PART SECOND THE ISABELS

CHAPTER ONE

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 foot-hills 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 trees --the 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 transports.

Captain Mitchell,

feeling more and more in the thick of history,

found time for an hour or so during an afternoon in the drawing-room 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 him more work --he confided to Mrs. Gould --than he had bargained for.

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 speeches --the 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 self-respect without which --he declared with energy --"we are a reproach and a byword amongst the powers of the world."

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 ill-usage 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 chaplain --some unshaven,

dirty man,

girt with a sword and with a tiny cross embroidered in white cotton on the left breast of a lieutenant's uniform --would 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 self-confidence 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 should become weary of forgiving!

Don Jose Avellanos had known this forgiveness.

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 enough to devote herself to "poor papa."

Miss Avellanos,

born in Europe and educated partly in England,

was a tall,

grave girl,

with a self-possessed manner,

a wide,

white forehead,

a wealth of rich brown hair,

and blue eyes.

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 foreign bondholders,

stands disclosed in the patriot.

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 national credit by the satisfaction of all just claims abroad.

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' drawing-room,

got out of the rocking-chair,

letting his hat fall off his knees.

He rubbed his silvery,

short hair with both hands,

speechless with the excess of joy.

"Emilia,

my soul,"

he had burst out,

"let me embrace you!

Let me --"

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 needed.

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 two helpers,

for these two young people from over the sea.

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 opportunity and used the weapon to hand.

Charles Gould's position --a commanding position in the background of that attempt to retrieve the peace and the credit of the Republic --was 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 eleven-storey 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,

could say:

"Perhaps,

my dear Carlos,

I shall not have believed in vain."

CHAPTER TWO

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 Five-Year-Mandate law became the basis of that regeneration,

the passionate desire and hope for which had been like the elixir of everlasting youth for Don Jose Avellanos.

And when it was suddenly --and not quite unexpectedly --endangered 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 President-Dictator'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 Dictator-President and the Nestor-inspirer of the party.

But Don Vincente,

a doctor of philosophy from the Cordova University,

seemed to have an exaggerated respect for military ability,

whose mysteriousness --since it appeared to be altogether independent of intellect --imposed upon his imagination.

The victor of Rio Seco was a popular hero.

His services were so recent that the President-Dictator quailed before the obvious charge of political ingratitude.

Great regenerating transactions were being initiated --the 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 gold-laced portent in boots,

and with a sabre,

made meaningless now at last,

he hoped,

in the new order of things.

Less than six months after the President-Dictator's visit,

Sulaco learned with stupefaction of the military revolt in the name of national honour.

The Minister of War,

in a barrack-square 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 powers --for the settlement of long outstanding money claims --had 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 ex-guerillero,

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 attack of jaundice.

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 Entre-Montes.

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 land-grabbing designs of European powers,

cursing in every issue the "miserable Ribiera,"

who had plotted to deliver his country,

bound hand and foot,

for a prey to foreign speculators.

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 circuitously --from 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 Five-Year 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 dirty-greyish 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 mud-walled church to be the secretary of the dreaded Salteador.

They had both bent in the lamplight of the Gould drawing-room 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 with men.

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 jetty.

Nostromo directed the embarkation,

under the superintendendence of Captain Mitchell,

red-faced 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 the Republic.

"And then,

senora,"

he continued,

baring his curly iron-grey head to Mrs. Gould in her landau --"and then,

senora,

we shall convert our swords into plough-shares 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 knows --what do I say?

--this whole South American continent knows,

that Pablo Barrios has had his fill of military glory."

Charles Gould was not present at the anxious and patriotic send-off.

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 single-handed from the re-opened 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 Avellanos,

father and daughter,

down to the harbour with her.

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 market-price for second-hand 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 party.

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,

clean-shaven 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 sunshade.

Whenever possible Antonia attended her father;

her recognized devotion weakened the shocking effect of her scorn for the rigid conventions regulating the life of Spanish-American 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 armchair --Antonia 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 opposite --which 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 marry --unless,

indeed,

she married a foreigner from Europe or North America,

now that Sulaco seemed on the point of being invaded by all the world.

CHAPTER THREE

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 thick-set,

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 landau.

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 Frenchified --but most un-French --cosmopolitanism,

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 opera-bouffe 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 Spanish-Americans 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 is some chance for them at last."

And he would explain with railing verve what Don Vincente Ribiera stood for --a 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 colonization of vast tracts of land in one great financial scheme.

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 in a spirit of levity.

Afterwards he asked one of his intimates --

"Have you read my thing about the regeneration of Costaguana --_une 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 small-arms committee of Sulaco seemed to him the height of the unexpected,

one of those fantastic moves of which only his "dear countrymen" were capable.

"It's like a tile falling on my head.

I --I --executive 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 family --except the old father and mother --used the French language amongst themselves.

"And you should see the explanatory and confidential letter!

Eight pages of it --no less!"

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 god-son,

a man of wealth and leisure,

with wide relations,

and by his parentage and bringing-up worthy of all confidence.

"Which means,"

Martin commented,

cynically,

to his sister,

"that I am not likely to misappropriate the funds,

or go blabbing to our _Charge d'Affaires_ here."

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 President-Dictator,

whose position was very difficult,

was alone in the secret.

"How funny!"

commented Martin's sister and confidante;

to which the brother,

with an air of best Parisian blague,

had retorted:

"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 Martin take so much trouble about anything in his whole life.

"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 of astonishment)

looked at him with narrowed eyes,

and pronounced slowly --

"I believe you want to see Antonia."

"What Antonia?"

asked the Costaguana boulevardier,

in a vexed and disdainful tone.

He shrugged his shoulders,

and spun round on his heel.

His sister called out after him joyously --

"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 school-girl.

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 frequently --the arrest and the abominable treatment of the ex-Minister,

the dangers and hardships endured by the family,

its withdrawal in poverty to Sulaco,

the death of the mother.

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,

still shaken and weak,

embraced him with tears in his eyes.

"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 god-son.

This was indeed the time for men of intellect and conscience to rally round the endangered cause.

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 warmth,

that all he found to say after his low bow was --

"I am inexpressibly grateful for your welcome;

but why need a man be thanked for returning to his native country?

I am sure Dona Antonia does not think so."

"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 glad --for 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 well-bred familiarity,

whether she could not detect in him that day a marked change --an 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 self-forgetful 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,

straight-backed 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 half-educated 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 Patria!_"

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 surrender of the lands and the slavery of the people.

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 ex-voto 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,

side-long inclination of his body the Journalist of Sulaco going to and fro on the business of his august calling.

CHAPTER FOUR

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 name of a man.

General Barrios,

in a shabby blue tunic and white peg-top 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 deep-set,

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,

self-possessed,

and declared her conviction that still more glory awaited the general in the near future.

"Senora!"

he remonstrated,

with great feeling,

"in the name of God,

reflect!

How can there be any glory for a man like me in overcoming that bald-headed embustero with the dyed moustaches?"

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 jaguar-hunt 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 shop-keeper.

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 custom ever since,"

he would say.

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 gold-laced 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 Tiger-killer,

as the populace called him.

He was,

however,

said to be unlucky in the field --but 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 bridle-hand 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 aide-de-camp at his side

(a thick-set,

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 Carril --your railways,

your telegraphs.

Your --There's enough wealth in Costaguana to pay for everything --or 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 loftily,

he addressed himself again to Mrs. Gould --

"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 expression.

Mrs. Gould smiled a good-bye 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,

"Si,

la casa.

Si,

si nina."

The carriage rolled noiselessly on the soft track,

the shadows fell long on the dusty little plain interspersed with dark bushes,

mounds of turned-up 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 campo --like a slender,

vibrating feeler of that progress waiting outside for a moment of peace to enter and twine itself about the weary heart of the land.

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 Englishwoman --another title to his regard.

He offered some excuses for his wife.

It was a bad day with her;

her oppressions --he 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,

offhand --

"Well,

and what do you think of it all,

Garibaldino?"

Old Giorgio,

looking at him with some curiosity,

said civilly that the troops had marched very well.

One-eyed 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 half-smile 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 half-raw 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,

proudly.

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 could not --

"Yes,

yes,"

broke in Don Jose,

almost trembling with eagerness.

"We are safe.

The good Senor Viola is a man of experience.

Extremely deadly --is it not so?

You have accomplished your mission admirably,

my dear Martin."

Decoud,

lolling back moodily,

contemplated old Viola.

"Ah!

Yes.

A man of experience.

But who are you for,

really,

in your heart?"

Mrs. Gould leaned over to the children.

Linda had brought out a glass of water on a tray,

with extreme care;

Giselle presented her with a bunch of flowers gathered hastily.

"For the people,"

declared old Viola,

sternly.

"We are all for the people --in the end."

"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 true?"

"The young patricians,"

Decoud began suddenly in his precise English,

"have indeed been dancing before they started off to the war with the Great Pompey."

Young Scarfe stared,

astounded.

"You haven't met before,"

Mrs. Gould intervened.

"Mr. Decoud --Mr. Scarfe."

"Ah!

But we are not going to Pharsalia,"

protested Don Jose,

with nervous haste,

also in English.

"You should not jest like this,

Martin."

Antonia's breast rose and fell with a deeper breath.

The young engineer was utterly in the dark.

"Great what?"

he muttered,

vaguely.

"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 Roman --vir Romanus --eloquent and inflexible."

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 so-called 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 that --don't you know."

It would give him the pull over a lot of chaps all through life,

he asserted.

"Therefore --down 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 ground-floor 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 round-faced,

Frenchified fellow.

He coloured up to the eyes,

and stared at Giorgio Viola,

who had fallen back with the children,

hat in hand.

"I shall want a horse presently,"

he said with some asperity to the old man.

"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 shoulder of Higuerota far away.

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 well-wisher.

It is pleasant to think that the prosperity of Costaguana is of some use to the world."

"He is very young,"

Mrs. Gould remarked,

quietly.

"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 Europe --as represented by the bold buccaneers.

There is a curse of futility upon our character: Don Quixote and Sancho Panza,

chivalry and materialism,

high-sounding 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 cut-throats,

our institutions a mockery,

our laws a farce --a 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 Montero --Great Heavens!

a Montero!

--becomes a deadly danger,

and an ignorant,

boastful Indio,

like Barrios,

is our defender."

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 President-Dictator 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 engine-driver,

running past the Casa Viola with the salute of an uplifted arm,

checked his speed smartly before entering the yard;

and when the ear-splitting screech of the steam-whistle for the brakes had stopped,

a series of hard,

battering shocks,

mingled with the clanking of chain-couplings,

made a tumult of blows and shaken fetters under the vault of the gate.

CHAPTER FIVE

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 Parisian-built 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 semi-translucent,

waxy complexion,

overshadowed by the soft grey hat,

swayed a little to the jolts of the carriage by the side of Mrs. Gould.

"This sound puts a new edge on a very old truth."

Decoud spoke in French,

perhaps because of Ignacio on the box above him;

the old coachman,

with his broad back filling a short,

silver-braided jacket,

had a big pair of ears,

whose thick rims stood well away from his cropped head.

"Yes,

the noise outside the city wall is new,

but the principle is old."

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 absurd sailor Mitchell is always saying."

"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 treasure-house,

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 day --and 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 did not say "robbed,"

but added,

after a pause --"exploited!"

Mrs. Gould said,

"Oh,

this is unjust!"

And Antonia interjected,

"Don't answer him,

Emilia.

He is attacking me."

"You surely do not think I was attacking Don Carlos!"

Decoud answered.

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 after them with some light wraps on his arm.

Don Jose slipped his hand under the arm of the journalist of Sulaco.

"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 United States to maintain a favourable impression abroad."

Decoud muttered,

"Oh,

yes,

we must comfort our friends,

the speculators."

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 reception-rooms thrown open.

A jingle of spurs died out at the further end.

Basilio,

standing aside against the wall,

said in a soft tone to the passing ladies,

"The Senor Administrador is just back from the mountain."

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 tea-service 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 rocking-chair placed his hat on his lap,

and Decoud walked up and down the whole length of the room,

passing between tables loaded with knick-knacks 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 peace with her.

He had not stayed in Sulaco to quarrel with Antonia.

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 expression,

"_Quelle farce!_"

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 tea-table.

Antonia took up her usual place at the reception hour --the 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 and more insistent and caressing.

At last he ventured a slight laugh.

"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 failure!"

Her hand closed firmly on her fan.

"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."

She opened her red lips for the first time,

not unkindly.

"Yes,

but you never see the aim.

Men must be used as they are.

I suppose nobody is really disinterested,

unless,

perhaps,

you,

Don Martin."

"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 passionately --

"Antonia!"

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,

"Bonjour."

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.

"Yes,"

Decoud began in a murmur.

"Even he!"

"This is sheer calumny,"

said Antonia,

not very severely.

"You just ask him to throw his mine into the melting-pot 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 confidence.

Charles Gould,

very tall and thin before his chair,

listened,

but nothing could be discovered in his face except a kind and deferential attention.

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 frock-coat 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 kind-hearted.

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 exchanging.

"Did you say I lost sight of the aim?

I have only one aim in the world."

She made an almost imperceptible negative movement of her head,

still staring across the street at the Avellanos's house,

grey,

marked with decay,

and with iron bars like a prison.

"And it would be so easy of attainment,"

he continued,

"this aim which,

whether knowingly or not,

I have always had in my heart --ever since the day when you snubbed me so horribly once in Paris,

you remember."

A slight smile seemed to move the corner of the lip that was on his side.

"You know you were a very terrible person,

a sort of Charlotte Corday in a schoolgirl's dress;

a ferocious patriot.

I suppose you would have stuck a knife into Guzman Bento?"

She interrupted him.

"You do me too much honour."

"At any rate,"

he said,

changing suddenly to a tone of bitter levity,

"you would have sent me to stab him without compunction."

"_Ah,

par exemple!_" she murmured in a shocked tone.

"Well,"

he argued,

mockingly,

"you do keep me here writing deadly nonsense.

Deadly to me!

It has already killed my self-respect.

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."

"If he is successful!"

said Antonia,

thoughtfully.

"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 guerrillero --haven'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 Anglo-South-American 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 fan hanging down from her interlaced fingers.

He waited for a while,

and then --

"I shall go to the wall,"

he said,

with a sort of jocular desperation.

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 --

"Martin,

you will make me cry."

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,

which she did slowly with a rigid grace,

he had begun to plead --

"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 mail-boat for the south next week --let 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.

Read

'Fifty Years of Misrule.'"

"Leave poor papa alone,

Don Martin.

He believes --"

"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 advance,

and gone on loafing in Paris,

this stupid,

ferocious Indio!"

"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 papers --all 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's-his-name that Montero had to be bought off --he and all his Negro Liberals hanging on to his gold-laced sleeve?

He ought to have been bought off with his own stupid weight of gold --his weight of gold,

I tell you,

boots,

sabre,

spurs,

cocked hat,

and all."

She shook her head slightly.

"It was impossible,"

she murmured.

"He wanted the whole lot?

What?"

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 wrong --utterly 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;

the curtain half hid them from the people in the sala.

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 Higuerota,

refreshed their faces.

"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!

Nature itself seems to cry to us,

'Separate!'"

She made an energetic gesture of negation.

A silence fell.

"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 much with this perfectly reasonable aspiration?"

She shook her head.

No,

she was not startled,

but the idea shocked her early convictions.

Her patriotism was larger.

She had never considered that possibility.

"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 soft-stepping mount,

gleaming silver-grey abreast each lamp under the dark shape of the rider.

"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 good-natured,

and let me make friends with him."

"Ah,

indeed!"

said Antonia.

"How did you make friends?"

"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 men --and 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 muffled-up mysteriousness of the dark figure with an invisible face concealed by a great sombrero.

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 tete-a-tete of extreme impropriety;

something of which in the whole extent of the Republic only the extraordinary Antonia could be capable --the 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 till --till 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 after a short pause.

"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 suffering.

Papa,

who --"

"Ploughing the sea,"

interrupted Decoud,

looking down.

There was below the sound of hasty and ponderous footsteps.

"Your uncle,

the grand-vicar 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 Vicar-General.

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 fort --our Barrios.

I expected every moment your uncle to launch an excommunication there and then at the black eye-patch 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 has --you 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.

He condescends graciously to call me a heathen,

sometimes,

you know."

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 inflection crept into the flow of his ironic murmurs.

"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 shirt --what's his name?

Monygham --or else catechising Don Pepe or perhaps listening to Padre Roman.

They are all down here to-day --all 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 passions --sometimes.

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 clear-sighted,

and I shall not use that word to you,

Antonia!

I have no patriotic illusions.

I have only the supreme illusion of a lover."

He paused,

then muttered almost inaudibly,

"That can lead one very far,

though."

Behind their backs the political tide that once in every twenty-four hours set with a strong flood through the Gould drawing-room 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 unheard-of audacity of that evil madman.

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 to-day an army upon his flank.

If all the other provinces show only half as much patriotism as we Occidentals --"

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 over the quiet street.

"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 harbour --this active usher-in 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 fortunate?

To be feared and admired is --"

"And are these your highest aspirations,

Don Martin?"

interrupted Antonia.

"I was speaking of a man of that sort,"

said Decoud,

curtly.

"The heroes of the world have been feared and admired.

What more could he want?"

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 that it seemed almost unrealizable on this earth.

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 whispered assurance into the room behind,

full of light,

noisy with voices.

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 fan-shaped beard was still the centre of loud and animated discussions.

There was a self-confident ring in all the voices.

Even the few Europeans around Charles Gould --a Dane,

a couple of Frenchmen,

a discreet fat German,

smiling,

with down-cast eyes,

the representatives of those material interests that had got a footing in Sulaco under the protecting might of the San Tome mine --had 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 drawing-room,

especially her own,

next to the great sala.

She had risen,

and,

waiting for Antonia,

listened with a slightly worried graciousness to the engineer-in-chief 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 Decoud,

only for a moment.

"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,

a little distantly.

The engineer-in-chief 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 grown-up person taking part in a game of children.

He gazed quietly at the threatening finger.

"I have watched your reverence converting General Barrios by a special sermon on the Plaza,"

he said,

without making the slightest movement.

"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 self-confidence 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 bullock-hide shield,

and,

no doubt,

a long lance,

too --who 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 muleteers --men inured to exposure --were 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 greater part was to go to the padres.

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 brother-in-law of Don Jose into the prison of the Cabildo.

The chief magistrate,

an easy-going 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 preferably --eh,

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 it were.

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 impatiently.

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 long,

black arm slowly,

impressively --

"And you --you are a perfect heathen,"

he said,

in a subdued,

deep voice.

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 Barrios."

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 perspicacity.

But why call me a heathen?"

"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 shoulders doubtfully.

"A sort of Frenchman --godless --a 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 gazing up at the ceiling.

"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 Robber --who is apparently the protege of the Church --or at least of the Grand Vicar.

Nothing could be more sound."

The priest nodded and turned on the heels of his square-toed 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 of his soutane was inflated slightly by the brusqueness of his movements.

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 good-natured First Official made a deprecatory gesture,

waved his hand to Charles Gould,

and went out discreetly.

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 coming --a 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 calm.

And only the priest continued his pacing,

flinging round the skirt of his soutane at each end of his beat.

Decoud murmured to him ironically:

"Those gentlemen talk about their gods."

Father Corbelan stopped short,

looked at the journalist of Sulaco fixedly for a moment,

shrugged his shoulders slightly,

and resumed his plodding walk of an obstinate traveller.

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 multi-coloured shoal of flowers and arabesques under his brown boots.

Father Corbelan approached the rocking-chair 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 and pray for guidance from Heaven."

He rolled his black eyes upwards.

By the side of the frail diplomatist --the life and soul of the party --he 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 be --because it's self-destructive,"

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 by-paths of political action.

Don Jose obeyed the touch of the big hairy hand.

Decoud followed out the brothers-in-law.

And there remained only one visitor in the vast empty sala,

bluishly hazy with tobacco smoke,

a heavy-eyed,

round-cheeked 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 hide-exporting 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 it --with 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 pass --a man on a grey horse with his hat down on his eyes --without a word of greeting;

but by-and-by 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 blood-curdling 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 stirrup with her hand on the grey horse's mane."

"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 man --to look at.

And what does it mean?

A person employed by the Steamship Company talking with salteadores --no less,

senor;

the other horsemen were salteadores --in a lonely place,

and behaving like a robber himself!

A cigar is nothing,

but what was there to prevent him asking me for my purse?"

"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 de Cargadores you met --and there is no doubt,

is there?

--you were perfectly safe."

"Thank you.

You are very good.

A very fierce-looking 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 be talking with robbers in a lonely place?"

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 negation --even 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 half-hour 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 Province --that is,

on no goodwill which it could not buy ten times over.

But to the little hook-nosed 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 ox-hides 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 anybody --rotting 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 heart-broken 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 up --up.

Of course the Ribierist Government will do away with all that --when it gets established firmly.

Meantime --"

He sighed.

"Yes,

meantime,"

repeated Charles Gould,

inscrutably.

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 to --The little man from Esmeralda was ready to enlarge,

but Charles interrupted him.

It seemed as though the patience of the Senor Administrador was giving way at last.

"Senor Hirsch,"

he said,

"I have enough dynamite stored up at the mountain to send it down crashing into the valley" --his voice rose a little --"to send half Sulaco into the air if I liked."

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 dynamite --and the very shoulders of the enterprising Israelite expressed dejection.

At the door he bowed low to the engineer-in-chief.

But at the bottom of the stairs in the patio he stopped short,

with his podgy hand over his lips in an attitude of meditative astonishment.

"What does he want to keep so much dynamite for?"

he muttered.

"And why does he talk like this to me?"

The engineer-in-chief,

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 amongst the deserted shoals of furniture.

"Good-night,

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 our way through."

"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 engineer-in-chief of the most promising railway in the world."

"What's that?"

asked the engineer-in-chief,

with equanimity.

"Unkindness?"

"No,"

said Charles Gould,

stolidly.

"Policy."

"Radical,

I should think,"

the engineer-in-chief observed from the doorway.

"Is that the right name?"

Charles Gould said,

from the middle of the room.

"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 there.

It's my choice.

It's my last card to play."

The engineer-in-chief whistled low.

"A pretty game,"

he said,

with a shade of discretion.

"And have you told Holroyd of that extraordinary trump card you hold in your hand?"

"Card only when it's played;

when it falls at the end of the game.

Till then you may call it a --a --"

"Weapon,"

suggested the railway man.

"No. You may call it rather an argument,"

corrected Charles Gould,

gently.

"And that's how I've presented it to Mr. Holroyd."

"And what did he say to it?"

asked the engineer,

with undisguised interest.

"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 country,

God is very high above."

The engineer's appreciative laugh died away down the stairs,

where the Madonna with the Child on her arm seemed to look after his shaking broad back from her shallow niche.

CHAPTER SIX

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 armchair --his own smoking armchair --thoughtful,

contemplating her little shoes.

And she did not raise her eyes when he walked in.

"Tired?"

asked Charles Gould.

"A little,"

said Mrs. Gould.

Still without looking up,

she added with feeling,

"There is an awful sense of unreality about all this."

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 close my eyes to our position;

to this awful ..."

She raised her eyes and looked at her husband's face,

from which all sign of sympathy or any other feeling had disappeared.

"Why don't you tell me something?"

she almost wailed.

"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 tone.

"Any distance,

any length,

of course,"

was the answer,

in a matter-of-fact tone,

which caused Mrs. Gould to make another effort to repress a shudder.

She stood up,

smiling graciously,

and her little figure seemed to be diminished still more by the heavy mass of her hair and the long train of her gown.

"But always to success,"

she said,

persuasively.

Charles Gould,

enveloping her in the steely blue glance of his attentive eyes,

answered without hesitation --

"Oh,

there is no alternative."

He put an immense assurance into his tone.

As to the words,

this was all that his conscience would allow him to say.

Mrs. Gould's smile remained a shade too long upon her lips.

She murmured --

"I will leave you;

I've a slight headache.

The heat,

the dust,

were indeed --I suppose you are going back to the mine before the morning?"

"At midnight,"

said Charles Gould.

"We are bringing down the silver to-morrow.

Then I shall take three whole days off in town with you."

"Ah,

you are going to meet the escort.

I shall be on the balcony at five o'clock to see you pass.

Till then,

good-bye."

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 with a light touch,

as if he were a little boy.

"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 water-colour sketch of the San Tome gorge.

And Mrs. Gould,

gazing at the last in its black wooden frame,

sighed out --

"Ah,

if we had left it alone,

Charley!"

"No,"

Charles Gould said,

moodily;

"it was impossible to leave it alone."

"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 water-colour 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 go and begin a new life elsewhere."

He confronted his wife with a firm,

concentrated gaze,

which Mrs. Gould returned with a brave assumption of fearlessness before she went out,

closing the door gently after her.

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 reception-rooms,

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 sala.

"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 looked at him with doubtful surprise.

"Senora,"

he began,

in a low voice.

"What is it,

Don Martin?"

asked Mrs. Gould.

And then she added,

with a slight laugh,

"I am so nervous to-day,"

as if to explain the eagerness of the question.

"Nothing immediately dangerous,"

said Decoud,

who now could not conceal his agitation.

"Pray don't distress yourself.

No,

really,

you must not distress yourself."

Mrs. Gould,

with her candid eyes very wide open,

her lips composed into a smile,

was steadying herself with a little bejewelled hand against the side of the door.

"Perhaps you don't know how alarming you are,

appearing like this unexpectedly --"

"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 cannot understand how Antonia could --Well!

Have you found it,

amigo?"

"No,

senor,"

said behind Mrs. Gould the soft voice of Basilio,

the head servant of the Casa.

"I don't think the senorita could have left it in this house at all."

"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 came in to justify my reappearance,

my sudden return."

He paused and Mrs. Gould said,

amiably,

"You are always welcome."

She paused for a second,

too.

"But I am waiting to learn the cause of your return."

Decoud affected suddenly the utmost nonchalance.

"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 de Cargadores,

riding down the street,

spoke to me."

"Has anything happened to the Violas?"

inquired Mrs. Gould.

"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 rather say rumours of news."

"Good news?"

said Mrs. Gould in a low voice.

"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 ago --perhaps 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."

"What's to be done now?"

murmured Mrs. Gould.

"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 army --this last most likely,

and go himself in one of the O.S.N.

Company's steamers,

north or south --to Valparaiso or to San Francisco,

no matter where.

Our Barrios has a great practice in exiles and repatriations,

which mark the points in the political game."

Decoud,

exchanging a steady stare with Mrs. Gould,

added,

tentatively,

as it were,

"And yet,

if we had could have been done."

"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 true?

Well,

let us put things at their worst,

let us say it is true."

"Then everything is lost,"

said Mrs. Gould,

with the calmness of despair.

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,

half-reckless,

half-contemptuous,

of his lips.

And a French phrase came upon them as if,

for this Costaguanero of the Boulevard,

that had been the only forcible language --

"_Non,

Madame.

Rien n'est perdu_."

It electrified Mrs. Gould out of her benumbed attitude,

and she said,

vivaciously --

"What would you think of doing?"

But already there was something of mockery in Decoud's suppressed excitement.

"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 desires."

"Yes,"

said Mrs. Gould,

doubtfully.

"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 muttered assurance --

"There is nothing I would not do for the sake of Antonia.

There is nothing I am not prepared to undertake.

There is no risk I am not ready to run."

Decoud seemed to find a fresh audacity in this voicing of his thoughts.

"You would not believe me if I were to say that it is the love of the country which --"

She made a sort of discouraged protest with her arm,

as if to express that she had given up expecting that motive from any one.

"A Sulaco revolution,"

Decoud pursued in a forcible undertone.

"The Great Cause may be served here,

on the very spot of its inception,

in the place of its birth,

Mrs. Gould."

Frowning,

and biting her lower lip thoughtfully,

she made a step away from the door.

"You are not going to speak to your husband?"

Decoud arrested her anxiously.

"But you will need his help?"

"No doubt,"

Decoud admitted without hesitation.

"Everything turns upon the San Tome mine,

but I would rather he didn't know anything as yet of my --my hopes."

A puzzled look came upon Mrs. Gould's face,

and Decoud,

approaching,

explained confidentially --

"Don't you see,

he's such an idealist."

Mrs. Gould flushed pink,

and her eyes grew darker at the same time.

"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 meaning of the San Tome mine?

Are you aware of it?"

He must have known what he was talking about.

The effect he expected was produced.

Mrs. Gould,

ready to take fire,

gave it up suddenly with a low little sound that resembled a moan.

"What do you know?"

she asked in a feeble voice.

"Nothing,"

answered Decoud,

firmly.

"But,

then,

don't you see,

he's an Englishman?"

"Well,

what of that?"

asked Mrs. Gould.

"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 the --what do you call them?

--the Anglo-Saxon's susceptibilities,

and at the present moment I don't feel as if I could treat seriously either his conception of things or --if you allow me to say so --or yet yours."

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 honest enough to tell you that,

Mrs. Gould."

"Your idea,

of course,

is separation,"

she said.

"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."

"And that is all?"

asked Mrs. Gould,

without severity.

"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 is true,

I have plenty of time to run away."

The slight,

protesting murmur on the part of Mrs. Gould made him pause for a moment,

while he looked at her with a sombre and resolute glance.

"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 won't run away.

A novel sort of vanity."

"You call it vanity,"

said Mrs. Gould,

in a shocked voice.

"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 necessary that Sulaco should not recognize the victorious Montero."

"And you think my husband will give you his support?"

"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 motives or even,

perhaps,

to yours,

Mrs. Gould."

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 half-confidences,

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 false.

"You have some sort of a plan,"

she said.

"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 fine idea of retribution in that,

isn't there?"

Decoud had dropped easily into English,

which he spoke with precision,

very correctly,

but with too many z sounds.

"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 at all so desperate as it looks,

rather than --"

Decoud finished his thought with an upward toss of the arm,

suggesting annihilation;

and Mrs. Gould turned away her head with a look of horror.

"Why don't you say all this to my husband?"

she asked,

without looking at Decoud,

who stood watching the effect of his words.

"Ah!

But Don Carlos is so English,"

he began.

Mrs. Gould interrupted --

"Leave that alone,

Don Martin.

He's as much a Costaguanero --No!

He's more of a Costaguanero than yourself."

"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 --"

"No. That is unnecessary,"

whispered Mrs. Gould,

once more averting her head.

"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 deal with."

"I don't know that I understand you,

Don Martin,"

said Mrs. Gould,

coldly,

preserving the low key of their conversation.

"But,

speaking as if I did,

who is the other?"

"The great Holroyd in San Francisco,

of course,"

Decoud whispered,

lightly.

"I think you understand me very well.

Women are idealists;

but then they are so perspicacious."

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 cried in dismay.

"Let it come down,

then,"

breathed out Decoud,

earnestly,

almost into her ear.

"But if the rumour should get about,

and especially if it turned out true,

troubles might break out in the town,"

objected Mrs. Gould.

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 shipment.

The next north-going 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 conviction in his hurried tone.

"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 reason --even for the most political of reasons,

you understand --his Cargadores,

an important part of the populace,

you will admit,

should be found on the side of the Europeans."

"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."

Decoud,

interrupting himself,

looked at Mrs. Gould curiously.

"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 prestige as a sort of investment."

"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 sane and practical assumption."

"I prefer to think him disinterested,

and therefore trustworthy,"

Mrs. Gould said,

with the nearest approach to curtness it was in her nature to assume.

"Well,

if so,

then the silver will be still more safe.

Let it come down,

senora.

Let it come down,

so that it may go north and return to us in the shape of credit."

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 sandal-wood.

"I had it in my pocket,"

he murmured,

triumphantly,

"for a plausible pretext."

He bowed again.

"Good-night,

senora."

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 silver-bricks,

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 herself.

Below she heard the voice of Martin Decoud in the patio speaking loudly:

"I have found Dona Antonia's fan,

Basilio.

Look,

here it is!"

CHAPTER SEVEN

It was part of what Decoud would have called his sane materialism that he did not believe in the possibility of friendship between man and woman.

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 re-act upon the profound sympathies of another existence.

His favourite sister,

the handsome,

slightly arbitrary and resolute angel,

ruling the father and mother Decoud in the first-floor apartments of a very fine Parisian house,

was the recipient of Martin Decoud's confidences as to his thoughts,

actions,

purposes,

doubts,

and even failures.

...

"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 riot --a 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 picturesque to be done.

"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 card-tables.

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 trifles.

I took my place at one of the windows and began firing.

"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 seemed to rebound from the paper.

He took up the pencil again.

"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 silver-grey 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 it --late 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 principles.

"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 bull-fighter,

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 face --the 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 ox-carts 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 of his bare arm.

Decoud did not stir.

Behind him,

on the back of the chair from which he had risen,

hung his elegant Parisian overcoat,

with a pearl-grey 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 gun-powder.

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 hours.

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 pocket-book with a letter to his sister.

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 wrote the phrase,

"I am very hungry."

"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,

half-naked,

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 few minutes ago,

and I feel more lonely than ever."

Decoud turned half round in his chair,

and asked,

"Is there any bread here?"

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 him very dark from the corner.

"You're not afraid of me?"

he said.

"No,"

said Linda,

"we are not afraid of you.

You came here with Gian' Battista."

"You mean Nostromo?"

said Decoud.

"The English call him so,

but that is no name either for man or beast,"

said the girl,

passing her hand gently over her sister's hair.

"But he lets people call him so,"

remarked Decoud.

"Not in this house,"

retorted the child.

"Ah!

well,

I shall call him the Capataz then."

Decoud gave up the point,

and after writing steadily for a while turned round again.

"When do you expect him back?"

he asked.

"After he brought you here he rode off to fetch the Senor Doctor from the town for mother.

He will be back soon."

"He stands a good chance of getting shot somewhere on the road,"

Decoud murmured to himself audibly;

and Linda declared in her high-pitched voice --

"Nobody would dare to fire a shot at Gian' Battista."

"You believe that,"

asked Decoud,

"do you?"

"I know it,"

said the child,

with conviction.

"There is no one in this place brave enough to attack Gian' Battista."

"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 pocket-book,

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 white-faced ladies I met carrying bandages.

One was sitting on the top step tearing a piece of linen hastily into strips --the 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 political commotion tears down the veil of cosmetics and usage.

"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 frock-coat,

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.