country. Pedrito

Montero was carried away. Look at what the Second Empire had done for France. It was a regime which

delighted to honour men of Don Carlos's stamp. The Second Empire fell, but that was because its chief was

devoid of that military genius which had raised General Montero to the pinnacle of fame and glory. Pedrito

elevated his hand jerkily to help the idea of pinnacle, of fame. "We shall have many talks yet. We shall

understand each other thoroughly, Don Carlos!" he cried in a tone of fellowship. Republicanism had done its

work. Imperial democracy was the power of the future. Pedrito, the guerrillero, showing his hand, lowered his

voice forcibly. A man singled out by his fellowcitizens for the honourable nickname of El Rey de Sulaco

could not but receive a full recognition from an imperial democracy as a great captain of industry and a

person of weighty counsel, whose popular designation would be soon replaced by a more solid title. "Eh, Don

He ceased. The air was cool on the Plaza, where a patrol of cavalry rode round and round without penetrating

into the streets, which resounded with shouts and the strumming of guitars issuing from the open doors of

pulperias. The orders were not to interfere with the enjoyments of the people. And above the roofs, next to

the perpendicular lines of the cathedral towers the snowy curve of Higuerota blocked a large space of

darkening blue sky before the windows of the Intendencia. After a time Pedrito Montero, thrusting his hand

in the bosom of his coat, bowed his head with slow dignity. The audience was over.

Charles Gould on going out passed his hand over his forehead as if to disperse the mists of an oppressive

dream, whose grotesque extravagance leaves behind a subtle sense of bodily danger and intellectual decay. In

the passages and on the staircases of the old palace Montero's troopers lounged about insolently, smoking and

making way for no one; the clanking of sabres and spurs resounded all over the building. Three silent groups

of civilians in severe black waited in the main gallery, formal and helpless, a little huddled up, each keeping

apart from the others, as if in the exercise of a public duty they had been overcome by a desire to shun the

notice of every eye. These were the deputations waiting for their audience. The one from the Provincial

Assembly, more restless and uneasy in its corporate expression, was overtopped by the big face of Don Juste

Lopez, soft and white, with prominent eyelids and wreathed in impenetrable solemnity as if in a dense cloud.

The President of the Provincial Assembly, coming bravely to save the last shred of parliamentary institutions

(on the English model), averted his eyes from the Administrador of the San Tome mine as a dignified rebuke

The mournful severity of that reproof did not affect Charles Gould, but he was sensible to the glances of the

others directed upon him without reproach, as if only to read their own fate upon his face. All of them had

talked, shouted, and declaimed in the great sala of the Casa Gould. The feeling of compassion for those men,

struck with a strange impotence in the toils of moral degradation, did not induce him to make a sign. He

suffered from his fellowship in evil with them too much. He crossed the Plaza unmolested. The Amarilla

Club was full of festive ragamuffins. Their frowsy heads protruded from every window, and from within

came drunken shouts, the thumping of feet, and the twanging of harps. Broken bottles strewed the pavement

Dr. Monygham came away from the crack in the shutter through which he had been watching the street.

"Ah! You are back at last!" he said in a tone of relief. "I have been telling Mrs. Gould that you were perfectly

safe, but I was not by any means certain that the fellow would have let you go."

The silence of Charles Gould seemed to admit that this was the only course. This was as far as Charles Gould

"I hope you did not warn Montero of what you mean to do," the doctor said, anxiously.

"I tried to make him see that the existence of the mine was bound up with my personal safety," continued

Charles Gould, looking away from the doctor, and fixing his eyes upon the watercolour sketch upon the

"God knows!" said Charles Gould. "I owed it to my wife to say that much. He is well enough informed. He

knows that I have Don Pepe there. Fuentes must have told him. They know that the old major is perfectly

capable of blowing up the San Tome mine without hesitation or compunction. Had it not been for that I don't

think I'd have left the Intendencia a free man. He would blow everything up from loyalty and from

hatefrom hate of these Liberals, as they call themselves. Liberals! The words one knows so well have a

nightmarish meaning in this country. Liberty, democracy, patriotism, governmentall of them have a

flavour of folly and murder. Haven't they, doctor? . . . I alone can restrain Don Pepe. If they were toto do

"It is very possible," Charles Gould said very low, as if speaking to himself, and still gazing at the sketch of

the San Tome gorge upon the wall. "Yes, I expect they will try that." Charles Gould looked for the first time

"Exactly," said Dr. Monygham, suppressing his excitement. "Especially if Don Pepe behaves diplomatically.

Why shouldn't he give them some hope of success? Eh? Otherwise you wouldn't gain so much time. Couldn't

Charles Gould, looking at the doctor steadily, shook his head, but the doctor continued with a certain amount

"Yes, to enter into negotiations for the surrender of the mine. It is a good notion. You would mature your

plan. Of course, I don't ask what it is. I don't want to know. I would refuse to listen to you if you tried to tell

He disapproved of the doctor's sensitiveness about that faroff episode of his life. So much memory shocked

Charles Gould. It was like morbidness. And again he shook his head. He refused to tamper with the open

rectitude of Don Pepe's conduct, both from taste and from policy. Instructions would have to be either verbal

or in writing. In either case they ran the risk of being intercepted. It was by no means certain that a messenger

could reach the mine; and, besides, there was no one to send. It was on the tip of Charles's tongue to say that

only the late Capataz de Cargadores could have been employed with some chance of success and the certitude

of discretion. But he did not say that. He pointed out to the doctor that it would have been bad policy.

Directly Don Pepe let it be supposed that he could be bought over, the Administrador's personal safety and

the safety of his friends would become endangered. For there would be then no reason for moderation. The

incorruptibility of Don Pepe was the essential and restraining fact. The doctor hung his head and admitted

He couldn't deny to himself that the reasoning was sound enough. Don Pepe's usefulness consisted in his

unstained character. As to his own usefulness, he reflected bitterly it was also his own character. He declared

to Charles Gould that he had the means of keeping Sotillo from joining his forces with Montero, at least for

"If you had had all this silver here," the doctor said, "or even if it had been known to be at the mine, you

could have bribed Sotillo to throw off his recent Monterism. You could have induced him either to go away

"Certainly not that last," Charles Gould declared, firmly. "What could one do with a man like that,

afterwardstell me, doctor? The silver is gone, and I am glad of it. It would have been an immediate and

strong temptation. The scramble for that visible plunder would have precipitated a disastrous ending. I would

have had to defend it, too. I am glad we've removed iteven if it is lost. It would have been a danger and a

"Perhaps he is right," the doctor, an hour later, said hurriedly to Mrs. Gould, whom he met in the corridor.

"The thing is done, and the shadow of the treasure may do just as well as the substance. Let me try to serve

you to the whole extent of my evil reputation. I am off now to play my game of betrayal with Sotillo, and

She put out both her hands impulsively. "Dr. Monygham, you are running a terrible risk," she whispered,

averting from his face her eyes, full of tears, for a short glance at the door of her husband's room. She pressed

both his hands, and the doctor stood as if rooted to the spot, looking down at her, and trying to twist his lips

"Oh, I know you will defend my memory," he uttered at last, and ran tottering down the stairs across the

patio, and out of the house. In the street he kept up. a great pace with his smart hobbling walk, a case of

instruments under his arm. He was known for being loco. Nobody interfered with him. From under the

seaward gate, across the dusty, arid plain, interspersed with low bushes, he saw, more than a mile away, the

ugly enormity of the Custom House, and the two or three other buildings which at that time constituted the

seaport of Sulaco. Far away to the south groves of palm trees edged the curve of the harbour shore. The

distant peaks of the Cordillera had lost their identity of clearcut shapes in the steadily deepening blue of the

eastern sky. The doctor walked briskly. A darkling shadow seemed to fall upon him from the zenith. The sun

had set. For a time the snows of Higuerota continued to glow with the reflected glory of the west. The doctor,

holding a straight course for the Custom House, appeared lonely, hopping amongst the dark bushes like a tall

Tints of purple, gold, and crimson were mirrored in the clear water of the harbour. A long tongue of land,

straight as a wall, with the grassgrown ruins of the fort making a sort of rounded green mound, plainly

visible from the inner shore, closed its circuit; while beyond the Placid Gulf repeated those splendours of

colouring on a greater scale and with a more sombre magnificence. The great mass of cloud filling the head

of the gulf had long red smears amongst its convoluted folds of grey and black, as of a floating mantle stained

with blood. The three Isabels, overshadowed and clear cut in a great smoothness confounding the sea and

sky, appeared suspended, purpleblack, in the air. The little wavelets seemed to be tossing tiny red sparks

upon the sandy beaches. The glassy bands of water along the horizon gave out a fiery red glow, as if fire and

At last the conflagration of sea and sky, lying embraced and still in a flaming contact upon the edge of the

world, went out. The red sparks in the water vanished together with the stains of blood in the black mantle

draping the sombre head of the Placid Gulf; a sudden breeze sprang up and died out after rustling heavily the

growth of bushes on the ruined earthwork of the fort. Nostromo woke up from a fourteen hours' sleep, and

arose full length from his lair in the long grass. He stood knee deep amongst the whispering undulations of

the green blades with the lost air of a man just born into the world. Handsome, robust, and supple, he threw

back his head, flung his arms open, and stretched himself with a slow twist of the waist and a leisurely

growling yawn of white teeth, as natural and free from evil in the moment of waking as a magnificent and

unconscious wild beast. Then, in the suddenly steadied glance fixed upon nothing from under a thoughtful

AFTER landing from his swim Nostromo had scrambled up, all dripping, into the main quadrangle of the old

fort; and there, amongst ruined bits of walls and rotting remnants of roofs and sheds, he had slept the day

through. He had slept in the shadow of the mountains, in the white blaze of noon, in the stillness and solitude

of that overgrown piece of land between the oval of the harbour and the spacious semicircle of the gulf. He

lay as if dead. A reyzamuro, appearing like a tiny black speck in the blue, stooped, circling prudently with a

stealthiness of flight startling in a bird of that great size. The shadow of his pearlywhite body, of his

blacktipped wings, fell on the grass no more silently than he alighted himself on a hillock of rubbish within

three yards of that man, lying as still as a corpse. The bird stretched his bare neck, craned his bald head,

loathsome in the brilliance of varied colouring, with an air of voracious anxiety towards the promising

stillness of that prostrate body. Then, sinking his head deeply into his soft plumage, he settled himself to wait.

The first thing upon which Nostromo's eyes fell on waking was this patient watcher for the signs of death and

corruption. When the man got up the vulture hopped away in great, sidelong, fluttering jumps. He lingered

for a while, morose and reluctant, before he rose, circling noiselessly with a sinister droop of beak and claws.

Long after he had vanished, Nostromo, lifting his eyes up to the sky, muttered, "I am not dead yet."

The Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores had lived in splendour and publicity up to the very moment, as it were,

The last act he had performed in Sulaco was in complete harmony with his vanity, and as such perfectly

genuine. He had given his last dollar to an old woman moaning with the grief and fatigue of a dismal search

under the arch of the ancient gate. Performed in obscurity and without witnesses, it had still the

characteristics of splendour and publicity, and was in strict keeping with his reputation. But this awakening in

solitude, except for the watchful vulture, amongst the ruins of the fort, had no such characteristics. His first

confused feeling was exactly thisthat it was not in keeping. It was more like the end of things. The

necessity of living concealed somehow, for God knows how long, which assailed him on his return to

consciousness, made everything that had gone before for years appear vain and foolish, like a flattering

He climbed the crumbling slope of the rampart, and, putting aside the bushes, looked upon the harbour. He

saw a couple of ships at anchor upon the sheet of water reflecting the last gleams of light, and Sotillo's

steamer moored to the jetty. And behind the pale long front of the Custom House, there appeared the extent

of the town like a grove of thick timber on the plain with a gateway in front, and the cupolas, towers, and

miradors rising above the trees, all dark, as if surrendered already to the night. The thought that it was no

longer open to him to ride through the streets, recognized by everyone, great and little, as he used to do every

evening on his way to play monte in the posada of the Mexican Domingo; or to sit in the place of honour,

listening to songs and looking at dances, made it appear to him as a town that had no existence.

For a long time he gazed on, then let the parted bushes spring back, and, crossing over to the other side of the

fort, surveyed the vaster emptiness of the great gulf. The Isabels stood out heavily upon the narrowing long

band of red in the west, which gleamed low between their black shapes, and the Capataz thought of Decoud

alone there with the treasure. That man was the only one who cared whether he fell into the hands of the

Monterists or not, the Capataz reflected bitterly. And that merely would be an anxiety for his own sake. As to

the rest, they neither knew nor cared. What he had heard Giorgio Viola say once was very true. Kings,

ministers, aristocrats, the rich in general, kept the people in poverty and subjection; they kept them as they

The darkness of the sky had descended to the line of the horizon, enveloping the whole gulf, the islets, and

the lover of Antonia alone with the treasure on the Great Isabel. The Capataz, turning his back on these things

invisible and existing, sat down and took his face between his fists. He felt the pinch of poverty for the first

time in his life. To find himself without money after a run of bad luck at monte in the low, smoky room of

Domingo's posada, where the fraternity of Cargadores gambled, sang, and danced of an evening; to remain

with empty pockets after a burst of public generosity to some peyne d'oro girl or other (for whom he did not

care), had none of the humiliation of destitution. He remained rich in glory and reputation. But since it was

no longer possible for him to parade the streets of the town, and be hailed with respect in the usual haunts of

His mouth was dry. It was dry with heavy sleep and extremely anxious thinking, as it had never been dry

before. It may be said that Nostromo tasted the dust and ashes of the fruit of life into which he had bitten

deeply in his hunger for praise. Without removing his head from between his fists, he tried to spit before

Since everything seemed lost in Sulaco (and that was the feeling of his waking), the idea of leaving the

country altogether had presented itself to Nostromo. At that thought he had seen, like the beginning of

another dream, a vision of steep and tideless shores, with dark pines on the heights and white houses low

down near a very blue sea. He saw the quays of a big port, where the coasting feluccas, with their lateen sails

outspread like motionless wings, enter gliding silently between the end of long moles of squared blocks that

project angularly towards each other, hugging a cluster of shipping to the superb bosom of a hill covered with

palaces. He remembered these sights not without some filial emotion, though he had been habitually and

severely beaten as a boy on one of these feluccas by a shortnecked, shaven Genoese, with a deliberate and

distrustful manner, who (he firmly believed) had cheated him out of his orphan's inheritance. But it is

mercifully decreed that the evils of the past should appear but faintly in retrospect. Under the sense of

loneliness, abandonment, and failure, the idea of return to these things appeared tolerable. But, what? Return?

With bare feet and head, with one check shirt and a pair of cotton calzoneros for all worldly possessions?

The renowned Capataz, his elbows on his knees and a fist dug into each cheek, laughed with selfderision, as

he had spat with disgust, straight out before him into the night. The confused and intimate impressions of

universal dissolution which beset a subjective nature at any strong check to its ruling passion had a bitterness

approaching that of death itself. He was simple. He was as ready to become the prey of any belief,

The facts of his situation he could appreciate like a man with a distinct experience of the country. He saw

them clearly. He was as if sobered after a long bout of intoxication. His fidelity had been taken advantage of.

He had persuaded the body of Cargadores to side with the Blancos against the rest of the people; he had had

interviews with Don Jose; he had been made use of by Father Corbelan for negotiating with Hernandez; it

was known that Don Martin Decoud had admitted him to a sort of intimacy, so that he had been free of the

offices of the Porvenir. All these things had flattered him in the usual way. What did he care about their

politics? Nothing at all. And at the end of it allNostromo here and Nostromo therewhere is Nostromo?

Nostromo can do this and thatwork all day and ride all nightbehold! he found himself a marked

Ribierist for any sort of vengeance Gamacho, for instance, would choose to take, now the Montero party, had,

after all, mastered the town. The Europeans had given up; the Caballeros had given up. Don Martin had

indeed explained it was only temporarythat he was going to bring Barrios to the rescue. Where was that

nowwith Don Martin (whose ironic manner of talk had always made the Capataz feel vaguely uneasy)

stranded on the Great Isabel? Everybody had given up. Even Don Carlos had given up. The hurried removal

of the treasure out to sea meant nothing else than that. The Capataz de Cargadores, on a revulsion of

subjectiveness, exasperated almost to insanity, beheld all his world without faith and courage. He had been

With the boundless shadows of the sea behind him, out of his silence and immobility, facing the lofty shapes

of the lower peaks crowded around the white, misty sheen of Higuerota, Nostromo laughed aloud again,

"There is no mistake. They keep us and encourage us as if we were dogs born to fight and hunt for them. The

vecchio is right," he said, slowly and scathingly. He remembered old Giorgio taking his pipe out of his mouth

to throw these words over his shoulder at the cafe, full of enginedrivers and fitters from the railway

workshops. This image fixed his wavering purpose. He would try to find old Giorgio if he could. God knows

what might have happened to him! He made a few steps, then stopped again and shook his head. To the left

and right, in front and behind him, the scrubby bush rustled mysteriously in the darkness.

"Teresa was right, too," he added in a low tone touched with awe. He wondered whether she was dead in her

anger with him or still alive. As if in answer to this thought, half of remorse and half of hope, with a soft

flutter and oblique flight, a big owl, whose appalling cry: "Yaacabo! Yaacabo!it is finished; it is

finished"announces calamity and death in the popular belief, drifted vaguely like a large dark ball across

his path. In the downfall of all the realities that made his force, he was affected by the superstition, and

shuddered slightly. Signora Teresa must have died, then. It could mean nothing else. The cry of the

illomened bird, the first sound he was to hear on his return, was a fitting welcome for his betrayed

individuality. The unseen powers which he had offended by refusing to bring a priest to a dying woman were

lifting up their voice against him. She was dead. With admirable and human consistency he referred

everything to himself. She had been a woman of good counsel always. And the bereaved old Giorgio

remained stunned by his loss just as he was likely to require the advice of his sagacity. The blow would

As to Captain Mitchell, Nostromo, after the manner of trusted subordinates, considered him as a person fitted

by education perhaps to sign papers in an office and to give orders, but otherwise of no use whatever, and

something of a fool. The necessity of winding round his little finger, almost daily, the pompous and testy

selfimportance of the old seaman had grown irksome with use to Nostromo. At first it had given him an

inward satisfaction. But the necessity of overcoming small obstacles becomes wearisome to a selfconfident

personality as much by the certitude of success as by the monotony of effort. He mistrusted his superior's

proneness to fussy action. That old Englishman had no judgment, he said to himself. It was useless to

suppose that, acquainted with the true state of the case, he would keep it to himself. He would talk of doing

impracticable things. Nostromo feared him as one would fear saddling one's self with some persistent worry.

He had no discretion. He would betray the treasure. And Nostromo had made up his mind that the treasure

The word had fixed itself tenaciously in his intelligence. His imagination had seized upon the clear and

simple notion of betrayal to account for the dazed feeling of enlightenment as to being done for, of having

inadvertently gone out of his existence on an issue in which his personality had not been taken into account.

A man betrayed is a man destroyed. Signora Teresa (may God have her soul!) had been right. He had never

been taken into account. Destroyed! Her white form sitting up bowed in bed, the falling black hair, the

widebrowed suffering face raised to him, the anger of her denunciations appeared to him now majestic with

the awfulness of inspiration and of death. For it was not for nothing that the evil bird had uttered its

Sharing in the antipriestly freethought of the masses, his mind used the pious formula from the superficial

force of habit, but with a deepseated sincerity. The popular mind is incapable of scepticism; and that

incapacity delivers their helpless strength to the wiles of swindlers and to the pitiless enthusiasms of leaders

inspired by visions of a high destiny. She was dead. But would God consent to receive her soul? She had died

without confession or absolution, because he had not been willing to spare her another moment of his time.

His scorn of priests as priests remained; but after all, it was impossible to know whether what they affirmed

was not true. Power, punishment, pardon, are simple and credible notions. The magnificent Capataz de

Cargadores, deprived of certain simple realities, such as the admiration of women, the adulation of men, the

admired publicity of his life, was ready to feel the burden of sacrilegious guilt descend upon his shoulders.

Bareheaded, in a thin shirt and drawers, he felt the lingering warmth of the fine sand under the soles of his

feet. The narrow strand gleamed far ahead in a long curve, defining the outline of this wild side of the

harbour. He flitted along the shore like a pursued shadow between the sombre palmgroves and the sheet of

water lying as still as death on his right hand. He strode with headlong haste in the silence and solitude as

though he had forgotten all prudence and caution. But he knew that on this side of the water he ran no risk of

discovery. The only inhabitant was a lonely, silent, apathetic Indian in charge of the palmarias, who brought

sometimes a load of cocoanuts to the town for sale. He lived without a woman in an open shed, with a

perpetual fire of dry sticks smouldering near an old canoe lying bottom up on the beach. He could be easily

The barking of the dogs about that man's ranche was the first thing that checked his speed. He had forgotten

the dogs. He swerved sharply, and plunged into the palmgrove, as into a wilderness of columns in an

immense hall, whose dense obscurity seemed to whisper and rustle faintly high above his head. He traversed

it, entered a ravine, and climbed to the top of a steep ridge free of trees and bushes.

From there, open and vague in the starlight, he saw the plain between the town and the harbour. In the woods

above some nightbird made a strange drumming noise. Below beyond the palmaria on the beach, the

Indian's dogs continued to bark uproariously. He wondered what had upset them so much, and, peering down

from his elevation, was surprised to detect unaccountable movements of the ground below, as if several

oblong pieces of the plain had been in motion. Those dark, shifting patches, alternately catching and eluding

the eye, altered their place always away from the harbour, with a suggestion of consecutive order and

purpose. A light dawned upon him. It was a column of infantry on a night march towards the higher broken

country at the foot of the hills. But he was too much in the dark about everything for wonder and speculation.

The plain had resumed its shadowy immobility. He descended the ridge and found himself in the open

solitude, between the harbour and the town. Its spaciousness, extended indefinitely by an effect of obscurity,

rendered more sensible his profound isolation. His pace became slower. No one waited for him; no one

thought of him; no one expected or wished his return. "Betrayed! Betrayed!" he muttered to himself. No one

cared. He might have been drowned by this time. No one would have caredunless, perhaps, the children,

he thought to himself. But they were with the English signora, and not thinking of him at all.

He wavered in his purpose of making straight for the Casa Viola. To what end? What could he expect there?

His life seemed to fail him in all its details, even to the scornful reproaches of Teresa. He was aware painfully

of his reluctance. Was it that remorse which she had prophesied with, what he saw now, was her last breath?

Meantime, he had deviated from the straight course, inclining by a sort of instinct to the right, towards the

jetty and the harbour, the scene of his daily labours. The great length of the Custom House loomed up all at

once like the wall of a factory. Not a soul challenged his approach, and his curiosity became excited as he

passed cautiously towards the front by the unexpected sight of two lighted windows.

They had the fascination of a lonely vigil kept by some mysterious watcher up there, those two windows

shining dimly upon the harbour in the whole vast extent of the abandoned building. The solitude could almost

be felt. A strong smell of wood smoke hung about in a thin haze, which was faintly perceptible to his raised

eyes against the glitter of the stars. As he advanced in the profound silence, the shrilling of innumerable

cicalas in the dry grass seemed positively deafening to his strained ears. Slowly, step by step, he found

A fire built against the staircase had burnt down impotently to a low heap of embers. The hard wood had

failed to catch; only a few steps at the bottom smouldered, with a creeping glow of sparks defining their

charred edges. At the top he saw a streak of light from an open door. It fell upon the vast landing, all foggy

with a slow drift of smoke. That was the room. He climbed the stairs, then checked himself, because he had

seen within the shadow of a man cast upon one of the walls. It was a shapeless, highshouldered shadow of

somebody standing still, with lowered head, out of his line of sight. The Capataz, remembering that he was

totally unarmed, stepped aside, and, effacing himself upright in a dark corner, waited with his eyes fixed on

The whole enormous ruined barrack of a place, unfinished, without ceilings under its lofty roof, was pervaded

by the smoke swaying to and fro in the faint cross draughts playing in the obscurity of many lofty rooms and

barnlike passages. Once one of the swinging shutters came against the wall with a single sharp crack, as if

pushed by an impatient hand. A piece of paper scurried out from somewhere, rustling along the landing. The

man, whoever he was, did not darken the lighted doorway. Twice the Capataz, advancing a couple of steps

out of his corner, craned his neck in the hope of catching sight of what he could be at, so quietly, in there. But

every time he saw only the distorted shadow of broad shoulders and bowed head. He was doing apparently

nothing, and stirred not from the spot, as though he were meditatingor, perhaps, reading a paper. And not a

Once more the Capataz stepped back. He wondered who it wassome Monterist? But he dreaded to show

himself. To discover his presence on shore, unless after many days, would, he believed, endanger the

treasure. With his own knowledge possessing his whole soul, it seemed impossible that anybody in Sulaco

should fail to jump at the right surmise. After a couple of weeks or so it would be different. Who could tell he

had not returned overland from some port beyond the limits of the Republic? The existence of the treasure

confused his thoughts with a peculiar sort of anxiety, as though his life had become bound up with it. It

rendered him timorous for a moment before that enigmatic, lighted door. Devil take the fellow! He did not

want to see him. There would be nothing to learn from his face, known or unknown. He was a fool to waste

Less than five minutes after entering the place the Capataz began his retreat. He got away down the stairs

with perfect success, gave one upward look over his shoulder at the light on the landing, and ran stealthily

across the hall. But at the very moment he was turning out of the great door, with his mind fixed upon

escaping the notice of the man upstairs, somebody he had not heard coming briskly along the front ran full

into him. Both muttered a stifled exclamation of surprise, and leaped back and stood still, each indistinct to

the other. Nostromo was silent. The other man spoke first, in an amazed and deadened tone.

Already Nostromo had seemed to recognize Dr. Monygham. He had no doubt now. He hesitated the space of

a second. The idea of bolting without a word presented itself to his mind. No use! An inexplicable

repugnance to pronounce the name by which he was known kept him silent a little longer. At last he said in a

He walked up to the other. Dr. Monygham had received a shock. He flung his arms up and cried out his

wonder aloud, forgetting himself before the marvel of this meeting. Nostromo angrily warned him to

moderate his voice. The Custom House was not so deserted as it looked. There was somebody in the lighted

There is no more evanescent quality in an accomplished fact than its wonderfulness. Solicited incessantly by

the considerations affecting its fears and desires, the human mind turns naturally away from the marvellous

side of events. And it was in the most natural way possible that the doctor asked this man whom only two

"Yes. His shadow in the lighted room," said Nostromo, in a contemptuous tone. Leaning back with folded

arms at the foot of the immense building, he dropped his head, biting his lips slightly, and not looking at the

doctor. "Now," he thought to himself, "he will begin asking me about the treasure."

But the doctor's thoughts were concerned with an event not as marvellous as Nostromo's appearance, but in

itself much less clear. Why had Sotillo taken himself off with his whole command with this suddenness and

secrecy? What did this move portend? However, it dawned upon the doctor that the man upstairs was one of

Already the doctor had left him. He remained leaning against the wall, staring at the dark water of the

harbour; the shrilling of cicalas filled his ears. An invincible vagueness coming over his thoughts took from

The sense of betrayal and ruin floated upon his sombre indifference as upon a sluggish sea of pitch. But he

stepped out from under the wall, and, looking up, saw Dr. Monygham leaning out of a lighted window.

He answered by a slight, bitter laugh. Fear a man! The Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores fear a man! It

angered him that anybody should suggest such a thing. It angered him to be disarmed and skulking and in

danger because of the accursed treasure, which was of so little account to the people who had tied it round his

neck. He could not shake off the worry of it. To Nostromo the doctor represented all these people. . . . And he

had never even asked after it. Not a word of inquiry about the most desperate undertaking of his life.

Thinking these thoughts, Nostromo passed again through the cavernous hall, where the smoke was

considerably thinned, and went up the stairs, not so warm to his feet now, towards the streak of light at the

At the moment of crossing the doorway the Capataz experienced a shock of surprise. The man had not

moved. He saw his shadow in the same place. He started, then stepped in with a feeling of being about to

It was very simple. For an infinitesimal fraction of a second, against the light of two flaring and guttering

candles, through a blue, pungent, thin haze which made his eyes smart, he saw the man standing, as he had

imagined him, with his back to the door, casting an enormous and distorted shadow upon the wall. Swifter

than a flash of lightning followed the impression of his constrained, toppling attitudethe shoulders

projecting forward, the head sunk low upon the breast. Then he distinguished the arms behind his back, and

wrenched so terribly that the two clenched fists, lashed together, had been forced up higher than the

shoulderblades. From there his eyes traced in one instantaneous glance the hide rope going upwards from

the tied wrists over a heavy beam and down to a staple in the wall. He did not want to look at the rigid legs, at

the feet hanging down nervelessly, with their bare toes some six inches above the floor, to know that the man

had been given the estrapade till he had swooned. His first impulse was to dash forward and sever the rope at

one blow. He felt for his knife. He had no knifenot even a knife. He stood quivering, and the doctor,

perched on the edge of the table, facing thoughtfully the cruel and lamentable sight, his chin in his hand,

This information calmed the Capataz. One of the candles flickering in the socket went out. "Who did this?"

"Sotillo, I tell you. Who else? Torturedof course. But why shot?" The doctor looked fixedly at Nostromo,

who shrugged his shoulders slightly. "And mark, shot suddenly, on impulse. It is evident. I wish I had his

Nostromo had advanced, and stooped slightly to look. "I seem to have seen that face somewhere," he

The doctor turned his eyes upon him again. "I may yet come to envying his fate. What do you think of that,

But Nostromo did not even hear these words. Seizing the remaining light, he thrust it under the drooping

head. The doctor sat oblivious, with a lost gaze. Then the heavy iron candlestick, as if struck out of

"Hullo!" exclaimed the doctor, looking up with a start. He could hear the Capataz stagger against the table

and gasp. In the sudden extinction of the light within, the dead blackness sealing the windowframes became

"Of course, of course," the doctor muttered to himself in English. "Enough to make him jump out of his skin."

Nostromo's heart seemed to force itself into his throat. His head swam. Hirsch! The man was Hirsch! He held

"But he was hiding in the lighter," he almost shouted His voice fell. "In the lighter, andand"

"And Sotillo brought him in," said the doctor. "He is no more startling to you than you were to me. What I

The Capataz was heard striking the table with his fist. "Everything? What are you saying, there? Everything?

"Of course. What do you mean by impossible? I tell you I have heard this Hirsch questioned last night, here,

in this very room. He knew your name, Decoud's name, and all about the loading of the silver. . . . The lighter

was cut in two. He was grovelling in abject terror before Sotillo, but he remembered that much. What do you

want more? He knew least about himself. They found him clinging to their anchor. He must have caught at it

"Went to the bottom?" repeated Nostromo, slowly. "Sotillo believes that? Bueno!"

The doctor, a little impatiently, was unable to imagine what else could anybody believe. Yes, Sotillo believed

that the lighter was sunk, and the Capataz de Cargadores, together with Martin Decoud and perhaps one or

"I told you well, senor doctor," remarked Nostromo at that point, "that Sotillo did not know everything."

"And you did not carenone of you caballeros on the wharfonce you got off a man of flesh and blood like

"You forget, Capataz, I was not on the wharf. And I did not think well of the business. So you need not taunt

me. I tell you what, man, we had but little leisure to think of the dead. Death stands near behind us all. You

Their flowing murmurs paused in the dark. Perched on the edge of the table with slightly averted faces, they

felt their shoulders touch, and their eyes remained directed towards an upright shape nearly lost in the

obscurity of the inner part of the room, that with projecting head and shoulders, in ghastly immobility,

"Muy bien!" Nostromo muttered at last. "So be it. Teresa was right. It is my own affair."

"Teresa is dead," remarked the doctor, absently, while his mind followed a new line of thought suggested by

what might have been called Nostromo's return to life. "She died, the poor woman."

"May God keep her soul!" ejaculated Nostromo, with a gloomy and hopeless fervour which had no time to

surprise Dr. Monygham, before, reverting to their previous conversation, he continued in a sinister tone, "Si,

senor doctor. As you were saying, it is my own affair. A very desperate affair."

"There are no two men in this part of the world that could have saved themselves by swimming as you have

And again there was silence between those two men. They were both reflecting, and the diversity of their

natures made their thoughts born from their meeting swing afar from each other. The doctor, impelled to

risky action by his loyalty to the Goulds, wondered with thankfulness at the chain of accident which had

brought that man back where he would be of the greatest use in the work of saving the San Tome mine. The

doctor was loyal to the mine. It presented itself to his fiftyyears' old eyes in the shape of a little woman in a

soft dress with a long train, with a head attractively overweighted by a great mass of fair hair and the delicate

preciousness of her inner worth, partaking of a gem and a flower, revealed in every attitude of her person. As

the dangers thickened round the San Tome mine this illusion acquired force, permanency, and authority. It

claimed him at last! This claim, exalted by a spiritual detachment from the usual sanctions of hope and

reward, made Dr. Monygham's thinking, acting, individuality extremely dangerous to himself and to others,

all his scruples vanishing in the proud feeling that his devotion was the only thing that stood between an

It was a sort of intoxication which made him utterly indifferent to Decoud's fate, but left his wits perfectly

clear for the appreciation of Decoud's political idea. It was a good ideaand Barrios was the only instrument

of its realization. The doctor's soul, withered and shrunk by the shame of a moral disgrace, became

implacable in the expansion of its tenderness. Nostromo's return was providential. He did not think of him

humanely, as of a fellowcreature just escaped from the jaws of death. The Capataz for him was the only

possible messenger to Cayta. The very man. The doctor's misanthropic mistrust of mankind (the bitterer

because based on personal failure) did not lift him sufficiently above common weaknesses. He was under the

spell of an established reputation. Trumpeted by Captain Mitchell, grown in repetition, and fixed in general

assent, Nostromo's faithfulness had never been questioned by Dr. Monygham as a fact. It was not likely to be

questioned now he stood in desperate need of it himself. Dr. Monygham was human; he accepted the popular

conception of the Capataz's incorruptibility simply because no word or fact had ever contradicted a mere

affirmation. It seemed to be a part of the man, like his whiskers or his teeth. It was impossible to conceive

him otherwise. The question was whether he would consent to go on such a dangerous and desperate errand.

The doctor was observant enough to have become aware from the first of something peculiar in the man's

"It will be necessary to take him into my fullest confidence," he said to himself, with a certain acuteness of

On Nostromo's side the silence had been full of black irresolution, anger, and mistrust. He was the first to

"The swimming was no great matter," he said. "It is what went beforeand what comes after that"

He did not quite finish what he meant to say, breaking off short, as though his thought had butted against a

solid obstacle. The doctor's mind pursued its own schemes with Machiavellian subtlety. He said as

"It is unfortunate, Capataz. But no one would think of blaming you. Very unfortunate. To begin with, the

treasure ought never to have left the mountain. But it was Decoud whohowever, he is dead. There is no

"No," assented Nostromo, as the doctor paused, "there is no need to talk of dead men. But I am not dead yet."

In this Dr. Monygham was sincere. He esteemed highly the intrepidity of that man, whom he valued but little,

being disillusioned as to mankind in general, because of the particular instance in which his own manhood

had failed. Having had to encounter singlehanded during his period of eclipse many physical dangers, he was

well aware of the most dangerous element common to them all: of the crushing, paralyzing sense of human

littleness, which is what really defeats a man struggling with natural forces, alone, far from the eyes of his

fellows. He was eminently fit to appreciate the mental image he made for himself of the Capataz, after hours

of tension and anxiety, precipitated suddenly into an abyss of waters and darkness, without earth or sky, and

confronting it not only with an undismayed mind, but with sensible success. Of course, the man was an

incomparable swimmer, that was known, but the doctor judged that this instance testified to a still greater

intrepidity of spirit. It was pleasing to him; he augured well from it for the success of the arduous mission

with which he meant to entrust the Capataz so marvellously restored to usefulness. And in a tone vaguely

"It was the worst darkness of the Golfo," the Capataz assented, briefly. He was mollified by what seemed a

sign of some faint interest in such things as had befallen him, and dropped a few descriptive phrases with an

affected and curt nonchalance. At that moment he felt communicative. He expected the continuance of that

interest which, whether accepted or rejected, would have restored to him his personalitythe only thing lost

in that desperate affair. But the doctor, engrossed by a desperate adventure of his own, was terrible in the

This unexpected utterance astounded the Capataz by its character of coldblooded atrocity. It was as much as

to say, "I wish you had shown yourself a coward; I wish you had had your throat cut for your pains."

Naturally he referred it to himself, whereas it related only to the silver, being uttered simply and with many

mental reservations. Surprise and rage rendered him speechless, and the doctor pursued, practically unheard

"For I am convinced Sotillo in possession of the silver would have turned short round and made for some

small port abroad. Economically it would have been wasteful, but still less wasteful than having it sunk. It

was the next best thing to having it at hand in some safe place, and using part of it to buy up Sotillo. But I

doubt whether Don Carlos would have ever made up his mind to it. He is not fit for Costaguana, and that is a

The Capataz had mastered the fury that was like a tempest in his ears in time to hear the name of Don Carlos.

He seemed to have come out of it a changed mana man who spoke thoughtfully in a soft and even voice.

"I should not wonder if they were all of that way of thinking now," the doctor said, grimly. "I was never

consulted. Decoud had it his own way. Their eyes are opened by this time, I should think. I for one know that

if that silver turned up this moment miraculously ashore I would give it to Sotillo. And, as things stand, I

"Turned up miraculously," repeated the Capataz very low; then raised his voice. "That, senor, would be a

He went on to develop his view of Sotillo's dangerous influence upon the situation. And the Capataz,

listening as if in a dream, felt himself of as little account as the indistinct, motionless shape of the dead man

whom he saw upright under the beam, with his air of listening also, disregarded, forgotten, like a terrible

"Was it for an unconsidered and foolish whim that they came to me, then?" he interrupted suddenly. "Had I

not done enough for them to be of some account, por Dios? Is it that the hombres finosthe

gentlemenneed not think as long as there is a man of the people ready to risk his body and soul? Or,

"Si! And the rich man in San Francisco who had something to do with that treasure, toowhat do I know?

No! I have heard too many things. It seems to me that everything is permitted to the rich."

"What Capataz?" broke in Nostromo, in a forcible but even voice. "The Capataz is undone, destroyed. There

"Come, this is childish!" remonstrated the doctor; and the other calmed down suddenly.

And as his eyes met again the shape of the murdered man suspended in his awful immobility, which seemed

"Why did Sotillo give the estrapade to this pitiful wretch? Do you know? No torture could have been worse

than his fear. Killing I can understand. His anguish was intolerable to behold. But why should he torment him

"No; he could tell nothing more. Any sane man would have seen that. He had told him everything. But I tell

you what it is, Capataz. Sotillo would not believe what he was told. Not everything."

"I can, because I have seen the man. He refuses to believe that the treasure is lost."

"Am I to understand, senor," Nostromo went on in a deliberate and, as it were, watchful tone, "that Sotillo

"No! no! That would be impossible," said the doctor, with conviction; and Nostromo emitted a grunt in the

dark. "That would be impossible. He thinks that the silver was no longer in the lighter when she was sunk. He

has convinced himself that the whole show of getting it away to sea is a mere sham got up to deceive

Gamacho and his Nationals, Pedrito Montero, Senor Fuentes, our new Gefe Politico, and himself, too. Only,

"But he is devoid of sense. He is the greatest imbecile that ever called himself a colonel in this country of

"He is no more unreasonable than many sensible men," said the doctor. "He has convinced himself that the

treasure can be found because he desires passionately to possess himself of it. And he is also afraid of his

officers turning upon him and going over to Pedrito, whom he has not the courage either to fight or trust. Do

you see that, Capataz? He need fear no desertion as long as some hope remains of that enormous plunder

"You have?" the Capataz de Cargadores repeated cautiously. "Well, that is wonderful. And how long do you

"I can tell you exactly. As long as I live," the doctor retorted in a stubborn voice. Then, in a few words, he

described the story of his arrest and the circumstances of his release. "I was going back to that silly scoundrel

Nostromo had listened with profound attention. "You have made up your mind, then, to a speedy death," he

"Perhaps, my illustrious Capataz," the doctor said, testily. "You are not the only one here who can look an

"No doubt," mumbled Nostromo, loud enough to be overheard. "There may be even more than two fools in

"As taking out the accursed silver to sea was my affair," retorted Nostromo. "I see. Bueno! Each of us has his

reasons. But you were the last man I conversed with before I started, and you talked to me as if I were a fool."

Nostromo had a great distaste for the doctor's sardonic treatment of his great reputation. Decoud's faintly

ironic recognition used to make him uneasy; but the familiarity of a man like Don Martin was flattering,

whereas the doctor was a nobody. He could remember him a penniless outcast, slinking about the streets of

Sulaco, without a single friend or acquaintance, till Don Carlos Gould took him into the service of the mine.

"You may be very wise," he went on, thoughtfully, staring into the obscurity of the room, pervaded by the

gruesome enigma of the tortured and murdered Hirsch. "But I am not such a fool as when I started. I have

"If he could speak he would say the same thing," pursued Nostromo, with a nod of his shadowy head

"No? Perhaps, if you had not confirmed Sotillo in his madness, he would have been in no haste to give the

The doctor started at the suggestion. But his devotion, absorbing all his sensibilities, had left his heart steeled

against remorse and pity. Still, for complete relief, he felt the necessity of repelling it loudly and

"Bah! You dare to tell me that, with a man like Sotillo. I confess I did not give a thought to Hirsch. If I had it

would have been useless. Anybody can see that the luckless wretch was doomed from the moment he caught

hold of the anchor. He was doomed, I tell you! Just as I myself am doomedmost probably."

This is what Dr. Monygham said in answer to Nostromo's remark, which was plausible enough to prick his

conscience. He was not a callous man. But the necessity, the magnitude, the importance of the task he had

taken upon himself dwarfed all merely humane considerations. He had undertaken it in a fanatical spirit. He

did not like it. To lie, to deceive, to circumvent even the basest of mankind was odious to him. It was odious

to him by training, instinct, and tradition. To do these things in the character of a traitor was abhorrent to his

nature and terrible to his feelings. He had made that sacrifice in a spirit of abasement. He had said to himself

bitterly, "I am the only one fit for that dirty work." And he believed this. He was not subtle. His simplicity

was such that, though he had no sort of heroic idea of seeking death, the risk, deadly enough, to which he

exposed himself, had a sustaining and comforting effect. To that spiritual state the fate of Hirsch presented

itself as part of the general atrocity of things. He considered that episode practically. What did it mean? Was

it a sign of some dangerous change in Sotillo's delusion? That the man should have been killed like this was

DISTRACTED between doubts and hopes, dismayed by the sound of bells pealing out the arrival of Pedrito

Montero, Sotillo had spent the morning in battling with his thoughts; a contest to which he was unequal, from

the vacuity of his mind and the violence of his passions. Disappointment, greed, anger, and fear made a

tumult, in the colonel's breast louder than the din of bells in the town. Nothing he had planned had come to

pass. Neither Sulaco nor the silver of the mine had fallen into his hands. He had performed no military exploit

to secure his position, and had obtained no enormous booty to make off with. Pedrito Montero, either as

Imagining at first that he might be attacked at once, he had made his battalion stand to arms on the shore. He

walked to and fro all the length of the room, stopping sometimes to gnaw the fingertips of his right hand

with a lurid sideways glare fixed on the floor; then, with a sullen, repelling glance all round, he would resume

his tramping in savage aloofness. His hat, horsewhip, sword, and revolver were lying on the table. His

officers, crowding the window giving the view of the town gate, disputed amongst themselves the use of his

fieldglass bought last year on long credit from Anzani. It passed from hand to hand, and the possessor for

There was nothing. And when the picket in the bushes near the Casa Viola had been ordered to fall back upon

the main body, no stir of life appeared on the stretch of dusty and arid land between the town and the waters

of the port. But late in the afternoon a horseman issuing from the gate was made out riding up fearlessly. It

was an emissary from Senor Fuentes. Being all alone he was allowed to come on. Dismounting at the great

door he greeted the silent bystanders with cheery impudence, and begged to be taken up at once to the "muy

Senor Fuentes, on entering upon his functions of Gefe Politico, had turned his diplomatic abilities to getting

hold of the harbour as well as of the mine. The man he pitched upon to negotiate with Sotillo was a Notary

Public, whom the revolution had found languishing in the common jail on a charge of forging documents.

Liberated by the mob along with the other "victims of Blanco tyranny," he had hastened to offer his services

He set out determined to display much zeal and eloquence in trying to induce Sotillo to come into town alone

for a conference with Pedrito Montero. Nothing was further from the colonel's intentions. The mere fleeting

idea of trusting himself into the famous Pedrito's hands had made him feel unwell several times. It was out of

the questionit was madness. And to put himself in open hostility was madness, too. It would render

impossible a systematic search for that treasure, for that wealth of silver which he seemed to feel somewhere

But where? Where? Heavens! Where? Oh! why had he allowed that doctor to go! Imbecile that he was. But

no! It was the only right course, he reflected distractedly, while the messenger waited downstairs chatting

agreeably to the officers. It was in that scoundrelly doctor's true interest to return with positive information.

But what if anything stopped him? A general prohibition to leave the town, for instance! There would be

The colonel, seizing his head in his hands, turned in his tracks as if struck with vertigo. A flash of craven

inspiration suggested to him an expedient not unknown to European statesmen when they wish to delay a

difficult negotiation. Booted and spurred, he scrambled into the hammock with undignified haste. His

handsome face had turned yellow with the strain of weighty cares. The ridge of his shapely nose had grown

sharp; the audacious nostrils appeared mean and pinched. The velvety, caressing glance of his fine eyes

seemed dead, and even decomposed; for these almondshaped, languishing orbs had become inappropriately

bloodshot with much sinister sleeplessness. He addressed the surprised envoy of Senor Fuentes in a

deadened, exhausted voice. It came pathetically feeble from under a pile of ponchos, which buried his elegant

person right up to the black moustaches, uncurled, pendant, in sign of bodily prostration and mental

incapacity. Fever, fevera heavy fever had overtaken the "muy valliente" colonel. A wavering wildness of

expression, caused by the passing spasms of a slight colic which had declared itself suddenly, and the rattling

teeth of repressed panic, had a genuineness which impressed the envoy. It was a cold fit. The colonel

explained that he was unable to think, to listen, to speak. With an appearance of superhuman effort the

colonel gasped out that he was not in a state to return a suitable reply or to execute any of his Excellency's

orders. But tomorrow! Tomorrow! Ah! tomorrow! Let his Excellency Don Pedro be without uneasiness.

The brave Esmeralda Regiment held the harbour, heldAnd closing his eyes, he rolled his aching head like

a halfdelirious invalid under the inquisitive stare of the envoy, who was obliged to bend down over the

hammock in order to catch the painful and broken accents. Meantime, Colonel Sotillo trusted that his

Excellency's humanity would permit the doctor, the English doctor, to come out of town with his case of

foreign remedies to attend upon him. He begged anxiously his worship the caballero now present for the

grace of looking in as he passed the Casa Gould, and informing the English doctor, who was probably there,

that his services were immediately required by Colonel Sotillo, lying ill of fever in the Custom House.

Immediately. Most urgently required. Awaited with extreme impatience. A thousand thanks. He closed his

eyes wearily and would not open them again, lying perfectly still, deaf, dumb, insensible, overcome,

But as soon as the other had shut after him the door of the landing, the colonel leaped out with a fling of both

feet in an avalanche of woollen coverings. His spurs having become entangled in a perfect welter of ponchos

he nearly pitched on his head, and did not recover his balance till the middle of the room. Concealed behind

The envoy had already mounted, and turning to the morose officers occupying the great doorway, took off his

"Caballeros," he said, in a very loud tone, "allow me to recommend you to take great care of your colonel. It

has done me much honour and gratification to have seen you all, a fine body of men exercising the soldierly

virtue of patience in this exposed situation, where there is much sun, and no water to speak of, while a town

full of wine and feminine charms is ready to embrace you for the brave men you are. Caballeros, I have the

But he reined in his horse and inclined his head sideways on seeing the old major step out, very tall and

meagre, in a straight narrow coat coming down to his ankles as it were the casing of the regimental colours

The intelligent old warrior, after enunciating in a dogmatic tone the general proposition that the "world was

full of traitors," went on pronouncing deliberately a panegyric upon Sotillo. He ascribed to him with leisurely

emphasis every virtue under heaven, summing it all up in an absurd colloquialism current amongst the lower

class of Occidentals (especially about Esmeralda). "And," he concluded, with a sudden rise in the voice, "a

man of many teeth'hombre de muchos dientes.' Si, senor. As to us," he pursued, portentous and impressive,

"your worship is beholding the finest body of officers in the Republic, men unequalled for valour and

"What? All of them?" inquired the disreputable envoy of Senor Fuentes, with a faint, derisive smile.

"Todos. Si, senor," the major affirmed, gravely, with conviction. "Men of many teeth."

The other wheeled his horse to face the portal resembling the high gate of a dismal barn. He raised himself in

his stirrups, extended one arm. He was a facetious scoundrel, entertaining for these stupid Occidentals a

feeling of great scorn natural in a native from the central provinces. The folly of Esmeraldians especially

aroused his amused contempt. He began an oration upon Pedro Montero, keeping a solemn countenance. He

flourished his hand as if introducing him to their notice. And when he saw every face set, all the eyes fixed

upon his lips, he began to shout a sort of catalogue of perfections: "Generous, valorous, affable,

profound"(he snatched off his hat enthusiastically)"a statesman, an invincible chief of partisans" He

He was off instantly at a smart walk; the rigid straddle of his legs, the turnedout feet, the stiff back, the

rakish slant of the sombrero above the square, motionless set of the shoulders expressing an infinite,

Upstairs, behind the jalousies, Sotillo did not move for a long time. The audacity of the fellow appalled him.

What were his officers saying below? They were saying nothing. Complete silence. He quaked. It was not

thus that he had imagined himself at that stage of the expedition. He had seen himself triumphant,

unquestioned, appeased, the idol of the soldiers, weighing in secret complacency the agreeable alternatives of

power and wealth open to his choice. Alas! How different! Distracted, restless, supine, burning with fury, or

frozen with terror, he felt a dread as fathomless as the sea creep upon him from every side. That rogue of a

doctor had to come out with his information. That was clear. It would be of no use to himalone. He could

do nothing with it. Malediction! The doctor would never come out. He was probably under arrest already,

shut up together with Don Carlos. He laughed aloud insanely. Ha! ha! ha! ha! It was Pedrito Montero who

All at once, in the midst of the laugh, he became motionless and silent as if turned into stone. He too, had a

prisoner. A prisoner who must, must know the real truth. He would have to be made to speak. And Sotillo,

who all that time had not quite forgotten Hirsch, felt an inexplicable reluctance at the notion of proceeding to

He felt a reluctancepart of that unfathomable dread that crept on all sides upon him. He remembered

reluctantly, too, the dilated eyes of the hide merchant, his contortions, his loud sobs and protestations. It was

not compassion or even mere nervous sensibility. The fact was that though Sotillo did never for a moment

believe his storyhe could not believe it; nobody could believe such nonsenseyet those accents of

despairing truth impressed him disagreeably. They made him feel sick. And he suspected also that the man

might have gone mad with fear. A lunatic is a hopeless subject. Bah! A pretence. Nothing but a pretence. He

He was working himself up to the right pitch of ferocity. His fine eyes squinted slightly; he clapped his

hands; a barefooted orderly appeared noiselessly, a corporal, with his bayonet hanging on his thigh and a

The colonel gave his orders, and presently the miserable Hirsch, pushed in by several soldiers, found him

frowning awfully in a broad armchair, hat on head, knees wide apart, arms akimbo, masterful, imposing,

Hirsch, with his arms tied behind his back, had been bundled violently into one of the smaller rooms. For

many hours he remained apparently forgotten, stretched lifelessly on the floor. From that solitude, full of

despair and terror, he was torn out brutally, with kicks and blows, passive, sunk in hebetude. He listened to

threats and admonitions, and afterwards made his usual answers to questions, with his chin sunk on his

breast, his hands tied behind his back, swaying a little in front of Sotillo, and never looking up. When he was

forced to hold up his head, by means of a bayonetpoint prodding him under the chin, his eyes had a vacant,

trancelike stare, and drops of perspiration as big as peas were seen hailing down the dirt, bruises, and

Sotillo looked at him in silence. "Will you depart from your obstinacy, you rogue?" he asked. Already a rope,

whose one end was fastened to Senor Hirsch's wrists, had been thrown over a beam, and three soldiers held

the other end, waiting. He made no answer. His heavy lower lip hung stupidly. Sotillo made a sign. Hirsch

was jerked up off his feet, and a yell of despair and agony burst out in the room, filled the passage of the great

buildings, rent the air outside, caused every soldier of the camp along the shore to look up at the windows,

started some of the officers in the hall babbling excitedly, with shining eyes; others, setting their lips, looked

Sotillo, followed by the soldiers, had left the room. The sentry on the landing presented arms. Hirsch went on

screaming all alone behind the halfclosed jalousies while the sunshine, reflected from the water of the

harbour, made an everrunning ripple of light high up on the wall. He screamed with uplifted eyebrows and a

In the still burning air of the windless afternoon he made the waves of his agony travel as far as the O. S. N.

Company's offices. Captain Mitchell on the balcony, trying to make out what went on generally, had heard

him faintly but distinctly, and the feeble and appalling sound lingered in his ears after he had retreated

indoors with blanched cheeks. He had been driven off the balcony several times during that afternoon.

Sotillo, irritable, moody, walked restlessly about, held consultations with his officers, gave contradictory

orders in this shrill clamour pervading the whole empty edifice. Sometimes there would be long and awful

silences. Several times he had entered the torturechamber where his sword, horsewhip, revolver, and

fieldglass were lying on the table, to ask with forced calmness, "Will you speak the truth now? No? I can

wait." But he could not afford to wait much longer. That was just it. Every time he went in and came out with

a slam of the door, the sentry on the landing presented arms, and got in return a black, venomous, unsteady

glance, which, in reality, saw nothing at all, being merely the reflection of the soul withina soul of gloomy

The sun had set when he went in once more. A soldier carried in two lighted candles and slunk out, shutting

"Speak, thou Jewish child of the devil! The silver! The silver, I say! Where is it? Where have you foreign

A slight quiver passed up the taut rope from the racked limbs, but the body of Senor Hirsch, enterprising

business man from Esmeralda, hung under the heavy beam perpendicular and silent, facing the colonel

awfully. The inflow of the night air, cooled by the snows of the Sierra, spread gradually a delicious freshness

Sotillo had seized the ridingwhip, and stood with his arm lifted up. For a word, for one little word, he felt he

would have knelt, cringed, grovelled on the floor before the drowsy, conscious stare of those fixed eyeballs

starting out of the grimy, dishevelled head that drooped very still with its mouth closed askew. The colonel

ground his teeth with rage and struck. The rope vibrated leisurely to the blow, like the long string of a

pendulum starting from a rest. But no swinging motion was imparted to the body of Senor Hirsch, the

wellknown hide merchant on the coast. With a convulsive effort of the twisted arms it leaped up a few

inches, curling upon itself like a fish on the end of a line. Senor Hirsch's head was flung back on his straining

throat; his chin trembled. For a moment the rattle of his chattering teeth pervaded the vast, shadowy room,

where the candles made a patch of light round the two flames burning side by side. And as Sotillo, staying his

raised hand, waited for him to speak, with the sudden flash of a grin and a straining forward of the wrenched

The uplifted whip fell, and the colonel sprang back with a low cry of dismay, as if aspersed by a jet of deadly

venom. Quick as thought he snatched up his revolver, and fired twice. The report and the concussion of the

shots seemed to throw him at once from ungovernable rage into idiotic stupor. He stood with drooping jaw

and stony eyes. What had he done, Sangre de Dios! What had he done? He was basely appalled at his

impulsive act, sealing for ever these lips from which so much was to be extorted. What could he say? How

could he explain? Ideas of headlong flight somewhere, anywhere, passed through his mind; even the craven

and absurd notion of hiding under the table occurred to his cowardice. It was too late; his officers had rushed

in tumultuously, in a great clatter of scabbards, clamouring, with astonishment and wonder. But since they

did not immediately proceed to plunge their swords into his breast, the brazen side of his character asserted

itself. Passing the sleeve of his uniform over his face he pulled himself together, His truculent glance turned

slowly here and there, checked the noise where it fell; and the stiff body of the late Senor Hirsch, merchant,

after swaying imperceptibly, made a half turn, and came to a rest in the midst of awed murmurs and uneasy

A voice remarked loudly, "Behold a man who will never speak again." And another, from the back row of

"Because he has confessed everything," answered Sotillo, with the hardihood of desperation. He felt himself

cornered. He brazened it out on the strength of his reputation with very fair success. His hearers thought him

very capable of such an act. They were disposed to believe his flattering tale. There is no credulity so eager

and blind as the credulity of covetousness, which, in its universal extent, measures the moral misery and the

intellectual destitution of mankind. Ah! he had confessed everything, this fractious Jew, this bribon. Good!

Then he was no longer wanted. A sudden dense guffaw was heard from the senior captaina bigheaded

man, with little round eyes and monstrously fat cheeks which never moved. The old major, tall and

fantastically ragged like a scarecrow, walked round the body of the late Senor Hirsch, muttering to himself

with ineffable complacency that like this there was no need to guard against any future treacheries of that

scoundrel. The others stared, shifting from foot to foot, and whispering short remarks to each other.

Sotillo buckled on his sword and gave curt, peremptory orders to hasten the retirement decided upon in the

afternoon. Sinister, impressive, his sombrero pulled right down upon his eyebrows, he marched first through

the door in such disorder of mind that he forgot utterly to provide for Dr. Monygham's possible return. As the

officers trooped out after him, one or two looked back hastily at the late Senor Hirsch, merchant from

Esmeralda, left swinging rigidly at rest, alone with the two burning candles. In the emptiness of the room the

Below, the troops fell in silently and moved off by companies without drum or trumpet. The old scarecrow

major commanded the rearguard; but the party he left behind with orders to fire the Custom House (and "burn

the carcass of the treacherous Jew where it hung") failed somehow in their haste to set the staircase properly

alight. The body of the late Senor Hirsch dwelt alone for a time in the dismal solitude of the unfinished

building, resounding weirdly with sudden slams and clicks of doors and latches, with rustling scurries of torn

papers, and the tremulous sighs that at each gust of wind passed under the high roof. The light of the two

candles burning before the perpendicular and breathless immobility of the late Senor Hirsch threw a gleam

afar over land and water, like a signal in the night. He remained to startle Nostromo by his presence, and to

"But why shot?" the doctor again asked himself, audibly. This time he was answered by a dry laugh from

"You seem much concerned at a very natural thing, senor doctor. I wonder why? It is very likely that before

long we shall all get shot one after another, if not by Sotillo, then by Pedrito, or Fuentes, or Gamacho. And

we may even get the estrapade, too, or worsequien sabe?with your pretty tale of the silver you put into

Their voices, which without rising had been growing quarrelsome, ceased suddenly. The late Senor Hirsch,

erect and shadowy against the stars, seemed to be waiting attentive, in impartial silence.

But Dr. Monygham had no mind to quarrel with Nostromo. At this supremely critical point of Sulaco's

fortunes it was borne upon him at last that this man was really indispensable, more indispensable than ever

the infatuation of Captain Mitchell, his proud discoverer, could conceive; far beyond what Decoud's best dry

raillery about "my illustrious friend, the unique Capataz de Cargadores," had ever intended. The fellow was

unique. He was not "one in a thousand." He was absolutely the only one. The doctor surrendered. There was

something in the genius of that Genoese seaman which dominated the destinies of great enterprises and of

many people, the fortunes of Charles Gould, the fate of an admirable woman. At this last thought the doctor

In a completely changed tone he pointed out to the Capataz that, to begin with, he personally ran no great

risk. As far as everybody knew he was dead. It was an enormous advantage. He had only to keep out of sight

in the Casa Viola, where the old Garibaldino was known to be alonewith his dead wife. The servants had

all run away. No one would think of searching for him there, or anywhere else on earth, for that matter.

For a time the doctor kept silent. "Do you mean to say that you think I may give you away?" he asked in an

"What do I know? Why not? To gain a day perhaps. It would take Sotillo a day to give me the estrapade, and

try some other things perhaps, before he puts a bullet through my heartas he did to that poor wretch here.

The doctor swallowed with difficulty. His throat had gone dry in a moment. It was not from indignation. The

doctor, pathetically enough, believed that he had forfeited the right to be indignant with any onefor

anything. It was simple dread. Had the fellow heard his story by some chance? If so, there was an end of his

usefulness in that direction. The indispensable man escaped his influence, because of that indelible blot which

made him fit for dirty work. A feeling as of sickness came upon the doctor. He would have given anything to

know, but he dared not clear up the point. The fanaticism of his devotion, fed on the sense of his abasement,

"Why not, indeed?" he reechoed, sardonically. "Then the safe thing for you is to kill me on the spot. I would

"Por Dios!" said the Capataz, passionately. "You fine people are all alike. All dangerous. All betrayers of the

"I understand you all!" cried the other with a violent movement, as shadowy to the doctor's eyes as the

persistent immobility of the late Senor Hirsch. "A poor man amongst you has got to look after himself. I say

that you do not care for those that serve you. Look at me! After all these years, suddenly, here I find myself

like one of these curs that bark outside the walls without a kennel or a dry bone for my teeth. (Caramba!"

But he relented with a contemptuous fairness. "Of course," he went on, quietly, "I do not suppose that you

would hasten to give me up to Sotillo, for example. It is not that. It is that I am nothing! Suddenly" He

The doctor breathed freely. "Listen, Capataz," he said, stretching out his arm almost affectionately towards

Nostromo's shoulder. "I am going to tell you a very simple thing. You are safe because you are needed. I

In the dark Nostromo bit his lip. He had heard enough of that. He knew what that meant. No more of that for

him. But he had to look after himself now, he thought. And he thought, too, that it would not be prudent to

part in anger from his companion. The doctor, admitted to be a great healer, had, amongst the populace of

Sulaco, the reputation of being an evil sort of man. It was based solidly on his personal appearance, which

was strange, and on his rough ironic mannerproofs visible, sensible, and incontrovertible of the doctor's

malevolent disposition. And Nostromo was of the people. So he only grunted incredulously.

"You, to speak plainly, are the only man," the doctor pursued. "It is in your power to save this town and . . .

"No, senor," said Nostromo, sullenly. "It is not in my power to get the treasure back for you to give up to

"You have said it yourselfnobody," muttered Nostromo, in a gloomy, threatening tone.

But Dr. Monygham, full of hope, disregarded the enigmatic words and the threatening tone. To their eyes,

accustomed to obscurity, the late Senor Hirsch, growing more distinct, seemed to have come nearer. And the

doctor lowered his voice in exposing his scheme as though afraid of being overheard.

He was taking the indispensable man into his fullest confidence. Its implied flattery and suggestion of great

risks came with a familiar sound to the Capataz. His mind, floating in irresolution and discontent, recognized

it with bitterness. He understood well that the doctor was anxious to save the San Tome mine from

annihilation. He would be nothing without it. It was his interest. Just as it had been the interest of Senor

Decoud, of the Blancos, and of the Europeans to get his Cargadores on their side. His thought became

Nostromo's prolonged silence made the doctor uneasy. He pointed out, quite unnecessarily, that though for

the present he was safe, he could not live concealed for ever. The choice was between accepting the mission

to Barrios, with all its dangers and difficulties, and leaving Sulaco by stealth, ingloriously, in poverty.

"None of your friends could reward you and protect you just now, Capataz. Not even Don Carlos himself."

"I would have none of your protection and none of your rewards. I only wish I could trust your courage and

your sense. When I return in triumph, as you say, with Barrios, I may find you all destroyed. You have the

It was the doctor's turn to remain silent in the contemplation of horrible contingencies.

"Well, we would trust your courage and your sense. And you, too, have a knife at your throat."

"Ah! And whom am I to thank for that? What are your politics and your mines to meyour silver and your

"I don't know," burst out the exasperated doctor. "There are innocent people in danger whose little finger is

worth more than you or I and all the Ribierists together. I don't know. You should have asked yourself before

you allowed Decoud to lead you into all this. It was your place to think like a man; but if you did not think

then, try to act like a man now. Did you imagine Decoud cared very much for what would happen to you?"

"No; I care for what will happen to you as little as I care for what will happen to myself."

"And all this because you are such a devoted Ribierist?" Nostromo said in an incredulous tone.

"All this because I am such a devoted Ribierist," repeated Dr. Monygham, grimly.

Again Nostromo, gazing abstractedly at the body of the late Senor Hirsch, remained silent, thinking that the

doctor was a dangerous person in more than one sense. It was impossible to trust him.

"Yes. I do," the doctor said, loudly, without hesitation. "He must come forward now. He must," he added in a

The doctor started. "I say that you must be true to yourself, Capataz. It would be worse than folly to fail now."

"True to myself," repeated Nostromo. "How do you know that I would not be true to myself if I told you to

"I do not know. Maybe you would," the doctor said, with a roughness of tone intended to hide the sinking of

his heart and the faltering of his voice. "All I know is, that you had better get away from here. Some of

"A very good wayif only that engineerinchief consents. Remind him, senor, that I looked after the old

rich Englishman who pays for the railway, and that I saved the lives of some of his people that time when a

gang of thieves came from the south to wreck one of his paytrains. It was I who discovered it all at the risk

of my life, by pretending to enter into their plans. Just as you are doing with Sotillo."

"Yes. Yes, of course. But I can offer him better arguments," the doctor said, hastily. " Leave it to me."

They moved a few paces towards the door. Behind them the late Senor Hirsch preserved the immobility of a

"That will be all right. I know what to say to the engineer," pursued the doctor, in a low tone. "My difficulty

And Dr. Monygham stopped short in the doorway as if intimidated by the difficulty. He had made the

sacrifice of his life. He considered this a fitting opportunity. But he did not want to throw his life away too

soon. In his quality of betrayer of Don Carlos' confidence, he would have ultimately to indicate the

hidingplace of the treasure. That would be the end of his deception, and the end of himself as well, at the

hands of the infuriated colonel. He wanted to delay him to the very last moment; and he had been racking his

brains to invent some place of concealment at once plausible and difficult of access.

"Do you know what, Capataz? I think that when the time comes and some information must be given, I shall

indicate the Great Isabel. That is the best place I can think of. What is the matter?"

A low exclamation had escaped Nostromo. The doctor waited, surprised, and after a moment of profound

"Ah! You do not see it," began Nostromo, scathingly, gathering scorn as he went on. "Three men in half an

hour would see that no ground had been disturbed anywhere on that island. Do you think that such a treasure

can be buried without leaving traces of the workeh! senor doctor? Why! you would not gain half a day

more before having your throat cut by Sotillo. The Isabel! What stupidity! What miserable invention! Ah!

you are all alike, you fine men of intelligence. All you are fit for is to betray men of the people into

undertaking deadly risks for objects that you are not even sure about. If it comes off you get the benefit. If

not, then it does not matter. He is only a dog. Ah! Madre de Dios, I would" He shook his fists above his

"Well! It seems to me on your own showing that the men of the people are no mean fools, too," he said,

"I am clever enough for that," he said, quietly, almost with indifference. "You want to tell him of a

hidingplace big enough to take days in ransackinga place where a treasure of silver ingots can be buried

"This has the merit of being the truth," the doctor said, contemptuously. "He will not believe it."

"You tell him that it is sunk where he may hope to lay his hands on it, and he will believe you quick enough.

Tell him it has been sunk in the harbour in order to be recovered afterwards by divers. Tell him you found out

that I had orders from Don Carlos Gould to lower the cases quietly overboard somewhere in a line between

the end of the jetty and the entrance. The depth is not too great there. He has no divers, but he has a ship,

boats, ropes, chains, sailorsof a sort. Let him fish for the silver. Let him set his fools to drag backwards

and forwards and crossways while he sits and watches till his eyes drop out of his head."

"Si. You tell him that, and see whether he will not believe you! He will spend days in rage and tormentand

still he will believe. He will have no thought for anything else. He will not give up till he is driven offwhy,

"The very thing! The very thing!" the doctor repeated in an excited whisper. "Capataz, I begin to believe that

Nostromo had paused; then began again in a changed tone, sombre, speaking to himself as though he had

"There is something in a treasure that fastens upon a man's mind. He will pray and blaspheme and still

persevere, and will curse the day he ever heard of it, and will let his last hour come upon him unawares, still

believing that he missed it only by a foot. He will see it every time he closes his eyes. He will never forget it

till he is deadand even thenDoctor, did you ever hear of the miserable gringos on Azuera, that cannot

die? Ha! ha! Sailors like myself. There is no getting away from a treasure that once fastens upon your mind."

"It will be worse for him than thirst at sea or hunger in a town full of people. Do you know what that is? He

shall suffer greater torments than he inflicted upon that terrified wretch who had no invention. None! none!

He laughed wildly and turned in the doorway towards the body of the late Senor Hirsch, an opaque long

blotch in the semitransparent obscurity of the room between the two tall parallelograms of the windows full

"You man of fear!" he cried. "You shall be avenged by meNostromo. Out of my way, doctor! Stand

asideor, by the suffering soul of a woman dead without confession, I will strangle you with my two hands."

He bounded downwards into the black, smoky hall. With a grunt of astonishment, Dr. Monygham threw

himself recklessly into the pursuit. At the bottom of the charred stairs he had a fall, pitching forward on his

face with a force that would have stunned a spirit less intent upon a task of love and devotion. He was up in a

moment, jarred, shaken, with a queer impression of the terrestrial globe having been flung at his head in the

dark. But it wanted more than that to stop Dr. Monygham's body, possessed by the exaltation of

selfsacrifice; a reasonable exaltation, determined not to lose whatever advantage chance put into its way. He

ran with headlong, tottering swiftness, his arms going like a windmill in his effort to keep his balance on his

crippled feet. He lost his hat; the tails of his open gaberdine flew behind him. He had no mind to lose sight of

the indispensable man. But it was a long time, and a long way from the Custom House, before he managed to

Already Nostromo was walking slowly, his head dropping, as if checked in his pace by the weariness of

"What is that to you? Ah! I forgot you want me for something. Always. Siempre Nostromo."

"What do I mean? I mean that the king of the devils himself has sent you out of this town of cowards and

Under the starry sky the Albergo d'ltalia Una emerged, black and low, breaking the dark level of the plain.

"The priests say he is a tempter, do they not?" he added, through his clenched teeth.

"My good man, you drivel. The devil has nothing to do with this. Neither has the town, which you may call

by what name you please. But Don Carlos Gould is neither a coward nor an empty talker. You will admit

"Great heavens! No! Why? What for?" exclaimed the doctor in agitation. "I tell you it is madness. I will not

"You must not!" hissed the doctor, fiercely, almost beside himself with the fear of the man doing away with

his usefulness for an imbecile whim of some sort. "I tell you you shall not. I would rather"

He stopped at loss for words, feeling fagged out, powerless, holding on to Nostromo's sleeve, absolutely for

"I am betrayed!" muttered the Capataz to himself; and the doctor, who overheard the last word, made an

He thought with a sickening dread that the man was so well known that he could not escape recognition. The

house of the Senor Administrador was beset by spies, no doubt. And even the very servants of the casa were

not to be trusted. "Reflect, Capataz," he said, impressively. . . . "What are you laughing at?"

"I am laughing to think that if somebody that did not approve of my presence in town, for instanceyou

understand, senor doctorif somebody were to give me up to Pedrito, it would not be beyond my power to

"You are a man of infinite resource, Capataz," said Dr. Monygham, dismally. "I recognize that. But the town

is full of talk about you; and those few Cargadores that are not in hiding with the railway people have been

"I understand that on the wharf you were pretty free in laying about you with a stick amongst your poor

Cargadores," the doctor said in a grim tone, which showed that he was recovering from his exertions. "Make

no mistake. Pedrito is furious at Senor Ribiera's rescue, and at having lost the pleasure of shooting Decoud.

Already there are rumours in the town of the treasure having been spirited away. To have missed that does

not please Pedrito either; but let me tell you that if you had all that silver in your hand for ransom it would

Turning swiftly, and catching the doctor by the shoulders, Nostromo thrust his face close to his.

"Maladetta! You follow me speaking of the treasure. You have sworn my ruin. You were the last man who

looked upon me before I went out with it. And Sidoni the enginedriver says you have an evil eye."

"He ought to know. I saved his broken leg for him last year," the doctor said, stoically. He felt on his

shoulders the weight of these hands famed amongst the populace for snapping thick ropes and bending

horseshoes. "And to you I offer the best means of saving yourselflet me goand of retrieving your great

reputation. You boasted of making the Capataz de Cargadores famous from one end of America to the other

about this wretched silver. But I bring you a better opportunitylet me go, hombre!"

Nostromo released him abruptly, and the doctor feared that the indispensable man would run off again. But

he did not. He walked on slowly. The doctor hobbled by his side till, within a stone's throw from the Casa

Silent in inhospitable darkness, the Casa Viola seemed to have changed its nature; his home appeared to repel

"How can I go in?" Nostromo seemed to ask himself in a low, inward tone. "She cannot unsay what she said,

"I tell you it is all right. Viola is all alone in there. I looked in as I came out of the town. You will be perfectly

safe in that house till you leave it to make your name famous on the Campo. I am going now to arrange for

your departure with the engineerinchief, and I shall bring you news here long before daybreak."

Dr. Monygham, disregarding, or perhaps fearing to penetrate the meaning of Nostromo's silence, clapped him

lightly on the shoulder, and starting off with his smart, lame walk, vanished utterly at the third or fourth hop

in the direction of the railway track. Arrested between the two wooden posts for people to fasten their horses

to, Nostromo did not move, as if he, too, had been planted solidly in the ground. At the end of half an hour he

lifted his head to the deep baying of the dogs at the railway yards, which had burst out suddenly, tumultuous

and deadened as if coming from under the plain. That lame doctor with the evil eye had got there pretty fast.

Step by step Nostromo approached the Albergo d'Italia Una, which he had never known so lightless, so silent,

before. The door, all black in the pale wall, stood open as he had left it twentyfour hours before, when he

had nothing to hide from the world. He remained before it, irresolute, like a fugitive, like a man betrayed.

Poverty, misery, starvation! Where had he heard these words? The anger of a dying woman had prophesied

that fate for his folly. It looked as if it would come true very quickly. And the leperos would laughshe had

said. Yes, they would laugh if they knew that the Capataz de Cargadores was at the mercy of the mad doctor

whom they could remember, only a few years ago, buying cooked food from a stall on the Plaza for a copper

At that moment the notion of seeking Captain Mitchell passed through his mind. He glanced in the direction

of the jetty and saw a small gleam of light in the O.S.N. Company's building. The thought of lighted windows

was not attractive. Two lighted windows had decoyed him into the empty Custom House, only to fall into the

clutches of that doctor. No! He would not go near lighted windows again on that night. Captain Mitchell was

there. And what could he be told? That doctor would worm it all out of him as if he were a child.

On the threshold he called out "Giorgio!" in an undertone. Nobody answered. He stepped in. "Ola! viejo! Are

you there? . . ." In the impenetrable darkness his head swam with the illusion that the obscurity of the kitchen

was as vast as the Placid Gulf, and that the floor dipped forward like a sinking lighter. "Ola! viejo!" he

repeated, falteringly, swaying where he stood. His hand, extended to steady himself, fell upon the table.

Moving a step forward, he shifted it, and felt a box of matches under his fingers. He fancied he had heard a

quiet sigh. He listened for a moment, holding his breath; then, with trembling hands, tried to strike a light.

The tiny piece of wood flamed up quite blindingly at the end of his fingers, raised above his blinking eyes. A

concentrated glare fell upon the leonine white head of old Giorgio against the black fireplaceshowed him

leaning forward in a chair in staring immobility, surrounded, overhung, by great masses of shadow, his legs

crossed, his cheek in his hand, an empty pipe in the corner of his mouth. It seemed hours before he attempted

to turn his face; at the very moment the match went out, and he disappeared, overwhelmed by the shadows, as

if the walls and roof of the desolate house had collapsed upon his white head in ghostly silence.

After his release by Sotillo, Giorgio Viola, attended to the very door by the goodnatured engineerinchief,

had reentered his house, which he had been made to leave almost at the very moment of his wife's death. All

was still. The lamp above was burning. He nearly called out to her by name; and the thought that no call from

him would ever again evoke the answer of her voice, made him drop heavily into the chair with a loud groan,

The rest of the night he made no sound. The darkness turned to grey, and on the colourless, clear, glassy

The enthusiastic and severe soul of Giorgio Viola, sailor, champion of oppressed humanity, enemy of kings,

and, by the grace of Mrs. Gould, hotelkeeper of the Sulaco harbour, had descended into the open abyss of

desolation amongst the shattered vestiges of his past. He remembered his wooing between two campaigns, a

single short week in the season of gathering olives. Nothing approached the grave passion of that time but the

deep, passionate sense of his bereavement. He discovered all the extent of his dependence upon the silenced

voice of that woman. It was her voice that he missed. Abstracted, busy, lost in inward contemplation, he

seldom looked at his wife in those later years. The thought of his girls was a matter of concern, not of

consolation. It was her voice that he would miss. And he remembered the other childthe little boy who

died at sea. Ah! a man would have been something to lean upon. And, alas! even Gian' Battistahe of

whom, and of Linda, his wife had spoken to him so anxiously before she dropped off into her last sleep on

earth, he on whom she had called aloud to save the children, just before she diedeven he was dead!

And the old man, bent forward, his head in his hand, sat through the day in immobility and solitude. He never

heard the brazen roar of the bells in town. When it ceased the earthenware filter in the corner of the kitchen

Towards sunset he got up, and with slow movements disappeared up the narrow staircase. His bulk filled it;

and the rubbing of his shoulders made a small noise as of a mouse running behind the plaster of a wall. While

he remained up there the house was as dumb as a grave. Then, with the same faint rubbing noise, he

descended. He had to catch at the chairs and tables to regain his seat. He seized his pipe off the high mantel

of the fireplacebut made no attempt to reach the tobaccothrust it empty into the corner of his mouth,

and sat down again in the same staring pose. The sun of Pedrito's entry into Sulaco, the last sun of Senor

Hirsch's life, the first of Decoud's solitude on the Great Isabel, passed over the Albergo d'ltalia Una on its

way to the west. The tinkling drip, drip of the filter had ceased, the lamp upstairs had burnt itself out, and the

night beset Giorgio Viola and his dead wife with its obscurity and silence that seemed invincible till the

Capataz de Cargadores, returning from the dead, put them to flight with the splutter and flare of a match.

Nostromo, after barricading the door and closing the shutters carefully, groped upon a shelf for a candle, and

Old Viola had risen. He followed with his eyes in the dark the sounds made by Nostromo. The light disclosed

him standing without support, as if the mere presence of that man who was loyal, brave, incorruptible, who

was all his son would have been, were enough for the support of his decaying strength.

He extended his hand grasping the briarwood pipe, whose bowl was charred on the edge, and knitted his

He broke off. Nostromo, leaning back against the table, his arms folded on his breast, nodded at him slightly.

"You thought I was drowned! No! The best dog of the rich, of the aristocrats, of these fine men who can only

The Garibaldino, motionless, seemed to drink in the sound of the wellknown voice. His head moved slightly

once as if in sign of approval; but Nostromo saw clearly that the old man understood nothing of the words.

There was no one to understand; no one he could take into the confidence of Decoud's fate, of his own, into

the secret of the silver. That doctor was an enemy of the peoplea tempter. . . .

Old Giorgio's heavy frame shook from head to foot with the effort to overcome his emotion at the sight of

that man, who had shared the intimacies of his domestic life as though he had been a grownup son.

He finished the thought mentally: "Since she has prophesied for me an end of poverty, misery, and

starvation." These words of Teresa's anger, from the circumstances in which they had been uttered, like the

cry of a soul prevented from making its peace with God, stirred the obscure superstition of personal fortune

from which even the greatest genius amongst men of adventure and action is seldom free. They reigned over

Nostromo's mind with the force of a potent malediction. And what a curse it was that which her words had

laid upon him! He had been orphaned so young that he could remember no other woman whom he called

mother. Henceforth there would be no enterprise in which he would not fail. The spell was working already.

"Come, viejo! Get me something to eat. I am hungry! Sangre de Dios! The emptiness of my belly makes me

With his chin dropped again upon his bare breast above his folded arms, barefooted, watching from under a

gloomy brow the movements of old Viola foraging amongst the cupboards, he seemed as if indeed fallen

Old Viola walked out of a dark corner, and, without a word, emptied upon the table out of his hollowed palms

While the Capataz began to devour this beggar's fare, taking up with stonyeyed voracity piece after piece

lying by his side, the Garibaldino went off, and squatting down in another corner filled an earthenware mug

with red wine out of a wickercovered demijohn. With a familiar gesture, as when serving customers in the

The Capataz drank greedily. A slight flush deepened the bronze of his cheek. Before him, Viola, with a turn

of his white and massive head towards the staircase, took his empty pipe out of his mouth, and pronounced

"After the shot was fired down here, which killed her as surely as if the bullet had struck her oppressed heart,

"Did she do that, Padrone? To save the children! They are with the English senora, their rich benefactress.

"I am old," muttered Giorgio Viola. "An Englishwoman was allowed to give a bed to Garibaldi lying

wounded in prison. The greatest man that ever lived. A man of the people, tooa sailor. I may let another

keep a roof over my head. Si . . . I am old. I may let her. Life lasts too long sometimes."

"And she herself may not have a roof over her head before many days are out, unless I . . . What do you say?

Am I to keep a roof over her head? Am I to tryand save all the Blancos together with her?"

"You shall do it," said old Viola in a strong voice. "You shall do it as my son would have. . . ."

"Thy son, viejo! .. .. There never has been a man like thy son. Ha, I must try. . . . But what if it were only a

part of the curse to lure me on? . . . And so she called upon me to saveand then?"

"She spoke no more." The heroic follower of Garibaldi, at the thought of the eternal stillness and silence

fallen upon the shrouded form stretched out on the bed upstairs, averted his face and raised his hand to his

furrowed brow. "She was dead before I could seize her hands," he stammered out, pitifully.

Before the wide eyes of the Capataz, staring at the doorway of the dark staircase, floated the shape of the

Great Isabel, like a strange ship in distress, freighted with enormous wealth and the solitary life of a man. It

was impossible for him to do anything. He could only hold his tongue, since there was no one to trust. The

treasure would be lost, probablyunless Decoud. . . . And his thought came abruptly to an end. He perceived

Old Viola had not stirred. And the motionless Capataz dropped his long, soft eyelashes, which gave to the

upper part of his fierce, blackwhiskered face a touch of feminine ingenuousness. The silence had lasted for a

THE next day was quiet in the morning, except for the faint sound of firing to the northward, in the direction

of Los Hatos. Captain Mitchell had listened to it from his balcony anxiously. The phrase, "In my delicate

position as the only consular agent then in the port, everything, sir, everything was a just cause for anxiety,"

had its place in the more or less stereotyped relation of the "historical events" which for the next few years

was at the service of distinguished strangers visiting Sulaco. The mention of the dignity and neutrality of the

flag, so difficult to preserve in his position, "right in the thick of these events between the lawlessness of that

piratical villain Sotillo and the more regularly established but scarcely less atrocious tyranny of his

Excellency Don Pedro Montero," came next in order. Captain Mitchell was not the man to enlarge upon mere

dangers much. But he insisted that it was a memorable day. On that day, towards dusk, he had seen "that poor

fellow of mineNostromo. The sailor whom I discovered, and, I may say, made, sir. The man of the famous

Regarded by the O. S. N. Company as an old and faithful servant, Captain Mitchell was allowed to attain the

term of his usefulness in ease and dignity at the head of the enormously extended service. The augmentation

of the establishment, with its crowds of clerks, an office in town, the old office in the harbour, the division

into departmentspassenger, cargo, lighterage, and so onsecured a greater leisure for his last years in the

regenerated Sulaco, the capital of the Occidental Republic. Liked by the natives for his good nature and the

formality of his manner, selfimportant and simple, known for years as a "friend of our country," he felt

himself a personality of mark in the town. Getting up early for a turn in the marketplace while the gigantic

shadow of Higuerota was still lying upon the fruit and flower stalls piled up with masses of gorgeous

colouring, attending easily to current affairs, welcomed in houses, greeted by ladies on the Alameda, with his

entry into all the clubs and a footing in the Casa Gould, he led his privileged old bachelor, manabouttown

existence with great comfort and solemnity. But on mailboat days he was down at the Harbour Office at an

early hour, with his own gig, manned by a smart crew in white and blue, ready to dash off and board the ship

It would be into the Harbour Office that he would lead some privileged passenger he had brought off in his

own boat, and invite him to take a seat for a moment while he signed a few papers. And Captain Mitchell,

"There isn't much time if you are to see everything in a day. We shall be off in a moment. We'll have lunch at

the Amarilla Clubthough I belong also to the AngloAmericanmining engineers and business men,

don't you knowand to the Mirliflores as well, a new clubEnglish, French, Italians, all sortslively

young fellows mostly, who wanted to pay a compliment to an old resident, sir. But we'll lunch at the

Amarilla. Interest you, I fancy. Real thing of the country. Men of the first families. The President of the

Occidental Republic himself belongs to it, sir. Fine old bishop with a broken nose in the patio. Remarkable

piece of statuary, I believe. Cavaliere Parrochettiyou know Parrochetti, the famous Italian sculptorwas

working here for two yearsthought very highly of our old bishop. . . . There! I am very much at your

Proud of his experience, penetrated by the sense of historical importance of men, events, and buildings, he

talked pompously in jerky periods, with slight sweeps of his short, thick arm, letting nothing "escape the

"Lot of building going on, as you observe. Before the Separation it was a plain of burnt grass smothered in

clouds of dust, with an oxcart track to our Jetty. Nothing more. This is the Harbour Gate. Picturesque, is it

not? Formerly the town stopped short there. We enter now the Calle de la Constitucion. Observe the old

Spanish houses. Great dignity. Eh? I suppose it's just as it was in the time of the Viceroys, except for the

pavement. Wood blocks now. Sulaco National Bank there, with the sentry boxes each side of the gate. Casa

Avellanos this side, with all the groundfloor windows shuttered. A wonderful woman lives thereMiss

Avellanosthe beautiful Antonia. A character, sir! A historical woman! OppositeCasa Gould. Noble

gateway. Yes, the Goulds of the original Gould Concession, that all the world knows of now. I hold

seventeen of the thousanddollar shares in the Consolidated San Tome mines. All the poor savings of my

lifetime, sir, and it will be enough to keep me in comfort to the end of my days at home when I retire. I got in

on the groundfloor, you see. Don Carlos, great friend of mine. Seventeen sharesquite a little fortune to

leave behind one, too. I have a niecemarried a parsonmost worthy man, incumbent of a small parish in

Sussex; no end of children. I was never married myself. A sailor should exercise selfdenial. Standing under

that very gateway, sir, with some young engineerfellows, ready to defend that house where we had received

so much kindness and hospitality, I saw the first and last charge of Pedrito's horsemen upon Barrios's troops,

who had just taken the Harbour Gate. They could not stand the new rifles brought out by that poor Decoud. It

was a murderous fire. In a moment the street became blocked with a mass of dead men and horses. They

And all day Captain Mitchell would talk like this to his more or less willing victim

"The Intendencia, now President's PalaceCabildo, where the Lower Chamber of Parliament sits. You

notice the new houses on that side of the Plaza? Compania Anzani, a great general store, like those

cooperative things at home. Old Anzani was murdered by the National Guards in front of his safe. It was even

for that specific crime that the deputy Gamacho, commanding the Nationals, a bloodthirsty and savage brute,

was executed publicly by garrotte upon the sentence of a courtmartial ordered by Barrios. Anzani's nephews

converted the business into a company. All that side of the Plaza had been burnt; used to be colonnaded

before. A terrible fire, by the light of which I saw the last of the fighting, the llaneros flying, the Nationals

throwing their arms down, and the miners of San Tome, all Indians from the Sierra, rolling by like a torrent to

the sound of pipes and cymbals, green flags flying, a wild mass of men in white ponchos and green hats, on

foot, on mules, on donkeys. Such a sight, sir, will never be seen again. The miners, sir, had marched upon the

town, Don Pepe leading on his black horse, and their very wives in the rear on burros, screaming

encouragement, sir, and beating tambourines. I remember one of these women had a green parrot seated on

her shoulder, as calm as a bird of stone. They had just saved their Senor Administrador; for Barrios, though

he ordered the assault at once, at night, too, would have been too late. Pedrito Montero had Don Carlos led

out to be shotlike his uncle many years agoand then, as Barrios said afterwards, 'Sulaco would not have

been worth fighting for.' Sulaco without the Concession was nothing; and there were tons and tons of

dynamite distributed all over the mountain with detonators arranged, and an old priest, Father Roman,

standing by to annihilate the San Tome mine at the first news of failure. Don Carlos had made up his mind

Thus Captain Mitchell would talk in the middle of the Plaza, holding over his head a white umbrella with a

green lining; but inside the cathedral, in the dim light, with a faint scent of incense floating in the cool

atmosphere, and here and there a kneeling female figure, black or all white, with a veiled head, his lowered

"Here," he would say, pointing to a niche in the wall of the dusky aisle, "you see the bust of Don Jose

Avellanos, 'Patriot and Statesman,' as the inscription says, 'Minister to Courts of England and Spain, etc., etc.,

died in the woods of Los Hatos worn out with his lifelong struggle for Right and Justice at the dawn of the

New Era.' A fair likeness. Parrochetti's work from some old photographs and a pencil sketch by Mrs. Gould. I

was well acquainted with that distinguished SpanishAmerican of the old school, a true Hidalgo, beloved by

everybody who knew him. The marble medallion in the wall, in the antique style, representing a veiled

woman seated with her hands clasped loosely over her knees, commemorates that unfortunate young

gentleman who sailed out with Nostromo on that fatal night, sir. See, 'To the memory of Martin Decoud, his

betrothed Antonia Avellanos.' Frank, simple, noble. There you have that lady, sir, as she is. An exceptional

woman. Those who thought she would give way to despair were mistaken, sir. She has been blamed in many

quarters for not having taken the veil. It was expected of her. But Dona Antonia is not the stuff they make

nuns of. Bishop Corbelan, her uncle, lives with her in the Corbelan town house. He is a fierce sort of priest,

everlastingly worrying the Government about the old Church lands and convents. I believe they think a lot of

him in Rome. Now let us go to the Amarilla Club, just across the Plaza, to get some lunch."

Directly outside the cathedral on the very top of the noble flight of steps, his voice rose pompously, his arm

"Porvenir, over there on that first floor, above those French plateglass shopfronts; our biggest daily.

Conservative, or, rather, I should say, Parliamentary. We have the Parliamentary party here of which the

actual Chief of the State, Don Juste Lopez, is the head; a very sagacious man, I think. A firstrate intellect,

sir. The Democratic party in opposition rests mostly, I am sorry to say, on these socialistic Italians, sir, with

their secret societies, camorras, and suchlike. There are lots of Italians settled here on the railway lands,

dismissed navvies, mechanics, and so on, all along the trunk line. There are whole villages of Italians on the

Campo. And the natives, too, are being drawn into these ways . . . American bar? Yes. And over there you

can see another. New Yorkers mostly frequent that oneHere we are at the Amarilla. Observe the bishop

And the lunch would begin and terminate its lavish and leisurely course at a little table in the gallery, Captain

Mitchell nodding, bowing, getting up to speak for a moment to different officials in black clothes, merchants

in jackets, officers in uniform, middleaged caballeros from the Camposallow, little, nervous men, and fat,

placid, swarthy men, and Europeans or North Americans of superior standing, whose faces looked very white

Captain Mitchell would lie back in the chair, casting around looks of satisfaction, and tender over the table a

"Try a weed with your coffee. Local tobacco. The black coffee you get at the Amarilla, sir, you don't meet

anywhere in the world. We get the bean from a famous cafeteria in the foothills, whose owner sends three

sacks every year as a present to his fellow members in remembrance of the fight against Gamacho's

Nationals, carried on from these very windows by the caballeros. He was in town at the time, and took part,

sir, to the bitter end. It arrives on three mulesnot in the common way, by rail; no fear!right into the

patio, escorted by mounted peons, in charge of the Mayoral of his estate, who walks upstairs, booted and

spurred, and delivers it to our committee formally with the words, 'For the sake of those fallen on the third of

Captain Mitchell, with an expression as though making ready to hear a sermon in a church, would lift the tiny

cup to his lips. And the nectar would be sipped to the bottom during a restful silence in a cloud of cigar

"Look at this man in black just going out," he would begin, leaning forward hastily. "This is the famous

Hernandez, Minister of War. The Times' special correspondent, who wrote that striking series of letters

calling the Occidental Republic the 'Treasure House of the World,' gave a whole article to him and the force

Captain Mitchell's guest, staring curiously, would see a figure in a longtailed black coat walking gravely,

with downcast eyelids in a long, composed face, a brow furrowed horizontally, a pointed head, whose grey

hair, thin at the top, combed down carefully on all sides and rolled at the ends, fell low on the neck and

shoulders. This, then, was the famous bandit of whom Europe had heard with interest. He put on a

highcrowned sombrero with a wide flat brim; a rosary of wooden beads was twisted about his right wrist.

"The protector of the Sulaco refugees from the rage of Pedrito. As general of cavalry with Barrios he

distinguished himself at the storming of Tonoro, where Senor Fuentes was killed with the last remnant of the

Monterists. He is the friend and humble servant of Bishop Corbelan. Hears three Masses every day. I bet you

he will step into the cathedral to say a prayer or two on his way home to his siesta."

He took several puffs at his cigar in silence; then, in his most important manner, pronounced:

"The Spanish race, sir, is prolific of remarkable characters in every rank of life. . . . I propose we go now into

the billiardroom, which is cool, for a quiet chat. There's never anybody there till after five. I could tell you

episodes of the Separationist revolution that would astonish you. When the great heat's over, we'll take a turn

The programme went on relentless, like a law of Nature. The turn on the Alameda was taken with slow steps

"All the great world of Sulaco here, sir." Captain Mitchell bowed right and left with no end of formality; then

with animation, "Dona Emilia, Mrs. Gould's carriage. Look. Always white mules. The kindest, most gracious

woman the sun ever shone upon. A great position, sir. A great position. First lady in Sulacofar before the

President's wife. And worthy of it." He took off his hat; then, with a studied change of tone, added,

negligently, that the man in black by her side, with a high white collar and a scarred, snarly face, was Dr.

Monygham, Inspector of State Hospitals, chief medical officer of the Consolidated San Tome mines. "A

familiar of the house. Everlastingly there. No wonder. The Goulds made him. Very clever man and all that,

but I never liked him. Nobody does. I can recollect him limping about the streets in a check shirt and native

sandals with a watermelon under his armall he would get to eat for the day. A bigwig now, sir, and as

nasty as ever. However . . . There's no doubt he played his part fairly well at the time. He saved us all from

"The equestrian statue that used to stand on the pedestal over there has been removed. It was an

anachronism," Captain Mitchell commented, obscurely. "There is some talk of replacing it by a marble shaft

commemorative of Separation, with angels of peace at the four corners, and bronze Justice holding an even

balance, all gilt, on the top. Cavaliere Parrochetti was asked to make a design, which you can see framed

under glass in the Municipal Sala. Names are to be engraved all round the base. Well! They could do no

better than begin with the name of Nostromo. He has done for Separation as much as anybody else, and,"

added Captain Mitchell, "has got less than many others by itwhen it comes to that." He dropped on to a

stone seat under a tree, and tapped invitingly at the place by his side. "He carried to Barrios the letters from

Sulaco which decided the General to abandon Cayta for a time, and come back to our help here by sea. The

transports were still in harbour fortunately. Sir, I did not even know that my Capataz de Cargadores was

alive. I had no idea. It was Dr. Monygham who came upon him, by chance, in the Custom House, evacuated

an hour or two before by the wretched Sotillo. I was never told; never given a hint, nothingas if I were

unworthy of confidence. Monygham arranged it all. He went to the railway yards, and got admission to the

engineerinchief, who, for the sake of the Goulds as much as for anything else, consented to let an engine

make a dash down the line, one hundred and eighty miles, with Nostromo aboard. It was the only way to get

him off. In the Construction Camp at the railhead, he obtained a horse, arms, some clothing, and started alone

on that marvellous ridefour hundred miles in six days, through a disturbed country, ending by the feat of

passing through the Monterist lines outside Cayta. The history of that ride, sir, would make a most exciting

book. He carried all our lives in his pocket. Devotion, courage, fidelity, intelligence were not enough. Of

course, he was perfectly fearless and incorruptible. But a man was wanted that would know how to succeed.

He was that man, sir. On the fifth of May, being practically a prisoner in the Harbour Office of my Company,

I suddenly heard the whistle of an engine in the railway yards, a quarter of a mile away. I could not believe

my ears. I made one jump on to the balcony, and beheld a locomotive under a great head of steam run out of

the yard gates, screeching like mad, enveloped in a white cloud, and then, just abreast of old Viola's inn,

check almost to a standstill. I made out, sir, a manI couldn't tell whodash out of the Albergo d'ltalia

Una, climb into the cab, and then, sir, that engine seemed positively to leap clear of the house, and was gone

in the twinkling of an eye. As you blow a candle out, sir! There was a firstrate driver on the footplate, sir, I

can tell you. They were fired heavily upon by the National Guards in Rincon and one other place. Fortunately

the line had not been torn up. In four hours they reached the Construction Camp. Nostromo had his start. . . .

The rest you know. You've got only to look round you. There are people on this Alameda that ride in their

carriages, or even are alive at all today, because years ago I engaged a runaway Italian sailor for a foreman

of our wharf simply on the strength of his looks. And that's a fact. You can't get over it, sir. On the

seventeenth of May, just twelve days after I saw the man from the Casa Viola get on the engine, and

wondered what it meant, Barrios's transports were entering this harbour, and the 'Treasure House of the

World,' as The Times man calls Sulaco in his book, was saved intact for civilizationfor a great future, sir.

Pedrito, with Hernandez on the west, and the San Tome miners pressing on the land gate, was not able to

oppose the landing. He had been sending messages to Sotillo for a week to join him. Had Sotillo done so

there would have been massacres and proscription that would have left no man or woman of position alive.

But that's where Dr. Monygham comes in. Sotillo, blind and deaf to everything, stuck on board his steamer

watching the dragging for silver, which he believed to be sunk at the bottom of the harbour. They say that for

the last three days he was out of his mind raving and foaming with disappointment at getting nothing, flying

about the deck, and yelling curses at the boats with the drags, ordering them in, and then suddenly stamping

"He was preparing to hang Dr. Monygham (whom he had on board) at the end of the afterderrick, when the

first of Barrios's transports, one of our own ships at that, steamed right in, and ranging close alongside opened

a smallarm fire without as much preliminaries as a hail. It was the completest surprise in the world, sir.

They were too astounded at first to bolt below. Men were falling right and left like ninepins. It's a miracle that

Monygham, standing on the afterhatch with the rope already round his neck, escaped being riddled through

and through like a sieve. He told me since that he had given himself up for lost, and kept on yelling with all

the strength of his lungs: 'Hoist a white flag! Hoist a white flag!' Suddenly an old major of the Esmeralda

regiment, standing by, unsheathed his sword with a shriek: 'Die, perjured traitor!' and ran Sotillo clean

"Begad, sir! I could spin you a yarn for hours. But it's time we started off to Rincon. It would not do for you

to pass through Sulaco and not see the lights of the San Tome mine, a whole mountain ablaze like a lighted

palace above the dark Campo. It's a fashionable drive. . . . But let me tell you one little anecdote, sir; just to

show you. A fortnight or more later, when Barrios, declared Generalissimo, was gone in pursuit of Pedrito

away south, when the Provisional Junta, with Don Juste Lopez at its head, had promulgated the new

Constitution, and our Don Carlos Gould was packing up his trunks bound on a mission to San Francisco and

Washington (the United States, sir, were the first great power to recognize the Occidental Republic)a

fortnight later, I say, when we were beginning to feel that our heads were safe on our shoulders, if I may

express myself so, a prominent man, a large shipper by our line, came to see me on business, and, says he, the

first thing: 'I say, Captain Mitchell, is that fellow' (meaning Nostromo) 'still the Capataz of your Cargadores

or not?' 'What's the matter?' says I. 'Because, if he is, then I don't mind; I send and receive a good lot of cargo

by your ships; but I have observed him several days loafing about the wharf, and just now he stopped me as

cool as you please, with a request for a cigar. Now, you know, my cigars are rather special, and I can't get

them so easily as all that.' 'I hope you stretched a point,' I said, very gently. 'Why, yes. But it's a confounded

nuisance. The fellow's everlastingly cadging for smokes.' Sir, I turned my eyes away, and then asked,

'Weren't you one of the prisoners in the Cabildo?' 'You know very well I was, and in chains, too,' says he.

'And under a fine of fifteen thousand dollars?' He coloured, sir, because it got about that he fainted from

fright when they came to arrest him, and then behaved before Fuentes in a manner to make the very

policianos, who had dragged him there by the hair of his head, smile at his cringing. 'Yes,' he says, in a sort of

shy way. 'Why?' 'Oh, nothing. You stood to lose a tidy bit,' says I, 'even if you saved your life. . . . But what

can I do for you?' He never even saw the point. Not he. And that's how the world wags, sir."

He rose a little stiffly, and the drive to Rincon would be taken with only one philosophical remark, uttered by

the merciless cicerone, with his eyes fixed upon the lights of San Tome, that seemed suspended in the dark

And the dinner of the Mirliflores would be eaten, excellent as to cooking, and leaving upon the traveller's

mind an impression that there were in Sulaco many pleasant, able young men with salaries apparently too

large for their discretion, and amongst them a few, mostly AngloSaxon, skilled in the art of, as the saying is,

With a rapid, jingling drive to the harbour in a twowheeled machine (which Captain Mitchell called a

curricle) behind a fleet and scraggy mule beaten all the time by an obviously Neapolitan driver, the cycle

would be nearly closed before the lightedup offices of the O. S. N. Company, remaining open so late

"Ten o'clock. Your ship won't be ready to leave till halfpast twelve, if by then. Come in for a

And in the superintendent's private room the privileged passenger by the Ceres, or Juno, or Pallas, stunned

and as it were annihilated mentally by a sudden surfeit of sights, sounds, names, facts, and complicated

information imperfectly apprehended, would listen like a tired child to a fairy tale; would hear a voice,

familiar and surprising in its pompousness, tell him, as if from another world, how there was "in this very

harbour" an international naval demonstration, which put an end to the CostaguanaSulaco War. How the

United States cruiser, Powhattan, was the first to salute the Occidental flagwhite, with a wreath of green

laurel in the middle encircling a yellow amarilla flower. Would hear how General Montero, in less than a

month after proclaiming himself Emperor of Costaguana, was shot dead (during a solemn and public

distribution of orders and crosses) by a young artillery officer, the brother of his then mistress.

"The abominable Pedrito, sir, fled the country," the voice would say. And it would continue: "A captain of

one of our ships told me lately that he recognized Pedrito the Guerrillero, arrayed in purple slippers and a

velvet smokingcap with a gold tassel, keeping a disorderly house in one of the southern ports."

"Abominable Pedrito! Who the devil was he?" would wonder the distinguished bird of passage hovering on

the confines of waking and sleep with resolutely open eyes and a faint but amiable curl upon his lips, from

between which stuck out the eighteenth or twentieth cigar of that memorable day.

"He appeared to me in this very room like a haunting ghost, sir"Captain Mitchell was talking of his

Nostromo with true warmth of feeling and a touch of wistful pride. "You may imagine, sir, what an effect it

produced on me. He had come round by sea with Barrios, of course. And the first thing he told me after I

became fit to hear him was that he had picked up the lighter's boat floating in the gulf! He seemed quite

overcome by the circumstance. And a remarkable enough circumstance it was, when you remember that it

was then sixteen days since the sinking of the silver. At once I could see he was another man. He stared at the

wall, sir, as if there had been a spider or something running about there. The loss of the silver preyed on his

mind. The first thing he asked me about was whether Dona Antonia had heard yet of Decoud's death. His

voice trembled. I had to tell him that Dona Antonia, as a matter of fact, was not back in town yet. Poor girl!

And just as I was making ready to ask him a thousand questions, with a sudden, 'Pardon me, senor,' he

cleared out of the office altogether. I did not see him again for three days. I was terribly busy, you know. It

seems that he wandered about in and out of the town, and on two nights turned up to sleep in the baracoons of

the railway people. He seemed absolutely indifferent to what went on. I asked him on the wharf, 'When are

you going to take hold again, Nostromo? There will be plenty of work for the Cargadores presently.'

"'Senor,' says he, looking at me in a slow, inquisitive manner, 'would it surprise you to hear that I am too tired

to work just yet? And what work could I do now? How can I look my Cargadores in the face after losing a

"I begged him not to think any more about the silver, and he smiled. A smile that went to my heart, sir. 'It was

no mistake,' I told him. 'It was a fatality. A thing that could not be helped.' 'Si, si!" he said, and turned away. I

thought it best to leave him alone for a bit to get over it. Sir, it took him years really, to get over it. I was

present at his interview with Don Carlos. I must say that Gould is rather a cold man. He had to keep a tight

hand on his feelings, dealing with thieves and rascals, in constant danger of ruin for himself and wife for so

many years, that it had become a second nature. They looked at each other for a long time. Don Carlos asked

"'My name is known from one end of Sulaco to the other,' he said, as quiet as the other. 'What more can you

do for me?' That was all that passed on that occasion. Later, however, there was a very fine coasting schooner

for sale, and Mrs. Gould and I put our heads together to get her bought and presented to him. It was done, but

he paid all the price back within the next three years. Business was booming all along this seaboard, sir.

Moreover, that man always succeeded in everything except in saving the silver. Poor Dona Antonia, fresh

from her terrible experiences in the woods of Los Hatos, had an interview with him, too. Wanted to hear

about Decoud: what they said, what they did, what they thought up to the last on that fatal night. Mrs. Gould

told me his manner was perfect for quietness and sympathy. Miss Avellanos burst into tears only when he

told her how Decoud had happened to say that his plan would be a glorious success. . . . And there's no doubt,

The cycle was about to close at last. And while the privileged passenger, shivering with the pleasant

anticipations of his berth, forgot to ask himself, "What on earth Decoud's plan could be?" Captain Mitchell

was saying, "Sorry we must part so soon. Your intelligent interest made this a pleasant day to me. I shall see

you now on board. You had a glimpse of the 'Treasure House of the World.' A very good name that." And the

coxswain's voice at the door, announcing that the gig was ready, closed the cycle.

Nostromo had, indeed, found the lighter's boat, which he had left on the Great Isabel with Decoud, floating

empty far out in the gulf. He was then on the bridge of the first of Barrios's transports, and within an hour's

steaming from Sulaco. Barrios, always delighted with a feat of daring and a good judge of courage, had taken

a great liking to the Capataz. During the passage round the coast the General kept Nostromo near his person,

addressing him frequently in that abrupt and boisterous manner which was the sign of his high favour.

Nostromo's eyes were the first to catch, broad on the bow, the tiny, elusive dark speck, which, alone with the

forms of the Three Isabels right ahead, appeared on the flat, shimmering emptiness of the gulf. There are

times when no fact should be neglected as insignificant; a small boat so far from the land might have had

some meaning worth finding out. At a nod of consent from Barrios the transport swept out of her course,

passing near enough to ascertain that no one manned the little cockleshell. It was merely a common small

boat gone adrift with her oars in her. But Nostromo, to whose mind Decoud had been insistently present for

There could be no question of stopping to pick up that thing. Every minute of time was momentous with the

lives and futures of a whole town. The head of the leading ship, with the General on board, fell off to her

course. Behind her, the fleet of transports, scattered haphazard over a mile or so in the offing, like the finish

"Mi General," Nostromo's voice rang out loud, but quiet, from behind a group of officers, "I should like to

"And, por Dios," guffawed Barrios, in a noisy, goodhumoured voice, "you belong to me. I am going to make

"I can swim far better than I can ride, mi General," cried Nostromo, pushing through to the rail with a set

"Let you? What a conceited fellow that is," bantered the General, jovially, without even looking at him. "Let

him go! Ha! ha! ha! He wants me to admit that we cannot take Sulaco without him! Ha! ha! ha! Would you

A tremendous shout from one end of the ship to the other stopped his guffaw. Nostromo had leaped

overboard; and his black head bobbed up far away already from the ship. The General muttered an appalled

"Cielo! Sinner that I am!" in a thunderstruck tone. One anxious glance was enough to show him that

Nostromo was swimming with perfect ease; and then he thundered terribly, "No! no! We shall not stop to

Nothing short of main force would have kept Nostromo from leaping overboard. That empty boat, coming

out to meet him mysteriously, as if rowed by an invisible spectre, exercised the fascination of some sign, of

some warning, seemed to answer in a startling and enigmatic way the persistent thought of a treasure and of a

man's fate. He would have leaped if there had been death in that halfmile of water. It was as smooth as a

pond, and for some reason sharks are unknown in the Placid Gulf, though on the other side of the Punta Mala

The Capataz seized hold of the stern and blew with force. A queer, faint feeling had come over him while he

swam. He had got rid of his boots and coat in the water. He hung on for a time, regaining his breath. In the

distance the transports, more in a bunch now, held on straight for Sulaco, with their air of friendly contest, of

nautical sport, of a regatta; and the united smoke of their funnels drove like a thin, sulphurous fogbank right

over his head. It was his daring, his courage, his act that had set these ships in motion upon the sea, hurrying

on to save the lives and fortunes of the Blancos, the taskmasters of the people; to save the San Tome mine; to

With a vigorous and skilful effort he clambered over the stern. The very boat! No doubt of it; no doubt

whatever. It was the dinghy of the lighter No. 3the dinghy left with Martin Decoud on the Great Isabel so

that he should have some means to help himself if nothing could be done for him from the shore. And here

she had come out to meet him empty and inexplicable. What had become of Decoud? The Capataz made a

minute examination. He looked for some scratch, for some mark, for some sign. All he discovered was a

brown stain on the gunwale abreast of the thwart. He bent his face over it and rubbed hard with his finger.

Then he sat down in the stern sheets, passive, with his knees close together and legs aslant.

Streaming from head to foot, with his hair and whiskers hanging lank and dripping and a lustreless stare fixed

upon the bottom boards, the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores resembled a drowned corpse come up from the

bottom to idle away the sunset hour in a small boat. The excitement of his adventurous ride, the excitement of

the return in time, of achievement, of success, all this excitement centred round the associated ideas of the

great treasure and of the only other man who knew of its existence, had departed from him. To the very last

moment he had been cudgelling his brains as to how he could manage to visit the Great Isabel without loss of

time and undetected. For the idea of secrecy had come to be connected with the treasure so closely that even

to Barrios himself he had refrained from mentioning the existence of Decoud and of the silver on the island.

The letters he carried to the General, however, made brief mention of the loss of the lighter, as having its

bearing upon the situation in Sulaco. In the circumstances, the oneeyed tigerslayer, scenting battle from

afar, had not wasted his time in making inquiries from the messenger. In fact, Barrios, talking with Nostromo,

assumed that both Don Martin Decoud and the ingots of San Tome were lost together, and Nostromo, not

questioned directly, had kept silent, under the influence of some indefinable form of resentment and distrust.

Let Don Martin speak of everything with his own lipswas what he told himself mentally.

And now, with the means of gaining the Great Isabel thrown thus in his way at the earliest possible moment,

his excitement had departed, as when the soul takes flight leaving the body inert upon an earth it knows no

more. Nostromo did not seem to know the gulf. For a long time even his eyelids did not flutter once upon the

glazed emptiness of his stare. Then slowly, without a limb having stirred, without a twitch of muscle or

quiver of an eyelash, an expression, a living expression came upon the still features, deep thought crept into

the empty stareas if an outcast soul, a quiet, brooding soul, finding that untenanted body in its way, had

The Capataz frowned: and in the immense stillness of sea, islands, and coast, of cloud forms on the sky and

trails of light upon the water, the knitting of that brow had the emphasis of a powerful gesture. Nothing else

budged for a long time; then the Capataz shook his head and again surrendered himself to the universal

repose of all visible things. Suddenly he seized the oars, and with one movement made the dinghy spin round,

headon to the Great Isabel. But before he began to pull he bent once more over the brown stain on the

"I know that thing," he muttered to himself, with a sagacious jerk of the head. "That's blood."

His stroke was long, vigorous, and steady. Now and then he looked over his shoulder at the Great Isabel,

presenting its low cliff to his anxious gaze like an impenetrable face. At last the stem touched the strand. He

flung rather than dragged the boat up the little beach. At once, turning his back upon the sunset, he plunged

with long strides into the ravine, making the water of the stream spurt and fly upwards at every step, as if

spurning its shallow, clear, murmuring spirit with his feet. He wanted to save every moment of daylight.

A mass of earth, grass, and smashed bushes had fallen down very naturally from above upon the cavity under

the leaning tree. Decoud had attended to the concealment of the silver as instructed, using the spade with

some intelligence. But Nostromo's halfsmile of approval changed into a scornful curl of the lip by the sight

of the spade itself flung there in full view, as if in utter carelessness or sudden panic, giving away the whole

thing. Ah! They were all alike in their folly, these hombres finos that invented laws and governments and

The Capataz picked up the spade, and with the feel of the handle in his palm the desire of having a look at the

horsehide boxes of treasure came upon him suddenly. In a very few strokes he uncovered the edges and

corners of several; then, clearing away more earth, became aware that one of them had been slashed with a

He exclaimed at that discovery in a stifled voice, and dropped on his knees with a look of irrational

apprehension over one shoulder, then over the other. The stiff hide had closed, and he hesitated before he

pushed his hand through the long slit and felt the ingots inside. There they were. One, two, three. Yes, four

gone. Taken away. Four ingots. But who? Decoud? Nobody else. And why? For what purpose? For what

In the face of the open gulf, the sun, clear, unclouded, unaltered, plunged into the waters in a grave and

untroubled mystery of selfimmolation consummated far from all mortal eyes, with an infinite majesty of

He sat down on the soft earth, unresisting, as if he had been chained to the treasure, his drawnup legs

clasped in his hands with an air of hopeless submission, like a slave set on guard. Once only he lifted his head

smartly: the rattle of hot musketry fire had reached his ears, like pouring from on high a stream of dry peas

The sounds of firing died out. The loom of a great conflagration in Sulaco flashed up red above the coast,

played on the clouds at the head of the gulf, seemed to touch with a ruddy and sinister reflection the forms of

"But, then, I cannot know," he pronounced, distinctly, and remained silent and staring for hours.

He could not know. Nobody was to know. As might have been supposed, the end of Don Martin Decoud

never became a subject of speculation for any one except Nostromo. Had the truth of the facts been known,

there would always have remained the question. Why? Whereas the version of his death at the sinking of the

lighter had no uncertainty of motive. The young apostle of Separation had died striving for his idea by an

everlamented accident. But the truth was that he died from solitude, the enemy known but to few on this

earth, and whom only the simplest of us are fit to withstand. The brilliant Costaguanero of the boulevards had

For some good and valid reasons beyond mere human comprehension, the seabirds of the gulf shun the

Isabels. The rocky head of Azuera is their haunt, whose stony levels and chasms resound with their wild and

tumultuous clamour as if they were for ever quarrelling over the legendary treasure.

At the end of his first day on the Great Isabel, Decoud, turning in his lair of coarse grass, under the shade of a

And he had not heard a sound, either, all day but that one now of his own muttering voice. It had been a day

of absolute silencethe first he had known in his life. And he had not slept a wink. Not for all these wakeful

nights and the days of fighting, planning, talking; not for all that last night of danger and hard physical toil

upon the gulf, had he been able to close his eyes for a moment. And yet from sunrise to sunset he had been

He stretched himself, and with slow steps descended into the gully to spend the night by the side of the silver.

If Nostromo returnedas he might have done at any momentit was there that he would look first; and

night would, of course, be the proper time for an attempt to communicate. He remembered with profound

indifference that he had not eaten anything yet since he had been left alone on the island.

He spent the night openeyed, and when the day broke he ate something with the same indifference. The

brilliant "Son Decoud," the spoiled darling of the family, the lover of Antonia and journalist of Sulaco, was

not fit to grapple with himself singlehanded. Solitude from mere outward condition of existence becomes

very swiftly a state of soul in which the affectations of irony and scepticism have no place. It takes possession

of the mind, and drives forth the thought into the exile of utter unbelief. After three days of waiting for the

sight of some human face, Decoud caught himself entertaining a doubt of his own individuality. It had

merged into the world of cloud and water, of natural forces and forms of nature. In our activity alone do we

find the sustaining illusion of an independent existence as against the whole scheme of things of which we

form a helpless part. Decoud lost all belief in the reality of his action past and to come. On the fifth day an

immense melancholy descended upon him palpably. He resolved not to give himself up to these people in

Sulaco, who had beset him, unreal and terrible, like jibbering and obscene spectres. He saw himself

struggling feebly in their midst, and Antonia, gigantic and lovely like an allegorical statue, looking on with

Not a living being, not a speck of distant sail, appeared within the range of his vision; and, as if to escape

from this solitude, he absorbed himself in his melancholy. The vague consciousness of a misdirected life

given up to impulses whose memory left a bitter taste in his mouth was the first moral sentiment of his

manhood. But at the same time he felt no remorse. What should he regret? He had recognized no other virtue

than intelligence, and had erected passions into duties. Both his intelligence and his passion were swallowed

up easily in this great unbroken solitude of waiting without faith. Sleeplessness had robbed his will of all

energy, for he had not slept seven hours in the seven days. His sadness was the sadness of a sceptical mind.

He beheld the universe as a succession of incomprehensible images. Nostromo was dead. Everything had

failed ignominiously. He no longer dared to think of Antonia. She had not survived. But if she survived he

On the tenth day, after a night spent without even dozing off once (it had occurred to him that Antonia could

not possibly have ever loved a being so impalpable as himself), the solitude appeared like a great void, and

the silence of the gulf like a tense, thin cord to which he hung suspended by both hands, without fear, without

surprise, without any sort of emotion whatever. Only towards the evening, in the comparative relief of

coolness, he began to wish that this cord would snap. He imagined it snapping with a report as of a pistola

sharp, full crack. And that would be the end of him. He contemplated that eventuality with pleasure, because

he dreaded the sleepless nights in which the silence, remaining unbroken in the shape of a cord to which he

hung with both hands, vibrated with senseless phrases, always the same but utterly incomprehensible, about

Nostromo, Antonia, Barrios, and proclamations mingled into an ironical and senseless buzzing. In the

daytime he could look at the silence like a still cord stretched to breakingpoint, with his life, his vain life,

The sun was two hours above the horizon when he got up, gaunt, dirty, whitefaced, and looked at it with his

redrimmed eyes. His limbs obeyed him slowly, as if full of lead, yet without tremor; and the effect of that

physical condition gave to his movements an unhesitating, deliberate dignity. He acted as if accomplishing

some sort of rite. He descended into the gully; for the fascination of all that silver, with its potential power,

survived alone outside of himself. He picked up the belt with the revolver, that was lying there, and buckled it

round his waist. The cord of silence could never snap on the island. It must let him fall and sink into the sea,

he thought. And sink! He was looking at the loose earth covering the treasure. In the sea! His aspect was that

of a somnambulist. He lowered himself down on his knees slowly and went on grubbing with his fingers with

industrious patience till he uncovered one of the boxes. Without a pause, as if doing some work done many

times before, he slit it open and took four ingots, which he put in his pockets. He covered up the exposed box

again and step by step came out of the gully. The bushes closed after him with a swish.

It was on the third day of his solitude that he had dragged the dinghy near the water with an idea of rowing

away somewhere, but had desisted partly at the whisper of lingering hope that Nostromo would return, partly

from conviction of utter uselessness of all effort. Now she wanted only a slight shove to be set afloat. He had

eaten a little every day after the first, and had some muscular strength left yet. Taking up the oars slowly, he

pulled away from the cliff of the Great Isabel, that stood behind him warm with sunshine, as if with the heat

of life, bathed in a rich light from head to foot as if in a radiance of hope and joy. He pulled straight towards

the setting sun. When the gulf had grown dark, he ceased rowing and flung the sculls in. The hollow clatter

they made in falling was the loudest noise he had ever heard in his life. It was a revelation. It seemed to recall

him from far away, Actually the thought, "Perhaps I may sleep tonight," passed through his mind. But he

did not believe it. He believed in nothing; and he remained sitting on the thwart.

The dawn from behind the mountains put a gleam into his unwinking eyes. After a clear daybreak the sun

appeared splendidly above the peaks of the range. The great gulf burst into a glitter all around the boat; and in

this glory of merciless solitude the silence appeared again before him, stretched taut like a dark, thin string.

His eyes looked at it while, without haste, he shifted his seat from the thwart to the gunwale. They looked at

it fixedly, while his hand, feeling about his waist, unbuttoned the flap of the leather case, drew the revolver,

cocked it, brought it forward pointing at his breast, pulled the trigger, and, with convulsive force, sent the

stillsmoking weapon hurtling through the air. His eyes looked at it while he fell forward and hung with his

breast on the gunwale and the fingers of his right hand hooked under the thwart. They looked

"It is done," he stammered out, in a sudden flow of blood. His last thought was: "I wonder how that Capataz

died." The stiffness of the fingers relaxed, and the lover of Antonia Avellanos rolled overboard without

having heard the cord of silence snap in the solitude of the Placid Gulf, whose glittering surface remained

A victim of the disillusioned weariness which is the retribution meted out to intellectual audacity, the brilliant

Don Martin Decoud, weighted by the bars of San Tome silver, disappeared without a trace, swallowed up in

the immense indifference of things. His sleepless, crouching figure was gone from the side of the San Tome

silver; and for a time the spirits of good and evil that hover near every concealed treasure of the earth might

have thought that this one had been forgotten by all mankind. Then, after a few days, another form appeared

striding away from the setting sun to sit motionless and awake in the narrow black gully all through the night,

in nearly the same pose, in the same place in which had sat that other sleepless man who had gone away for

ever so quietly in a small boat, about the time of sunset. And the spirits of good and evil that hover about a

forbidden treasure understood well that the silver of San Tome was provided now with a faithful and lifelong

The magnificent Capataz de Cargadores, victim of the disenchanted vanity which is the reward of audacious

action, sat in the weary pose of a hunted outcast through a night of sleeplessness as tormenting as any known

to Decoud, his companion in the most desperate affair of his life. And he wondered how Decoud had died.

But he knew the part he had played himself. First a woman, then a man, abandoned both in their last

extremity, for the sake of this accursed treasure. It was paid for by a soul lost and by a vanished life. The

blank stillness of awe was succeeded by a gust of immense pride. There was no one in the world but Gian'

Battista Fidanza, Capataz de Cargadores, the incorruptible and faithful Nostromo, to pay such a price.

He had made up his mind that nothing should be allowed now to rob him of his bargain. Nothing. Decoud

had died. But how? That he was dead he had not a shadow of a doubt. But four ingots? . . . What for? Did he

The treasure was putting forth its latent power. It troubled the clear mind of the man who had paid the price.

He was sure that Decoud was dead. The island seemed full of that whisper. Dead! Gone! And he caught

himself listening for the swish of bushes and the splash of the footfalls in the bed of the brook. Dead! The

"Ha!" he murmured, with his head on his knees, under the livid clouded dawn breaking over the liberated

Sulaco and upon the gulf as gray as ashes. "It is to her that he will fly. To her that he will fly!"

And four ingots! Did he take them in revenge, to cast a spell, like the angry woman who had prophesied

remorse and failure, and yet had laid upon him the task of saving the children? Well, he had saved the

children. He had defeated the spell of poverty and starvation. He had done it all aloneor perhaps helped by

the devil. Who cared? He had done it, betrayed as he was, and saving by the same stroke the San Tome mine,

which appeared to him hateful and immense, lording it by its vast wealth over the valour, the toil, the fidelity

of the poor, over war and peace, over the labours of the town, the sea, and the Campo.

The sun lit up the sky behind the peaks of the Cordillera. The Capataz looked down for a time upon the fall of

loose earth, stones, and smashed bushes, concealing the hidingplace of the silver.

SULACO outstripped Nostromo's prudence, growing rich swiftly on the hidden treasures of the earth,

hovered over by the anxious spirits of good and evil, torn out by the labouring hands of the people. It was like

a second youth, like a new life, full of promise, of unrest, of toil, scattering lavishly its wealth to the four

corners of an excited world. Material changes swept along in the train of material interests. And other

changes more subtle, outwardly unmarked, affected the minds and hearts of the workers. Captain Mitchell

had gone home to live on his savings invested in the San Tome mine; and Dr. Monygham had grown older,

with his head steelgrey and the unchanged expression of his face, living on the inexhaustible treasure of his

The InspectorGeneral of State Hospitals (whose maintenance is a charge upon the Gould Concession),

Official Adviser on Sanitation to the Municipality, Chief Medical Officer of the San Tome Consolidated

Mines (whose territory, containing gold, silver, copper, lead, cobalt, extends for miles along the foothills of

the Cordillera), had felt povertystricken, miserable, and starved during the prolonged, second visit the

Goulds paid to Europe and the United States of America. Intimate of the casa, proved friend, a bachelor

without ties and without establishment (except of the professional sort), he had been asked to take up his

quarters in the Gould house. In the eleven months of their absence the familiar rooms, recalling at every

glance the woman to whom he had given all his loyalty, had grown intolerable. As the day approached for the

arrival of the mail boat Hermes (the latest addition to the O. S. N. Co.'s splendid fleet), the doctor hobbled

about more vivaciously, snapped more sardonically at simple and gentle out of sheer nervousness.

He packed up his modest trunk with speed, with fury, with enthusiasm, and saw it carried out past the old

porter at the gate of the Casa Gould with delight, with intoxication; then, as the hour approached, sitting

alone in the great landau behind the white mules, a little sideways, his drawnin face positively venomous

with the effort of selfcontrol, and holding a pair of new gloves in his left hand, he drove to the harbour.

His heart dilated within him so, when he saw the Goulds on the deck of the Hermes, that his greetings were

reduced to a casual mutter. Driving back to town, all three were silent. And in the patio the doctor, in a more

"Come to lunch, dear Dr. Monygham, and come early," said Mrs. Gould, in her travelling dress and her veil

down, turning to look at him at the foot of the stairs; while at the top of the flight the Madonna, in blue robes

and the Child on her arm, seemed to welcome her with an aspect of pitying tenderness.

"Don't expect to find me at home," Charles Gould warned him. "I'll be off early to the mine."

After lunch, Dona Emilia and the senor doctor came slowly through the inner gateway of the patio. The large

gardens of the Casa Gould, surrounded by high walls, and the redtile slopes of neighbouring roofs, lay open

before them, with masses of shade under the trees and level surfaces of sunlight upon the lawns. A triple row

of old orange trees surrounded the whole. Barefooted, brown gardeners, in snowy white shirts and wide

calzoneras, dotted the grounds, squatting over flowerbeds, passing between the trees, dragging slender

Indiarubber tubes across the gravel of the paths; and the fine jets of water crossed each other in graceful

curves, sparkling in the sunshine with a slight pattering noise upon the bushes, and an effect of showered

Dona Emilia, holding up the train of a clear dress, walked by the side of Dr. Monygham, in a longish black

coat and severe black bow on an immaculate shirtfront. Under a shady clump of trees, where stood scattered

little tables and wicker easychairs, Mrs. Gould sat down in a low and ample seat.

"Don't go yet," she said to Dr. Monygham, who was unable to tear himself away from the spot. His chin

nestling within the points of his collar, he devoured her stealthily with his eyes, which, luckily, were round

and hard like clouded marbles, and incapable of disclosing his sentiments. His pitying emotion at the marks

of time upon the face of that woman, the air of frailty and weary fatigue that had settled upon the eyes and

temples of the "Nevertired Senora" (as Don Pepe years ago used to call her with admiration), touched him

almost to tears. "Don't go yet. Today is all my own," Mrs. Gould urged, gently. "We are not back yet

officially. No one will come. It's only tomorrow that the windows of the Casa Gould are to be lit up for a

"Yes. Charles would be tired out after a day at the mine, and so IIt would be good to have him to myself

"Ah, yes!" snarled the doctor, suddenly. "Women count time from the marriage feast. Didn't you live a little

Mrs. Gould sighed. And as two friends, after a long separation, will revert to the most agitated period of their

lives, they began to talk of the Sulaco Revolution. It seemed strange to Mrs. Gould that people who had taken

"And yet," struck in the doctor, "we who played our part in it had our reward. Don Pepe, though

superannuated, still can sit a horse. Barrios is drinking himself to death in jovial company away somewhere

on his fundacion beyond the Bolson de Tonoro. And the heroic Father RomanI imagine the old padre

blowing up systematically the San Tome mine, uttering a pious exclamation at every bang, and taking

handfuls of snuff between the explosionsthe heroic Padre Roman says that he is not afraid of the harm

Mrs. Gould shuddered a little at the allusion to the destruction that had come so near to the San Tome mine.

"I've made my careeras you see," said the InspectorGeneral of State Hospitals, taking up lightly the lapels

of his superfine black coat. The doctor's selfrespect marked inwardly by the almost complete disappearance

from his dreams of Father Beron appeared visibly in what, by contrast with former carelessness, seemed an

immoderate cult of personal appearance. Carried out within severe limits of form and colour, and in perpetual

freshness, this change of apparel gave to Dr. Monygham an air at the same time professional and festive;

while his gait and the unchanged crabbed character of his face acquired from it a startling force of

"Yes," he went on. "We all had our rewardsthe engineerinchief, Captain Mitchell"

"We saw him," interrupted Mrs. Gould, in her charming voice. "The poor dear man came up from the country

on purpose to call on us in our hotel in London. He comported himself with great dignity, but I fancy he

regrets Sulaco. He rambled feebly about 'historical events' till I felt I could have a cry."

"H'm," grunted the doctor; "getting old, I suppose. Even Nostromo is getting olderthough he is not

For some time the house had been full of murmurs, of agitation. Suddenly the two gardeners, busy with rose

trees at the side of the garden arch, fell upon their knees with bowed heads on the passage of Antonia

Invested with the red hat after a short visit to Rome, where he had been invited by the Propaganda, Father

Corbelan, missionary to the wild Indians, conspirator, friend and patron of Hernandez the robber, advanced

with big, slow strides, gaunt and leaning forward, with his powerful hands clasped behind his back. The first

CardinalArchbishop of Sulaco had preserved his fanatical and morose air; the aspect of a chaplain of

bandits. It was believed that his unexpected elevation to the purple was a countermove to the Protestant

invasion of Sulaco organized by the Holroyd Missionary Fund. Antonia, the beauty of her face as if a little

blurred, her figure slightly fuller, advanced with her light walk and her high serenity, smiling from a distance

at Mrs. Gould. She had brought her uncle over to see dear Emilia, without ceremony, just for a moment

When all were seated again, Dr. Monygham, who had come to dislike heartily everybody who approached

Mrs. Gould with any intimacy, kept aside, pretending to be lost in profound meditation. A louder phrase of

"How can we abandon, groaning under oppression, those who have been our countrymen only a few years

ago, who are our countrymen now?" Miss Avellanos was saying. "How can we remain blind, and deaf

"Annex the rest of Costaguana to the order and prosperity of Sulaco," snapped the doctor. "There is no other

"I am convinced, senor doctor," Antonia said, with the earnest calm of invincible resolution, "that this was

"Yes, but the material interests will not let you jeopardize their development for a mere idea of pity and

"We have worked for them; we have made them, these material interests of the foreigners," the last of the

"And without them you are nothing," cried the doctor from the distance. "They will not let you."

"Let them beware, then, lest the people, prevented from their aspirations, should rise and claim their share of

the wealth and their share of the power," the popular CardinalArchbishop of Sulaco declared, significantly,

A silence ensued, during which his Eminence stared, frowning at the ground, and Antonia, graceful and rigid

in her chair, breathed calmly in the strength of her convictions. Then the conversation took a social turn,

touching on the visit of the Goulds to Europe. The CardinalArchbishop, when in Rome, had suffered from

When uncle and niece had gone away, with the servants again falling on their knees, and the old porter, who

had known Henry Gould, almost totally blind and impotent now, creeping up to kiss his Eminence's extended

Mrs. Gould, with a look upwards, dropped wearily on her lap her white hands flashing with the gold and

"Conspiring. Yes!" said the doctor. "The last of the Avellanos and the last of the Corbelans are conspiring

with the refugees from Sta. Marta that flock here after every revolution. The Cafe Lambroso at the corner of

the Plaza is full of them; you can hear their chatter across the street like the noise of a parrothouse. They are

conspiring for the invasion of Costaguana. And do you know where they go for strength, for the necessary

force? To the secret societies amongst immigrants and natives, where NostromoI should say Captain

Fidanzais the great man. What gives him that position? Who can say? Genius? He has genius. He is greater

with the populace than ever he was before. It is as if he had some secret power; some mysterious means to

keep up his influence. He holds conferences with the Archbishop, as in those old days which you and I

remember. Barrios is useless. But for a military head they have the pious Hernandez. And they may raise the

"Will there be never any peace? Will there be no rest?" Mrs. Gould whispered. "I thought that we"

"No!" interrupted the doctor. "There is no peace and no rest in the development of material interests. They

have their law, and their justice. But it is founded on expediency, and is inhuman; it is without rectitude,

without the continuity and the force that can be found only in a moral principle. Mrs. Gould, the time

approaches when all that the Gould Concession stands for shall weigh as heavily upon the people as the

"How can you say that, Dr. Monygham?" she cried out, as if hurt in the most sensitive place of her soul.

"I can say what is true," the doctor insisted, obstinately. "It'll weigh as heavily, and provoke resentment,

bloodshed, and vengeance, because the men have grown different. Do you think that now the mine would

The doctor lowered his head. He could follow her silent thought. Was it for this that her life had been robbed

of all the intimate felicities of daily affection which her tenderness needed as the human body needs air to

breathe? And the doctor, indignant with Charles Gould's blindness, hastened to change the conversation.

"It is about Nostromo that I wanted to talk to you. Ah! that fellow has some continuity and force. Nothing

will put an end to him. But never mind that. There's something inexplicable going onor perhaps only too

easy to explain. You know, Linda is practically the lighthouse keeper of the Great Isabel light. The

Garibaldino is too old now. His part is to clean the lamps and to cook in the house; but he can't get up the

stairs any longer. The blackeyed Linda sleeps all day and watches the light all night. Not all day, though.

She is up towards five in the afternoon, when our Nostromo, whenever he is in harbour with his schooner,

"Aren't they married yet?" Mrs. Gould asked. "The mother wished it, as far as I can understand, while Linda

was yet quite a child. When I had the girls with me for a year or so during the War of Separation, that

extraordinary Linda used to declare quite simply that she was going to be Gian' Battista's wife."

"They are not married yet," said the doctor, curtly. "I have looked after them a little."

"Thank you, dear Dr. Monygham," said Mrs. Gould; and under the shade of the big trees her little, even teeth

gleamed in a youthful smile of gentle malice. "People don't know how really good you are. You will not let

them know, as if on purpose to annoy me, who have put my faith in your good heart long ago."

The doctor, with a lifting up of his upper lip, as though he were longing to bite, bowed stiffly in his chair.

With the utter absorption of a man to whom love comes late, not as the most splendid of illusions, but like an

enlightening and priceless misfortune, the sight of that woman (of whom he had been deprived for nearly a

year) suggested ideas of adoration, of kissing the hem of her robe. And this excess of feeling translated itself

"I am afraid of being overwhelmed by too much gratitude. However, these people interest me. I went out

He did not tell Mrs. Gould that it was because he found there, in her absence, the relief of an atmosphere of

congenial sentiment in old Giorgio's austere admiration for the "English signorathe benefactress"; in

blackeyed Linda's voluble, torrential, passionate affection for "our Dona Emiliathat angel"; in the

whitethroated, fair Giselle's adoring upward turn of the eyes, which then glided towards him with a

sidelong, halfarch, halfcandid glance, which made the doctor exclaim to himself mentally, "If I weren't

what I am, old and ugly, I would think the minx is making eyes at me. And perhaps she is. I dare say she

would make eyes at anybody." Dr. Monygham said nothing of this to Mrs. Gould, the providence of the Viola

"What I wanted to tell you is this: Our great Nostromo did not take much notice of the old man and the

children for some years. It's true, too, that he was away on his coasting voyages certainly ten months out of

the twelve. He was making his fortune, as he told Captain Mitchell once. He seems to have done

uncommonly well. It was only to be expected. He is a man full of resource, full of confidence in himself,

ready to take chances and risks of every sort. I remember being in Mitchell's office one day, when he came in

with that calm, grave air he always carries everywhere. He had been away trading in the Gulf of California,

he said, looking straight past us at the wall, as his manner is, and was glad to see on his return that a

lighthouse was being built on the cliff of the Great Isabel. Very glad, he repeated. Mitchell explained that it

was the O. S. N. Co. who was building it, for the convenience of the mail service, on his own advice. Captain

Fidanza was good enough to say that it was excellent advice. I remember him twisting up his moustaches and

looking all round the cornice of the room before he proposed that old Giorgio should be made the keeper of

"I heard of this. I was consulted at the time," Mrs. Gould said. "I doubted whether it would be good for these

"The proposal fell in with the old Garibaldino's humour. As to Linda, any place was lovely and delightful

enough for her as long as it was Nostromo's suggestion. She could wait for her Gian' Battista's good pleasure

there as well as anywhere else. My opinion is that she was always in love with that incorruptible Capataz.

Moreover, both father and sister were anxious to get Giselle away from the attentions of a certain Ramirez."

"Just a mozo of the town. His father was a Cargador. As a lanky boy he ran about the wharf in rags, till

Nostromo took him up and made a man of him. When he got a little older, he put him into a lighter and very

soon gave him charge of the No. 3 boatthe boat which took the silver away, Mrs. Gould. Nostromo

selected that lighter for the work because she was the best sailing and the strongest boat of all the Company's

fleet. Young Ramirez was one of the five Cargadores entrusted with the removal of the treasure from the

Custom House on that famous night. As the boat he had charge of was sunk, Nostromo, on leaving the

Company's service, recommended him to Captain Mitchell for his successor. He had trained him in the

routine of work perfectly, and thus Mr. Ramirez, from a starving waif, becomes a man and the Capataz of the

"Thanks to Nostromo," repeated Dr. Monygham. "Upon my word, the fellow's power frightens me when I

think of it. That our poor old Mitchell was only too glad to appoint somebody trained to the work, who saved

him trouble, is not surprising. What is wonderful is the fact that the Sulaco Cargadores accepted Ramirez for

their chief, simply because such was Nostromo's good pleasure. Of course, he is not a second Nostromo, as

he fondly imagined he would be; but still, the position was brilliant enough. It emboldened him to make up to

Giselle Viola, who, you know, is the recognized beauty of the town. The old Garibaldino, however, took a

violent dislike to him. I don't know why. Perhaps because he was not a model of perfection like his Gian'

Battista, the incarnation of the courage, the fidelity, the honour of 'the people.' Signor Viola does not think

much of Sulaco natives. Both of them, the old Spartan and that whitefaced Linda, with her red mouth and

coalblack eyes, were looking rather fiercely after the fair one. Ramirez was warned off. Father Viola, I am

"She's a bit of a flirt, I believe," said the doctor. "I don't think she cared much one way or another. Of course

she likes men's attentions. Ramirez was not the only one, let me tell you, Mrs. Gould. There was one

engineer, at least, on the railway staff who got warned off with a gun, too. Old Viola does not allow any

trifling with his honour. He has grown uneasy and suspicious since his wife died. He was very pleased to

remove his youngest girl away from the town. But look what happens, Mrs. Gould. Ramirez, the honest,

lovelorn swain, is forbidden the island. Very well. He respects the prohibition, but naturally turns his eyes

frequently towards the Great Isabel. It seems as though he had been in the habit of gazing late at night upon

the light. And during these sentimental vigils he discovers that Nostromo, Captain Fidanza that is, returns

"Now comes the strange part," went on Dr. Monygham. "Viola, who is king on his island, will allow no

visitor on it after dark. Even Captain Fidanza has got to leave after sunset, when Linda has gone up to tend

the light. And Nostromo goes away obediently. But what happens afterwards? What does he do in the gulf

between halfpast six and midnight? He has been seen more than once at that late hour pulling quietly into

the harbour. Ramirez is devoured by jealousy. He dared not approach old Viola; but he plucked up courage to

rail at Linda about it on Sunday morning as she came on the mainland to hear mass and visit her mother's

grave. There was a scene on the wharf, which, as a matter of fact, I witnessed. It was early morning. He must

have been waiting for her on purpose. I was there by the merest chance, having been called to an urgent

consultation by the doctor of the German gunboat in the harbour. She poured wrath, scorn, and flame upon

Ramirez, who seemed out of his mind. It was a strange sight, Mrs. Gould: the long jetty, with this raving

Cargador in his crimson sash and the girl all in black, at the end; the early Sunday morning quiet of the

harbour in the shade of the mountains; nothing but a canoe or two moving between the ships at anchor, and

the German gunboat's gig coming to take me off. Linda passed me within a foot. I noticed her wild eyes. I

called out to her. She never heard me. She never saw me. But I looked at her face. It was awful in its anger

"What do you mean, Dr. Monygham? Do you mean to say that you suspect the younger sister?"

"Quien sabe! Who can tell?" said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders like a born Costaguanero. "Ramirez

came up to me on the wharf. He reeledhe looked insane. He took his head into his hands. He had to talk to

someonesimply had to. Of course for all his mad state he recognized me. People know me well here. I

have lived too long amongst them to be anything else but the evileyed doctor, who can cure all the ills of the

flesh, and bring bad luck by a glance. He came up to me. He tried to be calm. He tried to make it out that he

wanted merely to warn me against Nostromo. It seems that Captain Fidanza at some secret meeting or other

had mentioned me as the worst despiser of all the poorof the people. It's very possible. He honours me

with his undying dislike. And a word from the great Fidanza may be quite enough to send some fool's knife

into my back. The Sanitary Commission I preside over is not in favour with the populace. 'Beware of him,

senor doctor. Destroy him, senor doctor,' Ramirez hissed right into my face. And then he broke out. 'That

man,' he spluttered, 'has cast a spell upon both these girls.' As to himself, he had said too much. He must run

away nowrun away and hide somewhere. He moaned tenderly about Giselle, and then called her names

that cannot be repeated. If he thought she could be made to love him by any means, he would carry her off

from the island. Off into the woods. But it was no good. . . . He strode away, flourishing his arms above his

head. Then I noticed an old negro, who had been sitting behind a pile of cases, fishing from the wharf. He

wound up his lines and slunk away at once. But he must have heard something, and must have talked, too,

because some of the old Garibaldino's railway friends, I suppose, warned him against Ramirez. At any rate,

"I feel I have a duty towards these girls," said Mrs. Gould, uneasily. "Is Nostromo in Sulaco now?"

"Who will dare speak to him? Even the lovemad Ramirez runs away from the mere shadow of Captain

"I can. I will," Mrs. Gould declared. "A word will be enough for a man like Nostromo."

"He must end this situation which lends itself toI can't believe it of that child," pursued Mrs. Gould.

"He'll see it, I am sure. He must put an end to all this by marrying Linda at once," pronounced the first lady of

Through the garden gate emerged Basilio, grown fat and sleek, with an elderly hairless face, wrinkles at the

corners of his eyes, and his jetblack, coarse hair plastered down smoothly. Stooping carefully behind an

ornamental clump of bushes, he put down with precaution a small child he had been carrying on his

shoulderhis own and Leonarda's last born. The pouting, spoiled Camerista and the head mozo of the Casa

He remained squatting on his heels for a time, gazing fondly at his offspring, which returned his stare with

"A telephone came through from the office of the mine. The master remains to sleep at the mountain

Dr. Monygham had got up and stood looking away. A profound silence reigned for a time under the shade of

"Very well, Basilio," said Mrs. Gould. She watched him walk away along the path, step aside behind the

flowering bush, and reappear with the child seated on his shoulder. He passed through the gateway between

The doctor, with his back to Mrs. Gould, contemplated a flowerbed away in the sunshine. People believed

him scornful and soured. The truth of his nature consisted in his capacity for passion and in the sensitiveness

of his temperament. What he lacked was the polished callousness of men of the world, the callousness from

which springs an easy tolerance for oneself and others; the tolerance wide as poles asunder from true

sympathy and human compassion. This want of callousness accounted for his sardonic turn of mind and his

In profound silence, and glaring viciously at the brilliant flowerbed, Dr. Monygham poured mental

imprecations on Charles Gould's head. Behind him the immobility of Mrs. Gould added to the grace of her

seated figure the charm of art, of an attitude caught and interpreted for ever. Turning abruptly, the doctor took

Mrs. Gould leaned back in the shade of the big trees planted in a circle. She leaned back with her eyes closed

and her white hands lying idle on the arms of her seat. The halflight under the thick mass of leaves brought

out the youthful prettiness of her face; made the clear, light fabrics and white lace of her dress appear

luminous. Small and dainty, as if radiating a light of her own in the deep shade of the interlaced boughs, she

resembled a good fairy, weary with a long career of welldoing, touched by the withering suspicion of the

Had anybody asked her of what she was thinking, alone in the garden of the Casa, with her husband at the

mine and the house closed to the street like an empty dwelling, her frankness would have had to evade the

question. It had come into her mind that for life to be large and full, it must contain the care of the past and of

the future in every passing moment of the present. Our daily work must be done to the glory of the dead, and

for the good of those who come after. She thought that, and sighed without opening her eyeswithout

moving at all. Mrs. Gould's face became set and rigid for a second, as if to receive, without flinching, a great

wave of loneliness that swept over her head. And it came into her mind, too, that no one would ever ask her

with solicitude what she was thinking of. No one. No one, but perhaps the man who had just gone away. No;

no one who could be answered with careless sincerity in the ideal perfection of confidence.

The word "incorrigible"a word lately pronounced by Dr. Monyghamfloated into her still and sad

immobility. Incorrigible in his devotion to the great silver mine was the Senor Administrador! Incorrigible in

his hard, determined service of the material interests to which he had pinned his faith in the triumph of order

and justice. Poor boy! She had a clear vision of the grey hairs on his temples. He was perfectperfect. What

more could she have expected? It was a colossal and lasting success; and love was only a short moment of

forgetfulness, a short intoxication, whose delight one remembered with a sense of sadness, as if it had been a

deep grief lived through. There was something inherent in the necessities of successful action which carried

with it the moral degradation of the idea. She saw the San Tome mountain hanging over the Campo, over the

whole land, feared, hated, wealthy; more soulless than any tyrant, more pitiless and autocratic than the worst

Government; ready to crush innumerable lives in the expansion of its greatness. He did not see it. He could

not see it. It was not his fault. He was perfect, perfect; but she would never have him to herself. Never; not

for one short hour altogether to herself in this old Spanish house she loved so well! Incorrigible, the last of

the Corbelans, the last of the Avellanos, the doctor had said; but she saw clearly the San Tome mine

possessing, consuming, burning up the life of the last of the Costaguana Goulds; mastering the energetic

weakness of the father. A terrible success for the last of the Goulds. The last! She had hoped for a long, long

time, that perhapsBut no! There were to be no more. An immense desolation, the dread of her own

continued life, descended upon the first lady of Sulaco. With a prophetic vision she saw herself surviving

alone the degradation of her young ideal of life, of love, of workall alone in the Treasure House of the

World. The profound, blind, suffering expression of a painful dream settled on her face with its closed eyes.

In the indistinct voice of an unlucky sleeper. lying passive in the grip of a merciless nightmare, she

NOSTROMO had been growing rich very slowly. It was an effect of his prudence. He could command

himself even when thrown off his balance. And to become the slave of a treasure with full selfknowledge is

an occurrence rare and mentally disturbing. But it was also in a great part because of the difficulty of

converting it into a form in which it could become available. The mere act of getting it away from the island

piecemeal, little by little, was surrounded by difficulties, by the dangers of imminent detection. He had to

visit the Great Isabel in secret, between his voyages along the coast, which were the ostensible source of his

fortune. The crew of his own schooner were to be feared as if they had been spies upon their dreaded captain.

He did not dare stay too long in port. When his coaster was unloaded, he hurried away on another trip, for he

feared arousing suspicion even by a day's delay. Sometimes during a week's stay, or more, he could only

manage one visit to the treasure. And that was all. A couple of ingots. He suffered through his fears as much

as through his prudence. To do things by stealth humiliated him. And he suffered most from the

A transgression, a crime, entering a man's existence, eats it up like a malignant growth, consumes it like a

fever. Nostromo had lost his peace; the genuineness of all his qualities was destroyed. He felt it himself, and

often cursed the silver of San Tome. His courage, his magnificence, his leisure, his work, everything was as

before, only everything was a sham. But the treasure was real. He clung to it with a more tenacious, mental

grip. But he hated the feel of the ingots. Sometimes, after putting away a couple of them in his cabinthe

fruit of a secret night expedition to the Great Isabelhe would look fixedly at his fingers, as if surprised they

He had found means of disposing of the silver bars in distant ports. The necessity to go far afield made his

coasting voyages long, and caused his visits to the Viola household to be rare and far between. He was fated

to have his wife from there. He had said so once to Giorgio himself. But the Garibaldino had put the subject

aside with a majestic wave of his hand, clutching a smouldering black briarroot pipe. There was plenty of

As time went on, Nostromo discovered his preference for the younger of the two. They had some profound

similarities of nature, which must exist for complete confidence and understanding, no matter what outward

differences of temperament there may be to exercise their own fascination of contrast. His wife would have to

know his secret or else life would be impossible. He was attracted by Giselle, with her candid gaze and white

throat, pliable, silent, fond of excitement under her quiet indolence; whereas Linda, with her intense,

passionately pale face, energetic, all fire and words, touched with gloom and scorn, a chip of the old block,

true daughter of the austere republican, but with Teresa's voice, inspired him with a deepseated mistrust.

Moreover, the poor girl could not conceal her love for Gian' Battista. He could see it would be violent,

exacting, suspicious, uncompromisinglike her soul. Giselle, by her fair but warm beauty, by the surface

placidity of her nature holding a promise of submissiveness, by the charm of her girlish mysteriousness,

His absences from Sulaco were long. On returning from the longest of them, he made out lighters loaded with

blocks of stone lying under the cliff of the Great Isabel; cranes and scaffolding above; workmen's figures

moving about, and a small lighthouse already rising from its foundations on the edge of the cliff.

At this unexpected, undreamtof, startling sight, he thought himself lost irretrievably. What could save him

from detection now? Nothing! He was struck with amazed dread at this turn of chance, that would kindle a

farreaching light upon the only secret spot of his life; that life whose very essence, value, reality, consisted

in its reflection from the admiring eyes of men. All of it but that thing which was beyond common

comprehension; which stood between him and the power that hears and gives effect to the evil intention of

curses. It was dark. Not every man had such a darkness. And they were going to put a light there. A light! He

saw it shining upon disgrace, poverty, contempt. Somebody was sure to. . . . Perhaps somebody had already. .

The incomparable Nostromo, the Capataz, the respected and feared Captain Fidanza, the unquestioned patron

of secret societies, a republican like old Giorgio, and a revolutionist at heart (but in another manner), was on

the point of jumping overboard from the deck of his own schooner. That man, subjective almost to insanity,

looked suicide deliberately in the face. But he never lost his head. He was checked by the thought that this

was no escape. He imagined himself dead, and the disgrace, the shame going on. Or, rather, properly

speaking, he could not imagine himself dead. He was possessed too strongly by the sense of his own

existence, a thing of infinite duration in its changes, to grasp the notion of finality. The earth goes on for ever.

And he was courageous. It was a corrupt courage, but it was as good for his purposes as the other kind. He

sailed close to the cliff of the Great Isabel, throwing a penetrating glance from the deck at the mouth of the

ravine, tangled in an undisturbed growth of bushes. He sailed close enough to exchange hails with the

workmen, shading their eyes on the edge of the sheer drop of the cliff overhung by the jibhead of a powerful

crane. He perceived that none of them had any occasion even to approach the ravine where the silver lay

hidden; let alone to enter it. In the harbour he learned that no one slept on the island. The labouring gangs

returned to port every evening, singing chorus songs in the empty lighters towed by a harbour tug. For the

But afterwards? he asked himself. Later, when a keeper came to live in the cottage that was being built some

hundred and fifty yards back from the low lighttower, and four hundred or so from the dark, shaded, jungly

ravine, containing the secret of his safety, of his influence, of his magnificence, of his power over the future,

of his defiance of illluck, of every possible betrayal from rich and poor alikewhat then? He could never

shake off the treasure. His audacity, greater than that of other men, had welded that vein of silver into his life.

And the feeling of fearful and ardent subjection, the feeling of his slaveryso irremediable and profound

that often, in his thoughts, he compared himself to the legendary Gringos, neither dead nor alive, bound down

to their conquest of unlawful wealth on Azueraweighed heavily on the independent Captain Fidanza,

owner and master of a coasting schooner, whose smart appearance (and fabulous goodluck in trading) were

Fiercely whiskered and grave, a shade less supple in his walk, the vigour and symmetry of his powerful limbs

lost in the vulgarity of a brown tweed suit, made by Jews in the slums of London, and sold by the clothing

department of the Compania Anzani, Captain Fidanza was seen in the streets of Sulaco attending to his

business, as usual, that trip. And, as usual, he allowed it to get about that he had made a great profit on his

cargo. It was a cargo of salt fish, and Lent was approaching. He was seen in tramcars going to and fro

between the town and the harbour; he talked with people in a cafe or two in his measured, steady voice.

Captain Fidanza was seen. The generation that would know nothing of the famous ride to Cayta was not born

Nostromo, the miscalled Capataz de Cargadores, had made for himself, under his rightful name, another

public existence, but modified by the new conditions, less picturesque, more difficult to keep up in the

increased size and varied population of Sulaco, the progressive capital of the Occidental Republic.

Captain Fidanza, unpicturesque, but always a little mysterious, was recognized quite sufficiently under the

lofty glass and iron roof of the Sulaco railway station. He took a local train, and got out in Rincon, where he

visited the widow of the Cargador who had died of his wounds (at the dawn of the New Era, like Don Jose

Avellanos) in the patio of the Casa Gould. He consented to sit down and drink a glass of cool lemonade in the

hut, while the woman, standing up, poured a perfect torrent of words to which he did not listen. He left some

money with her, as usual. The orphaned children, growing up and well schooled, calling him uncle,

clamoured for his blessing. He gave that, too; and in the doorway paused for a moment to look at the flat face

of the San Tome mountain with a faint frown. This slight contraction of his bronzed brow casting a marked

tinge of severity upon his usual unbending expression, was observed at the Lodge which he attended but

went away before the banquet. He wore it at the meeting of some good comrades, Italians and Occidentals,

assembled in his honour under the presidency of an indigent, sickly, somewhat hunchbacked little

photographer, with a white face and a magnanimous soul dyed crimson by a bloodthirsty hate of all

capitalists, oppressors of the two hemispheres. The heroic Giorgio Viola, old revolutionist, would have

understood nothing of his opening speech; and Captain Fidanza, lavishly generous as usual to some poor

comrades, made no speech at all. He had listened, frowning, with his mind far away, and walked off

His frown deepened as, in the early morning, he watched the stonemasons go off to the Great Isabel, in

lighters loaded with squared blocks of stone, enough to add another course to the squat lighttower. That was

And Captain Fidanza meditated. The presence of strangers on the island would cut him completely off the

treasure. It had been difficult and dangerous enough before. He was afraid, and he was angry. He thought

with the resolution of a master and the cunning of a cowed slave. Then he went ashore.

He was a man of resource and ingenuity; and, as usual, the expedient he found at a critical moment was

effective enough to alter the situation radically. He had the gift of evolving safety out of the very danger, this

incomparable Nostromo, this "fellow in a thousand." With Giorgio established on the Great Isabel, there

would be no need for concealment. He would be able to go openly, in daylight, to see his daughtersone of

his daughtersand stay late talking to the old Garibaldino. Then in the dark . . . Night after night . . . He

would dare to grow rich quicker now. He yearned to clasp, embrace, absorb, subjugate in unquestioned

possession this treasure, whose tyranny had weighed upon his mind, his actions, his very sleep.

He went to see his friend Captain Mitchelland the thing was done as Dr. Monygham had related to Mrs.

Gould. When the project was mooted to the Garibaldino, something like the faint reflection, the dim ghost of

a very ancient smile, stole under the white and enormous moustaches of the old hater of kings and ministers.

His daughters were the object of his anxious care. The younger, especially. Linda, with her mother's voice,

had taken more her mother's place. Her deep, vibrating "Eh, Padre?" seemed, but for the change of the word,

the very echo of the impassioned, remonstrating "Eh, Giorgio?" of poor Signora Teresa. It was his fixed

opinion that the town was no proper place for his girls. The infatuated but guileless Ramirez was the object of

his profound aversion, as resuming the sins of the country whose people were blind, vile esclavos.

On his return from his next voyage, Captain Fidanza found the Violas settled in the lightkeeper's cottage.

His knowledge of Giorgio's idiosyncrasies had not played him false. The Garibaldino had refused to entertain

the idea of any companion whatever, except his girls. And Captain Mitchell, anxious to please his poor

Nostromo, with that felicity of inspiration which only true affection can give, had formally appointed Linda

"The light is private property," he used to explain. "It belongs to my Company. I've the power to nominate

whom I like, and Viola it shall be. It's about the only thing Nostromoa man worth his weight in gold, mind

Directly his schooner was anchored opposite the New Custom House, with its sham air of a Greek temple,

flatroofed, with a colonnade, Captain Fidanza went pulling his small boat out of the harbour, bound for the

Great Isabel, openly in the light of a declining day, before all men's eyes, with a sense of having mastered the

fates. He must establish a regular position. He would ask him for his daughter now. He thought of Giselle as

he pulled. Linda loved him, perhaps, but the old man would be glad to keep the elder, who had his wife's

He did not pull for the narrow strand where he had landed with Decoud, and afterwards alone on his first visit

to the treasure. He made for the beach at the other end, and walked up the regular and gentle slope of the

wedgeshaped island. Giorgio Viola, whom he saw from afar, sitting on a bench under the front wall of the

cottage, lifted his arm slightly to his loud hail. He walked up. Neither of the girls appeared.

"You saw my schooner pass in not two hours ago? Do you know why I am here before, so to speak, my

"You are welcome like a son," the old man declared, quietly, staring away upon the sea.

"Ah! thy son. I know. I am what thy son would have been. It is well, viejo. It is a very good welcome. Listen,

A sudden dread came upon the fearless and incorruptible Nostromo. He dared not utter the name in his mind.

The slight pause only imparted a marked weight and solemnity to the changed end of the phrase.

The Garibaldino arrested him with an extended arm. "That was left for you to judge."

He got up slowly. His beard, unclipped since Teresa's death, thick, snowwhite, covered his powerful chest.

Her answer came sharp and faint from within; and the appalled Nostromo stood up, too, but remained mute,

gazing at the door. He was afraid. He was not afraid of being refused the girl he lovedno mere refusal

could stand between him and a woman he desiredbut the shining spectre of the treasure rose before him,

claiming his allegiance in a silence that could not be gainsaid. He was afraid, because, neither dead nor alive,

like the Gringos on Azuera, he belonged body and soul to the unlawfulness of his audacity. He was afraid of

Seeing the two men standing up side by side to await her, Linda stopped in the doorway. Nothing could alter

the passionate dead whiteness of her face; but her black eyes seemed to catch and concentrate all the light of

the low sun in a flaming spark within the black depths, covered at once by the slow descent of heavy eyelids.

"Behold thy husband, master, and benefactor." Old Viola's voice resounded with a force that seemed to fill

She stepped forward with her eyes nearly closed, like a sleepwalker in a beatific dream.

Nostromo made a superhuman effort. "It is time, Linda, we two were betrothed," he said, steadily, in his

She put her hand into his offered palm, lowering her head, dark with bronze glints, upon which her father's

This came from Giorgio Viola, who went on talking for a while of his dead wife; while the two, sitting side

by side, never looked at each other. Then the old man ceased; and Linda, motionless, began to speak.

"Ever since I felt I lived in the world, I have lived for you alone, Gian' Battista. And that you knew! You

She pronounced the name exactly with her mother's intonation. A gloom as of the grave covered Nostromo's

The heroic Garibaldino sat on the same bench bowing his hoary head, his old soul dwelling alone with its

memories, tender and violent, terrible and drearysolitary on the earth full of men.

And Linda, his bestloved daughter, was saying, "I was yours ever since I can remember. I had only to think

of you for the earth to become empty to my eyes. When you were there, I could see no one else. I was yours.

Nothing is changed. The world belongs to you, and you let me live in it." . . . She dropped her low, vibrating

voice to a still lower note, and found other things to saytorturing for the man at her side. Her murmur ran

on ardent and voluble. She did not seem to see her sister, who came out with an altarcloth she was

embroidering in her hands, and passed in front of them, silent, fresh, fair, with a quick glance and a faint

The evening was still. The sun sank almost to the edge of a purple ocean; and the white lighthouse, livid

against the background of clouds filling the head of the gulf, bore the lantern red and glowing, like a live

ember kindled by the fire of the sky. Giselle, indolent and demure, raised the altarcloth from time to time to

Suddenly Linda rushed at her sister, and seizing her head, covered her face with kisses. Nostromo's brain

reeled. When she left her, as if stunned by the violent caresses, with her hands lying in her lap, the slave of

the treasure felt as if he could shoot that woman. Old Giorgio lifted his leonine head.

He got up, too, looked after his eldest daughter; then, in a tone whose festive note seemed the echo of a mood

"I am going in to cook something. Aha! Son! The old man knows where to find a bottle of wine, too."

"And you, little one, pray not to the God of priests and slaves, but to the God of orphans, of the oppressed, of

His hand rested heavily for a moment on Nostromo's shoulder; then he went in. The hopeless slave of the San

Tome silver felt at these words the venomous fangs of jealousy biting deep into his heart. He was appalled by

the novelty of the experience, by its force, by its physical intimacy. A husband! A husband for her! And yet it

was natural that Giselle should have a husband at some time or other. He had never realized that before. In

discovering that her beauty could belong to another he felt as though he could kill this one of old Giorgio's

She shook her head without looking at him. Coppery glints rippled to and fro on the wealth of her gold hair.

Her smooth forehead had the soft, pure sheen of a priceless pearl in the splendour of the sunset, mingling the

gloom of starry spaces, the purple of the sea, and the crimson of the sky in a magnificent stillness.

"No," she said, slowly. "I never loved him. I think I never . . . He loves meperhaps."

The seduction of her slow voice died out of the air, and her raised eyes remained fixed on nothing, as if

"Misericordia Divina! You, too, Gian' Battista! Poor wretch that I am!" she lamented in ingenuous tones. "I

told Linda, and she scoldedshe scolded. Am I to live blind, dumb, and deaf in this world? And she told

father, who took down his gun and cleaned it. Poor Ramirez! Then you came, and she told you."

He looked at her. He fastened his eyes upon the hollow of her white throat, which had the invincible charm of

things young, palpitating, delicate, and alive. Was this the child he had known? Was it possible? It dawned

upon him that in these last years he had really seen very littlenothingof her. Nothing. She had come into

the world like a thing unknown. She had come upon him unawares. She was a danger. A frightful danger. The

instinctive mood of fierce determination that had never failed him before the perils of this life added its

steady force to the violence of his passion. She, in a voice that recalled to him the song of running water, the

"And between you three you have brought me here into this captivity to the sky and water. Nothing else. Sky

and water. Oh, Sanctissima Madre. My hair shall turn grey on this tedious island. I could hate you, Gian'

He laughed loudly. Her voice enveloped him like a caress. She bemoaned her fate, spreading unconsciously,

like a flower its perfume in the coolness of the evening, the indefinable seduction of her person. Was it her

fault that nobody ever had admired Linda? Even when they were little, going out with their mother to Mass,

she remembered that people took no notice of Linda, who was fearless, and chose instead to frighten her, who

"Your hair like gold, and your eyes like violets, and your lips like the rose; your round arms, your white

Imperturbable in the indolence of her pose, she blushed deeply all over to the roots of her hair. She was not

conceited. She was no more selfconscious than a flower. But she was pleased. And perhaps even a flower

Leaning back against the rough stone wall of the cottage, she seemed to bask languidly in the warmth of the

"And so you are going at last to marry our Linda. She is terrible. Ah! now she will understand better since

"Then make haste. Come tomorrow. Come and tell her, so that I may have some peace from her scolding

"Mercy of God! How violent you are, Giovanni," she said, unmoved. "Who is Ramirez . . . Ramirez . . . Who

is he?" she repeated, dreamily, in the dusk and gloom of the clouded gulf, with a low red streak in the west

like a hot bar of glowing iron laid across the entrance of a world sombre as a cavern, where the magnificent

"Listen, Giselle," he said, in measured tones; "I will tell no word of love to your sister. Do you want to know

"Alas! I could not understand perhaps, Giovanni. Father says you are not like other men; that no one had ever

understood you properly; that the rich will be surprised yet. . . . Oh! saints in heaven! I am weary."

She raised her embroidery to conceal the lower part of her face, then let it fall on her lap. The lantern was

shaded on the land side, but slanting away from the dark column of the lighthouse they could see the long

shaft of light, kindled by Linda, go out to strike the expiring glow in a horizon of purple and red.

Giselle Viola, with her head resting against the wall of the house, her eyes half closed, and her little feet, in

white stockings and black slippers, crossed over each other, seemed to surrender herself, tranquil and fatal, to

the gathering dusk. The charm of her body, the promising mysteriousness of her indolence, went out into the

night of the Placid Gulf like a fresh and intoxicating fragrance spreading out in the shadows, impregnating

the air. The incorruptible Nostromo breathed her ambient seduction in the tumultuous heaving of his breast.

Before leaving the harbour he had thrown off the store clothing of Captain Fidanza, for greater ease in the

long pull out to the islands. He stood before her in the red sash and check shirt as he used to appear on the

Company's wharfa Mediterranean sailor come ashore to try his luck in Costaguana. The dusk of purple and

red enveloped him, tooclose, soft, profound, as no more than fifty yards from that spot it had gathered

evening after evening about the selfdestructive passion of Don Martin Decoud's utter scepticism, flaming up

"You have got to hear," he began at last, with perfect selfcontrol. "I shall say no word of love to your sister,

to whom I am betrothed from this evening, because it is you that I love. It is you!" . . .

The dusk let him see yet the tender and voluptuous smile that came instinctively upon her lips shaped for love

and kisses, freeze hard in the drawn, haggard lines of terror. He could not restrain himself any longer. While

she shrank from his approach, her arms went out to him, abandoned and regal in the dignity of her languid

surrender. He held her head in his two hands, and showered rapid kisses upon the upturned face that gleamed

in the purple dusk. Masterful and tender, he was entering slowly upon the fulness of his possession. And he

perceived that she was crying. Then the incomparable Capataz, the man of careless loves, became gentle and

caressing, like a woman to the grief of a child. He murmured to her fondly. He sat down by her and nursed

It had grown dark. From the livingroom of the lightkeeper's cottage, where Giorgio, one of the Immortal

Thousand, was bending his leonine and heroic head over a charcoal fire, there came the sound of sizzling and

In the obscure disarray of that thing, happening like a cataclysm, it was in her feminine head that some gleam

of reason survived. He was lost to the world in their embraced stillness. But she said, whispering into his

"God of mercy! What will become of meherenowbetween this sky and this water I hate? Linda,

LindaI see her!" . . . She tried to get out of his arms, suddenly relaxed at the sound of that name. But there

was no one approaching their black shapes, enlaced and struggling on the white background of the wall.

"Linda! Poor Linda! I tremble! I shall die of fear before my poor sister Linda, betrothed today to

Giovannimy lover! Giovanni, you must have been mad! I cannot understand you! You are not like other

men! I will not give you upneveronly to God himself! But why have you done this blind, mad, cruel,

Released, she hung her head, let fall her hands. The altarcloth, as if tossed by a great wind, lay far away

"You knew that you had my soul! You know everything! It was made for you! But what could stand between

you and me? What? Tell me!" she repeated, without impatience, in superb assurance.

"Ah! . . . Poor mother! She has always . . . She is a saint in heaven now, and I cannot give you up to her. No,

Giovanni. Only to God alone. You were madbut it is done. Oh! what have you done? Giovanni, my

beloved, my life, my master, do not leave me here in this grave of clouds. You cannot leave me now. You

must take me awayat oncethis instantin the little boat. Giovanni, carry me off tonight, from my fear

She nestled close to him. The slave of the San Tome silver felt the weight as of chains upon his limbs, a

"I cannot," he said. "Not yet. There is something that stands between us two and the freedom of the world."

She pressed her form closer to his side with a subtle and naive instinct of seduction.

"You rave, Giovannimy lover!" she whispered, engagingly. "What can there be? Carry me offin thy

It seemed as though she expected him to lift her up at once in his two palms. She had lost the notion of all

impossibility. Anything could happen on this night of wonder. As he made no movement, she almost cried

"I tell you I am afraid of Linda!" And still he did not move. She became quiet and wily. "What can there be?"

He felt her warm, breathing, alive, quivering in the hollow of his arm. In the exulting consciousness of his

strength, and the triumphant excitement of his mind, he struck out for his freedom.

"A treasure," he said. All was still. She did not understand. "A treasure. A treasure of silver to buy a gold

"A treasure?" she repeated in a faint voice, as if from the depths of a dream. "What is it you say?"

She disengaged herself gently. He got up and looked down at her, aware of her face, of her hair, her lips, the

dimples on her cheeksseeing the fascination of her person in the night of the gulf as if in the blaze of

noonday. Her nonchalant and seductive voice trembled with the excitement of admiring awe and

"A treasure of silver!" she stammered out. Then pressed on faster: "What? Where? How did you get it,

He wrestled with the spell of captivity. It was as if striking a heroic blow that he burst out

The densest blackness of the Placid Gulf seemed to fall upon his head. He could not see her now. She had

vanished into a long, obscure abysmal silence, whence her voice came back to him after a time with a faint

These words gave him an unwonted sense of freedom; they cast a spell stronger than the accursed spell of the

treasure; they changed his weary subjection to that dead thing into an exulting conviction of his power. He

would cherish her, he said, in a splendour as great as Dona Emilia's. The rich lived on wealth stolen from the

people, but he had taken from the rich nothing nothing that was not lost to them already by their folly and

their betrayal. For he had been betrayedhe saiddeceived, tempted. She believed him. . . . He had kept the

treasure for purposes of revenge; but now he cared nothing for it. He cared only for her. He would put her

beauty in a palace on a hill crowned with olive treesa white palace above a blue sea. He would keep her

there like a jewel in a casket. He would get land for herher own land fertile with vines and cornto set

her little feet upon. He kissed them. . . . He had already paid for it all with the soul of a woman and the life of

a man. . . . The Capataz de Cargadores tasted the supreme intoxication of his generosity. He flung the

mastered treasure superbly at her feet in the impenetrable darkness of the gulf, in the darkness defyingas

men saidthe knowledge of God and the wit of the devil. But she must let him grow rich firsthe warned

She listened as if in a trance. Her fingers stirred in his hair. He got up from his knees reeling, weak, empty, as

"Make haste, then," she said. "Make haste, Giovanni, my lover, my master, for I will give thee up to no one

He guessed at her shudder, and swore to do his best. He trusted the courage of her love. She promised to be

brave in order to be loved alwaysfar away in a white palace upon a hill above a blue sea. Then with a

"Not that! Not that!" he gasped out, appalled at the spell of secrecy that had kept him dumb before so many

people falling upon his lips again with unimpaired force. Not even to her. Not even to her. It was too

dangerous. "I forbid thee to ask," he cried at her, deadening cautiously the anger of his voice.

He had not regained his freedom. The spectre of the unlawful treasure arose, standing by her side like a figure

of silver, pitiless and secret, with a finger on its pale lips. His soul died within him at the vision of himself

creeping in presently along the ravine, with the smell of earth, of damp foliage in his nostrilscreeping in,

determined in a purpose that numbed his breast, and creeping out again loaded with silver, with his ears alert

He stooped low, pressed the hem of her skirt to his lips, with a muttered command

"Tell him I would not stay," and was gone suddenly from her, silent, without as much as a footfall in the dark

She sat still, her head resting indolently against the wall, and her little feet in white stockings and black

slippers crossed over each other. Old Giorgio, coming out, did not seem to be surprised at the intelligence as

much as she had vaguely feared. For she was full of inexplicable fear nowfear of everything and

The heroic Garibaldino accepted Nostromo's abrupt departure with a sagacious indulgence. He remembered

his own feelings, and exhibited a masculine penetration of the true state of the case.

"Va bene. Let him go. Ha! ha! No matter how fair the woman, it galls a little. Liberty, liberty. There's more

than one kind! He has said the great word, and son Gian' Battista is not tame." He seemed to be instructing

the motionless and scared Giselle. . . . "A man should not be tame," he added, dogmatically out of the

doorway. Her stillness and silence seemed to displease him. "Do not give way to the enviousness of your

Presently he had to come to the door again to call in his younger daughter. It was late. He shouted her name

three times before she even moved her head. Left alone, she had become the helpless prey of astonishment.

She walked into the bedroom she shared with Linda like a person profoundly asleep. That aspect was so

marked that even old Giorgio, spectacled, raising his eyes from the Bible, shook his head as she shut the door

She walked right across the room without looking at anything, and sat down at once by the open window.

Linda, stealing down from the tower in the exuberance of her happiness, found her with a lighted candle at

her back, facing the black night full of sighing gusts of wind and the sound of distant showersa true night

of the gulf, too dense for the eye of God and the wiles of the devil. She did not turn her head at the opening of

There was something in that immobility which reached Linda in the depths of her paradise. The elder sister

guessed angrily: the child is thinking of that wretched Ramirez. Linda longed to talk. She said in her arbitrary

The girl that was going to live in a palace and walk on ground of her own was ready to die with terror. Not

for anything in the world would she have turned her head to face her sister. Her heart was beating madly. She

Linda, disappointed, went out quietly; and Giselle sat on unbelieving, lost, dazed, patient, as if waiting for the

confirmation of the incredible. The hopeless blackness of the clouds seemed part of a dream, too. She waited.

She did not wait in vain. The man whose soul was dead within him, creeping out of the ravine, weighted with

silver, had seen the gleam of the lighted window, and could not help retracing his steps from the beach.

On that impenetrable background, obliterating the lofty mountains by the seaboard, she saw the slave of the

San Tome silver, as if by an extraordinary power of a miracle. She accepted his return as if henceforth the

She rose, compelled and rigid, and began to speak long before the light from within fell upon the face of the

"You have come back to carry me off. It is well! Open thy arms, Giovanni, my lover. I am coming."

His prudent footsteps stopped, and with his eyes glistening wildly, he spoke in a harsh voice:

"Not yet. I must grow rich slowly." . . . A threatening note came into his tone. "Do not forget that you have a

"Yes! Yes!" she whispered, hastily. "Come nearer! Listen! Do not give me up, Giovanni! Never, never! . . . I

Her form drooped consolingly over the low casement towards the slave of the unlawful treasure. The light in

the room went out, and weighted with silver, the magnificent Capataz clasped her round her white neck in the

ON THE day Mrs. Gould was going, in Dr. Monygham's words, to "give a tertulia," Captain Fidanza went

down the side of his schooner lying in Sulaco harbour, calm, unbending, deliberate in the way he sat down in

his dinghy and took up his sculls. He was later than usual. The afternoon was well advanced before he landed

on the beach of the Great Isabel, and with a steady pace climbed the slope of the island.

From a distance he made out Giselle sitting in a chair tilted back against the end of the house, under the

window of the girl's room. She had her embroidery in her hands, and held it well up to her eyes. The

tranquillity of that girlish figure exasperated the feeling of perpetual struggle and strife he carried in his

breast. He became angry. It seemed to him that she ought to hear the clanking of his fettershis silver

fetters, from afar. And while ashore that day, he had met the doctor with the evil eye, who had looked at him

The raising of her eyes mollified him. They smiled in their flowerlike freshness straight upon his heart.

Then she frowned. It was a warning to be cautious. He stopped some distance away, and in a loud, indifferent

He approached then, and, looking through the window into the bedroom for fear of being detected by Linda

"More than my life." She went on with her embroidery under his contemplating gaze and continued to speak,

looking at her work, "Or I could not live. I could not, Giovanni. For this life is like death. Oh, Giovanni, I

"No, don't, Giovanni. Nottonight. Linda and father have been talking together for a long time today."

"Ramirez, I fancy I heard. I do not know. I am afraid. I am always afraid. It is like dying a thousand times a

day. Your love is to me like your treasure to you. It is there, but I can never get enough of it."

He looked at her very still. She was beautiful. His desire had grown within him. He had two masters now. But

she was incapable of sustained emotion. She was sincere in what she said, but she slept placidly at night.

When she saw him she flamed up always. Then only an increased taciturnity marked the change in her. She

was afraid of betraying herself. She was afraid of pain, of bodily harm, of sharp words, of facing anger, and

witnessing violence. For her soul was light and tender with a pagan sincerity in its impulses. She murmured

"Give up the palazzo, Giovanni, and the vineyard on the hills, for which we are starving our love."

Nostromo turned to his affianced wife with a greeting, and was amazed at her sunken eyes, at her hollow

"I shall go grey, I fear, before the ring is on my finger," she said, slowly, keeping her gaze fastened upon him.

She turned away as if it had been something final, and busied herself with household cares while Nostromo

talked with her father. Conversation with the old Garibaldino was not easy. Age had left his faculties

unimpaired, only they seemed to have withdrawn somewhere deep within him. His answers were slow in

coming, with an effect of august gravity. But that day he was more animated, quicker; there seemed to be

more life in the old lion. He was uneasy for the integrity of his honour. He believed Sidoni's warning as to

Ramirez's designs upon his younger daughter. And he did not trust her. She was flighty. He said nothing of

his cares to "Son Gian' Battista." It was a touch of senile vanity. He wanted to show that he was equal yet to

Nostromo went away early. As soon as he had disappeared, walking towards the beach, Linda stepped over

Ever since that Sunday, when the infatuated and desperate Ramirez had waited for her on the wharf, she had

no doubts whatever. The jealous ravings of that man were no revelation. They had only fixed with precision,

as with a nail driven into her heart, that sense of unreality and deception which, instead of bliss and security,

she had found in her intercourse with her promised husband. She had passed on, pouring indignation and

scorn upon Ramirez; but, that Sunday, she nearly died of wretchedness and shame, lying on the carved and

lettered stone of Teresa's grave, subscribed for by the enginedrivers and the fitters of the railway workshops,

in sign of their respect for the hero of Italian Unity. Old Viola had not been able to carry out his desire of

The gratuitous outrage appalled her. If he wished to break her heartwell and good. Everything was

permitted to Gian' Battista. But why trample upon the pieces; why seek to humiliate her spirit? Aha! He could

not break that. She dried her tears. And Giselle! Giselle! The little one that, ever since she could toddle, had

always clung to her skirt for protection. What duplicity! But she could not help it probably. When there was a

Linda had a good share of the Viola stoicism. She resolved to say nothing. But womanlike she put passion

into her stoicism. Giselle's short answers, prompted by fearful caution, drove her beside herself by their

curtness that resembled disdain. One day she flung herself upon the chair in which her indolent sister was

lying and impressed the mark of her teeth at the base of the whitest neck in Sulaco. Giselle cried out. But she

had her share of the Viola heroism. Ready to faint with terror, she only said, in a lazy voice, "Madre de Dios!

Are you going to eat me alive, Linda?" And this outburst passed off leaving no trace upon the situation. "She

knows nothing. She cannot know any thing," reflected Giselle. "Perhaps it is not true. It cannot be true,"

But when she saw Captain Fidanza for the first time after her meeting with the distracted Ramirez, the

certitude of her misfortune returned. She watched him from the doorway go away to his boat, asking herself

stoically, "Will they meet tonight?" She made up her mind not to leave the tower for a second. When he had

The venerable Garibaldino felt, in his own words, "a young man yet." In one way or another a good deal of

talk about Ramirez had reached him of late; and his contempt and dislike of that man who obviously was not

what his son would have been, had made him restless. He slept very little now; but for several nights past

instead of readingor only sitting, with Mrs. Gould's silver spectacles on his nose, before the open Bible, he

had been prowling actively all about the island with his old gun, on watch over his honour.

Linda, laying her thin brown hand on his knee, tried to soothe his excitement. Ramirez was not in Sulaco.

Nobody knew where he was. He was gone. His talk of what he would do meant nothing.

"No," the old man interrupted. "But son Gian' Battista told mequite of himselfthat the cowardly esclavo

was drinking and gambling with the rascals of Zapiga, over there on the north side of the gulf. He may get

some of the worst scoundrels of that scoundrelly town of negroes to help him in his attempt upon the little

She argued earnestly against the probability of any attempt being made; and at last the old man fell silent,

chewing his white moustache. Women had their obstinate notions which must be humouredhis poor wife

was like that, and Linda resembled her mother. It was not seemly for a man to argue. "May be. May be," he

She was by no means easy in her mind. She loved Nostromo. She turned her eyes upon Giselle, sitting at a

distance, with something of maternal tenderness, and the jealous anguish of a rival outraged in her defeat.

The invincible candour of the gaze, raised up all violet and dew, excited her rage and admiration. She had

beautiful eyesthe Chicathis vile thing of white flesh and black deception. She did not know whether she

wanted to tear them out with shouts of vengeance or cover up their mysterious and shameless innocence with

kisses of pity and love. And suddenly they became empty, gazing blankly at her, except for a little fear not

Linda said, "Ramirez is boasting in town that he will carry you off from the island."

"What folly!" answered the other, and in a perversity born of long restraint, she added: "He is not the man,"

"No?" said Linda, through her clenched teeth. "Is he not? Well, then, look to it; because father has been

"It is not good for him. You must tell him not to, Linda. He will not listen to me."

This could not last, thought Giselle. Giovanni must take her away soonthe very next time he came. She

would not suffer these terrors for ever so much silver. To speak with her sister made her ill. But she was not

uneasy at her father's watchfulness. She had begged Nostromo not to come to the window that night. He had

promised to keep away for this once. And she did not know, could not guess or imagine, that he had another

Linda had gone straight to the tower. It was time to light up. She unlocked the little door, and went heavily up

the spiral staircase, carrying her love for the magnificent Capataz de Cargadores like an everincreasing load

of shameful fetters. No; she could not throw it off. No; let Heaven dispose of these two. And moving about

the lantern, filled with twilight and the sheen of the moon, with careful movements she lighted the lamp.

The whole refracting apparatus, with its brass fittings and rings of prisms, glittered and sparkled like a

domeshaped shrine of diamonds, containing not a lamp, but some sacred flame, dominating the sea. And

Linda, the keeper, in black, with a pale face, drooped low in a wooden chair, alone with her jealousy, far

above the shames and passions of the earth. A strange, dragging pain as if somebody were pulling her about

brutally by her dark hair with bronze glints, made her put her hands up to her temples. They would meet.

They would meet. And she knew where, too. At the window. The sweat of torture fell in drops on her cheeks,

while the moonlight in the offing closed as if with a colossal bar of silver the entrance of the Placid

Linda Viola stood up suddenly with a finger on her lip. He loved neither her nor her sister. The whole thing

seemed so objectless as to frighten her, and also give her some hope. Why did he not carry her off? What

prevented him? He was incomprehensible. What were they waiting for? For what end were these two lying

and deceiving? Not for the ends of their love. There was no such thing. The hope of regaining him for herself

made her break her vow of not leaving the tower that night. She must talk at once to her father, who was

wise, and would understand. She ran down the spiral stairs. At the moment of opening the door at the bottom

She felt a shock, as though the bullet had struck her breast. She ran on without pausing. The cottage was dark.

She cried at the door, "Giselle! Giselle!" then dashed round the corner and screamed her sister's name at the

open window, without getting an answer; but as she was rushing, distracted, round the house, Giselle came

out of the door, and darted past her, running silently, her hair loose, and her eyes staring straight ahead. She

Linda walked on slowly, with her arms stretched out before her. All was still on the island; she did not know

where she was going. The tree under which Martin Decoud spent his last days, beholding life like a

succession of senseless images, threw a large blotch of black shade upon the grass. Suddenly she saw her

The Garibaldinobig, erect, with his snowwhite hair and beardhad a monumental repose in his

immobility, leaning upon a rifle. She put her hand upon his arm lightly. He never stirred.

"I have shot Ramirezinfame!" he answered, with his eyes directed to where the shade was blackest. "Like a

He did not offer to move an inch, to advance a single step. He stood there, rugged and unstirring, like a statue

of an old man guarding the honour of his house. Linda removed her trembling hand from his arm, firm and

steady like an arm of stone, and, without a word, entered the blackness of the shade. She saw a stir of

formless shapes on the ground, and stopped short. A murmur of despair and tears grew louder to her strained

"I entreated you not to come tonight. Oh, my Giovanni! And you promised. Oh! Whywhy did you come,

It was her sister's voice. It broke on a heartrending sob. And the voice of the resourceful Capataz de

Cargadores, master and slave of the San Tome treasure, who had been caught unawares by old Giorgio while

stealing across the open towards the ravine to get some more silver, answered careless and cool, but sounding

"It seemed as though I could not live through the night without seeing thee once moremy star, my little

The brilliant tertulia was just over, the last guests had departed, and the Senor Administrador had gone to his

room already, when Dr. Monygham, who had been expected in the evening but had not turned up, arrived

driving along the woodblock pavement under the electriclamps of the deserted Calle de la Constitucion,

He limped in, stumped up the stairs, and found the fat and sleek Basilio on the point of turning off the lights

in the sala. The prosperous majordomo remained openmouthed at this late invasion.

"The senora is in the Senor Adminstrador's cancillaria," said Basilio, in an unctuous voice. "The Senor

Administrador starts for the mountain in an hour. There is some trouble with the workmen to be feared, it

"You are shamelessly lazy and imbecile yourself," said the doctor, with that faculty for exasperation which

Basilio retired with dignity. Dr. Monygham, waiting in the brilliantly lighted sala, heard presently a door

close at the further end of the house. A jingle of spurs died out. The Senor Administrador was off to the

With a measured swish of her long train, flashing with jewels and the shimmer of silk, her delicate head

bowed as if under the weight of a mass of fair hair, in which the silver threads were lost, the "first lady of

Sulaco," as Captain Mitchell used to describe her, moved along the lighted corredor, wealthy beyond great

dreams of wealth, considered, loved, respected, honoured, and as solitary as any human being had ever been,

The doctor's "Mrs. Gould! One minute!" stopped her with a start at the door of the lighted and empty sala.

From the similarity of mood and circumstance, the sight of the doctor, standing there all alone amongst the

groups of furniture, recalled to her emotional memory her unexpected meeting with Martin Decoud; she

seemed to hear in the silence the voice of that man, dead miserably so many years ago, pronounce the words,

"Antonia left her fan here." But it was the doctor's voice that spoke, a little altered by his excitement. She

"Mrs. Gould, you are wanted. Do you know what has happened? You remember what I told you yesterday

about Nostromo. Well, it seems that a lancha, a decked boat, coming from Zapiga, with four negroes in her,

passing close to the Great Isabel, was hailed from the cliff by a woman's voiceLinda's, as a matter of

factcommanding them (it's a moonlight night) to go round to the beach and take up a wounded man to the

town. The patron (from whom I've heard all this), of course, did so at once. He told me that when they got

round to the low side of the Great Isabel, they found Linda Viola waiting for them. They followed her: she

led them under a tree not far from the cottage. There they found Nostromo lying on the ground with his head

in the younger girl's lap, and father Viola standing some distance off leaning on his gun. Under Linda's

direction they got a table out of the cottage for a stretcher, after breaking off the legs. They are here, Mrs.

Gould. I mean Nostromo andand Giselle. The negroes brought him in to the firstaid hospital near the

harbour. He made the attendant send for me. But it was not me he wanted to seeit was you, Mrs. Gould! It

"Yes, you!" the doctor burst out. "He begged mehis enemy, as he thinksto bring you to him at once. It

"He said to me, 'Remind her that I have done something to keep a roof over her head.' . . . Mrs. Gould," the

doctor pursued, in the greatest excitement. "Do you remember the silver? The silver in the lighterthat was

Mrs. Gould remembered. But she did not say she hated the mere mention of that silver. Frankness

personified, she remembered with an exaggerated horror that for the first and last time of her life she had

concealed the truth from her husband about that very silver. She had been corrupted by her fears at that time,

and she had never forgiven herself. Moreover, that silver, which would never have come down if her husband

had been made acquainted with the news brought by Decoud, had been in a roundabout way nearly the cause

"Was it lost, though?" the doctor exclaimed. "I've always felt that there was a mystery about our Nostromo

"Yes. Yes. . . . He wants perhaps to tell you something concerning that silver which"

"Oh, no! No!" exclaimed Mrs. Gould, in a low voice. "Isn't it lost and done with? Isn't there enough treasure

The doctor remained still, in a submissive, disappointed silence. At last he ventured, very low

"And there is that Viola girl, Giselle. What are we to do? It looks as though father and sister had"

He waited, all impatience, till Mrs. Gould reappeared, having thrown over her dress a grey cloak with a deep

It was thus that, cloaked and monastically hooded over her evening costume, this woman, full of endurance

and compassion, stood by the side of the bed on which the splendid Capataz de Cargadores lay stretched out

motionless on his back. The whiteness of sheets and pillows gave a sombre and energetic relief to his

bronzed. face, to the dark, nervous hands, so good on a tiller, upon a bridle and on a trigger, lying open and

"She is innocent," the Capataz was saying in a deep and level voice, as though afraid that a louder word

would break the slender hold his spirit still kept upon his body. "She is innocent. It is I alone. But no matter.

He paused. Mrs. Gould's face, very white within the shadow of the hood, bent over him with an invincible

and dreary sadness. And the low sobs of Giselle Viola, kneeling at the end of the bed, her gold hair with

coppery gleams loose and scattered over the Capataz's feet, hardly troubled the silence of the room.

"Ha! Old Giorgiothe guardian of thine honour! Fancy the Vecchio coming upon me so light of foot, so

steady of aim. I myself could have done no better. But the price of a charge of powder might have been

saved. The honour was safe. . . . Senora, she would have followed to the end of the world Nostromo the thief.

"I cannot see her. . . . No matter," he went on, with the shadow of the old magnificent carelessness in his

voice. "One kiss is enough, if there is no time for more. An airy soul, senora! Bright and warm, like

sunshinesoon clouded, and soon serene. They would crush it there between them. Senora, cast on her the

eye of your compassion, as famed from one end of the land to the other as the courage and daring of the man

who speaks to you. She will console herself in time. And even Ramirez is not a bad fellow. I am not angry.

No! It is not Ramirez who overcame the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores." He paused, made an effort, and

"She would not have betrayed me," he began again, opening his eyes very wide. "She was faithful. We were

going very farvery soon. I could have torn myself away from that accursed treasure for her. For that child I

would have left boxes and boxes of itfull. And Decoud took four. Four ingots. Why? Picardia! To betray

me? How could I give back the treasure with four ingots missing? They would have said I had purloined

"Who knows? I wondered what would become of me. Now I know. Death was to come upon me unawares.

He went away! He betrayed me. And you think I have killed him! You are all alike, you fine people. The

silver has killed me. It has held me. It holds me yet. Nobody knows where it is. But you are the wife of Don

Carlos, who put it into my hands and said, 'Save it on your life.' And when I returned, and you all thought it

was lost, what do I hear? 'It was nothing of importance. Let it go. Up, Nostromo, the faithful, and ride away

"Nostromo!" Mrs. Gould whispered, bending very low. "I, too, have hated the idea of that silver from the

"Marvellous!that one of you should hate the wealth that you know so well how to take from the hands of

the poor. The world rests upon the poor, as old Giorgio says. You have been always good to the poor. But

there is something accursed in wealth. Senora, shall I tell you where the treasure is? To you alone. . . .

A pained, involuntary reluctance lingered in his tone, in his eyes, plain to the woman with the genius of

sympathetic intuition. She averted her glance from the miserable subjection of the dying man, appalled,

After hearing these words, Nostromo closed his eyes, uttered no word, made no movement. Outside the door

of the sickroom Dr. Monygham, excited to the highest pitch, his eyes shining with eagerness, came up to the

"Now, Mrs. Gould," he said, almost brutally in his impatience, "tell me, was I right? There is a mystery. You

The light of his temperamental enmity to Nostromo went out of Dr. Monygham's eyes. He stepped back

submissively. He did not believe Mrs. Gould. But her word was law. He accepted her denial like an

inexplicable fatality affirming the victory of Nostromo's genius over his own. Even before that woman,

whom he loved with secret devotion, he had been defeated by the magnificent Capataz de Cargadores, the

man who had lived his own life on the assumption of unbroken fidelity, rectitude, and courage!

"Pray send at once somebody for my carriage," spoke Mrs. Gould from within her hood. Then, turning to

Giselle Viola, heartbroken and childlike, her face veiled in her falling hair, crept up to her side. Mrs. Gould

slipped her hand through the arm of the unworthy daughter of old Viola, the immaculate republican, the hero

without a stain. Slowly, gradually, as a withered flower droops, the head of the girl, who would have

followed a thief to the end of the world, rested on the shoulder of Dona Emilia, the first lady of Sulaco, the

wife of the Senor Administrador of the San Tome mine. And Mrs. Gould, feeling her suppressed sobbing,

nervous and excited, had the first and only moment of bitterness in her life. It was worthy of Dr. Monygham

"Console yourself, child. Very soon he would have forgotten you for his treasure."

"Senora, he loved me. He loved me," Giselle whispered, despairingly. "He loved me as no one had ever been

Giselle clung to her convulsively. "Oh, senora, but you shall live adored to the end of your life," she sobbed

Mrs. Gould kept an unbroken silence till the carriage arrived. She helped in the halffainting girl. After the

"No, Mrs. Gould. Moreover, he won't let us touch him. It does not matter. I just had one look. . . . Useless."

But he promised to see old Viola and the other girl that very night. He could get the policeboat to take him

off to the island. He remained in the street, looking after the landau rolling away slowly behind the white

The rumour of some accidentan accident to Captain Fidanzahad been spreading along the new quays

with their rows of lamps and the dark shapes of towering cranes. A knot of night prowlersthe poorest of

the poorhung about the door of the firstaid hospital, whispering in the moonlight of the empty street.

There was no one with the wounded man but the pale photographer, small, frail, bloodthirsty, the hater of

capitalists, perched on a high stool near the head of the bed with his knees up and his chin in his hands. He

had been fetched by a comrade who, working late on the wharf, had heard from a negro belonging to a

"Have you any dispositions to make, comrade?" he asked, anxiously. "Do not forget that we want money for

Nostromo made no answer. The other did not insist, remaining huddled up on the stool, shockheaded, wildly

"Comrade Fidanza," he began, solemnly, "you have refused all aid from that doctor. Is he really a dangerous

In the dimly lit room Nostromo rolled his head slowly on the pillow and opened his eyes, directing at the

weird figure perched by his bedside a glance of enigmatic and profound inquiry. Then his head rolled back,

his eyelids fell, and the Capataz de Cargadores died without a word or moan after an hour of immobility,

Dr. Monygham, going out in the policegalley to the islands, beheld the glitter of the moon upon the gulf and

the high black shape of the Great Isabel sending a shaft of light afar, from under the canopy of clouds.

"Pull easy," he said, wondering what he would find there. He tried to imagine Linda and her father, and

From the moment he fired at the thief of his honour, Giorgio Viola had not stirred from the spot. He stood,

his old gun grounded, his hand grasping the barrel near the muzzle. After the lancha carrying off Nostromo

for ever from her had left the shore, Linda, coming up, stopped before him. He did not seem to be aware of

White, and staring insanely at her father, Linda laughed in his face. After a time he joined her faintly in a

deeptoned and distant echo of her peals. Then she stopped, and the old man spoke as if startled

The gun fell from his opened hand, but the arm remained extended for a moment as if still supported. Linda

He let her lead him. On the threshold he stumbled heavily, nearly coming to the ground together with his

daughter. His excitement, his activity of the last few days, had been like the flare of a dying lamp. He caught

"In son Gian' Battista's voice," he repeated in a severe tone. "I heard himRamirezthe miserable"

"Where is the child?" he asked, surprised at the penetrating chilliness of the air and the unwonted dimness of

the lamp by which he used to sit up half the night with the open Bible before him.

She could not bear to look at him. He filled her with terror and with an almost unbearable feeling of pity. She

had observed the change that came over him. He would never understand what he had done; and even to her

Linda laid on the table the closed volume in its worn leather cover, the Bible given him ages ago by an

Behind his chair Linda wrung her hands, crying without noise. Suddenly she started for the door. He heard

Very upright, whitehaired, leonine, heroic in his absorbed quietness, he felt in the pocket of his red shirt for

the spectacles given him by Dona Emilia. He put them on. After a long period of immobility he opened the

book, and from on high looked through the glasses at the small print in double columns. A rigid, stern

expression settled upon his features with a slight frown, as if in response to some gloomy thought or

unpleasant sensation. But he never detached his eyes from the book while he swayed forward, gently,

gradually, till his snowwhite head rested upon the open pages. A wooden clock ticked methodically on the

whitewashed wall, and growing slowly cold the Garibaldino lay alone, rugged, undecayed, like an old oak

The light of the Great Isabel burned unfailing above the lost treasure of the San Tome mine. Into the bluish

sheen of a night without stars the lantern sent out a yellow beam towards the far horizon. Like a black speck

upon the shining panes, Linda, crouching in the outer gallery, rested her head on the rail. The moon, drooping

Below, at the foot of the cliff, the regular splash of oars from a passing boat ceased, and Dr. Monygham stood

"Yes, my poor girl. I am coming round," the doctor answered from below. "Pull to the beach," he said to the

Linda's black figure detached itself upright on the light of the lantern with her arms raised above her head as

"It is I who loved you," she whispered, with a face as set and white as marble in the moonlight. "I! Only I!

She will forget thee, killed miserably for her pretty face. I cannot understand. I cannot understand. But I shall

She stood silent and still, collecting her strength to throw all her fidelity, her pain, bewilderment, and despair

Dr. Monygham, pulling round in the policegalley, heard the name pass over his head. It was another of

Nostromo's triumphs, the greatest, the most enviable, the most sinister of all. In that true cry of undying

passion that seemed to ring aloud from Punta Mala to Azuera and away to the bright line of the horizon,

overhung by a big white cloud shining like a mass of solid silver, the genius of the magnificent Capataz de

Cargadores dominated the dark gulf containing his conquests of treasure and love.