PART THIRD THE LIGHTHOUSE

CHAPTER ONE

Directly the cargo boat had slipped away from the wharf and got lost in the darkness of the harbour the Europeans of Sulaco separated,

to prepare for the coming of the Monterist regime,

which was approaching Sulaco from the mountains,

as well as from the sea.

This bit of manual work in loading the silver was their last concerted action.

It ended the three days of danger,

during which,

according to the newspaper press of Europe,

their energy had preserved the town from the calamities of popular disorder.

At the shore end of the jetty,

Captain Mitchell said good-night and turned back.

His intention was to walk the planks of the wharf till the steamer from Esmeralda turned up.

The engineers of the railway staff,

collecting their Basque and Italian workmen,

marched them away to the railway yards,

leaving the Custom House,

so well defended on the first day of the riot,

standing open to the four winds of heaven.

Their men had conducted themselves bravely and faithfully during the famous "three days" of Sulaco.

In a great part this faithfulness and that courage had been exercised in self-defence rather than in the cause of those material interests to which Charles Gould had pinned his faith.

Amongst the cries of the mob not the least loud had been the cry of death to foreigners.

It was,

indeed,

a lucky circumstance for Sulaco that the relations of those imported workmen with the people of the country had been uniformly bad from the first.

Doctor Monygham,

going to the door of Viola's kitchen,

observed this retreat marking the end of the foreign interference,

this withdrawal of the army of material progress from the field of Costaguana revolutions.

Algarrobe torches carried on the outskirts of the moving body sent their penetrating aroma into his nostrils.

Their light,

sweeping along the front of the house,

made the letters of the inscription,

"Albergo d'ltalia Una,"

leap out black from end to end of the long wall.

His eyes blinked in the clear blaze.

Several young men,

mostly fair and tall,

shepherding this mob of dark bronzed heads,

surmounted by the glint of slanting rifle barrels,

nodded to him familiarly as they went by.

The doctor was a well-known character.

Some of them wondered what he was doing there.

Then,

on the flank of their workmen they tramped on,

following the line of rails.

"Withdrawing your people from the harbour?"

said the doctor,

addressing himself to the chief engineer of the railway,

who had accompanied Charles Gould so far on his way to the town,

walking by the side of the horse,

with his hand on the saddle-bow.

They had stopped just outside the open door to let the workmen cross the road.

"As quick as I can.

We are not a political faction,"

answered the engineer,

meaningly.

"And we are not going to give our new rulers a handle against the railway.

You approve me,

Gould?"

"Absolutely,"

said Charles Gould's impassive voice,

high up and outside the dim parallelogram of light falling on the road through the open door.

With Sotillo expected from one side,

and Pedro Montero from the other,

the engineer-in-chief's only anxiety now was to avoid a collision with either.

Sulaco,

for him,

was a railway station,

a terminus,

workshops,

a great accumulation of stores.

As against the mob the railway defended its property,

but politically the railway was neutral.

He was a brave man;

and in that spirit of neutrality he had carried proposals of truce to the self-appointed chiefs of the popular party,

the deputies Fuentes and Gamacho.

Bullets were still flying about when he had crossed the Plaza on that mission,

waving above his head a white napkin belonging to the table linen of the Amarilla Club.

He was rather proud of this exploit;

and reflecting that the doctor,

busy all day with the wounded in the patio of the Casa Gould,

had not had time to hear the news,

he began a succinct narrative.

He had communicated to them the intelligence from the Construction Camp as to Pedro Montero.

The brother of the victorious general,

he had assured them,

could be expected at Sulaco at any time now.

This news

(as he anticipated),

when shouted out of the window by Senor Gamacho,

induced a rush of the mob along the Campo Road towards Rincon.

The two deputies also,

after shaking hands with him effusively,

mounted and galloped off to meet the great man.

"I have misled them a little as to the time,"

the chief engineer confessed.

"However hard he rides,

he can scarcely get here before the morning.

But my object is attained.

I've secured several hours' peace for the losing party.

But I did not tell them anything about Sotillo,

for fear they would take it into their heads to try to get hold of the harbour again,

either to oppose him or welcome him --there's no saying which.

There was Gould's silver,

on which rests the remnant of our hopes.

Decoud's retreat had to be thought of,

too.

I think the railway has done pretty well by its friends without compromising itself hopelessly.

Now the parties must be left to themselves."

"Costaguana for the Costaguaneros,"

interjected the doctor,

sardonically.

"It is a fine country,

and they have raised a fine crop of hates,

vengeance,

murder,

and rapine --those sons of the country."

"Well,

I am one of them,"

Charles Gould's voice sounded,

calmly,

"and I must be going on to see to my own crop of trouble.

My wife has driven straight on,

doctor?"

"Yes.

All was quiet on this side.

Mrs. Gould has taken the two girls with her."

Charles Gould rode on,

and the engineer-in-chief followed the doctor indoors.

"That man is calmness personified,"

he said,

appreciatively,

dropping on a bench,

and stretching his well-shaped legs in cycling stockings nearly across the doorway.

"He must be extremely sure of himself."

"If that's all he is sure of,

then he is sure of nothing,"

said the doctor.

He had perched himself again on the end of the table.

He nursed his cheek in the palm of one hand,

while the other sustained the elbow.

"It is the last thing a man ought to be sure of."

The candle,

half-consumed and burning dimly with a long wick,

lighted up from below his inclined face,

whose expression affected by the drawn-in cicatrices in the cheeks,

had something vaguely unnatural,

an exaggerated remorseful bitterness.

As he sat there he had the air of meditating upon sinister things.

The engineer-in-chief gazed at him for a time before he protested.

"I really don't see that.

For me there seems to be nothing else.

However -- --"

He was a wise man,

but he could not quite conceal his contempt for that sort of paradox;

in fact.

Dr. Monygham was not liked by the Europeans of Sulaco.

His outward aspect of an outcast,

which he preserved even in Mrs. Gould's drawing-room,

provoked unfavourable criticism.

There could be no doubt of his intelligence;

and as he had lived for over twenty years in the country,

the pessimism of his outlook could not be altogether ignored.

But instinctively,

in self-defence of their activities and hopes,

his hearers put it to the account of some hidden imperfection in the man's character.

It was known that many years before,

when quite young,

he had been made by Guzman Bento chief medical officer of the army.

Not one of the Europeans then in the service of Costaguana had been so much liked and trusted by the fierce old Dictator.

Afterwards his story was not so clear.

It lost itself amongst the innumerable tales of conspiracies and plots against the tyrant as a stream is lost in an arid belt of sandy country before it emerges,

diminished and troubled,

perhaps,

on the other side.

The doctor made no secret of it that he had lived for years in the wildest parts of the Republic,

wandering with almost unknown Indian tribes in the great forests of the far interior where the great rivers have their sources.

But it was mere aimless wandering;

he had written nothing,

collected nothing,

brought nothing for science out of the twilight of the forests,

which seemed to cling to his battered personality limping about Sulaco,

where it had drifted in casually,

only to get stranded on the shores of the sea.

It was also known that he had lived in a state of destitution till the arrival of the Goulds from Europe.

Don Carlos and Dona Emilia had taken up the mad English doctor,

when it became apparent that for all his savage independence he could be tamed by kindness.

Perhaps it was only hunger that had tamed him.

In years gone by he had certainly been acquainted with Charles Gould's father in Sta. Marta;

and now,

no matter what were the dark passages of his history,

as the medical officer of the San Tome mine he became a recognized personality.

He was recognized,

but not unreservedly accepted.

So much defiant eccentricity and such an outspoken scorn for mankind seemed to point to mere recklessness of judgment,

the bravado of guilt.

Besides,

since he had become again of some account,

vague whispers had been heard that years ago,

when fallen into disgrace and thrown into prison by Guzman Bento at the time of the so-called Great Conspiracy,

he had betrayed some of his best friends amongst the conspirators.

Nobody pretended to believe that whisper;

the whole story of the Great Conspiracy was hopelessly involved and obscure;

it is admitted in Costaguana that there never had been a conspiracy except in the diseased imagination of the Tyrant;

and,

therefore,

nothing and no one to betray;

though the most distinguished Costaguaneros had been imprisoned and executed upon that accusation.

The procedure had dragged on for years,

decimating the better class like a pestilence.

The mere expression of sorrow for the fate of executed kinsmen had been punished with death.

Don Jose Avellanos was perhaps the only one living who knew the whole story of those unspeakable cruelties.

He had suffered from them himself,

and he,

with a shrug of the shoulders and a nervous,

jerky gesture of the arm,

was wont to put away from him,

as it were,

every allusion to it.

But whatever the reason,

Dr. Monygham,

a personage in the administration of the Gould Concession,

treated with reverent awe by the miners,

and indulged in his peculiarities by Mrs. Gould,

remained somehow outside the pale.

It was not from any liking for the doctor that the engineer-in-chief had lingered in the inn upon the plain.

He liked old Viola much better.

He had come to look upon the Albergo d'ltalia Una as a dependence of the railway.

Many of his subordinates had their quarters there.

Mrs. Gould's interest in the family conferred upon it a sort of distinction.

The engineer-in-chief,

with an army of workers under his orders,

appreciated the moral influence of the old Garibaldino upon his countrymen.

His austere,

old-world Republicanism had a severe,

soldier-like standard of faithfulness and duty,

as if the world were a battlefield where men had to fight for the sake of universal love and brotherhood,

instead of a more or less large share of booty.

"Poor old chap!"

he said,

after he had heard the doctor's account of Teresa.

"He'll never be able to keep the place going by himself.

I shall be sorry."

"He's quite alone up there,"

grunted Doctor Monygham,

with a toss of his heavy head towards the narrow staircase.

"Every living soul has cleared out,

and Mrs. Gould took the girls away just now.

It might not be over-safe for them out here before very long.

Of course,

as a doctor I can do nothing more here;

but she has asked me to stay with old Viola,

and as I have no horse to get back to the mine,

where I ought to be,

I made no difficulty to stay.

They can do without me in the town."

"I have a good mind to remain with you,

doctor,

till we see whether anything happens to-night at the harbour,"

declared the engineer-in-chief.

"He must not be molested by Sotillo's soldiery,

who may push on as far as this at once.

Sotillo used to be very cordial to me at the Goulds' and at the club.

How that man'll ever dare to look any of his friends here in the face I can't imagine."

"He'll no doubt begin by shooting some of them to get over the first awkwardness,"

said the doctor.

"Nothing in this country serves better your military man who has changed sides than a few summary executions."

He spoke with a gloomy positiveness that left no room for protest.

The engineer-in-chief did not attempt any.

He simply nodded several times regretfully,

then said --

"I think we shall be able to mount you in the morning,

doctor.

Our peons have recovered some of our stampeded horses.

By riding hard and taking a wide circuit by Los Hatos and along the edge of the forest,

clear of Rincon altogether,

you may hope to reach the San Tome bridge without being interfered with.

The mine is just now,

to my mind,

the safest place for anybody at all compromised.

I only wish the railway was as difficult to touch."

"Am I compromised?"

Doctor Monygham brought out slowly after a short silence.

"The whole Gould Concession is compromised.

It could not have remained for ever outside the political life of the country --if those convulsions may be called life.

The thing is --can it be touched?

The moment was bound to come when neutrality would become impossible,

and Charles Gould understood this well.

I believe he is prepared for every extremity.

A man of his sort has never contemplated remaining indefinitely at the mercy of ignorance and corruption.

It was like being a prisoner in a cavern of banditti with the price of your ransom in your pocket,

and buying your life from day to day.

Your mere safety,

not your liberty,

mind,

doctor.

I know what I am talking about.

The image at which you shrug your shoulders is perfectly correct,

especially if you conceive such a prisoner endowed with the power of replenishing his pocket by means as remote from the faculties of his captors as if they were magic.

You must have understood that as well as I do,

doctor.

He was in the position of the goose with the golden eggs.

I broached this matter to him as far back as Sir John's visit here.

The prisoner of stupid and greedy banditti is always at the mercy of the first imbecile ruffian,

who may blow out his brains in a fit of temper or for some prospect of an immediate big haul.

The tale of killing the goose with the golden eggs has not been evolved for nothing out of the wisdom of mankind.

It is a story that will never grow old.

That is why Charles Gould in his deep,

dumb way has countenanced the Ribierist Mandate,

the first public act that promised him safety on other than venal grounds.

Ribierism has failed,

as everything merely rational fails in this country.

But Gould remains logical in wishing to save this big lot of silver.

Decoud's plan of a counter-revolution may be practicable or not,

it may have a chance,

or it may not have a chance.

With all my experience of this revolutionary continent,

I can hardly yet look at their methods seriously.

Decoud has been reading to us his draft of a proclamation,

and talking very well for two hours about his plan of action.

He had arguments which should have appeared solid enough if we,

members of old,

stable political and national organizations,

were not startled by the mere idea of a new State evolved like this out of the head of a scoffing young man fleeing for his life,

with a proclamation in his pocket,

to a rough,

jeering,

half-bred swashbuckler,

who in this part of the world is called a general.

It sounds like a comic fairy tale --and behold,

it may come off;

because it is true to the very spirit of the country."

"Is the silver gone off,

then?"

asked the doctor,

moodily.

The chief engineer pulled out his watch.

"By Captain Mitchell's reckoning --and he ought to know --it has been gone long enough now to be some three or four miles outside the harbour;

and,

as Mitchell says,

Nostromo is the sort of seaman to make the best of his opportunities."

Here the doctor grunted so heavily that the other changed his tone.

"You have a poor opinion of that move,

doctor?

But why?

Charles Gould has got to play his game out,

though he is not the man to formulate his conduct even to himself,

perhaps,

let alone to others.

It may be that the game has been partly suggested to him by Holroyd;

but it accords with his character,

too;

and that is why it has been so successful.

Haven't they come to calling him

'El Rey de Sulaco' in Sta. Marta?

A nickname may be the best record of a success.

That's what I call putting the face of a joke upon the body of a truth.

My dear sir,

when I first arrived in Sta. Marta I was struck by the way all those journalists,

demagogues,

members of Congress,

and all those generals and judges cringed before a sleepy-eyed advocate without practice simply because he was the plenipotentiary of the Gould Concession.

Sir John when he came out was impressed,

too."

"A new State,

with that plump dandy,

Decoud,

for the first President,"

mused Dr. Monygham,

nursing his cheek and swinging his legs all the time.

"Upon my word,

and why not?"

the chief engineer retorted in an unexpectedly earnest and confidential voice.

It was as if something subtle in the air of Costaguana had inoculated him with the local faith in "pronunciamientos."

All at once he began to talk,

like an expert revolutionist,

of the instrument ready to hand in the intact army at Cayta,

which could be brought back in a few days to Sulaco if only Decoud managed to make his way at once down the coast.

For the military chief there was Barrios,

who had nothing but a bullet to expect from Montero,

his former professional rival and bitter enemy.

Barrios's concurrence was assured.

As to his army,

it had nothing to expect from Montero either;

not even a month's pay.

From that point of view the existence of the treasure was of enormous importance.

The mere knowledge that it had been saved from the Monterists would be a strong inducement for the Cayta troops to embrace the cause of the new State.

The doctor turned round and contemplated his companion for some time.

"This Decoud,

I see,

is a persuasive young beggar,"

he remarked at last.

"And pray is it for this,

then,

that Charles Gould has let the whole lot of ingots go out to sea in charge of that Nostromo?"

"Charles Gould,"

said the engineer-in-chief,

"has said no more about his motive than usual.

You know,

he doesn't talk.

But we all here know his motive,

and he has only one --the safety of the San Tome mine with the preservation of the Gould Concession in the spirit of his compact with Holroyd.

Holroyd is another uncommon man.

They understand each other's imaginative side.

One is thirty,

the other nearly sixty,

and they have been made for each other.

To be a millionaire,

and such a millionaire as Holroyd,

is like being eternally young.

The audacity of youth reckons upon what it fancies an unlimited time at its disposal;

but a millionaire has unlimited means in his hand --which is better.

One's time on earth is an uncertain quantity,

but about the long reach of millions there is no doubt.

The introduction of a pure form of Christianity into this continent is a dream for a youthful enthusiast,

and I have been trying to explain to you why Holroyd at fifty-eight is like a man on the threshold of life,

and better,

too.

He's not a missionary,

but the San Tome mine holds just that for him.

I assure you,

in sober truth,

that he could not manage to keep this out of a strictly business conference upon the finances of Costaguana he had with Sir John a couple of years ago.

Sir John mentioned it with amazement in a letter he wrote to me here,

from San Francisco,

when on his way home.

Upon my word,

doctor,

things seem to be worth nothing by what they are in themselves.

I begin to believe that the only solid thing about them is the spiritual value which everyone discovers in his own form of activity -- --"

"Bah!"

interrupted the doctor,

without stopping for an instant the idle swinging movement of his legs.

"Self-flattery.

Food for that vanity which makes the world go round.

Meantime,

what do you think is going to happen to the treasure floating about the gulf with the great Capataz and the great politician?"

"Why are you uneasy about it,

doctor?"

"I uneasy!

And what the devil is it to me?

I put no spiritual value into my desires,

or my opinions,

or my actions.

They have not enough vastness to give me room for self-flattery.

Look,

for instance,

I should certainly have liked to ease the last moments of that poor woman.

And I can't.

It's impossible.

Have you met the impossible face to face --or have you,

the Napoleon of railways,

no such word in your dictionary?"

"Is she bound to have a very bad time of it?"

asked the chief engineer,

with humane concern.

Slow,

heavy footsteps moved across the planks above the heavy hard wood beams of the kitchen.

Then down the narrow opening of the staircase made in the thickness of the wall,

and narrow enough to be defended by one man against twenty enemies,

came the murmur of two voices,

one faint and broken,

the other deep and gentle answering it,

and in its graver tone covering the weaker sound.

The two men remained still and silent till the murmurs ceased,

then the doctor shrugged his shoulders and muttered --

"Yes,

she's bound to.

And I could do nothing if I went up now."

A long period of silence above and below ensued.

"I fancy,"

began the engineer,

in a subdued voice,

"that you mistrust Captain Mitchell's Capataz."

"Mistrust him!"

muttered the doctor through his teeth.

"I believe him capable of anything --even of the most absurd fidelity.

I am the last person he spoke to before he left the wharf,

you know.

The poor woman up there wanted to see him,

and I let him go up to her.

The dying must not be contradicted,

you know.

She seemed then fairly calm and resigned,

but the scoundrel in those ten minutes or so has done or said something which seems to have driven her into despair.

You know,"

went on the doctor,

hesitatingly,

"women are so very unaccountable in every position,

and at all times of life,

that I thought sometimes she was in a way,

don't you see?

in love with him --the Capataz.

The rascal has his own charm indubitably,

or he would not have made the conquest of all the populace of the town.

No,

no,

I am not absurd.

I may have given a wrong name to some strong sentiment for him on her part,

to an unreasonable and simple attitude a woman is apt to take up emotionally towards a man.

She used to abuse him to me frequently,

which,

of course,

is not inconsistent with my idea.

Not at all.

It looked to me as if she were always thinking of him.

He was something important in her life.

You know,

I have seen a lot of those people.

Whenever I came down from the mine Mrs. Gould used to ask me to keep my eye on them.

She likes Italians;

she has lived a long time in Italy,

I believe,

and she took a special fancy to that old Garibaldino.

A remarkable chap enough.

A rugged and dreamy character,

living in the republicanism of his young days as if in a cloud.

He has encouraged much of the Capataz's confounded nonsense --the high-strung,

exalted old beggar!"

"What sort of nonsense?"

wondered the chief engineer.

"I found the Capataz always a very shrewd and sensible fellow,

absolutely fearless,

and remarkably useful.

A perfect handy man.

Sir John was greatly impressed by his resourcefulness and attention when he made that overland journey from Sta. Marta.

Later on,

as you might have heard,

he rendered us a service by disclosing to the then chief of police the presence in the town of some professional thieves,

who came from a distance to wreck and rob our monthly pay train.

He has certainly organized the lighterage service of the harbour for the O.S.N.

Company with great ability.

He knows how to make himself obeyed,

foreigner though he is.

It is true that the Cargadores are strangers here,

too,

for the most part --immigrants,

Islenos."

"His prestige is his fortune,"

muttered the doctor,

sourly.

"The man has proved his trustworthiness up to the hilt on innumerable occasions and in all sorts of ways,"

argued the engineer.

"When this question of the silver arose,

Captain Mitchell naturally was very warmly of the opinion that his Capataz was the only man fit for the trust.

As a sailor,

of course,

I suppose so.

But as a man,

don't you know,

Gould,

Decoud,

and myself judged that it didn't matter in the least who went.

Any boatman would have done just as well.

Pray,

what could a thief do with such a lot of ingots?

If he ran off with them he would have in the end to land somewhere,

and how could he conceal his cargo from the knowledge of the people ashore?

We dismissed that consideration from our minds.

Moreover,

Decoud was going.

There have been occasions when the Capataz has been more implicitly trusted."

"He took a slightly different view,"

the doctor said.

"I heard him declare in this very room that it would be the most desperate affair of his life.

He made a sort of verbal will here in my hearing,

appointing old Viola his executor;

and,

by Jove!

do you know,

he --he's not grown rich by his fidelity to you good people of the railway and the harbour.

I suppose he obtains some --how do you say that?

--some spiritual value for his labours,

or else I don't know why the devil he should be faithful to you,

Gould,

Mitchell,

or anybody else.

He knows this country well.

He knows,

for instance,

that Gamacho,

the Deputy from Javira,

has been nothing else but a

'tramposo' of the commonest sort,

a petty pedlar of the Campo,

till he managed to get enough goods on credit from Anzani to open a little store in the wilds,

and got himself elected by the drunken mozos that hang about the Estancias and the poorest sort of rancheros who were in his debt.

And Gamacho,

who to-morrow will be probably one of our high officials,

is a stranger,

too --an Isleno.

He might have been a Cargador on the O. S. N.

wharf had he not

(the posadero of Rincon is ready to swear it)

murdered a pedlar in the woods and stolen his pack to begin life on.

And do you think that Gamacho,

then,

would have ever become a hero with the democracy of this place,

like our Capataz?

Of course not.

He isn't half the man.

No;

decidedly,

I think that Nostromo is a fool."

The doctor's talk was distasteful to the builder of railways.

"It is impossible to argue that point,"

he said,

philosophically.

"Each man has his gifts.

You should have heard Gamacho haranguing his friends in the street.

He has a howling voice,

and he shouted like mad,

lifting his clenched fist right above his head,

and throwing his body half out of the window.

At every pause the rabble below yelled,

'Down with the Oligarchs!

Viva la Libertad!'

Fuentes inside looked extremely miserable.

You know,

he is the brother of Jorge Fuentes,

who has been Minister of the Interior for six months or so,

some few years back.

Of course,

he has no conscience;

but he is a man of birth and education --at one time the director of the Customs of Cayta.

That idiot-brute Gamacho fastened himself upon him with his following of the lowest rabble.

His sickly fear of that ruffian was the most rejoicing sight imaginable."

He got up and went to the door to look out towards the harbour.

"All quiet,"

he said;

"I wonder if Sotillo really means to turn up here?"

CHAPTER TWO

Captain Mitchell,

pacing the wharf,

was asking himself the same question.

There was always the doubt whether the warning of the Esmeralda telegraphist --a fragmentary and interrupted message --had been properly understood.

However,

the good man had made up his mind not to go to bed till daylight,

if even then.

He imagined himself to have rendered an enormous service to Charles Gould.

When he thought of the saved silver he rubbed his hands together with satisfaction.

In his simple way he was proud at being a party to this extremely clever expedient.

It was he who had given it a practical shape by suggesting the possibility of intercepting at sea the north-bound steamer.

And it was advantageous to his Company,

too,

which would have lost a valuable freight if the treasure had been left ashore to be confiscated.

The pleasure of disappointing the Monterists was also very great.

Authoritative by temperament and the long habit of command,

Captain Mitchell was no democrat.

He even went so far as to profess a contempt for parliamentarism itself.

"His Excellency Don Vincente Ribiera,"

he used to say,

"whom I and that fellow of mine,

Nostromo,

had the honour,

sir,

and the pleasure of saving from a cruel death,

deferred too much to his Congress.

It was a mistake --a distinct mistake,

sir."

The guileless old seaman superintending the O.S.N.

service imagined that the last three days had exhausted every startling surprise the political life of Costaguana could offer.

He used to confess afterwards that the events which followed surpassed his imagination.

To begin with,

Sulaco

(because of the seizure of the cables and the disorganization of the steam service)

remained for a whole fortnight cut off from the rest of the world like a besieged city.

"One would not have believed it possible;

but so it was,

sir.

A full fortnight."

The account of the extraordinary things that happened during that time,

and the powerful emotions he experienced,

acquired a comic impressiveness from the pompous manner of his personal narrative.

He opened it always by assuring his hearer that he was "in the thick of things from first to last."

Then he would begin by describing the getting away of the silver,

and his natural anxiety lest "his fellow" in charge of the lighter should make some mistake.

Apart from the loss of so much precious metal,

the life of Senor Martin Decoud,

an agreeable,

wealthy,

and well-informed young gentleman,

would have been jeopardized through his falling into the hands of his political enemies.

Captain Mitchell also admitted that in his solitary vigil on the wharf he had felt a certain measure of concern for the future of the whole country.

"A feeling,

sir,"

he explained,

"perfectly comprehensible in a man properly grateful for the many kindnesses received from the best families of merchants and other native gentlemen of independent means,

who,

barely saved by us from the excesses of the mob,

seemed,

to my mind's eye,

destined to become the prey in person and fortune of the native soldiery,

which,

as is well known,

behave with regrettable barbarity to the inhabitants during their civil commotions.

And then,

sir,

there were the Goulds,

for both of whom,

man and wife,

I could not but entertain the warmest feelings deserved by their hospitality and kindness.

I felt,

too,

the dangers of the gentlemen of the Amarilla Club,

who had made me honorary member,

and had treated me with uniform regard and civility,

both in my capacity of Consular Agent and as Superintendent of an important Steam Service.

Miss Antonia Avellanos,

the most beautiful and accomplished young lady whom it had ever been my privilege to speak to,

was not a little in my mind,

I confess.

How the interests of my Company would be affected by the impending change of officials claimed a large share of my attention,

too.

In short,

sir,

I was extremely anxious and very tired,

as you may suppose,

by the exciting and memorable events in which I had taken my little part.

The Company's building containing my residence was within five minutes' walk,

with the attraction of some supper and of my hammock

(I always take my nightly rest in a hammock,

as the most suitable to the climate);

but somehow,

sir,

though evidently I could do nothing for any one by remaining about,

I could not tear myself away from that wharf,

where the fatigue made me stumble painfully at times.

The night was excessively dark --the darkest I remember in my life;

so that I began to think that the arrival of the transport from Esmeralda could not possibly take place before daylight,

owing to the difficulty of navigating the gulf.

The mosquitoes bit like fury.

We have been infested here with mosquitoes before the late improvements;

a peculiar harbour brand,

sir,

renowned for its ferocity.

They were like a cloud about my head,

and I shouldn't wonder that but for their attacks I would have dozed off as I walked up and down,

and got a heavy fall.

I kept on smoking cigar after cigar,

more to protect myself from being eaten up alive than from any real relish for the weed.

Then,

sir,

when perhaps for the twentieth time I was approaching my watch to the lighted end in order to see the time,

and observing with surprise that it wanted yet ten minutes to midnight,

I heard the splash of a ship's propeller --an unmistakable sound to a sailor's ear on such a calm night.

It was faint indeed,

because they were advancing with precaution and dead slow,

both on account of the darkness and from their desire of not revealing too soon their presence: a very unnecessary care,

because,

I verily believe,

in all the enormous extent of this harbour I was the only living soul about.

Even the usual staff of watchmen and others had been absent from their posts for several nights owing to the disturbances.

I stood stock still,

after dropping and stamping out my cigar --a circumstance highly agreeable,

I should think,

to the mosquitoes,

if I may judge from the state of my face next morning.

But that was a trifling inconvenience in comparison with the brutal proceedings I became victim of on the part of Sotillo.

Something utterly inconceivable,

sir;

more like the proceedings of a maniac than the action of a sane man,

however lost to all sense of honour and decency.

But Sotillo was furious at the failure of his thievish scheme."

In this Captain Mitchell was right.

Sotillo was indeed infuriated.

Captain Mitchell,

however,

had not been arrested at once;

a vivid curiosity induced him to remain on the wharf

(which is nearly four hundred feet long)

to see,

or rather hear,

the whole process of disembarkation.

Concealed by the railway truck used for the silver,

which had been run back afterwards to the shore end of the jetty,

Captain Mitchell saw the small detachment thrown forward,

pass by,

taking different directions upon the plain.

Meantime,

the troops were being landed and formed into a column,

whose head crept up gradually so close to him that he made it out,

barring nearly the whole width of the wharf,

only a very few yards from him.

Then the low,

shuffling,

murmuring,

clinking sounds ceased,

and the whole mass remained for about an hour motionless and silent,

awaiting the return of the scouts.

On land nothing was to be heard except the deep baying of the mastiffs at the railway yards,

answered by the faint barking of the curs infesting the outer limits of the town.

A detached knot of dark shapes stood in front of the head of the column.

Presently the picket at the end of the wharf began to challenge in undertones single figures approaching from the plain.

Those messengers sent back from the scouting parties flung to their comrades brief sentences and passed on rapidly,

becoming lost in the great motionless mass,

to make their report to the Staff.

It occurred to Captain Mitchell that his position could become disagreeable and perhaps dangerous,

when suddenly,

at the head of the jetty,

there was a shout of command,

a bugle call,

followed by a stir and a rattling of arms,

and a murmuring noise that ran right up the column.

Near by a loud voice directed hurriedly,

"Push that railway car out of the way!"

At the rush of bare feet to execute the order Captain Mitchell skipped back a pace or two;

the car,

suddenly impelled by many hands,

flew away from him along the rails,

and before he knew what had happened he found himself surrounded and seized by his arms and the collar of his coat.

"We have caught a man hiding here,

mi teniente!"

cried one of his captors.

"Hold him on one side till the rearguard comes along,"

answered the voice.

The whole column streamed past Captain Mitchell at a run,

the thundering noise of their feet dying away suddenly on the shore.

His captors held him tightly,

disregarding his declaration that he was an Englishman and his loud demands to be taken at once before their commanding officer.

Finally he lapsed into dignified silence.

With a hollow rumble of wheels on the planks a couple of field guns,

dragged by hand,

rolled by.

Then,

after a small body of men had marched past escorting four or five figures which walked in advance,

with a jingle of steel scabbards,

he felt a tug at his arms,

and was ordered to come along.

During the passage from the wharf to the Custom House it is to be feared that Captain Mitchell was subjected to certain indignities at the hands of the soldiers --such as jerks,

thumps on the neck,

forcible application of the butt of a rifle to the small of his back.

Their ideas of speed were not in accord with his notion of his dignity.

He became flustered,

flushed,

and helpless.

It was as if the world were coming to an end.

The long building was surrounded by troops,

which were already piling arms by companies and preparing to pass the night lying on the ground in their ponchos with their sacks under their heads.

Corporals moved with swinging lanterns posting sentries all round the walls wherever there was a door or an opening.

Sotillo was taking his measures to protect his conquest as if it had indeed contained the treasure.

His desire to make his fortune at one audacious stroke of genius had overmastered his reasoning faculties.

He would not believe in the possibility of failure;

the mere hint of such a thing made his brain reel with rage.

Every circumstance pointing to it appeared incredible.

The statement of Hirsch,

which was so absolutely fatal to his hopes,

could by no means be admitted.

It is true,

too,

that Hirsch's story had been told so incoherently,

with such excessive signs of distraction,

that it really looked improbable.

It was extremely difficult,

as the saying is,

to make head or tail of it.

On the bridge of the steamer,

directly after his rescue,

Sotillo and his officers,

in their impatience and excitement,

would not give the wretched man time to collect such few wits as remained to him.

He ought to have been quieted,

soothed,

and reassured,

whereas he had been roughly handled,

cuffed,

shaken,

and addressed in menacing tones.

His struggles,

his wriggles,

his attempts to get down on his knees,

followed by the most violent efforts to break away,

as if he meant incontinently to jump overboard,

his shrieks and shrinkings and cowering wild glances had filled them first with amazement,

then with a doubt of his genuineness,

as men are wont to suspect the sincerity of every great passion.

His Spanish,

too,

became so mixed up with German that the better half of his statements remained incomprehensible.

He tried to propitiate them by calling them hochwohlgeboren herren,

which in itself sounded suspicious.

When admonished sternly not to trifle he repeated his entreaties and protestations of loyalty and innocence again in German,

obstinately,

because he was not aware in what language he was speaking.

His identity,

of course,

was perfectly known as an inhabitant of Esmeralda,

but this made the matter no clearer.

As he kept on forgetting Decoud's name,

mixing him up with several other people he had seen in the Casa Gould,

it looked as if they all had been in the lighter together;

and for a moment Sotillo thought that he had drowned every prominent Ribierist of Sulaco.

The improbability of such a thing threw a doubt upon the whole statement.

Hirsch was either mad or playing a part --pretending fear and distraction on the spur of the moment to cover the truth.

Sotillo's rapacity,

excited to the highest pitch by the prospect of an immense booty,

could believe in nothing adverse.

This Jew might have been very much frightened by the accident,

but he knew where the silver was concealed,

and had invented this story,

with his Jewish cunning,

to put him entirely off the track as to what had been done.

Sotillo had taken up his quarters on the upper floor in a vast apartment with heavy black beams.

But there was no ceiling,

and the eye lost itself in the darkness under the high pitch of the roof.

The thick shutters stood open.

On a long table could be seen a large inkstand,

some stumpy,

inky quill pens,

and two square wooden boxes,

each holding half a hundred-weight of sand.

Sheets of grey coarse official paper bestrewed the floor.

It must have been a room occupied by some higher official of the Customs,

because a large leathern armchair stood behind the table,

with other high-backed chairs scattered about.

A net hammock was swung under one of the beams --for the official's afternoon siesta,

no doubt.

A couple of candles stuck into tall iron candlesticks gave a dim reddish light.

The colonel's hat,

sword,

and revolver lay between them,

and a couple of his more trusty officers lounged gloomily against the table.

The colonel threw himself into the armchair,

and a big negro with a sergeant's stripes on his ragged sleeve,

kneeling down,

pulled off his boots.

Sotillo's ebony moustache contrasted violently with the livid colouring of his cheeks.

His eyes were sombre and as if sunk very far into his head.

He seemed exhausted by his perplexities,

languid with disappointment;

but when the sentry on the landing thrust his head in to announce the arrival of a prisoner,

he revived at once.

"Let him be brought in,"

he shouted,

fiercely.

The door flew open,

and Captain Mitchell,

bareheaded,

his waistcoat open,

the bow of his tie under his ear,

was hustled into the room.

Sotillo recognized him at once.

He could not have hoped for a more precious capture;

here was a man who could tell him,

if he chose,

everything he wished to know --and directly the problem of how best to make him talk to the point presented itself to his mind.

The resentment of a foreign nation had no terrors for Sotillo.

The might of the whole armed Europe would not have protected Captain Mitchell from insults and ill-usage,

so well as the quick reflection of Sotillo that this was an Englishman who would most likely turn obstinate under bad treatment,

and become quite unmanageable.

At all events,

the colonel smoothed the scowl on his brow.

"What!

The excellent Senor Mitchell!"

he cried,

in affected dismay.

The pretended anger of his swift advance and of his shout,

"Release the caballero at once,"

was so effective that the astounded soldiers positively sprang away from their prisoner.

Thus suddenly deprived of forcible support,

Captain Mitchell reeled as though about to fall.

Sotillo took him familiarly under the arm,

led him to a chair,

waved his hand at the room.

"Go out,

all of you,"

he commanded.

When they had been left alone he stood looking down,

irresolute and silent,

watching till Captain Mitchell had recovered his power of speech.

Here in his very grasp was one of the men concerned in the removal of the silver.

Sotillo's temperament was of that sort that he experienced an ardent desire to beat him;

just as formerly when negotiating with difficulty a loan from the cautious Anzani,

his fingers always itched to take the shopkeeper by the throat.

As to Captain Mitchell,

the suddenness,

unexpectedness,

and general inconceivableness of this experience had confused his thoughts.

Moreover,

he was physically out of breath.

"I've been knocked down three times between this and the wharf,"

he gasped out at last.

"Somebody shall be made to pay for this."

He had certainly stumbled more than once,

and had been dragged along for some distance before he could regain his stride.

With his recovered breath his indignation seemed to madden him.

He jumped up,

crimson,

all his white hair bristling,

his eyes glaring vengefully,

and shook violently the flaps of his ruined waistcoat before the disconcerted Sotillo.

"Look!

Those uniformed thieves of yours downstairs have robbed me of my watch."

The old sailor's aspect was very threatening.

Sotillo saw himself cut off from the table on which his sabre and revolver were lying.

"I demand restitution and apologies,"

Mitchell thundered at him,

quite beside himself.

"From you!

Yes,

from you!"

For the space of a second or so the colonel stood with a perfectly stony expression of face;

then,

as Captain Mitchell flung out an arm towards the table as if to snatch up the revolver,

Sotillo,

with a yell of alarm,

bounded to the door and was gone in a flash,

slamming it after him.

Surprise calmed Captain Mitchell's fury.

Behind the closed door Sotillo shouted on the landing,

and there was a great tumult of feet on the wooden staircase.

"Disarm him!

Bind him!"

the colonel could be heard vociferating.

Captain Mitchell had just the time to glance once at the windows,

with three perpendicular bars of iron each and some twenty feet from the ground,

as he well knew,

before the door flew open and the rush upon him took place.

In an incredibly short time he found himself bound with many turns of a hide rope to a high-backed chair,

so that his head alone remained free.

Not till then did Sotillo,

who had been leaning in the doorway trembling visibly,

venture again within.

The soldiers,

picking up from the floor the rifles they had dropped to grapple with the prisoner,

filed out of the room.

The officers remained leaning on their swords and looking on.

"The watch!

the watch!"

raved the colonel,

pacing to and fro like a tiger in a cage.

"Give me that man's watch."

It was true,

that when searched for arms in the hall downstairs,

before being taken into Sotillo's presence,

Captain Mitchell had been relieved of his watch and chain;

but at the colonel's clamour it was produced quickly enough,

a corporal bringing it up,

carried carefully in the palms of his joined hands.

Sotillo snatched it,

and pushed the clenched fist from which it dangled close to Captain Mitchell's face.

"Now then!

You arrogant Englishman!

You dare to call the soldiers of the army thieves!

Behold your watch."

He flourished his fist as if aiming blows at the prisoner's nose.

Captain Mitchell,

helpless as a swathed infant,

looked anxiously at the sixty-guinea gold half-chronometer,

presented to him years ago by a Committee of Underwriters for saving a ship from total loss by fire.

Sotillo,

too,

seemed to perceive its valuable appearance.

He became silent suddenly,

stepped aside to the table,

and began a careful examination in the light of the candles.

He had never seen anything so fine.

His officers closed in and craned their necks behind his back.

He became so interested that for an instant he forgot his precious prisoner.

There is always something childish in the rapacity of the passionate,

clear-minded,

Southern races,

wanting in the misty idealism of the Northerners,

who at the smallest encouragement dream of nothing less than the conquest of the earth.

Sotillo was fond of jewels,

gold trinkets,

of personal adornment.

After a moment he turned about,

and with a commanding gesture made all his officers fall back.

He laid down the watch on the table,

then,

negligently,

pushed his hat over it.

"Ha!"

he began,

going up very close to the chair.

"You dare call my valiant soldiers of the Esmeralda regiment,

thieves.

You dare!

What impudence!

You foreigners come here to rob our country of its wealth.

You never have enough!

Your audacity knows no bounds."

He looked towards the officers,

amongst whom there was an approving murmur.

The older major was moved to declare --

"Si,

mi colonel.

They are all traitors."

"I shall say nothing,"

continued Sotillo,

fixing the motionless and powerless Mitchell with an angry but uneasy stare.

"I shall say nothing of your treacherous attempt to get possession of my revolver to shoot me while I was trying to treat you with consideration you did not deserve.

You have forfeited your life.

Your only hope is in my clemency."

He watched for the effect of his words,

but there was no obvious sign of fear on Captain Mitchell's face.

His white hair was full of dust,

which covered also the rest of his helpless person.

As if he had heard nothing,

he twitched an eyebrow to get rid of a bit of straw which hung amongst the hairs.

Sotillo advanced one leg and put his arms akimbo.

"It is you,

Mitchell,"

he said,

emphatically,

"who are the thief,

not my soldiers!"

He pointed at his prisoner a forefinger with a long,

almond-shaped nail.

"Where is the silver of the San Tome mine?

I ask you,

Mitchell,

where is the silver that was deposited in this Custom House?

Answer me that!

You stole it.

You were a party to stealing it.

It was stolen from the Government.

Aha!

you think I do not know what I say;

but I am up to your foreign tricks.

It is gone,

the silver!

No?

Gone in one of your lanchas,

you miserable man!

How dared you?"

This time he produced his effect.

"How on earth could Sotillo know that?"

thought Mitchell.

His head,

the only part of his body that could move,

betrayed his surprise by a sudden jerk.

"Ha!

you tremble,"

Sotillo shouted,

suddenly.

"It is a conspiracy.

It is a crime against the State.

Did you not know that the silver belongs to the Republic till the Government claims are satisfied?

Where is it?

Where have you hidden it,

you miserable thief?"

At this question Captain Mitchell's sinking spirits revived.

In whatever incomprehensible manner Sotillo had already got his information about the lighter,

he had not captured it.

That was clear.

In his outraged heart,

Captain Mitchell had resolved that nothing would induce him to say a word while he remained so disgracefully bound,

but his desire to help the escape of the silver made him depart from this resolution.

His wits were very much at work.

He detected in Sotillo a certain air of doubt,

of irresolution.

"That man,"

he said to himself,

"is not certain of what he advances."

For all his pomposity in social intercourse,

Captain Mitchell could meet the realities of life in a resolute and ready spirit.

Now he had got over the first shock of the abominable treatment he was cool and collected enough.

The immense contempt he felt for Sotillo steadied him,

and he said oracularly,

"No doubt it is well concealed by this time."

Sotillo,

too,

had time to cool down.

"Muy bien,

Mitchell,"

he said in a cold and threatening manner.

"But can you produce the Government receipt for the royalty and the Custom House permit of embarkation,

hey?

Can you?

No. Then the silver has been removed illegally,

and the guilty shall be made to suffer,

unless it is produced within five days from this."

He gave orders for the prisoner to be unbound and locked up in one of the smaller rooms downstairs.

He walked about the room,

moody and silent,

till Captain Mitchell,

with each of his arms held by a couple of men,

stood up,

shook himself,

and stamped his feet.

"How did you like to be tied up,

Mitchell?"

he asked,

derisively.

"It is the most incredible,

abominable use of power!"

Captain Mitchell declared in a loud voice.

"And whatever your purpose,

you shall gain nothing from it,

I can promise you."

The tall colonel,

livid,

with his coal-black ringlets and moustache,

crouched,

as it were,

to look into the eyes of the short,

thick-set,

red-faced prisoner with rumpled white hair.

"That we shall see.

You shall know my power a little better when I tie you up to a potalon outside in the sun for a whole day."

He drew himself up haughtily,

and made a sign for Captain Mitchell to be led away.

"What about my watch?"

cried Captain Mitchell,

hanging back from the efforts of the men pulling him towards the door.

Sotillo turned to his officers.

"No!

But only listen to this picaro,

caballeros,"

he pronounced with affected scorn,

and was answered by a chorus of derisive laughter.

"He demands his watch!"

...He ran up again to Captain Mitchell,

for the desire to relieve his feelings by inflicting blows and pain upon this Englishman was very strong within him.

"Your watch!

You are a prisoner in war time,

Mitchell!

In war time!

You have no rights and no property!

Caramba!

The very breath in your body belongs to me.

Remember that."

"Bosh!"

said Captain Mitchell,

concealing a disagreeable impression.

Down below,

in a great hall,

with the earthen floor and with a tall mound thrown up by white ants in a corner,

the soldiers had kindled a small fire with broken chairs and tables near the arched gateway,

through which the faint murmur of the harbour waters on the beach could be heard.

While Captain Mitchell was being led down the staircase,

an officer passed him,

running up to report to Sotillo the capture of more prisoners.

A lot of smoke hung about in the vast gloomy place,

the fire crackled,

and,

as if through a haze,

Captain Mitchell made out,

surrounded by short soldiers with fixed bayonets,

the heads of three tall prisoners --the doctor,

the engineer-in-chief,

and the white leonine mane of old Viola,

who stood half-turned away from the others with his chin on his breast and his arms crossed.

Mitchell's astonishment knew no bounds.

He cried out;

the other two exclaimed also.

But he hurried on,

diagonally,

across the big cavern-like hall.

Lots of thoughts,

surmises,

hints of caution,

and so on,

crowded his head to distraction.

"Is he actually keeping you?"

shouted the chief engineer,

whose single eyeglass glittered in the firelight.

An officer from the top of the stairs was shouting urgently,

"Bring them all up --all three."

In the clamour of voices and the rattle of arms,

Captain Mitchell made himself heard imperfectly:

"By heavens!

the fellow has stolen my watch."

The engineer-in-chief on the staircase resisted the pressure long enough to shout,

"What?

What did you say?"

"My chronometer!"

Captain Mitchell yelled violently at the very moment of being thrust head foremost through a small door into a sort of cell,

perfectly black,

and so narrow that he fetched up against the opposite wall.

The door had been instantly slammed.

He knew where they had put him.

This was the strong room of the Custom House,

whence the silver had been removed only a few hours earlier.

It was almost as narrow as a corridor,

with a small square aperture,

barred by a heavy grating,

at the distant end.

Captain Mitchell staggered for a few steps,

then sat down on the earthen floor with his back to the wall.

Nothing,

not even a gleam of light from anywhere,

interfered with Captain Mitchell's meditation.

He did some hard but not very extensive thinking.

It was not of a gloomy cast.

The old sailor,

with all his small weaknesses and absurdities,

was constitutionally incapable of entertaining for any length of time a fear of his personal safety.

It was not so much firmness of soul as the lack of a certain kind of imagination --the kind whose undue development caused intense suffering to Senor Hirsch;

that sort of imagination which adds the blind terror of bodily suffering and of death,

envisaged as an accident to the body alone,

strictly --to all the other apprehensions on which the sense of one's existence is based.

Unfortunately,

Captain Mitchell had not much penetration of any kind;

characteristic,

illuminating trifles of expression,

action,

or movement,

escaped him completely.

He was too pompously and innocently aware of his own existence to observe that of others.

For instance,

he could not believe that Sotillo had been really afraid of him,

and this simply because it would never have entered into his head to shoot any one except in the most pressing case of self-defence.

Anybody could see he was not a murdering kind of man,

he reflected quite gravely.

Then why this preposterous and insulting charge?

he asked himself.

But his thoughts mainly clung around the astounding and unanswerable question: How the devil the fellow got to know that the silver had gone off in the lighter?

It was obvious that he had not captured it.

And,

obviously,

he could not have captured it!

In this last conclusion Captain Mitchell was misled by the assumption drawn from his observation of the weather during his long vigil on the wharf.

He thought that there had been much more wind than usual that night in the gulf;

whereas,

as a matter of fact,

the reverse was the case.

"How in the name of all that's marvellous did that confounded fellow get wind of the affair?"

was the first question he asked directly after the bang,

clatter,

and flash of the open door

(which was closed again almost before he could lift his dropped head)

informed him that he had a companion of captivity.

Dr. Monygham's voice stopped muttering curses in English and Spanish.

"Is that you,

Mitchell?"

he made answer,

surlily.

"I struck my forehead against this confounded wall with enough force to fell an ox.

Where are you?"

Captain Mitchell,

accustomed to the darkness,

could make out the doctor stretching out his hands blindly.

"I am sitting here on the floor.

Don't fall over my legs,"

Captain Mitchell's voice announced with great dignity of tone.

The doctor,

entreated not to walk about in the dark,

sank down to the ground,

too.

The two prisoners of Sotillo,

with their heads nearly touching,

began to exchange confidences.

"Yes,"

the doctor related in a low tone to Captain Mitchell's vehement curiosity,

"we have been nabbed in old Viola's place.

It seems that one of their pickets,

commanded by an officer,

pushed as far as the town gate.

They had orders not to enter,

but to bring along every soul they could find on the plain.

We had been talking in there with the door open,

and no doubt they saw the glimmer of our light.

They must have been making their approaches for some time.

The engineer laid himself on a bench in a recess by the fire-place,

and I went upstairs to have a look.

I hadn't heard any sound from there for a long time.

Old Viola,

as soon as he saw me come up,

lifted his arm for silence.

I stole in on tiptoe.

By Jove,

his wife was lying down and had gone to sleep.

The woman had actually dropped off to sleep!

'Senor Doctor,'

Viola whispers to me,

'it looks as if her oppression was going to get better.'

'Yes,'

I said,

very much surprised;

'your wife is a wonderful woman,

Giorgio.'

Just then a shot was fired in the kitchen,

which made us jump and cower as if at a thunder-clap.

It seems that the party of soldiers had stolen quite close up,

and one of them had crept up to the door.

He looked in,

thought there was no one there,

and,

holding his rifle ready,

entered quietly.

The chief told me that he had just closed his eyes for a moment.

When he opened them,

he saw the man already in the middle of the room peering into the dark corners.

The chief was so startled that,

without thinking,

he made one leap from the recess right out in front of the fireplace.

The soldier,

no less startled,

up with his rifle and pulls the trigger,

deafening and singeing the engineer,

but in his flurry missing him completely.

But,

look what happens!

At the noise of the report the sleeping woman sat up,

as if moved by a spring,

with a shriek,

'The children,

Gian' Battista!

Save the children!'

I have it in my ears now.

It was the truest cry of distress I ever heard.

I stood as if paralyzed,

but the old husband ran across to the bedside,

stretching out his hands.

She clung to them!

I could see her eyes go glazed;

the old fellow lowered her down on the pillows and then looked round at me.

She was dead!

All this took less than five minutes,

and then I ran down to see what was the matter.

It was no use thinking of any resistance.

Nothing we two could say availed with the officer,

so I volunteered to go up with a couple of soldiers and fetch down old Viola.

He was sitting at the foot of the bed,

looking at his wife's face,

and did not seem to hear what I said;

but after I had pulled the sheet over her head,

he got up and followed us downstairs quietly,

in a sort of thoughtful way.

They marched us off along the road,

leaving the door open and the candle burning.

The chief engineer strode on without a word,

but I looked back once or twice at the feeble gleam.

After we had gone some considerable distance,

the Garibaldino,

who was walking by my side,

suddenly said,

'I have buried many men on battlefields on this continent.

The priests talk of consecrated ground!

Bah!

All the earth made by God is holy;

but the sea,

which knows nothing of kings and priests and tyrants,

is the holiest of all.

Doctor!

I should like to bury her in the sea.

No mummeries,

candles,

incense,

no holy water mumbled over by priests.

The spirit of liberty is upon the waters.'

...Amazing old man.

He was saying all this in an undertone as if talking to himself."

"Yes,

yes,"

interrupted Captain Mitchell,

impatiently.

"Poor old chap!

But have you any idea how that ruffian Sotillo obtained his information?

He did not get hold of any of our Cargadores who helped with the truck,

did he?

But no,

it is impossible!

These were picked men we've had in our boats for these five years,

and I paid them myself specially for the job,

with instructions to keep out of the way for twenty-four hours at least.

I saw them with my own eyes march on with the Italians to the railway yards.

The chief promised to give them rations as long as they wanted to remain there."

"Well,"

said the doctor,

slowly,

"I can tell you that you may say good-bye for ever to your best lighter,

and to the Capataz of Cargadores."

At this,

Captain Mitchell scrambled up to his feet in the excess of his excitement.

The doctor,

without giving him time to exclaim,

stated briefly the part played by Hirsch during the night.

Captain Mitchell was overcome.

"Drowned!"

he muttered,

in a bewildered and appalled whisper.

"Drowned!"

Afterwards he kept still,

apparently listening,

but too absorbed in the news of the catastrophe to follow the doctor's narrative with attention.

The doctor had taken up an attitude of perfect ignorance,

till at last Sotillo was induced to have Hirsch brought in to repeat the whole story,

which was got out of him again with the greatest difficulty,

because every moment he would break out into lamentations.

At last,

Hirsch was led away,

looking more dead than alive,

and shut up in one of the upstairs rooms to be close at hand.

Then the doctor,

keeping up his character of a man not admitted to the inner councils of the San Tome Administration,

remarked that the story sounded incredible.

Of course,

he said,

he couldn't tell what had been the action of the Europeans,

as he had been exclusively occupied with his own work in looking after the wounded,

and also in attending Don Jose Avellanos.

He had succeeded in assuming so well a tone of impartial indifference,

that Sotillo seemed to be completely deceived.

Till then a show of regular inquiry had been kept up;

one of the officers sitting at the table wrote down the questions and the answers,

the others,

lounging about the room,

listened attentively,

puffing at their long cigars and keeping their eyes on the doctor.

But at that point Sotillo ordered everybody out.

CHAPTER THREE

Directly they were alone,

the colonel's severe official manner changed.

He rose and approached the doctor.

His eyes shone with rapacity and hope;

he became confidential.

"The silver might have been indeed put on board the lighter,

but it was not conceivable that it should have been taken out to sea."

The doctor,

watching every word,

nodded slightly,

smoking with apparent relish the cigar which Sotillo had offered him as a sign of his friendly intentions.

The doctor's manner of cold detachment from the rest of the Europeans led Sotillo on,

till,

from conjecture to conjecture,

he arrived at hinting that in his opinion this was a putup job on the part of Charles Gould,

in order to get hold of that immense treasure all to himself.

The doctor,

observant and self-possessed,

muttered,

"He is very capable of that."

Here Captain Mitchell exclaimed with amazement,

amusement,

and indignation,

"You said that of Charles Gould!"

Disgust,

and even some suspicion,

crept into his tone,

for to him,

too,

as to other Europeans,

there appeared to be something dubious about the doctor's personality.

"What on earth made you say that to this watch-stealing scoundrel?"

he asked.

"What's the object of an infernal lie of that sort?

That confounded pick-pocket was quite capable of believing you."

He snorted.

For a time the doctor remained silent in the dark.

"Yes,

that is exactly what I did say,"

he uttered at last,

in a tone which would have made it clear enough to a third party that the pause was not of a reluctant but of a reflective character.

Captain Mitchell thought that he had never heard anything so brazenly impudent in his life.

"Well,

well!"

he muttered to himself,

but he had not the heart to voice his thoughts.

They were swept away by others full of astonishment and regret.

A heavy sense of discomfiture crushed him: the loss of the silver,

the death of Nostromo,

which was really quite a blow to his sensibilities,

because he had become attached to his Capataz as people get attached to their inferiors from love of ease and almost unconscious gratitude.

And when he thought of Decoud being drowned,

too,

his sensibility was almost overcome by this miserable end.

What a heavy blow for that poor young woman!

Captain Mitchell did not belong to the species of crabbed old bachelors;

on the contrary,

he liked to see young men paying attentions to young women.

It seemed to him a natural and proper thing.

Proper especially.

As to sailors,

it was different;

it was not their place to marry,

he maintained,

but it was on moral grounds as a matter of self-denial,

for,

he explained,

life on board ship is not fit for a woman even at best,

and if you leave her on shore,

first of all it is not fair,

and next she either suffers from it or doesn't care a bit,

which,

in both cases,

is bad.

He couldn't have told what upset him most --Charles Gould's immense material loss,

the death of Nostromo,

which was a heavy loss to himself,

or the idea of that beautiful and accomplished young woman being plunged into mourning.

"Yes,"

the doctor,

who had been apparently reflecting,

began again,

"he believed me right enough.

I thought he would have hugged me.

'Si,

si,'

he said,

'he will write to that partner of his,

the rich Americano in San Francisco,

that it is all lost.

Why not?

There is enough to share with many people.'"

"But this is perfectly imbecile!"

cried Captain Mitchell.

The doctor remarked that Sotillo was imbecile,

and that his imbecility was ingenious enough to lead him completely astray.

He had helped him only but a little way.

"I mentioned,"

the doctor said,

"in a sort of casual way,

that treasure is generally buried in the earth rather than set afloat upon the sea.

At this my Sotillo slapped his forehead.

'Por Dios,

yes,'

he said;

'they must have buried it on the shores of this harbour somewhere before they sailed out.'"

"Heavens and earth!"

muttered Captain Mitchell,

"I should not have believed that anybody could be ass enough --" He paused,

then went on mournfully:

"But what's the good of all this?

It would have been a clever enough lie if the lighter had been still afloat.

It would have kept that inconceivable idiot perhaps from sending out the steamer to cruise in the gulf.

That was the danger that worried me no end."

Captain Mitchell sighed profoundly.

"I had an object,"

the doctor pronounced,

slowly.

"Had you?"

muttered Captain Mitchell.

"Well,

that's lucky,

or else I would have thought that you went on fooling him for the fun of the thing.

And perhaps that was your object.

Well,

I must say I personally wouldn't condescend to that sort of thing.

It is not to my taste.

No,

no.

Blackening a friend's character is not my idea of fun,

if it were to fool the greatest blackguard on earth."

Had it not been for Captain Mitchell's depression,

caused by the fatal news,

his disgust of Dr. Monygham would have taken a more outspoken shape;

but he thought to himself that now it really did not matter what that man,

whom he had never liked,

would say and do.

"I wonder,"

he grumbled,

"why they have shut us up together,

or why Sotillo should have shut you up at all,

since it seems to me you have been fairly chummy up there?"

"Yes,

I wonder,"

said the doctor grimly.

Captain Mitchell's heart was so heavy that he would have preferred for the time being a complete solitude to the best of company.

But any company would have been preferable to the doctor's,

at whom he had always looked askance as a sort of beachcomber of superior intelligence partly reclaimed from his abased state.

That feeling led him to ask --

"What has that ruffian done with the other two?"

"The chief engineer he would have let go in any case,"

said the doctor.

"He wouldn't like to have a quarrel with the railway upon his hands.

Not just yet,

at any rate.

I don't think,

Captain Mitchell,

that you understand exactly what Sotillo's position is --"

"I don't see why I should bother my head about it,"

snarled Captain Mitchell.

"No,"

assented the doctor,

with the same grim composure.

"I don't see why you should.

It wouldn't help a single human being in the world if you thought ever so hard upon any subject whatever."

"No,"

said Captain Mitchell,

simply,

and with evident depression.

"A man locked up in a confounded dark hole is not much use to anybody."

"As to old Viola,"

the doctor continued,

as though he had not heard,

"Sotillo released him for the same reason he is presently going to release you."

"Eh?

What?"

exclaimed Captain Mitchell,

staring like an owl in the darkness.

"What is there in common between me and old Viola?

More likely because the old chap has no watch and chain for the pickpocket to steal.

And I tell you what,

Dr. Monygham,"

he went on with rising choler,

"he will find it more difficult than he thinks to get rid of me.

He will burn his fingers over that job yet,

I can tell you.

To begin with,

I won't go without my watch,

and as to the rest --we shall see.

I dare say it is no great matter for you to be locked up.

But Joe Mitchell is a different kind of man,

sir.

I don't mean to submit tamely to insult and robbery.

I am a public character,

sir."

And then Captain Mitchell became aware that the bars of the opening had become visible,

a black grating upon a square of grey.

The coming of the day silenced Captain Mitchell as if by the reflection that now in all the future days he would be deprived of the invaluable services of his Capataz.

He leaned against the wall with his arms folded on his breast,

and the doctor walked up and down the whole length of the place with his peculiar hobbling gait,

as if slinking about on damaged feet.

At the end furthest from the grating he would be lost altogether in the darkness.

Only the slight limping shuffle could be heard.

There was an air of moody detachment in that painful prowl kept up without a pause.

When the door of the prison was suddenly flung open and his name shouted out he showed no surprise.

He swerved sharply in his walk,

and passed out at once,

as though much depended upon his speed;

but Captain Mitchell remained for some time with his shoulders against the wall,

quite undecided in the bitterness of his spirit whether it wouldn't be better to refuse to stir a limb in the way of protest.

He had half a mind to get himself carried out,

but after the officer at the door had shouted three or four times in tones of remonstrance and surprise he condescended to walk out.

Sotillo's manner had changed.

The colonel's off-hand civility was slightly irresolute,

as though he were in doubt if civility were the proper course in this case.

He observed Captain Mitchell attentively before he spoke from the big armchair behind the table in a condescending voice --

"I have concluded not to detain you,

Senor Mitchell.

I am of a forgiving disposition.

I make allowances.

Let this be a lesson to you,

however."

The peculiar dawn of Sulaco,

which seems to break far away to the westward and creep back into the shade of the mountains,

mingled with the reddish light of the candles.

Captain Mitchell,

in sign of contempt and indifference,

let his eyes roam all over the room,

and he gave a hard stare to the doctor,

perched already on the casement of one of the windows,

with his eyelids lowered,

careless and thoughtful --or perhaps ashamed.

Sotillo,

ensconced in the vast armchair,

remarked,

"I should have thought that the feelings of a caballero would have dictated to you an appropriate reply."

He waited for it,

but Captain Mitchell remaining mute,

more from extreme resentment than from reasoned intention,

Sotillo hesitated,

glanced towards the doctor,

who looked up and nodded,

then went on with a slight effort --

"Here,

Senor Mitchell,

is your watch.

Learn how hasty and unjust has been your judgment of my patriotic soldiers."

Lying back in his seat,

he extended his arm over the table and pushed the watch away slightly.

Captain Mitchell walked up with undisguised eagerness,

put it to his ear,

then slipped it into his pocket coolly.

Sotillo seemed to overcome an immense reluctance.

Again he looked aside at the doctor,

who stared at him unwinkingly.

But as Captain Mitchell was turning away,

without as much as a nod or a glance,

he hastened to say --

"You may go and wait downstairs for the senor doctor,

whom I am going to liberate,

too.

You foreigners are insignificant,

to my mind."

He forced a slight,

discordant laugh out of himself,

while Captain Mitchell,

for the first time,

looked at him with some interest.

"The law shall take note later on of your transgressions,"

Sotillo hurried on.

"But as for me,

you can live free,

unguarded,

unobserved.

Do you hear,

Senor Mitchell?

You may depart to your affairs.

You are beneath my notice.

My attention is claimed by matters of the very highest importance."

Captain Mitchell was very nearly provoked to an answer.

It displeased him to be liberated insultingly;

but want of sleep,

prolonged anxieties,

a profound disappointment with the fatal ending of the silver-saving business weighed upon his spirits.

It was as much as he could do to conceal his uneasiness,

not about himself perhaps,

but about things in general.

It occurred to him distinctly that something underhand was going on.

As he went out he ignored the doctor pointedly.

"A brute!"

said Sotillo,

as the door shut.

Dr. Monygham slipped off the window-sill,

and,

thrusting his hands into the pockets of the long,

grey dust coat he was wearing,

made a few steps into the room.

Sotillo got up,

too,

and,

putting himself in the way,

examined him from head to foot.

"So your countrymen do not confide in you very much,

senor doctor.

They do not love you,

eh?

Why is that,

I wonder?"

The doctor,

lifting his head,

answered by a long,

lifeless stare and the words,

"Perhaps because I have lived too long in Costaguana."

Sotillo had a gleam of white teeth under the black moustache.

"Aha!

But you love yourself,"

he said,

encouragingly.

"If you leave them alone,"

the doctor said,

looking with the same lifeless stare at Sotillo's handsome face,

"they will betray themselves very soon.

Meantime,

I may try to make Don Carlos speak?"

"Ah!

senor doctor,"

said Sotillo,

wagging his head,

"you are a man of quick intelligence.

We were made to understand each other."

He turned away.

He could bear no longer that expressionless and motionless stare,

which seemed to have a sort of impenetrable emptiness like the black depth of an abyss.

Even in a man utterly devoid of moral sense there remains an appreciation of rascality which,

being conventional,

is perfectly clear.

Sotillo thought that Dr. Monygham,

so different from all Europeans,

was ready to sell his countrymen and Charles Gould,

his employer,

for some share of the San Tome silver.

Sotillo did not despise him for that.

The colonel's want of moral sense was of a profound and innocent character.

It bordered upon stupidity,

moral stupidity.

Nothing that served his ends could appear to him really reprehensible.

Nevertheless,

he despised Dr. Monygham.

He had for him an immense and satisfactory contempt.

He despised him with all his heart because he did not mean to let the doctor have any reward at all.

He despised him,

not as a man without faith and honour,

but as a fool.

Dr. Monygham's insight into his character had deceived Sotillo completely.

Therefore he thought the doctor a fool.

Since his arrival in Sulaco the colonel's ideas had undergone some modification.

He no longer wished for a political career in Montero's administration.

He had always doubted the safety of that course.

Since he had learned from the chief engineer that at daylight most likely he would be confronted by Pedro Montero his misgivings on that point had considerably increased.

The guerrillero brother of the general --the Pedrito of popular speech --had a reputation of his own.

He wasn't safe to deal with.

Sotillo had vaguely planned seizing not only the treasure but the town itself,

and then negotiating at leisure.

But in the face of facts learned from the chief engineer

(who had frankly disclosed to him the whole situation)

his audacity,

never of a very dashing kind,

had been replaced by a most cautious hesitation.

"An army --an army crossed the mountains under Pedrito already,"

he had repeated,

unable to hide his consternation.

"If it had not been that I am given the news by a man of your position I would never have believed it.

Astonishing!"

"An armed force,"

corrected the engineer,

suavely.

His aim was attained.

It was to keep Sulaco clear of any armed occupation for a few hours longer,

to let those whom fear impelled leave the town.

In the general dismay there were families hopeful enough to fly upon the road towards Los Hatos,

which was left open by the withdrawal of the armed rabble under Senores Fuentes and Gamacho,

to Rincon,

with their enthusiastic welcome for Pedro Montero.

It was a hasty and risky exodus,

and it was said that Hernandez,

occupying with his band the woods about Los Hatos,

was receiving the fugitives.

That a good many people he knew were contemplating such a flight had been well known to the chief engineer.

Father Corbelan's efforts in the cause of that most pious robber had not been altogether fruitless.

The political chief of Sulaco had yielded at the last moment to the urgent entreaties of the priest,

had signed a provisional nomination appointing Hernandez a general,

and calling upon him officially in this new capacity to preserve order in the town.

The fact is that the political chief,

seeing the situation desperate,

did not care what he signed.

It was the last official document he signed before he left the palace of the Intendencia for the refuge of the O.S.N.

Company's office.

But even had he meant his act to be effective it was already too late.

The riot which he feared and expected broke out in less than an hour after Father Corbelan had left him.

Indeed,

Father Corbelan,

who had appointed a meeting with Nostromo in the Dominican Convent,

where he had his residence in one of the cells,

never managed to reach the place.

From the Intendencia he had gone straight on to the Avellanos's house to tell his brother-in-law,

and though he stayed there no more than half an hour he had found himself cut off from his ascetic abode.

Nostromo,

after waiting there for some time,

watching uneasily the increasing uproar in the street,

had made his way to the offices of the Porvenir,

and stayed there till daylight,

as Decoud had mentioned in the letter to his sister.

Thus the Capataz,

instead of riding towards the Los Hatos woods as bearer of Hernandez's nomination,

had remained in town to save the life of the President Dictator,

to assist in repressing the outbreak of the mob,

and at last to sail out with the silver of the mine.

But Father Corbelan,

escaping to Hernandez,

had the document in his pocket,

a piece of official writing turning a bandit into a general in a memorable last official act of the Ribierist party,

whose watchwords were honesty,

peace,

and progress.

Probably neither the priest nor the bandit saw the irony of it.

Father Corbelan must have found messengers to send into the town,

for early on the second day of the disturbances there were rumours of Hernandez being on the road to Los Hatos ready to receive those who would put themselves under his protection.

A strange-looking horseman,

elderly and audacious,

had appeared in the town,

riding slowly while his eyes examined the fronts of the houses,

as though he had never seen such high buildings before.

Before the cathedral he had dismounted,

and,

kneeling in the middle of the Plaza,

his bridle over his arm and his hat lying in front of him on the ground,

had bowed his head,

crossing himself and beating his breast for some little time.

Remounting his horse,

with a fearless but not unfriendly look round the little gathering formed about his public devotions,

he had asked for the Casa Avellanos.

A score of hands were extended in answer,

with fingers pointing up the Calle de la Constitucion.

The horseman had gone on with only a glance of casual curiosity upwards to the windows of the Amarilla Club at the corner.

His stentorian voice shouted periodically in the empty street,

"Which is the Casa Avellanos?"

till an answer came from the scared porter,

and he disappeared under the gate.

The letter he was bringing,

written by Father Corbelan with a pencil by the camp-fire of Hernandez,

was addressed to Don Jose,

of whose critical state the priest was not aware.

Antonia read it,

and,

after consulting Charles Gould,

sent it on for the information of the gentlemen garrisoning the Amarilla Club.

For herself,

her mind was made up;

she would rejoin her uncle;

she would entrust the last day --the last hours perhaps --of her father's life to the keeping of the bandit,

whose existence was a protest against the irresponsible tyranny of all parties alike,

against the moral darkness of the land.

The gloom of Los Hatos woods was preferable;

a life of hardships in the train of a robber band less debasing.

Antonia embraced with all her soul her uncle's obstinate defiance of misfortune.

It was grounded in the belief in the man whom she loved.

In his message the Vicar-General answered upon his head for Hernandez's fidelity.

As to his power,

he pointed out that he had remained unsubdued for so many years.

In that letter Decoud's idea of the new Occidental State

(whose flourishing and stable condition is a matter of common knowledge now)

was for the first time made public and used as an argument.

Hernandez,

ex-bandit and the last general of Ribierist creation,

was confident of being able to hold the tract of country between the woods of Los Hatos and the coast range till that devoted patriot,

Don Martin Decoud,

could bring General Barrios back to Sulaco for the reconquest of the town.

"Heaven itself wills it.

Providence is on our side,"

wrote Father Corbelan;

there was no time to reflect upon or to controvert his statement;

and if the discussion started upon the reading of that letter in the Amarilla Club was violent,

it was also shortlived.

In the general bewilderment of the collapse some jumped at the idea with joyful astonishment as upon the amazing discovery of a new hope.

Others became fascinated by the prospect of immediate personal safety for their women and children.

The majority caught at it as a drowning man catches at a straw.

Father Corbelan was unexpectedly offering them a refuge from Pedrito Montero with his llaneros allied to Senores Fuentes and Gamacho with their armed rabble.

All the latter part of the afternoon an animated discussion went on in the big rooms of the Amarilla Club.

Even those members posted at the windows with rifles and carbines to guard the end of the street in case of an offensive return of the populace shouted their opinions and arguments over their shoulders.

As dusk fell Don Juste Lopez,

inviting those caballeros who were of his way of thinking to follow him,

withdrew into the corredor,

where at a little table in the light of two candles he busied himself in composing an address,

or rather a solemn declaration to be presented to Pedrito Montero by a deputation of such members of Assembly as had elected to remain in town.

His idea was to propitiate him in order to save the form at least of parliamentary institutions.

Seated before a blank sheet of paper,

a goose-quill pen in his hand and surged upon from all sides,

he turned to the right and to the left,

repeating with solemn insistence --

"Caballeros,

a moment of silence!

A moment of silence!

We ought to make it clear that we bow in all good faith to the accomplished facts."

The utterance of that phrase seemed to give him a melancholy satisfaction.

The hubbub of voices round him was growing strained and hoarse.

In the sudden pauses the excited grimacing of the faces would sink all at once into the stillness of profound dejection.

Meantime,

the exodus had begun.

Carretas full of ladies and children rolled swaying across the Plaza,

with men walking or riding by their side;

mounted parties followed on mules and horses;

the poorest were setting out on foot,

men and women carrying bundles,

clasping babies in their arms,

leading old people,

dragging along the bigger children.

When Charles Gould,

after leaving the doctor and the engineer at the Casa Viola,

entered the town by the harbour gate,

all those that had meant to go were gone,

and the others had barricaded themselves in their houses.

In the whole dark street there was only one spot of flickering lights and moving figures,

where the Senor Administrador recognized his wife's carriage waiting at the door of the Avellanos's house.

He rode up,

almost unnoticed,

and looked on without a word while some of his own servants came out of the gate carrying Don Jose Avellanos,

who,

with closed eyes and motionless features,

appeared perfectly lifeless.

His wife and Antonia walked on each side of the improvised stretcher,

which was put at once into the carriage.

The two women embraced;

while from the other side of the landau Father Corbelan's emissary,

with his ragged beard all streaked with grey,

and high,

bronzed cheek-bones,

stared,

sitting upright in the saddle.

Then Antonia,

dry-eyed,

got in by the side of the stretcher,

and,

after making the sign of the cross rapidly,

lowered a thick veil upon her face.

The servants and the three or four neighbours who had come to assist,

stood back,

uncovering their heads.

On the box,

Ignacio,

resigned now to driving all night

(and to having perhaps his throat cut before daylight)

looked back surlily over his shoulder.

"Drive carefully,"

cried Mrs. Gould in a tremulous voice.

"Si,

carefully;

si nina,"

he mumbled,

chewing his lips,

his round leathery cheeks quivering.

And the landau rolled slowly out of the light.

"I will see them as far as the ford,"

said Charles Gould to his wife.

She stood on the edge of the sidewalk with her hands clasped lightly,

and nodded to him as he followed after the carriage.

And now the windows of the Amarilla Club were dark.

The last spark of resistance had died out.

Turning his head at the corner,

Charles Gould saw his wife crossing over to their own gate in the lighted patch of the street.

One of their neighbours,

a well-known merchant and landowner of the province,

followed at her elbow,

talking with great gestures.

As she passed in all the lights went out in the street,

which remained dark and empty from end to end.

The houses of the vast Plaza were lost in the night.

High up,

like a star,

there was a small gleam in one of the towers of the cathedral;

and the equestrian statue gleamed pale against the black trees of the Alameda,

like a ghost of royalty haunting the scenes of revolution.

The rare prowlers they met ranged themselves against the wall.

Beyond the last houses the carriage rolled noiselessly on the soft cushion of dust,

and with a greater obscurity a feeling of freshness seemed to fall from the foliage of the trees bordering the country road.

The emissary from Hernandez's camp pushed his horse close to Charles Gould.

"Caballero,"

he said in an interested voice,

"you are he whom they call the King of Sulaco,

the master of the mine?

Is it not so?"

"Yes,

I am the master of the mine,"

answered Charles Gould.

The man cantered for a time in silence,

then said,

"I have a brother,

a sereno in your service in the San Tome valley.

You have proved yourself a just man.

There has been no wrong done to any one since you called upon the people to work in the mountains.

My brother says that no official of the Government,

no oppressor of the Campo,

has been seen on your side of the stream.

Your own officials do not oppress the people in the gorge.

Doubtless they are afraid of your severity.

You are a just man and a powerful one,"

he added.

He spoke in an abrupt,

independent tone,

but evidently he was communicative with a purpose.

He told Charles Gould that he had been a ranchero in one of the lower valleys,

far south,

a neighbour of Hernandez in the old days,

and godfather to his eldest boy;

one of those who joined him in his resistance to the recruiting raid which was the beginning of all their misfortunes.

It was he that,

when his compadre had been carried off,

had buried his wife and children,

murdered by the soldiers.

"Si,

senor,"

he muttered,

hoarsely,

"I and two or three others,

the lucky ones left at liberty,

buried them all in one grave near the ashes of their ranch,

under the tree that had shaded its roof."

It was to him,

too,

that Hernandez came after he had deserted,

three years afterwards.

He had still his uniform on with the sergeant's stripes on the sleeve,

and the blood of his colonel upon his hands and breast.

Three troopers followed him,

of those who had started in pursuit but had ridden on for liberty.

And he told Charles Gould how he and a few friends,

seeing those soldiers,

lay in ambush behind some rocks ready to pull the trigger on them,

when he recognized his compadre and jumped up from cover,

shouting his name,

because he knew that Hernandez could not have been coming back on an errand of injustice and oppression.

Those three soldiers,

together with the party who lay behind the rocks,

had formed the nucleus of the famous band,

and he,

the narrator,

had been the favourite lieutenant of Hernandez for many,

many years.

He mentioned proudly that the officials had put a price upon his head,

too;

but it did not prevent it getting sprinkled with grey upon his shoulders.

And now he had lived long enough to see his compadre made a general.

He had a burst of muffled laughter.

"And now from robbers we have become soldiers.

But look,

Caballero,

at those who made us soldiers and him a general!

Look at these people!"

Ignacio shouted.

The light of the carriage lamps,

running along the nopal hedges that crowned the bank on each side,

flashed upon the scared faces of people standing aside in the road,

sunk deep,

like an English country lane,

into the soft soil of the Campo.

They cowered;

their eyes glistened very big for a second;

and then the light,

running on,

fell upon the half-denuded roots of a big tree,

on another stretch of nopal hedge,

caught up another bunch of faces glaring back apprehensively.

Three women --of whom one was carrying a child --and a couple of men in civilian dress --one armed with a sabre and another with a gun --were grouped about a donkey carrying two bundles tied up in blankets.

Further on Ignacio shouted again to pass a carreta,

a long wooden box on two high wheels,

with the door at the back swinging open.

Some ladies in it must have recognized the white mules,

because they screamed out,

"Is it you,

Dona Emilia?"

At the turn of the road the glare of a big fire filled the short stretch vaulted over by the branches meeting overhead.

Near the ford of a shallow stream a roadside rancho of woven rushes and a roof of grass had been set on fire by accident,

and the flames,

roaring viciously,

lit up an open space blocked with horses,

mules,

and a distracted,

shouting crowd of people.

When Ignacio pulled up,

several ladies on foot assailed the carriage,

begging Antonia for a seat.

To their clamour she answered by pointing silently to her father.

"I must leave you here,"

said Charles Gould,

in the uproar.

The flames leaped up sky-high,

and in the recoil from the scorching heat across the road the stream of fugitives pressed against the carriage.

A middle-aged lady dressed in black silk,

but with a coarse manta over her head and a rough branch for a stick in her hand,

staggered against the front wheel.

Two young girls,

frightened and silent,

were clinging to her arms.

Charles Gould knew her very well.

"Misericordia!

We are getting terribly bruised in this crowd!"

she exclaimed,

smiling up courageously to him.

"We have started on foot.

All our servants ran away yesterday to join the democrats.

We are going to put ourselves under the protection of Father Corbelan,

of your sainted uncle,

Antonia.

He has wrought a miracle in the heart of a most merciless robber.

A miracle!"

She raised her voice gradually up to a scream as she was borne along by the pressure of people getting out of the way of some carts coming up out of the ford at a gallop,

with loud yells and cracking of whips.

Great masses of sparks mingled with black smoke flew over the road;

the bamboos of the walls detonated in the fire with the sound of an irregular fusillade.

And then the bright blaze sank suddenly,

leaving only a red dusk crowded with aimless dark shadows drifting in contrary directions;

the noise of voices seemed to die away with the flame;

and the tumult of heads,

arms,

quarrelling,

and imprecations passed on fleeing into the darkness.

"I must leave you now,"

repeated Charles Gould to Antonia.

She turned her head slowly and uncovered her face.

The emissary and compadre of Hernandez spurred his horse close up.

"Has not the master of the mine any message to send to Hernandez,

the master of the Campo?"

The truth of the comparison struck Charles Gould heavily.

In his determined purpose he held the mine,

and the indomitable bandit held the Campo by the same precarious tenure.

They were equals before the lawlessness of the land.

It was impossible to disentangle one's activity from its debasing contacts.

A close-meshed net of crime and corruption lay upon the whole country.

An immense and weary discouragement sealed his lips for a time.

"You are a just man,"

urged the emissary of Hernandez.

"Look at those people who made my compadre a general and have turned us all into soldiers.

Look at those oligarchs fleeing for life,

with only the clothes on their backs.

My compadre does not think of that,

but our followers may be wondering greatly,

and I would speak for them to you.

Listen,

senor!

For many months now the Campo has been our own.

We need ask no man for anything;

but soldiers must have their pay to live honestly when the wars are over.

It is believed that your soul is so just that a prayer from you would cure the sickness of every beast,

like the orison of the upright judge.

Let me have some words from your lips that would act like a charm upon the doubts of our partida,

where all are men."

"Do you hear what he says?"

Charles Gould said in English to Antonia.

"Forgive us our misery!"

she exclaimed,

hurriedly.

"It is your character that is the inexhaustible treasure which may save us all yet;

your character,

Carlos,

not your wealth.

I entreat you to give this man your word that you will accept any arrangement my uncle may make with their chief.

One word.

He will want no more."

On the site of the roadside hut there remained nothing but an enormous heap of embers,

throwing afar a darkening red glow,

in which Antonia's face appeared deeply flushed with excitement.

Charles Gould,

with only a short hesitation,

pronounced the required pledge.

He was like a man who had ventured on a precipitous path with no room to turn,

where the only chance of safety is to press forward.

At that moment he understood it thoroughly as he looked down at Don Jose stretched out,

hardly breathing,

by the side of the erect Antonia,

vanquished in a lifelong struggle with the powers of moral darkness,

whose stagnant depths breed monstrous crimes and monstrous illusions.

In a few words the emissary from Hernandez expressed his complete satisfaction.

Stoically Antonia lowered her veil,

resisting the longing to inquire about Decoud's escape.

But Ignacio leered morosely over his shoulder.

"Take a good look at the mules,

mi amo,"

he grumbled.

"You shall never see them again!"

CHAPTER FOUR

Charles Gould turned towards the town.

Before him the jagged peaks of the Sierra came out all black in the clear dawn.

Here and there a muffled lepero whisked round the corner of a grass-grown street before the ringing hoofs of his horse.

Dogs barked behind the walls of the gardens;

and with the colourless light the chill of the snows seemed to fall from the mountains upon the disjointed pavements and the shuttered houses with broken cornices and the plaster peeling in patches between the flat pilasters of the fronts.

The daybreak struggled with the gloom under the arcades on the Plaza,

with no signs of country people disposing their goods for the day's market,

piles of fruit,

bundles of vegetables ornamented with flowers,

on low benches under enormous mat umbrellas;

with no cheery early morning bustle of villagers,

women,

children,

and loaded donkeys.

Only a few scattered knots of revolutionists stood in the vast space,

all looking one way from under their slouched hats for some sign of news from Rincon.

The largest of those groups turned about like one man as Charles Gould passed,

and shouted,

"Viva la libertad!"

after him in a menacing tone.

Charles Gould rode on,

and turned into the archway of his house.

In the patio littered with straw,

a practicante,

one of Dr. Monygham's native assistants,

sat on the ground with his back against the rim of the fountain,

fingering a guitar discreetly,

while two girls of the lower class,

standing up before him,

shuffled their feet a little and waved their arms,

humming a popular dance tune.

Most of the wounded during the two days of rioting had been taken away already by their friends and relations,

but several figures could be seen sitting up balancing their bandaged heads in time to the music.

Charles Gould dismounted.

A sleepy mozo coming out of the bakery door took hold of the horse's bridle;

the practicante endeavoured to conceal his guitar hastily;

the girls,

unabashed,

stepped back smiling;

and Charles Gould,

on his way to the staircase,

glanced into a dark corner of the patio at another group,

a mortally wounded Cargador with a woman kneeling by his side;

she mumbled prayers rapidly,

trying at the same time to force a piece of orange between the stiffening lips of the dying man.

The cruel futility of things stood unveiled in the levity and sufferings of that incorrigible people;

the cruel futility of lives and of deaths thrown away in the vain endeavour to attain an enduring solution of the problem.

Unlike Decoud,

Charles Gould could not play lightly a part in a tragic farce.

It was tragic enough for him in all conscience,

but he could see no farcical element.

He suffered too much under a conviction of irremediable folly.

He was too severely practical and too idealistic to look upon its terrible humours with amusement,

as Martin Decoud,

the imaginative materialist,

was able to do in the dry light of his scepticism.

To him,

as to all of us,

the compromises with his conscience appeared uglier than ever in the light of failure.

His taciturnity,

assumed with a purpose,

had prevented him from tampering openly with his thoughts;

but the Gould Concession had insidiously corrupted his judgment.

He might have known,

he said to himself,

leaning over the balustrade of the corredor,

that Ribierism could never come to anything.

The mine had corrupted his judgment by making him sick of bribing and intriguing merely to have his work left alone from day to day.

Like his father,

he did not like to be robbed.

It exasperated him.

He had persuaded himself that,

apart from higher considerations,

the backing up of Don Jose's hopes of reform was good business.

He had gone forth into the senseless fray as his poor uncle,

whose sword hung on the wall of his study,

had gone forth --in the defence of the commonest decencies of organized society.

Only his weapon was the wealth of the mine,

more far-reaching and subtle than an honest blade of steel fitted into a simple brass guard.

More dangerous to the wielder,

too,

this weapon of wealth,

double-edged with the cupidity and misery of mankind,

steeped in all the vices of self-indulgence as in a concoction of poisonous roots,

tainting the very cause for which it is drawn,

always ready to turn awkwardly in the hand.

There was nothing for it now but to go on using it.

But he promised himself to see it shattered into small bits before he let it be wrenched from his grasp.

After all,

with his English parentage and English upbringing,

he perceived that he was an adventurer in Costaguana,

the descendant of adventurers enlisted in a foreign legion,

of men who had sought fortune in a revolutionary war,

who had planned revolutions,

who had believed in revolutions.

For all the uprightness of his character,

he had something of an adventurer's easy morality which takes count of personal risk in the ethical appraising of his action.

He was prepared,

if need be,

to blow up the whole San Tome mountain sky high out of the territory of the Republic.

This resolution expressed the tenacity of his character,

the remorse of that subtle conjugal infidelity through which his wife was no longer the sole mistress of his thoughts,

something of his father's imaginative weakness,

and something,

too,

of the spirit of a buccaneer throwing a lighted match into the magazine rather than surrender his ship.

Down below in the patio the wounded Cargador had breathed his last.

The woman cried out once,

and her cry,

unexpected and shrill,

made all the wounded sit up.

The practicante scrambled to his feet,

and,

guitar in hand,

gazed steadily in her direction with elevated eyebrows.

The two girls --sitting now one on each side of their wounded relative,

with their knees drawn up and long cigars between their lips --nodded at each other significantly.

Charles Gould,

looking down over the balustrade,

saw three men dressed ceremoniously in black frock-coats with white shirts,

and wearing European round hats,

enter the patio from the street.

One of them,

head and shoulders taller than the two others,

advanced with marked gravity,

leading the way.

This was Don Juste Lopez,

accompanied by two of his friends,

members of Assembly,

coming to call upon the Administrador of the San Tome mine at this early hour.

They saw him,

too,

waved their hands to him urgently,

walking up the stairs as if in procession.

Don Juste,

astonishingly changed by having shaved off altogether his damaged beard,

had lost with it nine-tenths of his outward dignity.

Even at that time of serious pre-occupation Charles Gould could not help noting the revealed ineptitude in the aspect of the man.

His companions looked crestfallen and sleepy.

One kept on passing the tip of his tongue over his parched lips;

the other's eyes strayed dully over the tiled floor of the corredor,

while Don Juste,

standing a little in advance,

harangued the Senor Administrador of the San Tome mine.

It was his firm opinion that forms had to be observed.

A new governor is always visited by deputations from the Cabildo,

which is the Municipal Council,

from the Consulado,

the commercial Board,

and it was proper that the Provincial Assembly should send a deputation,

too,

if only to assert the existence of parliamentary institutions.

Don Juste proposed that Don Carlos Gould,

as the most prominent citizen of the province,

should join the Assembly's deputation.

His position was exceptional,

his personality known through the length and breadth of the whole Republic.

Official courtesies must not be neglected,

if they are gone through with a bleeding heart.

The acceptance of accomplished facts may save yet the precious vestiges of parliamentary institutions.

Don Juste's eyes glowed dully;

he believed in parliamentary institutions --and the convinced drone of his voice lost itself in the stillness of the house like the deep buzzing of some ponderous insect.

Charles Gould had turned round to listen patiently,

leaning his elbow on the balustrade.

He shook his head a little,

refusing,

almost touched by the anxious gaze of the President of the Provincial Assembly.

It was not Charles Gould's policy to make the San Tome mine a party to any formal proceedings.

"My advice,

senores,

is that you should wait for your fate in your houses.

There is no necessity for you to give yourselves up formally into Montero's hands.

Submission to the inevitable,

as Don Juste calls it,

is all very well,

but when the inevitable is called Pedrito Montero there is no need to exhibit pointedly the whole extent of your surrender.

The fault of this country is the want of measure in political life.

Flat acquiescence in illegality,

followed by sanguinary reaction --that,

senores,

is not the way to a stable and prosperous future."

Charles Gould stopped before the sad bewilderment of the faces,

the wondering,

anxious glances of the eyes.

The feeling of pity for those men,

putting all their trust into words of some sort,

while murder and rapine stalked over the land,

had betrayed him into what seemed empty loquacity.

Don Juste murmured --

"You are abandoning us,

Don Carlos.

...And yet,

parliamentary institutions --"

He could not finish from grief.

For a moment he put his hand over his eyes.

Charles Gould,

in his fear of empty loquacity,

made no answer to the charge.

He returned in silence their ceremonious bows.

His taciturnity was his refuge.

He understood that what they sought was to get the influence of the San Tome mine on their side.

They wanted to go on a conciliating errand to the victor under the wing of the Gould Concession.

Other public bodies --the Cabildo,

the Consulado --would be coming,

too,

presently,

seeking the support of the most stable,

the most effective force they had ever known to exist in their province.

The doctor,

arriving with his sharp,

jerky walk,

found that the master had retired into his own room with orders not to be disturbed on any account.

But Dr. Monygham was not anxious to see Charles Gould at once.

He spent some time in a rapid examination of his wounded.

He gazed down upon each in turn,

rubbing his chin between his thumb and forefinger;

his steady stare met without expression their silently inquisitive look.

All these cases were doing well;

but when he came to the dead Cargador he stopped a little longer,

surveying not the man who had ceased to suffer,

but the woman kneeling in silent contemplation of the rigid face,

with its pinched nostrils and a white gleam in the imperfectly closed eyes.

She lifted her head slowly,

and said in a dull voice --

"It is not long since he had become a Cargador --only a few weeks.

His worship the Capataz had accepted him after many entreaties."

"I am not responsible for the great Capataz,"

muttered the doctor,

moving off.

Directing his course upstairs towards the door of Charles Gould's room,

the doctor at the last moment hesitated;

then,

turning away from the handle with a shrug of his uneven shoulders,

slunk off hastily along the corredor in search of Mrs. Gould's camerista.

Leonarda told him that the senora had not risen yet.

The senora had given into her charge the girls belonging to that Italian posadero.

She,

Leonarda,

had put them to bed in her own room.

The fair girl had cried herself to sleep,

but the dark one --the bigger --had not closed her eyes yet.

She sat up in bed clutching the sheets right up under her chin and staring before her like a little witch.

Leonarda did not approve of the Viola children being admitted to the house.

She made this feeling clear by the indifferent tone in which she inquired whether their mother was dead yet.

As to the senora,

she must be asleep.

Ever since she had gone into her room after seeing the departure of Dona Antonia with her dying father,

there had been no sound behind her door.

The doctor,

rousing himself out of profound reflection,

told her abruptly to call her mistress at once.

He hobbled off to wait for Mrs. Gould in the sala.

He was very tired,

but too excited to sit down.

In this great drawing-room,

now empty,

in which his withered soul had been refreshed after many arid years and his outcast spirit had accepted silently the toleration of many side-glances,

he wandered haphazard amongst the chairs and tables till Mrs. Gould,

enveloped in a morning wrapper,

came in rapidly.

"You know that I never approved of the silver being sent away,"

the doctor began at once,

as a preliminary to the narrative of his night's adventures in association with Captain Mitchell,

the engineer-in-chief,

and old Viola,

at Sotillo's headquarters.

To the doctor,

with his special conception of this political crisis,

the removal of the silver had seemed an irrational and ill-omened measure.

It was as if a general were sending the best part of his troops away on the eve of battle upon some recondite pretext.

The whole lot of ingots might have been concealed somewhere where they could have been got at for the purpose of staving off the dangers which were menacing the security of the Gould Concession.

The Administrador had acted as if the immense and powerful prosperity of the mine had been founded on methods of probity,

on the sense of usefulness.

And it was nothing of the kind.

The method followed had been the only one possible.

The Gould Concession had ransomed its way through all those years.

It was a nauseous process.

He quite understood that Charles Gould had got sick of it and had left the old path to back up that hopeless attempt at reform.

The doctor did not believe in the reform of Costaguana.

And now the mine was back again in its old path,

with the disadvantage that henceforth it had to deal not only with the greed provoked by its wealth,

but with the resentment awakened by the attempt to free itself from its bondage to moral corruption.

That was the penalty of failure.

What made him uneasy was that Charles Gould seemed to him to have weakened at the decisive moment when a frank return to the old methods was the only chance.

Listening to Decoud's wild scheme had been a weakness.

The doctor flung up his arms,

exclaiming,

"Decoud!

Decoud!"

He hobbled about the room with slight,

angry laughs.

Many years ago both his ankles had been seriously damaged in the course of a certain investigation conducted in the castle of Sta. Marta by a commission composed of military men.

Their nomination had been signified to them unexpectedly at the dead of night,

with scowling brow,

flashing eyes,

and in a tempestuous voice,

by Guzman Bento.

The old tyrant,

maddened by one of his sudden accesses of suspicion,

mingled spluttering appeals to their fidelity with imprecations and horrible menaces.

The cells and casements of the castle on the hill had been already filled with prisoners.

The commission was charged now with the task of discovering the iniquitous conspiracy against the Citizen-Saviour of his country.

Their dread of the raving tyrant translated itself into a hasty ferocity of procedure.

The Citizen-Saviour was not accustomed to wait.

A conspiracy had to be discovered.

The courtyards of the castle resounded with the clanking of leg-irons,

sounds of blows,

yells of pain;

and the commission of high officers laboured feverishly,

concealing their distress and apprehensions from each other,

and especially from their secretary,

Father Beron,

an army chaplain,

at that time very much in the confidence of the Citizen-Saviour.

That priest was a big round-shouldered man,

with an unclean-looking,

overgrown tonsure on the top of his flat head,

of a dingy,

yellow complexion,

softly fat,

with greasy stains all down the front of his lieutenant's uniform,

and a small cross embroidered in white cotton on his left breast.

He had a heavy nose and a pendant lip.

Dr. Monygham remembered him still.

He remembered him against all the force of his will striving its utmost to forget.

Father Beron had been adjoined to the commission by Guzman Bento expressly for the purpose that his enlightened zeal should assist them in their labours.

Dr. Monygham could by no manner of means forget the zeal of Father Beron,

or his face,

or the pitiless,

monotonous voice in which he pronounced the words,

"Will you confess now?"

This memory did not make him shudder,

but it had made of him what he was in the eyes of respectable people,

a man careless of common decencies,

something between a clever vagabond and a disreputable doctor.

But not all respectable people would have had the necessary delicacy of sentiment to understand with what trouble of mind and accuracy of vision Dr. Monygham,

medical officer of the San Tome mine,

remembered Father Beron,

army chaplain,

and once a secretary of a military commission.

After all these years Dr. Monygham,

in his rooms at the end of the hospital building in the San Tome gorge,

remembered Father Beron as distinctly as ever.

He remembered that priest at night,

sometimes,

in his sleep.

On such nights the doctor waited for daylight with a candle lighted,

and walking the whole length of his rooms to and fro,

staring down at his bare feet,

his arms hugging his sides tightly.

He would dream of Father Beron sitting at the end of a long black table,

behind which,

in a row,

appeared the heads,

shoulders,

and epaulettes of the military members,

nibbling the feather of a quill pen,

and listening with weary and impatient scorn to the protestations of some prisoner calling heaven to witness of his innocence,

till he burst out,

"What's the use of wasting time over that miserable nonsense!

Let me take him outside for a while."

And Father Beron would go outside after the clanking prisoner,

led away between two soldiers.

Such interludes happened on many days,

many times,

with many prisoners.

When the prisoner returned he was ready to make a full confession,

Father Beron would declare,

leaning forward with that dull,

surfeited look which can be seen in the eyes of gluttonous persons after a heavy meal.

The priest's inquisitorial instincts suffered but little from the want of classical apparatus of the Inquisition.

At no time of the world's history have men been at a loss how to inflict mental and bodily anguish upon their fellow-creatures.

This aptitude came to them in the growing complexity of their passions and the early refinement of their ingenuity.

But it may safely be said that primeval man did not go to the trouble of inventing tortures.

He was indolent and pure of heart.

He brained his neighbour ferociously with a stone axe from necessity and without malice.

The stupidest mind may invent a rankling phrase or brand the innocent with a cruel aspersion.

A piece of string and a ramrod;

a few muskets in combination with a length of hide rope;

or even a simple mallet of heavy,

hard wood applied with a swing to human fingers or to the joints of a human body is enough for the infliction of the most exquisite torture.

The doctor had been a very stubborn prisoner,

and,

as a natural consequence of that "bad disposition"

(so Father Beron called it),

his subjugation had been very crushing and very complete.

That is why the limp in his walk,

the twist of his shoulders,

the scars on his cheeks were so pronounced.

His confessions,

when they came at last,

were very complete,

too.

Sometimes on the nights when he walked the floor,

he wondered,

grinding his teeth with shame and rage,

at the fertility of his imagination when stimulated by a sort of pain which makes truth,

honour,

selfrespect,

and life itself matters of little moment.

And he could not forget Father Beron with his monotonous phrase,

"Will you confess now?"

reaching him in an awful iteration and lucidity of meaning through the delirious incoherence of unbearable pain.

He could not forget.

But that was not the worst.

Had he met Father Beron in the street after all these years Dr. Monygham was sure he would have quailed before him.

This contingency was not to be feared now.

Father Beron was dead;

but the sickening certitude prevented Dr. Monygham from looking anybody in the face.

Dr. Monygham had become,

in a manner,

the slave of a ghost.

It was obviously impossible to take his knowledge of Father Beron home to Europe.

When making his extorted confessions to the Military Board,

Dr. Monygham was not seeking to avoid death.

He longed for it.

Sitting half-naked for hours on the wet earth of his prison,

and so motionless that the spiders,

his companions,

attached their webs to his matted hair,

he consoled the misery of his soul with acute reasonings that he had confessed to crimes enough for a sentence of death --that they had gone too far with him to let him live to tell the tale.

But,

as if by a refinement of cruelty,

Dr. Monygham was left for months to decay slowly in the darkness of his grave-like prison.

It was no doubt hoped that it would finish him off without the trouble of an execution;

but Dr. Monygham had an iron constitution.

It was Guzman Bento who died,

not by the knife thrust of a conspirator,

but from a stroke of apoplexy,

and Dr. Monygham was liberated hastily.

His fetters were struck off by the light of a candle,

which,

after months of gloom,

hurt his eyes so much that he had to cover his face with his hands.

He was raised up.

His heart was beating violently with the fear of this liberty.

When he tried to walk the extraordinary lightness of his feet made him giddy,

and he fell down.

Two sticks were thrust into his hands,

and he was pushed out of the passage.

It was dusk;

candles glimmered already in the windows of the officers' quarters round the courtyard;

but the twilight sky dazed him by its enormous and overwhelming brilliance.

A thin poncho hung over his naked,

bony shoulders;

the rags of his trousers came down no lower than his knees;

an eighteen months' growth of hair fell in dirty grey locks on each side of his sharp cheek-bones.

As he dragged himself past the guard-room door,

one of the soldiers,

lolling outside,

moved by some obscure impulse,

leaped forward with a strange laugh and rammed a broken old straw hat on his head.

And Dr. Monygham,

after having tottered,

continued on his way.

He advanced one stick,

then one maimed foot,

then the other stick;

the other foot followed only a very short distance along the ground,

toilfully,

as though it were almost too heavy to be moved at all;

and yet his legs under the hanging angles of the poncho appeared no thicker than the two sticks in his hands.

A ceaseless trembling agitated his bent body,

all his wasted limbs,

his bony head,

the conical,

ragged crown of the sombrero,

whose ample flat rim rested on his shoulders.

In such conditions of manner and attire did Dr. Monygham go forth to take possession of his liberty.

And these conditions seemed to bind him indissolubly to the land of Costaguana like an awful procedure of naturalization,

involving him deep in the national life,

far deeper than any amount of success and honour could have done.

They did away with his Europeanism;

for Dr. Monygham had made himself an ideal conception of his disgrace.

It was a conception eminently fit and proper for an officer and a gentleman.

Dr. Monygham,

before he went out to Costaguana,

had been surgeon in one of Her Majesty's regiments of foot.

It was a conception which took no account of physiological facts or reasonable arguments;

but it was not stupid for all that.

It was simple.

A rule of conduct resting mainly on severe rejections is necessarily simple.

Dr. Monygham's view of what it behoved him to do was severe;

it was an ideal view,

in so much that it was the imaginative exaggeration of a correct feeling.

It was also,

in its force,

influence,

and persistency,

the view of an eminently loyal nature.

There was a great fund of loyalty in Dr. Monygham's nature.

He had settled it all on Mrs. Gould's head.

He believed her worthy of every devotion.

At the bottom of his heart he felt an angry uneasiness before the prosperity of the San Tome mine,

because its growth was robbing her of all peace of mind.

Costaguana was no place for a woman of that kind.

What could Charles Gould have been thinking of when he brought her out there!

It was outrageous!

And the doctor had watched the course of events with a grim and distant reserve which,

he imagined,

his lamentable history imposed upon him.

Loyalty to Mrs. Gould could not,

however,

leave out of account the safety of her husband.

The doctor had contrived to be in town at the critical time because he mistrusted Charles Gould.

He considered him hopelessly infected with the madness of revolutions.

That is why he hobbled in distress in the drawing-room of the Casa Gould on that morning,

exclaiming,

"Decoud,

Decoud!"

in a tone of mournful irritation.

Mrs. Gould,

her colour heightened,

and with glistening eyes,

looked straight before her at the sudden enormity of that disaster.

The finger-tips on one hand rested lightly on a low little table by her side,

and the arm trembled right up to the shoulder.

The sun,

which looks late upon Sulaco,

issuing in all the fulness of its power high up on the sky from behind the dazzling snow-edge of Higuerota,

had precipitated the delicate,

smooth,

pearly greyness of light,

in which the town lies steeped during the early hours,

into sharp-cut masses of black shade and spaces of hot,

blinding glare.

Three long rectangles of sunshine fell through the windows of the sala;

while just across the street the front of the Avellanos's house appeared very sombre in its own shadow seen through the flood of light.

A voice said at the door,

"What of Decoud?"

It was Charles Gould.

They had not heard him coming along the corredor.

His glance just glided over his wife and struck full at the doctor.

"You have brought some news,

doctor?"

Dr. Monygham blurted it all out at once,

in the rough.

For some time after he had done,

the Administrador of the San Tome mine remained looking at him without a word.

Mrs. Gould sank into a low chair with her hands lying on her lap.

A silence reigned between those three motionless persons.

Then Charles Gould spoke --

"You must want some breakfast."

He stood aside to let his wife pass first.

She caught up her husband's hand and pressed it as she went out,

raising her handkerchief to her eyes.

The sight of her husband had brought Antonia's position to her mind,

and she could not contain her tears at the thought of the poor girl.

When she rejoined the two men in the diningroom after having bathed her face,

Charles Gould was saying to the doctor across the table --

"No,

there does not seem any room for doubt."

And the doctor assented.

"No,

I don't see myself how we could question that wretched Hirsch's tale.

It's only too true,

I fear."

She sat down desolately at the head of the table and looked from one to the other.

The two men,

without absolutely turning their heads away,

tried to avoid her glance.

The doctor even made a show of being hungry;

he seized his knife and fork,

and began to eat with emphasis,

as if on the stage.

Charles Gould made no pretence of the sort;

with his elbows raised squarely,

he twisted both ends of his flaming moustaches --they were so long that his hands were quite away from his face.

"I am not surprised,"

he muttered,

abandoning his moustaches and throwing one arm over the back of his chair.

His face was calm with that immobility of expression which betrays the intensity of a mental struggle.

He felt that this accident had brought to a point all the consequences involved in his line of conduct,

with its conscious and subconscious intentions.

There must be an end now of this silent reserve,

of that air of impenetrability behind which he had been safeguarding his dignity.

It was the least ignoble form of dissembling forced upon him by that parody of civilized institutions which offended his intelligence,

his uprightness,

and his sense of right.

He was like his father.

He had no ironic eye.

He was not amused at the absurdities that prevail in this world.

They hurt him in his innate gravity.

He felt that the miserable death of that poor Decoud took from him his inaccessible position of a force in the background.

It committed him openly unless he wished to throw up the game --and that was impossible.

The material interests required from him the sacrifice of his aloofness --perhaps his own safety too.

And he reflected that Decoud's separationist plan had not gone to the bottom with the lost silver.

The only thing that was not changed was his position towards Mr. Holroyd.

The head of silver and steel interests had entered into Costaguana affairs with a sort of passion.

Costaguana had become necessary to his existence;

in the San Tome mine he had found the imaginative satisfaction which other minds would get from drama,

from art,

or from a risky and fascinating sport.

It was a special form of the great man's extravagance,

sanctioned by a moral intention,

big enough to flatter his vanity.

Even in this aberration of his genius he served the progress of the world.

Charles Gould felt sure of being understood with precision and judged with the indulgence of their common passion.

Nothing now could surprise or startle this great man.

And Charles Gould imagined himself writing a letter to San Francisco in some such words:

".

...The men at the head of the movement are dead or have fled;

the civil organization of the province is at an end for the present;

the Blanco party in Sulaco has collapsed inexcusably,

but in the characteristic manner of this country.

But Barrios,

untouched in Cayta,

remains still available.

I am forced to take up openly the plan of a provincial revolution as the only way of placing the enormous material interests involved in the prosperity and peace of Sulaco in a position of permanent safety.

..."

That was clear.

He saw these words as if written in letters of fire upon the wall at which he was gazing abstractedly.

Mrs Gould watched his abstraction with dread.

It was a domestic and frightful phenomenon that darkened and chilled the house for her like a thundercloud passing over the sun.

Charles Gould's fits of abstraction depicted the energetic concentration of a will haunted by a fixed idea.

A man haunted by a fixed idea is insane.

He is dangerous even if that idea is an idea of justice;

for may he not bring the heaven down pitilessly upon a loved head?

The eyes of Mrs. Gould,

watching her husband's profile,

filled with tears again.

And again she seemed to see the despair of the unfortunate Antonia.

"What would I have done if Charley had been drowned while we were engaged?"

she exclaimed,

mentally,

with horror.

Her heart turned to ice,

while her cheeks flamed up as if scorched by the blaze of a funeral pyre consuming all her earthly affections.

The tears burst out of her eyes.

"Antonia will kill herself!"

she cried out.

This cry fell into the silence of the room with strangely little effect.

Only the doctor,

crumbling up a piece of bread,

with his head inclined on one side,

raised his face,

and the few long hairs sticking out of his shaggy eyebrows stirred in a slight frown.

Dr. Monygham thought quite sincerely that Decoud was a singularly unworthy object for any woman's affection.

Then he lowered his head again,

with a curl of his lip,

and his heart full of tender admiration for Mrs. Gould.

"She thinks of that girl,"

he said to himself;

"she thinks of the Viola children;

she thinks of me;

of the wounded;

of the miners;

she always thinks of everybody who is poor and miserable!

But what will she do if Charles gets the worst of it in this infernal scrimmage those confounded Avellanos have drawn him into?

No one seems to be thinking of her."

Charles Gould,

staring at the wall,

pursued his reflections subtly.

"I shall write to Holroyd that the San Tome mine is big enough to take in hand the making of a new State.

It'll please him.

It'll reconcile him to the risk."

But was Barrios really available?

Perhaps.

But he was inaccessible.

To send off a boat to Cayta was no longer possible,

since Sotillo was master of the harbour,

and had a steamer at his disposal.

And now,

with all the democrats in the province up,

and every Campo township in a state of disturbance,

where could he find a man who would make his way successfully overland to Cayta with a message,

a ten days' ride at least;

a man of courage and resolution,

who would avoid arrest or murder,

and if arrested would faithfully eat the paper?

The Capataz de Cargadores would have been just such a man.

But the Capataz of the Cargadores was no more.

And Charles Gould,

withdrawing his eyes from the wall,

said gently,

"That Hirsch!

What an extraordinary thing!

Saved himself by clinging to the anchor,

did he?

I had no idea that he was still in Sulaco.

I thought he had gone back overland to Esmeralda more than a week ago.

He came here once to talk to me about his hide business and some other things.

I made it clear to him that nothing could be done."

"He was afraid to start back on account of Hernandez being about,"

remarked the doctor.

"And but for him we might not have known anything of what has happened,"

marvelled Charles Gould.

Mrs. Gould cried out --

"Antonia must not know!

She must not be told.

Not now."

"Nobody's likely to carry the news,"

remarked the doctor.

"It's no one's interest.

Moreover,

the people here are afraid of Hernandez as if he were the devil."

He turned to Charles Gould.

"It's even awkward,

because if you wanted to communicate with the refugees you could find no messenger.

When Hernandez was ranging hundreds of miles away from here the Sulaco populace used to shudder at the tales of him roasting his prisoners alive."

"Yes,"

murmured Charles Gould;

"Captain Mitchell's Capataz was the only man in the town who had seen Hernandez eye to eye.

Father Corbelan employed him.

He opened the communications first.

It is a pity that --"

His voice was covered by the booming of the great bell of the cathedral.

Three single strokes,

one after another,

burst out explosively,

dying away in deep and mellow vibrations.

And then all the bells in the tower of every church,

convent,

or chapel in town,

even those that had remained shut up for years,

pealed out together with a crash.

In this furious flood of metallic uproar there was a power of suggesting images of strife and violence which blanched Mrs. Gould's cheek.

Basilio,

who had been waiting at table,

shrinking within himself,

clung to the sideboard with chattering teeth.

It was impossible to hear yourself speak.

"Shut these windows!"

Charles Gould yelled at him,

angrily.

All the other servants,

terrified at what they took for the signal of a general massacre,

had rushed upstairs,

tumbling over each other,

men and women,

the obscure and generally invisible population of the ground floor on the four sides of the patio.

The women,

screaming "Misericordia!"

ran right into the room,

and,

falling on their knees against the walls,

began to cross themselves convulsively.

The staring heads of men blocked the doorway in an instant --mozos from the stable,

gardeners,

nondescript helpers living on the crumbs of the munificent house --and Charles Gould beheld all the extent of his domestic establishment,

even to the gatekeeper.

This was a half-paralyzed old man,

whose long white locks fell down to his shoulders: an heirloom taken up by Charles Gould's familial piety.

He could remember Henry Gould,

an Englishman and a Costaguanero of the second generation,

chief of the Sulaco province;

he had been his personal mozo years and years ago in peace and war;

had been allowed to attend his master in prison;

had,

on the fatal morning,

followed the firing squad;

and,

peeping from behind one of the cypresses growing along the wall of the Franciscan Convent,

had seen,

with his eyes starting out of his head,

Don Enrique throw up his hands and fall with his face in the dust.

Charles Gould noted particularly the big patriarchal head of that witness in the rear of the other servants.

But he was surprised to see a shrivelled old hag or two,

of whose existence within the walls of his house he had not been aware.

They must have been the mothers,

or even the grandmothers of some of his people.

There were a few children,

too,

more or less naked,

crying and clinging to the legs of their elders.

He had never before noticed any sign of a child in his patio.

Even Leonarda,

the camerista,

came in a fright,

pushing through,

with her spoiled,

pouting face of a favourite maid,

leading the Viola girls by the hand.

The crockery rattled on table and sideboard,

and the whole house seemed to sway in the deafening wave of sound.

CHAPTER FIVE

During the night the expectant populace had taken possession of all the belfries in the town in order to welcome Pedrito Montero,

who was making his entry after having slept the night in Rincon.

And first came straggling in through the land gate the armed mob of all colours,

complexions,

types,

and states of raggedness,

calling themselves the Sulaco National Guard,

and commanded by Senor Gamacho.

Through the middle of the street streamed,

like a torrent of rubbish,

a mass of straw hats,

ponchos,

gun-barrels,

with an enormous green and yellow flag flapping in their midst,

in a cloud of dust,

to the furious beating of drums.

The spectators recoiled against the walls of the houses shouting their Vivas!

Behind the rabble could be seen the lances of the cavalry,

the "army" of Pedro Montero.

He advanced between Senores Fuentes and Gamacho at the head of his llaneros,

who had accomplished the feat of crossing the Paramos of the Higuerota in a snow-storm.

They rode four abreast,

mounted on confiscated Campo horses,

clad in the heterogeneous stock of roadside stores they had looted hurriedly in their rapid ride through the northern part of the province;

for Pedro Montero had been in a great hurry to occupy Sulaco.

The handkerchiefs knotted loosely around their bare throats were glaringly new,

and all the right sleeves of their cotton shirts had been cut off close to the shoulder for greater freedom in throwing the lazo.

Emaciated greybeards rode by the side of lean dark youths,

marked by all the hardships of campaigning,

with strips of raw beef twined round the crowns of their hats,

and huge iron spurs fastened to their naked heels.

Those that in the passes of the mountain had lost their lances had provided themselves with the goads used by the Campo cattlemen: slender shafts of palm fully ten feet long,

with a lot of loose rings jingling under the ironshod point.

They were armed with knives and revolvers.

A haggard fearlessness characterized the expression of all these sun-blacked countenances;

they glared down haughtily with their scorched eyes at the crowd,

or,

blinking upwards insolently,

pointed out to each other some particular head amongst the women at the windows.

When they had ridden into the Plaza and caught sight of the equestrian statue of the King dazzlingly white in the sunshine,

towering enormous and motionless above the surges of the crowd,

with its eternal gesture of saluting,

a murmur of surprise ran through their ranks.

"What is that saint in the big hat?"

they asked each other.

They were a good sample of the cavalry of the plains with which Pedro Montero had helped so much the victorious career of his brother the general.

The influence which that man,

brought up in coast towns,

acquired in a short time over the plainsmen of the Republic can be ascribed only to a genius for treachery of so effective a kind that it must have appeared to those violent men but little removed from a state of utter savagery,

as the perfection of sagacity and virtue.

The popular lore of all nations testifies that duplicity and cunning,

together with bodily strength,

were looked upon,

even more than courage,

as heroic virtues by primitive mankind.

To overcome your adversary was the great affair of life.

Courage was taken for granted.

But the use of intelligence awakened wonder and respect.

Stratagems,

providing they did not fail,

were honourable;

the easy massacre of an unsuspecting enemy evoked no feelings but those of gladness,

pride,

and admiration.

Not perhaps that primitive men were more faithless than their descendants of to-day,

but that they went straighter to their aim,

and were more artless in their recognition of success as the only standard of morality.

We have changed since.

The use of intelligence awakens little wonder and less respect.

But the ignorant and barbarous plainsmen engaging in civil strife followed willingly a leader who often managed to deliver their enemies bound,

as it were,

into their hands.

Pedro Montero had a talent for lulling his adversaries into a sense of security.

And as men learn wisdom with extreme slowness,

and are always ready to believe promises that flatter their secret hopes,

Pedro Montero was successful time after time.

Whether only a servant or some inferior official in the Costaguana Legation in Paris,

he had rushed back to his country directly he heard that his brother had emerged from the obscurity of his frontier commandancia.

He had managed to deceive by his gift of plausibility the chiefs of the Ribierist movement in the capital,

and even the acute agent of the San Tome mine had failed to understand him thoroughly.

At once he had obtained an enormous influence over his brother.

They were very much alike in appearance,

both bald,

with bunches of crisp hair above their ears,

arguing the presence of some negro blood.

Only Pedro was smaller than the general,

more delicate altogether,

with an ape-like faculty for imitating all the outward signs of refinement and distinction,

and with a parrot-like talent for languages.

Both brothers had received some elementary instruction by the munificence of a great European traveller,

to whom their father had been a body-servant during his journeys in the interior of the country.

In General Montero's case it enabled him to rise from the ranks.

Pedrito,

the younger,

incorrigibly lazy and slovenly,

had drifted aimlessly from one coast town to another,

hanging about counting-houses,

attaching himself to strangers as a sort of valet-de-place,

picking up an easy and disreputable living.

His ability to read did nothing for him but fill his head with absurd visions.

His actions were usually determined by motives so improbable in themselves as to escape the penetration of a rational person.

Thus at first sight the agent of the Gould Concession in Sta. Marta had credited him with the possession of sane views,

and even with a restraining power over the general's everlastingly discontented vanity.

It could never have entered his head that Pedrito Montero,

lackey or inferior scribe,

lodged in the garrets of the various Parisian hotels where the Costaguana Legation used to shelter its diplomatic dignity,

had been devouring the lighter sort of historical works in the French language,

such,

for instance as the books of Imbert de Saint Amand upon the Second Empire.

But Pedrito had been struck by the splendour of a brilliant court,

and had conceived the idea of an existence for himself where,

like the Duc de Morny,

he would associate the command of every pleasure with the conduct of political affairs and enjoy power supremely in every way.

Nobody could have guessed that.

And yet this was one of the immediate causes of the Monterist Revolution.

This will appear less incredible by the reflection that the fundamental causes were the same as ever,

rooted in the political immaturity of the people,

in the indolence of the upper classes and the mental darkness of the lower.

Pedrito Montero saw in the elevation of his brother the road wide open to his wildest imaginings.

This was what made the Monterist pronunciamiento so unpreventable.

The general himself probably could have been bought off,

pacified with flatteries,

despatched on a diplomatic mission to Europe.

It was his brother who had egged him on from first to last.

He wanted to become the most brilliant statesman of South America.

He did not desire supreme power.

He would have been afraid of its labour and risk,

in fact.

Before all,

Pedrito Montero,

taught by his European experience,

meant to acquire a serious fortune for himself.

With this object in view he obtained from his brother,

on the very morrow of the successful battle,

the permission to push on over the mountains and take possession of Sulaco.

Sulaco was the land of future prosperity,

the chosen land of material progress,

the only province in the Republic of interest to European capitalists.

Pedrito Montero,

following the example of the Duc de Morny,

meant to have his share of this prosperity.

This is what he meant literally.

Now his brother was master of the country,

whether as President,

Dictator,

or even as Emperor --why not as an Emperor?

--he meant to demand a share in every enterprise --in railways,

in mines,

in sugar estates,

in cotton mills,

in land companies,

in each and every undertaking --as the price of his protection.

The desire to be on the spot early was the real cause of the celebrated ride over the mountains with some two hundred llaneros,

an enterprise of which the dangers had not appeared at first clearly to his impatience.

Coming from a series of victories,

it seemed to him that a Montero had only to appear to be master of the situation.

This illusion had betrayed him into a rashness of which he was becoming aware.

As he rode at the head of his llaneros he regretted that there were so few of them.

The enthusiasm of the populace reassured him.

They yelled "Viva Montero!

Viva Pedrito!"

In order to make them still more enthusiastic,

and from the natural pleasure he had in dissembling,

he dropped the reins on his horse's neck,

and with a tremendous effect of familiarity and confidence slipped his hands under the arms of Senores Fuentes and Gamacho.

In that posture,

with a ragged town mozo holding his horse by the bridle,

he rode triumphantly across the Plaza to the door of the Intendencia.

Its old gloomy walls seemed to shake in the acclamations that rent the air and covered the crashing peals of the cathedral bells.

Pedro Montero,

the brother of the general,

dismounted into a shouting and perspiring throng of enthusiasts whom the ragged Nationals were pushing back fiercely.

Ascending a few steps he surveyed the large crowd gaping at him and the bullet-speckled walls of the houses opposite lightly veiled by a sunny haze of dust.

The word "_Pourvenir_" in immense black capitals,

alternating with broken windows,

stared at him across the vast space;

and he thought with delight of the hour of vengeance,

because he was very sure of laying his hands upon Decoud.

On his left hand,

Gamacho,

big and hot,

wiping his hairy wet face,

uncovered a set of yellow fangs in a grin of stupid hilarity.

On his right,

Senor Fuentes,

small and lean,

looked on with compressed lips.

The crowd stared literally open-mouthed,

lost in eager stillness,

as though they had expected the great guerrillero,

the famous Pedrito,

to begin scattering at once some sort of visible largesse.

What he began was a speech.

He began it with the shouted word "Citizens!"

which reached even those in the middle of the Plaza.

Afterwards the greater part of the citizens remained fascinated by the orator's action alone,

his tip-toeing,

the arms flung above his head with the fists clenched,

a hand laid flat upon the heart,

the silver gleam of rolling eyes,

the sweeping,

pointing,

embracing gestures,

a hand laid familiarly on Gamacho's shoulder;

a hand waved formally towards the little black-coated person of Senor Fuentes,

advocate and politician and a true friend of the people.

The vivas of those nearest to the orator bursting out suddenly propagated themselves irregularly to the confines of the crowd,

like flames running over dry grass,

and expired in the opening of the streets.

In the intervals,

over the swarming Plaza brooded a heavy silence,

in which the mouth of the orator went on opening and shutting,

and detached phrases --"The happiness of the people,"

"Sons of the country,"

"The entire world,

el mundo entiero" --reached even the packed steps of the cathedral with a feeble clear ring,

thin as the buzzing of a mosquito.

But the orator struck his breast;

he seemed to prance between his two supporters.

It was the supreme effort of his peroration.

Then the two smaller figures disappeared from the public gaze and the enormous Gamacho,

left alone,

advanced,

raising his hat high above his head.

Then he covered himself proudly and yelled out,

"Ciudadanos!"

A dull roar greeted Senor Gamacho,

ex-pedlar of the Campo,

Commandante of the National Guards.

Upstairs Pedrito Montero walked about rapidly from one wrecked room of the Intendencia to another,

snarling incessantly --

"What stupidity!

What destruction!"

Senor Fuentes,

following,

would relax his taciturn disposition to murmur --

"It is all the work of Gamacho and his Nationals;"

and then,

inclining his head on his left shoulder,

would press together his lips so firmly that a little hollow would appear at each corner.

He had his nomination for Political Chief of the town in his pocket,

and was all impatience to enter upon his functions.

In the long audience room,

with its tall mirrors all starred by stones,

the hangings torn down and the canopy over the platform at the upper end pulled to pieces,

the vast,

deep muttering of the crowd and the howling voice of Gamacho speaking just below reached them through the shutters as they stood idly in dimness and desolation.

"The brute!"

observed his Excellency Don Pedro Montero through clenched teeth.

"We must contrive as quickly as possible to send him and his Nationals out there to fight Hernandez."

The new Gefe Politico only jerked his head sideways,

and took a puff at his cigarette in sign of his agreement with this method for ridding the town of Gamacho and his inconvenient rabble.

Pedrito Montero looked with disgust at the absolutely bare floor,

and at the belt of heavy gilt picture-frames running round the room,

out of which the remnants of torn and slashed canvases fluttered like dingy rags.

"We are not barbarians,"

he said.

This was what said his Excellency,

the popular Pedrito,

the guerrillero skilled in the art of laying ambushes,

charged by his brother at his own demand with the organization of Sulaco on democratic principles.

The night before,

during the consultation with his partisans,

who had come out to meet him in Rincon,

he had opened his intentions to Senor Fuentes --

"We shall organize a popular vote,

by yes or no,

confiding the destinies of our beloved country to the wisdom and valiance of my heroic brother,

the invincible general.

A plebiscite.

Do you understand?"

And Senor Fuentes,

puffing out his leathery cheeks,

had inclined his head slightly to the left,

letting a thin,

bluish jet of smoke escape through his pursed lips.

He had understood.

His Excellency was exasperated at the devastation.

Not a single chair,

table,

sofa,

etagere or console had been left in the state rooms of the Intendencia.

His Excellency,

though twitching all over with rage,

was restrained from bursting into violence by a sense of his remoteness and isolation.

His heroic brother was very far away.

Meantime,

how was he going to take his siesta?

He had expected to find comfort and luxury in the Intendencia after a year of hard camp life,

ending with the hardships and privations of the daring dash upon Sulaco --upon the province which was worth more in wealth and influence than all the rest of the Republic's territory.

He would get even with Gamacho by-and-by.

And Senor Gamacho's oration,

delectable to popular ears,

went on in the heat and glare of the Plaza like the uncouth howlings of an inferior sort of devil cast into a white-hot furnace.

Every moment he had to wipe his streaming face with his bare fore-arm;

he had flung off his coat,

and had turned up the sleeves of his shirt high above the elbows;

but he kept on his head the large cocked hat with white plumes.

His ingenuousness cherished this sign of his rank as Commandante of the National Guards.

Approving and grave murmurs greeted his periods.

His opinion was that war should be declared at once against France,

England,

Germany,

and the United States,

who,

by introducing railways,

mining enterprises,

colonization,

and under such other shallow pretences,

aimed at robbing poor people of their lands,

and with the help of these Goths and paralytics,

the aristocrats would convert them into toiling and miserable slaves.

And the leperos,

flinging about the corners of their dirty white mantas,

yelled their approbation.

General Montero,

Gamacho howled with conviction,

was the only man equal to the patriotic task.

They assented to that,

too.

The morning was wearing on;

there were already signs of disruption,

currents and eddies in the crowd.

Some were seeking the shade of the walls and under the trees of the Alameda.

Horsemen spurred through,

shouting;

groups of sombreros set level on heads against the vertical sun were drifting away into the streets,

where the open doors of pulperias revealed an enticing gloom resounding with the gentle tinkling of guitars.

The National Guards were thinking of siesta,

and the eloquence of Gamacho,

their chief,

was exhausted.

Later on,

when,

in the cooler hours of the afternoon,

they tried to assemble again for further consideration of public affairs,

detachments of Montero's cavalry camped on the Alameda charged them without parley,

at speed,

with long lances levelled at their flying backs as far as the ends of the streets.

The National Guards of Sulaco were surprised by this proceeding.

But they were not indignant.

No Costaguanero had ever learned to question the eccentricities of a military force.

They were part of the natural order of things.

This must be,

they concluded,

some kind of administrative measure,

no doubt.

But the motive of it escaped their unaided intelligence,

and their chief and orator,

Gamacho,

Commandante of the National Guard,

was lying drunk and asleep in the bosom of his family.

His bare feet were upturned in the shadows repulsively,

in the manner of a corpse.

His eloquent mouth had dropped open.

His youngest daughter,

scratching her head with one hand,

with the other waved a green bough over his scorched and peeling face.

CHAPTER SIX

The declining sun had shifted the shadows from west to east amongst the houses of the town.

It had shifted them upon the whole extent of the immense Campo,

with the white walls of its haciendas on the knolls dominating the green distances;

with its grass-thatched ranches crouching in the folds of ground by the banks of streams;

with the dark islands of clustered trees on a clear sea of grass,

and the precipitous range of the Cordillera,

immense and motionless,

emerging from the billows of the lower forests like the barren coast of a land of giants.

The sunset rays striking the snow-slope of Higuerota from afar gave it an air of rosy youth,

while the serrated mass of distant peaks remained black,

as if calcined in the fiery radiance.

The undulating surface of the forests seemed powdered with pale gold dust;

and away there,

beyond Rincon,

hidden from the town by two wooded spurs,

the rocks of the San Tome gorge,

with the flat wall of the mountain itself crowned by gigantic ferns,

took on warm tones of brown and yellow,

with red rusty streaks,

and the dark green clumps of bushes rooted in crevices.

From the plain the stamp sheds and the houses of the mine appeared dark and small,

high up,

like the nests of birds clustered on the ledges of a cliff.

The zigzag paths resembled faint tracings scratched on the wall of a cyclopean blockhouse.

To the two serenos of the mine on patrol duty,

strolling,

carbine in hand,

and watchful eyes,

in the shade of the trees lining the stream near the bridge,

Don Pepe,

descending the path from the upper plateau,

appeared no bigger than a large beetle.

With his air of aimless,

insect-like going to and fro upon the face of the rock,

Don Pepe's figure kept on descending steadily,

and,

when near the bottom,

sank at last behind the roofs of store-houses,

forges,

and workshops.

For a time the pair of serenos strolled back and forth before the bridge,

on which they had stopped a horseman holding a large white envelope in his hand.

Then Don Pepe,

emerging in the village street from amongst the houses,

not a stone's throw from the frontier bridge,

approached,

striding in wide dark trousers tucked into boots,

a white linen jacket,

sabre at his side,

and revolver at his belt.

In this disturbed time nothing could find the Senor Gobernador with his boots off,

as the saying is.

At a slight nod from one of the serenos,

the man,

a messenger from the town,

dismounted,

and crossed the bridge,

leading his horse by the bridle.

Don Pepe received the letter from his other hand,

slapped his left side and his hips in succession,

feeling for his spectacle case.

After settling the heavy silvermounted affair astride his nose,

and adjusting it carefully behind his ears,

he opened the envelope,

holding it up at about a foot in front of his eyes.

The paper he pulled out contained some three lines of writing.

He looked at them for a long time.

His grey moustache moved slightly up and down,

and the wrinkles,

radiating at the corners of his eyes,

ran together.

He nodded serenely.

"Bueno,"

he said.

"There is no answer."

Then,

in his quiet,

kindly way,

he engaged in a cautious conversation with the man,

who was willing to talk cheerily,

as if something lucky had happened to him recently.

He had seen from a distance Sotillo's infantry camped along the shore of the harbour on each side of the Custom House.

They had done no damage to the buildings.

The foreigners of the railway remained shut up within the yards.

They were no longer anxious to shoot poor people.

He cursed the foreigners;

then he reported Montero's entry and the rumours of the town.

The poor were going to be made rich now.

That was very good.

More he did not know,

and,

breaking into propitiatory smiles,

he intimated that he was hungry and thirsty.

The old major directed him to go to the alcalde of the first village.

The man rode off,

and Don Pepe,

striding slowly in the direction of a little wooden belfry,

looked over a hedge into a little garden,

and saw Father Roman sitting in a white hammock slung between two orange trees in front of the presbytery.

An enormous tamarind shaded with its dark foliage the whole white framehouse.

A young Indian girl with long hair,

big eyes,

and small hands and feet,

carried out a wooden chair,

while a thin old woman,

crabbed and vigilant,

watched her all the time from the verandah.

Don Pepe sat down in the chair and lighted a cigar;

the priest drew in an immense quantity of snuff out of the hollow of his palm.

On his reddish-brown face,

worn,

hollowed as if crumbled,

the eyes,

fresh and candid,

sparkled like two black diamonds.

Don Pepe,

in a mild and humorous voice,

informed Father Roman that Pedrito Montero,

by the hand of Senor Fuentes,

had asked him on what terms he would surrender the mine in proper working order to a legally constituted commission of patriotic citizens,

escorted by a small military force.

The priest cast his eyes up to heaven.

However,

Don Pepe continued,

the mozo who brought the letter said that Don Carlos Gould was alive,

and so far unmolested.

Father Roman expressed in a few words his thankfulness at hearing of the Senor Administrador's safety.

The hour of oration had gone by in the silvery ringing of a bell in the little belfry.

The belt of forest closing the entrance of the valley stood like a screen between the low sun and the street of the village.

At the other end of the rocky gorge,

between the walls of basalt and granite,

a forest-clad mountain,

hiding all the range from the San Tome dwellers,

rose steeply,

lighted up and leafy to the very top.

Three small rosy clouds hung motionless overhead in the great depth of blue.

Knots of people sat in the street between the wattled huts.

Before the casa of the alcalde,

the foremen of the night-shift,

already assembled to lead their men,

squatted on the ground in a circle of leather skull-caps,

and,

bowing their bronze backs,

were passing round the gourd of mate.

The mozo from the town,

having fastened his horse to a wooden post before the door,

was telling them the news of Sulaco as the blackened gourd of the decoction passed from hand to hand.

The grave alcalde himself,

in a white waistcloth and a flowered chintz gown with sleeves,

open wide upon his naked stout person with an effect of a gaudy bathing robe,

stood by,

wearing a rough beaver hat at the back of his head,

and grasping a tall staff with a silver knob in his hand.

These insignia of his dignity had been conferred upon him by the Administration of the mine,

the fountain of honour,

of prosperity,

and peace.

He had been one of the first immigrants into this valley;

his sons and sons-in-law worked within the mountain which seemed with its treasures to pour down the thundering ore shoots of the upper mesa,

the gifts of well-being,

security,

and justice upon the toilers.

He listened to the news from the town with curiosity and indifference,

as if concerning another world than his own.

And it was true that they appeared to him so.

In a very few years the sense of belonging to a powerful organization had been developed in these harassed,

half-wild Indians.

They were proud of,

and attached to,

the mine.

It had secured their confidence and belief.

They invested it with a protecting and invincible virtue as though it were a fetish made by their own hands,

for they were ignorant,

and in other respects did not differ appreciably from the rest of mankind which puts infinite trust in its own creations.

It never entered the alcalde's head that the mine could fail in its protection and force.

Politics were good enough for the people of the town and the Campo.

His yellow,

round face,

with wide nostrils,

and motionless in expression,

resembled a fierce full moon.

He listened to the excited vapourings of the mozo without misgivings,

without surprise,

without any active sentiment whatever.

Padre Roman sat dejectedly balancing himself,

his feet just touching the ground,

his hands gripping the edge of the hammock.

With less confidence,

but as ignorant as his flock,

he asked the major what did he think was going to happen now.

Don Pepe,

bolt upright in the chair,

folded his hands peacefully on the hilt of his sword,

standing perpendicular between his thighs,

and answered that he did not know.

The mine could be defended against any force likely to be sent to take possession.

On the other hand,

from the arid character of the valley,

when the regular supplies from the Campo had been cut off,

the population of the three villages could be starved into submission.

Don Pepe exposed these contingencies with serenity to Father Roman,

who,

as an old campaigner,

was able to understand the reasoning of a military man.

They talked with simplicity and directness.

Father Roman was saddened at the idea of his flock being scattered or else enslaved.

He had no illusions as to their fate,

not from penetration,

but from long experience of political atrocities,

which seemed to him fatal and unavoidable in the life of a State.

The working of the usual public institutions presented itself to him most distinctly as a series of calamities overtaking private individuals and flowing logically from each other through hate,

revenge,

folly,

and rapacity,

as though they had been part of a divine dispensation.

Father Roman's clear-sightedness was served by an uninformed intelligence;

but his heart,

preserving its tenderness amongst scenes of carnage,

spoliation,

and violence,

abhorred these calamities the more as his association with the victims was closer.

He entertained towards the Indians of the valley feelings of paternal scorn.

He had been marrying,

baptizing,

confessing,

absolving,

and burying the workers of the San Tome mine with dignity and unction for five years or more;

and he believed in the sacredness of these ministrations,

which made them his own in a spiritual sense.

They were dear to his sacerdotal supremacy.

Mrs. Gould's earnest interest in the concerns of these people enhanced their importance in the priest's eyes,

because it really augmented his own.

When talking over with her the innumerable Marias and Brigidas of the villages,

he felt his own humanity expand.

Padre Roman was incapable of fanaticism to an almost reprehensible degree.

The English senora was evidently a heretic;

but at the same time she seemed to him wonderful and angelic.

Whenever that confused state of his feelings occurred to him,

while strolling,

for instance,

his breviary under his arm,

in the wide shade of the tamarind,

he would stop short to inhale with a strong snuffling noise a large quantity of snuff,

and shake his head profoundly.

At the thought of what might befall the illustrious senora presently,

he became gradually overcome with dismay.

He voiced it in an agitated murmur.

Even Don Pepe lost his serenity for a moment.

He leaned forward stiffly.

"Listen,

Padre.

The very fact that those thieving macaques in Sulaco are trying to find out the price of my honour proves that Senor Don Carlos and all in the Casa Gould are safe.

As to my honour,

that also is safe,

as every man,

woman,

and child knows.

But the negro Liberals who have snatched the town by surprise do not know that.

Bueno.

Let them sit and wait.

While they wait they can do no harm."

And he regained his composure.

He regained it easily,

because whatever happened his honour of an old officer of Paez was safe.

He had promised Charles Gould that at the approach of an armed force he would defend the gorge just long enough to give himself time to destroy scientifically the whole plant,

buildings,

and workshops of the mine with heavy charges of dynamite;

block with ruins the main tunnel,

break down the pathways,

blow up the dam of the water-power,

shatter the famous Gould Concession into fragments,

flying sky high out of a horrified world.

The mine had got hold of Charles Gould with a grip as deadly as ever it had laid upon his father.

But this extreme resolution had seemed to Don Pepe the most natural thing in the world.

His measures had been taken with judgment.

Everything was prepared with a careful completeness.

And Don Pepe folded his hands pacifically on his sword hilt,

and nodded at the priest.

In his excitement,

Father Roman had flung snuff in handfuls at his face,

and,

all besmeared with tobacco,

round-eyed,

and beside himself,

had got out of the hammock to walk about,

uttering exclamations.

Don Pepe stroked his grey and pendant moustache,

whose fine ends hung far below the clean-cut line of his jaw,

and spoke with a conscious pride in his reputation.

"So,

Padre,

I don't know what will happen.

But I know that as long as I am here Don Carlos can speak to that macaque,

Pedrito Montero,

and threaten the destruction of the mine with perfect assurance that he will be taken seriously.

For people know me."

He began to turn the cigar in his lips a little nervously,

and went on --

"But that is talk --good for the politicos.

I am a military man.

I do not know what may happen.

But I know what ought to be done --the mine should march upon the town with guns,

axes,

knives tied up to sticks --por Dios.

That is what should be done.

Only --"

His folded hands twitched on the hilt.

The cigar turned faster in the corner of his lips.

"And who should lead but I?

Unfortunately --observe --I have given my word of honour to Don Carlos not to let the mine fall into the hands of these thieves.

In war --you know this,

Padre --the fate of battles is uncertain,

and whom could I leave here to act for me in case of defeat?

The explosives are ready.

But it would require a man of high honour,

of intelligence,

of judgment,

of courage,

to carry out the prepared destruction.

Somebody I can trust with my honour as I can trust myself.

Another old officer of Paez,

for instance.

Or --or --perhaps one of Paez's old chaplains would do."

He got up,

long,

lank,

upright,

hard,

with his martial moustache and the bony structure of his face,

from which the glance of the sunken eyes seemed to transfix the priest,

who stood still,

an empty wooden snuff-box held upside down in his hand,

and glared back,

speechless,

at the governor of the mine.

CHAPTER SEVEN

At about that time,

in the Intendencia of Sulaco,

Charles Gould was assuring Pedrito Montero,

who had sent a request for his presence there,

that he would never let the mine pass out of his hands for the profit of a Government who had robbed him of it.

The Gould Concession could not be resumed.

His father had not desired it.

The son would never surrender it.

He would never surrender it alive.

And once dead,

where was the power capable of resuscitating such an enterprise in all its vigour and wealth out of the ashes and ruin of destruction?

There was no such power in the country.

And where was the skill and capital abroad that would condescend to touch such an ill-omened corpse?

Charles Gould talked in the impassive tone which had for many years served to conceal his anger and contempt.

He suffered.

He was disgusted with what he had to say.

It was too much like heroics.

In him the strictly practical instinct was in profound discord with the almost mystic view he took of his right.

The Gould Concession was symbolic of abstract justice.

Let the heavens fall.

But since the San Tome mine had developed into world-wide fame his threat had enough force and effectiveness to reach the rudimentary intelligence of Pedro Montero,

wrapped up as it was in the futilities of historical anecdotes.

The Gould Concession was a serious asset in the country's finance,

and,

what was more,

in the private budgets of many officials as well.

It was traditional.

It was known.

It was said.

It was credible.

Every Minister of Interior drew a salary from the San Tome mine.

It was natural.

And Pedrito intended to be Minister of the Interior and President of the Council in his brother's Government.

The Duc de Morny had occupied those high posts during the Second French Empire with conspicuous advantage to himself.

A table,

a chair,

a wooden bedstead had been procured for His Excellency,

who,

after a short siesta,

rendered absolutely necessary by the labours and the pomps of his entry into Sulaco,

had been getting hold of the administrative machine by making appointments,

giving orders,

and signing proclamations.

Alone with Charles Gould in the audience room,

His Excellency managed with his well-known skill to conceal his annoyance and consternation.

He had begun at first to talk loftily of confiscation,

but the want of all proper feeling and mobility in the Senor Administrador's features ended by affecting adversely his power of masterful expression.

Charles Gould had repeated:

"The Government can certainly bring about the destruction of the San Tome mine if it likes;

but without me it can do nothing else."

It was an alarming pronouncement,

and well calculated to hurt the sensibilities of a politician whose mind is bent upon the spoils of victory.

And Charles Gould said also that the destruction of the San Tome mine would cause the ruin of other undertakings,

the withdrawal of European capital,

the withholding,

most probably,

of the last instalment of the foreign loan.

That stony fiend of a man said all these things

(which were accessible to His Excellency's intelligence)

in a coldblooded manner which made one shudder.

A long course of reading historical works,

light and gossipy in tone,

carried out in garrets of Parisian hotels,

sprawling on an untidy bed,

to the neglect of his duties,

menial or otherwise,

had affected the manners of Pedro Montero.

Had he seen around him the splendour of the old Intendencia,

the magnificent hangings,

the gilt furniture ranged along the walls;

had he stood upon a dais on a noble square of red carpet,

he would have probably been very dangerous from a sense of success and elevation.

But in this sacked and devastated residence,

with the three pieces of common furniture huddled up in the middle of the vast apartment,

Pedrito's imagination was subdued by a feeling of insecurity and impermanence.

That feeling and the firm attitude of Charles Gould who had not once,

so far,

pronounced the word "Excellency,"

diminished him in his own eyes.

He assumed the tone of an enlightened man of the world,

and begged Charles Gould to dismiss from his mind every cause for alarm.

He was now conversing,

he reminded him,

with the brother of the master of the country,

charged with a reorganizing mission.

The trusted brother of the master of the country,

he repeated.

Nothing was further from the thoughts of that wise and patriotic hero than ideas of destruction.

"I entreat you,

Don Carlos,

not to give way to your anti-democratic prejudices,"

he cried,

in a burst of condescending effusion.

Pedrito Montero surprised one at first sight by the vast development of his bald forehead,

a shiny yellow expanse between the crinkly coal-black tufts of hair without any lustre,

the engaging form of his mouth,

and an unexpectedly cultivated voice.

But his eyes,

very glistening as if freshly painted on each side of his hooked nose,

had a round,

hopeless,

birdlike stare when opened fully.

Now,

however,

he narrowed them agreeably,

throwing his square chin up and speaking with closed teeth slightly through the nose,

with what he imagined to be the manner of a grand seigneur.

In that attitude,

he declared suddenly that the highest expression of democracy was Caesarism: the imperial rule based upon the direct popular vote.

Caesarism was conservative.

It was strong.

It recognized the legitimate needs of democracy which requires orders,

titles,

and distinctions.

They would be showered upon deserving men.

Caesarism was peace.

It was progressive.

It secured the prosperity of a country.

Pedrito Montero was carried away.

Look at what the Second Empire had done for France.

It was a regime which delighted to honour men of Don Carlos's stamp.

The Second Empire fell,

but that was because its chief was devoid of that military genius which had raised General Montero to the pinnacle of fame and glory.

Pedrito elevated his hand jerkily to help the idea of pinnacle,

of fame.

"We shall have many talks yet.

We shall understand each other thoroughly,

Don Carlos!"

he cried in a tone of fellowship.

Republicanism had done its work.

Imperial democracy was the power of the future.

Pedrito,

the guerrillero,

showing his hand,

lowered his voice forcibly.

A man singled out by his fellow-citizens for the honourable nickname of El Rey de Sulaco could not but receive a full recognition from an imperial democracy as a great captain of industry and a person of weighty counsel,

whose popular designation would be soon replaced by a more solid title.

"Eh,

Don Carlos?

No!

What do you say?

Conde de Sulaco --Eh?

--or marquis ..."

He ceased.

The air was cool on the Plaza,

where a patrol of cavalry rode round and round without penetrating into the streets,

which resounded with shouts and the strumming of guitars issuing from the open doors of pulperias.

The orders were not to interfere with the enjoyments of the people.

And above the roofs,

next to the perpendicular lines of the cathedral towers the snowy curve of Higuerota blocked a large space of darkening blue sky before the windows of the Intendencia.

After a time Pedrito Montero,

thrusting his hand in the bosom of his coat,

bowed his head with slow dignity.

The audience was over.

Charles Gould on going out passed his hand over his forehead as if to disperse the mists of an oppressive dream,

whose grotesque extravagance leaves behind a subtle sense of bodily danger and intellectual decay.

In the passages and on the staircases of the old palace Montero's troopers lounged about insolently,

smoking and making way for no one;

the clanking of sabres and spurs resounded all over the building.

Three silent groups of civilians in severe black waited in the main gallery,

formal and helpless,

a little huddled up,

each keeping apart from the others,

as if in the exercise of a public duty they had been overcome by a desire to shun the notice of every eye.

These were the deputations waiting for their audience.

The one from the Provincial Assembly,

more restless and uneasy in its corporate expression,

was overtopped by the big face of Don Juste Lopez,

soft and white,

with prominent eyelids and wreathed in impenetrable solemnity as if in a dense cloud.

The President of the Provincial Assembly,

coming bravely to save the last shred of parliamentary institutions

(on the English model),

averted his eyes from the Administrador of the San Tome mine as a dignified rebuke of his little faith in that only saving principle.

The mournful severity of that reproof did not affect Charles Gould,

but he was sensible to the glances of the others directed upon him without reproach,

as if only to read their own fate upon his face.

All of them had talked,

shouted,

and declaimed in the great sala of the Casa Gould.

The feeling of compassion for those men,

struck with a strange impotence in the toils of moral degradation,

did not induce him to make a sign.

He suffered from his fellowship in evil with them too much.

He crossed the Plaza unmolested.

The Amarilla Club was full of festive ragamuffins.

Their frowsy heads protruded from every window,

and from within came drunken shouts,

the thumping of feet,

and the twanging of harps.

Broken bottles strewed the pavement below.

Charles Gould found the doctor still in his house.

Dr. Monygham came away from the crack in the shutter through which he had been watching the street.

"Ah!

You are back at last!"

he said in a tone of relief.

"I have been telling Mrs. Gould that you were perfectly safe,

but I was not by any means certain that the fellow would have let you go."

"Neither was I,"

confessed Charles Gould,

laying his hat on the table.

"You will have to take action."

The silence of Charles Gould seemed to admit that this was the only course.

This was as far as Charles Gould was accustomed to go towards expressing his intentions.

"I hope you did not warn Montero of what you mean to do,"

the doctor said,

anxiously.

"I tried to make him see that the existence of the mine was bound up with my personal safety,"

continued Charles Gould,

looking away from the doctor,

and fixing his eyes upon the water-colour sketch upon the wall.

"He believed you?"

the doctor asked,

eagerly.

"God knows!"

said Charles Gould.

"I owed it to my wife to say that much.

He is well enough informed.

He knows that I have Don Pepe there.

Fuentes must have told him.

They know that the old major is perfectly capable of blowing up the San Tome mine without hesitation or compunction.

Had it not been for that I don't think I'd have left the Intendencia a free man.

He would blow everything up from loyalty and from hate --from hate of these Liberals,

as they call themselves.

Liberals!

The words one knows so well have a nightmarish meaning in this country.

Liberty,

democracy,

patriotism,

government --all of them have a flavour of folly and murder.

Haven't they,

doctor?

...I alone can restrain Don Pepe.

If they were to --to do away with me,

nothing could prevent him."

"They will try to tamper with him,"

the doctor suggested,

thoughtfully.

"It is very possible,"

Charles Gould said very low,

as if speaking to himself,

and still gazing at the sketch of the San Tome gorge upon the wall.

"Yes,

I expect they will try that."

Charles Gould looked for the first time at the doctor.

"It would give me time,"

he added.

"Exactly,"

said Dr. Monygham,

suppressing his excitement.

"Especially if Don Pepe behaves diplomatically.

Why shouldn't he give them some hope of success?

Eh?

Otherwise you wouldn't gain so much time.

Couldn't he be instructed to --"

Charles Gould,

looking at the doctor steadily,

shook his head,

but the doctor continued with a certain amount of fire --

"Yes,

to enter into negotiations for the surrender of the mine.

It is a good notion.

You would mature your plan.

Of course,

I don't ask what it is.

I don't want to know.

I would refuse to listen to you if you tried to tell me.

I am not fit for confidences."

"What nonsense!"

muttered Charles Gould,

with displeasure.

He disapproved of the doctor's sensitiveness about that far-off episode of his life.

So much memory shocked Charles Gould.

It was like morbidness.

And again he shook his head.

He refused to tamper with the open rectitude of Don Pepe's conduct,

both from taste and from policy.

Instructions would have to be either verbal or in writing.

In either case they ran the risk of being intercepted.

It was by no means certain that a messenger could reach the mine;

and,

besides,

there was no one to send.

It was on the tip of Charles's tongue to say that only the late Capataz de Cargadores could have been employed with some chance of success and the certitude of discretion.

But he did not say that.

He pointed out to the doctor that it would have been bad policy.

Directly Don Pepe let it be supposed that he could be bought over,

the Administrador's personal safety and the safety of his friends would become endangered.

For there would be then no reason for moderation.

The incorruptibility of Don Pepe was the essential and restraining fact.

The doctor hung his head and admitted that in a way it was so.

He couldn't deny to himself that the reasoning was sound enough.

Don Pepe's usefulness consisted in his unstained character.

As to his own usefulness,

he reflected bitterly it was also his own character.

He declared to Charles Gould that he had the means of keeping Sotillo from joining his forces with Montero,

at least for the present.

"If you had had all this silver here,"

the doctor said,

"or even if it had been known to be at the mine,

you could have bribed Sotillo to throw off his recent Monterism.

You could have induced him either to go away in his steamer or even to join you."

"Certainly not that last,"

Charles Gould declared,

firmly.

"What could one do with a man like that,

afterwards --tell me,

doctor?

The silver is gone,

and I am glad of it.

It would have been an immediate and strong temptation.

The scramble for that visible plunder would have precipitated a disastrous ending.

I would have had to defend it,

too.

I am glad we've removed it --even if it is lost.

It would have been a danger and a curse."

"Perhaps he is right,"

the doctor,

an hour later,

said hurriedly to Mrs. Gould,

whom he met in the corridor.

"The thing is done,

and the shadow of the treasure may do just as well as the substance.

Let me try to serve you to the whole extent of my evil reputation.

I am off now to play my game of betrayal with Sotillo,

and keep him off the town."

She put out both her hands impulsively.

"Dr. Monygham,

you are running a terrible risk,"

she whispered,

averting from his face her eyes,

full of tears,

for a short glance at the door of her husband's room.

She pressed both his hands,

and the doctor stood as if rooted to the spot,

looking down at her,

and trying to twist his lips into a smile.

"Oh,

I know you will defend my memory,"

he uttered at last,

and ran tottering down the stairs across the patio,

and out of the house.

In the street he kept up a great pace with his smart hobbling walk,

a case of instruments under his arm.