NOSTROMO
A TALE OF THE SEABOARDBY JOSEPH CONRAD"So fould a sky clears not without a
storm."
-- ShakespeareGARDEN CITY NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1924
COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PRINTED
IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. TO
JOHN GALSWORTHY
"NOSTROMO" is
the most anxiously meditated of the longer novels which belong to the period
following upon the publication of the "Typhoon" volume of short
stories.
I don't mean to say
that I became then conscious of any impending change in my mentality and in my
attitude towards the tasks of my writing life. And perhaps there was never any
change, except in that mysterious, extraneous thing which has nothing to do
with the theories of art; a subtle change in the nature of the inspiration; a
phenomenon for which I can not in any way be held responsible. What, however,
did cause me some concern was that after finishing the last story of the
"Typhoon" volume it seemed somehow that there was nothing more in the
world to write about.
This so strangely
negative but disturbing mood lasted some little time; and then, as with many of
my longer stories, the first hint for "Nostromo" came to me in the
shape of a vagrant anecdote completely destitute of valuable details.
As a matter of fact in
1875 or '6, when very young, in the West Indies or rather in the Gulf of
Mexico, for my contacts with land were short, few, and fleeting, I heard the
story of some man who was supposed to have stolen single-handed a whole
lighter-full of silver, somewhere on the Tierra Firme seaboard during the
troubles of a revolution.
On the face of it this
was something of a feat. But I heard no details, and having no particular
interest in crime qua crime I was not likely to keep that one in my mind. And I
forgot it till twenty-six or seven years afterwards I came upon the very thing
in a shabby volume picked up outside a second-hand book-shop. It was the life
story of an American seaman written by himself with the assistance of a
journalist. In the course of his wanderings that American sailor worked for
some months on board a schooner, the master and owner of which was the thief of
whom I had heard in my very young days. I have no doubt of that because there
could hardly have been two exploits of that peculiar kind in the same part of
the world and both connected with a South American revolution.
The fellow had actually
managed to steal a lighter with silver, and this, it seems, only because he was
implicitly trusted by his employers, who must have been singularly poor judges
of character. In the sailor's story he is represented as an unmitigated rascal,
a small cheat, stupidly ferocious, morose, of mean appearance, and altogether
unworthy of the greatness this opportunity had thrust upon him. What was
interesting was that he would boast of it openly.
He used to say:
"People think I make a lot of money in this schooner of mine. But that is
nothing. I don't care for that. Now and then I go away quietly and lift a bar
of silver. I must get rich slowly -- you understand."
There was also another
curious point about the man. Once in the course of some quarrel the sailor
threatened him: "What's to prevent me reporting ashore what you have told
me about that silver?"
The cynical ruffian was
not alarmed in the least. He actually laughed. "You fool, if you dare talk
like that on shore about me you will get a knife stuck in your back. Every man,
woman, and child in that port is my friend. And who's to prove the lighter
wasn't sunk? I didn't show you where the silver is hidden. Did I? So you know
nothing. And suppose I lied? Eh?"
Ultimately the sailor,
disgusted with the sordid meanness of that impenitent thief, deserted from the
schooner. The whole episode takes about three pages of his autobiography.
Nothing to speak of; but as I looked them over, the curious confirmation of the
few casual words heard in my early youth evoked the memories of that distant
time when everything was so fresh, so surprising, so venturesome, so
interesting; bits of strange coasts under the stars, shadows of hills in the
sunshine, men's passions in the dusk, gossip half-forgotten, faces grown dim. .
. . Perhaps, perhaps, there still was in the world something to write about.
Yet I did not see anything at first in the mere story. A rascal steals a large
parcel of a valuable commodity -- so people say. It's either true or untrue;
and in any case it has no value in itself. To invent a circumstantial account
of the robbery did not appeal to me, because my talents not running that way I
did not think that the game was worth the candle. It was only when it dawned
upon me that the purloiner of the treasure need not necessarily be a confirmed
rogue, that he could be even a man of character, an actor and possibly a victim
in the changing scenes of a revolution, it was only then that I had the first
vision of a twilight country which was to become the province of Sulaco, with
its high shadowy Sierra and its misty Campo for mute witnesses of events
flowing from the passions of men short-sighted in good and evil.
Such are in very truth
the obscure origins of "Nostromo" -- the book. From that moment, I
suppose, it had to be. Yet even then I hesitated, as if warned by the instinct
of self-preservation from venturing on a distant and toilsome journey into a
land full of intrigues and revolutions. But it had to be done.
It took the best part
of the years 1903-4 to do; with many intervals of renewed hesitation, lest I
should lose myself in the ever-enlarging vistas opening before me as I
progressed deeper in my knowledge of the country. Often, also, when I had
thought myself to a standstill over the tangled-up affairs of the Republic, I
would, figuratively speaking, pack my bag, rush away from Sulaco for a change
of air and write a few pages of the "Mirror of the Sea." But
generally, as I've said before, my sojourn on the Continent of Latin America,
famed for its hospitality, lasted for about two years. On my return I found
(speaking somewhat in the style of Captain Gulliver) my family all well, my
wife heartily glad to learn that the fuss was all over, and our small boy
considerably grown during my absence.
My principal authority
for the history of Costaguana is, of course, my venerated friend, the late Don
Jose Avellanos, Minister to the Courts of England and Spain, etc., etc., in his
impartial and eloquent "History of Fifty Years of Misrule." That work
was never published -- the reader will discover why -- and I am in fact the
only person in the world possessed of its contents. I have mastered them in not
a few hours of earnest meditation, and I hope that my accuracy will be trusted.
In justice to myself, and to allay the fears of prospective readers, I beg to
point out that the few historical allusions are never dragged in for the sake
of parading my unique erudition, but that each of them is closely related to
actuality; either throwing a light on the nature of current events or affecting
directly the fortunes of the people of whom I speak.
As to their own
histories I have tried to set them down, Aristocracy and People, men and women,
Latin and Anglo-Saxon, bandit and politician, with as cool a hand as was
possible in the heat and clash of my own conflicting emotions. And after all
this is also the story of their conflicts. It is for the reader to say how far they
are deserving of interest in their actions and in the secret purposes of their
hearts revealed in the bitter necessities of the time. I confess that, for me,
that time is the time of firm friendships and unforgotten hospitalities. And in
my gratitude I must mention here Mrs. Gould, "the first lady of
Sulaco," whom we may safely leave to the secret devotion of Dr. Monygham,
and Charles Gould, the Idealist-creator of Material Interests whom we must
leave to his Mine -- from which there is no escape in this world.
About Nostromo, the
second of the two racially and socially contrasted men, both captured by the
silver of the San Tomé Mine, I feel bound to say something more.
I did not hesitate to
make that central figure an Italian. First of all the thing is perfectly
credible: Italians were swarming into the Occidental Province at the time, as
anybody who will read further can see; and secondly, there was no one who could
stand so well by the side of Giorgio Viola the Garibaldino, the Idealist of the
old, humanitarian revolutions. For myself I needed there a Man of the People as
free as possible from his class-conventions and all settled modes of thinking.
This is not a side snarl at conventions. My reasons were not moral but
artistic. Had he been an Anglo-Saxon he would have tried to get into local
politics. But Nostromo does not aspire to be a leader in a personal game. He
does not want to raise himself above the mass. He is content to feel himself a
power -- within the People.
But mainly Nostromo is
what he is because I received the inspiration for him in my early days from a
Mediterranean sailor. Those who have read certain pages of mine will see at
once what I mean when I say that Dominic, the padrone of the Tremolino, might
under given circumstances have been a Nostromo. At any rate Dominic would have
understood the younger man perfectly -- if scornfully. He and I were engaged
together in a rather absurd adventure, but the absurdity does not matter. It is
a real satisfaction to think that in my very young days there must, after all,
have been something in me worthy to command that man's half- bitter fidelity,
his half-ironic devotion. Many of Nostromo's speeches I have heard first in
Dominic's voice. His hand on the tiller and his fearless eyes roaming the
horizon from within the monkish hood shadowing his face, he would utter the
usual exordium of his remorseless wisdom: "Vous autres gentilhommes!"
in a caustic tone that hangs on my ear yet. Like Nostromo! "You hombres
finos!" Very much like Nostromo. But Dominic the Corsican nursed a certain
pride of ancestry from which my Nostromo is free; for Nostromo's lineage had to
be more ancient still. He is a man with the weight of countless generations
behind him and no parentage to boast of. . . . Like the People.
In his firm grip on the
earth he inherits, in his improvidence and generosity, in his lavishness with
his gifts, in his manly vanity, in the obscure sense of his greatness and in
his faithful devotion with something despairing as well as desperate in its
impulses, he is a Man of the People, their very own unenvious force, disdaining
to lead but ruling from within. Years afterwards, grown older as the famous
Captain Fidanza, with a stake in the country, going about his many affairs
followed by respectful glances in the modernized streets of Sulaco, calling on
the widow of the cargador, attending the Lodge, listening in unmoved silence to
anarchist speeches at the meeting, the enigmatical patron of the new
revolutionary agitation, the trusted, the wealthy comrade Fidanza with the
knowledge of his moral ruin locked up in his breast, he remains essentially a
Man of the People. In his mingled love and scorn of life and in the bewildered
conviction of having been betrayed, of dying betrayed he hardly knows by what
or by whom, he is still of the People, their undoubted Great Man -- with a
private history of his own.
One more figure of
those stirring times I would like to mention: and that is Antonia Avellanos --
the "beautiful Antonia." Whether she is a possible variation of
Latin- American girlhood I wouldn't dare to affirm. But, for me, she is. Always
a little in the background by the side of her father (my venerated friend) I
hope she has yet relief enough to make intelligible what I am going to say. Of all
the people who had seen with me the birth of the Occidental Republic, she is
the only one who has kept in my memory the aspect of continued life. Antonia
the Aristocrat and Nostromo the Man of the People are the artisans of the New
Era, the true creators of the New State; he by his legendary and daring feat,
she, like a woman, simply by the force of what she is: the only being capable
of inspiring a sincere passion in the heart of a trifler.
If anything could
induce me to revisit Sulaco (I should hate to see all these changes) it would
be Antonia. And the true reason for that -- why not be frank about it? -- the
true reason is that I have modelled her on my first love. How we, a band of
tallish schoolboys, the chums of her two brothers, how we used to look up to
that girl just out of the schoolroom herself, as the standard-bearer of a faith
to which we all were born but which she alone knew how to hold aloft with an
unflinching hope! She had perhaps more glow and less serenity in her soul than
Antonia, but she was an uncompromising Puritan of patriotism with no taint of
the slightest worldliness in her thoughts. I was not the only one in love with
her; but it was I who had to hear oftenest her scathing criticism of my
levities -- very much like poor Decoud -- or stand the brunt of her austere,
unanswerable invective. She did not quite understand -- but never mind. That
afternoon when I came in, a shrinking yet defiant sinner, to say the final
good-bye I received a hand-squeeze that made my heart leap and saw a tear that
took my breath away. She was softened at the last as though she had suddenly
perceived (we were such children still!) that I was really going away for good,
going very far away -- even as far as Sulaco, lying unknown, hidden from our
eyes in the darkness of the Placid Gulf.
That's why I long
sometimes for another glimpse of the "beautiful Antonia" (or can it
be the Other?) moving in the dimness of the great cathedral, saying a short
prayer at the tomb of the first and last Cardinal-Archbishop of Sulaco,
standing absorbed in filial devotion before the monument of Don Jose Avellanos,
and, with a lingering, tender, faithful glance at the medallion-memorial to
Martin Decoud, going out serenely into the sunshine of the Plaza with her
upright carriage and her white head; a relic of the past disregarded by men
awaiting impatiently the Dawns of other New Eras, the coming of more
Revolutions.
But this is the idlest
of dreams; for I did understand perfectly well at the time that the moment the
breath left the body of the Magnificent Capataz, the Man of the People, freed
at last from the toils of love and wealth, there was nothing more for me to do
in Sulaco.
PART FIRST
THE SILVER OF THE MlNE . . . . . . . 3
PART SECOND
THE ISABELS . . . . . . . . . . 135
PART THIRD
THE LIGHTHOUSE . . . . . . . . . 307
IN THE time of Spanish
rule, and for many years afterwards, the town of Sulaco -- the luxuriant beauty
of the orange gardens bears witness to its antiquity -- had never been
commercially anything more important than a coasting port with a fairly large
local trade in ox-hides and indigo. The clumsy deep-sea galleons of the
conquerors that, needing a brisk gale to move at all, would lie becalmed, where
your modern ship built on clipper lines forges ahead by the mere flapping of
her sails, had been barred out of Sulaco by the prevailing calms of its vast
gulf. Some harbours of the earth are made difficult of access by the treachery
of sunken rocks and the tempests of their shores. Sulaco had found an
inviolable sanctuary from the temptations of a trading world in the solemn hush
of the deep Golfo Placido as if within an enormous semi-circular and unroofed
temple open to the ocean, with its walls of lofty mountains hung with the
mourning draperies of cloud.
On one side of this
broad curve in the straight seaboard of the Republic of Costaguana, the last
spur of the coast range forms an insignificant cape whose name is Punta Mala.
From the middle of the gulf the point of the land itself is not visible at all;
but the shoulder of a steep hill at the back can be made out faintly like a
shadow on the sky.
On the other side, what
seems to be an isolated patch of blue mist floats lightly on the glare of the
horizon. This is the peninsula of Azuera, a wild chaos of sharp rocks and stony
levels cut about by vertical ravines. It lies far out to sea like a rough head
of stone stretched from a green-clad coast at the end of a slender neck of sand
covered with thickets of thorny scrub. Utterly waterless, for the rainfall runs
off at once on all sides into the sea, it has not soil enough -- it is said --
to grow a single blade of grass, as if it were blighted by a curse. The poor,
associating by an obscure instinct of consolation the ideas of evil and wealth,
will tell you that it is deadly because of its forbidden treasures. The common
folk of the neighbourhood, peons of the estancias, vaqueros of the seaboard
plains, tame Indians coming miles to market with a bundle of sugar-cane or a
basket of maize worth about threepence, are well aware that heaps of shining
gold lie in the gloom of the deep precipices cleaving the stony levels of
Azuera. Tradition has it that many adventurers of olden time had perished in
the search. The story goes also that within men's memory two wandering sailors
-- Americanos, perhaps, but gringos of some sort for certain -- talked over a
gambling, good-for-nothing mozo, and the three stole a donkey to carry for them
a bundle of dry sticks, a water-skin, and provisions enough to last a few days.
Thus accompanied, and with revolvers at their belts, they had started to chop
their way with machetes through the thorny scrub on the neck of the peninsula.
On the second evening
an upright spiral of smoke (it could only have been from their camp-fire) was
seen for the first time within memory of man standing up faintly upon the sky
above a razor-backed ridge on the stony head. The crew of a coasting schooner,
lying becalmed three miles off the shore, stared at it with amazement till
dark. A negro fisherman, living in a lonely hut in a little bay near by, had seen
the start and was on the lookout for some sign. He called to his wife just as
the sun was about to set. They had watched the strange portent with envy,
incredulity, and awe.
The impious adventurers
gave no other sign. The sailors, the Indian, and the stolen burro were never
seen again. As to the mozo, a Sulaco man -- his wife paid for some masses, and
the poor four-footed beast, being without sin, had been probably permitted to
die; but the two gringos, spectral and alive, are believed to be dwelling to
this day amongst the rocks, under the fatal spell of their success. Their souls
cannot tear themselves away from their bodies mounting guard over the
discovered treasure. They are now rich and hungry and thirsty -- a strange
theory of tenacious gringo ghosts suffering in their starved and parched flesh
of defiant heretics, where a Christian would have renounced and been released.
These, then, are the
legendary inhabitants of Azuera guarding its forbidden wealth; and the shadow
on the sky on one side with the round patch of blue haze blurring the bright
skirt of the horizon on the other, mark the two outermost points of the bend
which bears the name of Golfo Placido, because never a strong wind had been
known to blow upon its waters.
On crossing the imaginary
line drawn from Punta Mala to Azuera the ships from Europe bound to Sulaco lose
at once the strong breezes of the ocean. They become the prey of capricious
airs that play with them for thirty hours at a stretch sometimes. Before them
the head of the calm gulf is filled on most days of the year by a great body of
motionless and opaque clouds. On the rare clear mornings another shadow is cast
upon the sweep of the gulf. The dawn breaks high behind the towering and
serrated wall of the Cordillera, a clear-cut vision of dark peaks rearing their
steep slopes on a lofty pedestal of forest rising from the very edge of the
shore. Amongst them the white head of Higuerota rises majestically upon the
blue. Bare clusters of enormous rocks sprinkle with tiny black dots the smooth
dome of snow.
Then, as the midday sun
withdraws from the gulf the shadow of the mountains, the clouds begin to roll
out of the lower valleys. They swathe in sombre tatters the naked crags of
precipices above the wooded slopes, hide the peaks, smoke in stormy trails
across the snows of Higuerota. The Cordillera is gone from you as if it had
dissolved itself into great piles of grey and black vapours that travel out
slowly to seaward and vanish into thin air all along the front before the blazing
heat of the day. The wasting edge of the cloud-bank always strives for, but
seldom wins, the middle of the gulf. The sun -- as the sailors say -- is eating
it up. Unless perchance a sombre thunder-head breaks away from the main body to
career all over the gulf till it escapes into the offing beyond Azuera, where
it bursts suddenly into flame and crashes like a sinster pirate- ship of the
air, hove-to above the horizon, engaging the sea.
At night the body of
clouds advancing higher up the sky smothers the whole quiet gulf below with an
impenetrable darkness, in which the sound of the falling showers can be heard
beginning and ceasing abruptly -- now here, now there. Indeed, these cloudy
nights are proverbial with the seamen along the whole west coast of a great
continent. Sky, land, and sea disappear together out of the world when the
Placido -- as the saying is -- goes to sleep under its black poncho. The few
stars left below the seaward frown of the vault shine feebly as into the mouth
of a black cavern. In its vastness your ship floats unseen under your feet, her
sails flutter invisible above your head. The eye of God Himself -- they add
with grim profanity -- could not find out what work a man's hand is doing in
there; and you would be free to call the devil to your aid with impunity if
even his malice were not defeated by such a blind darkness.
The shores on the gulf
are steep-to all round; three uninhabited islets basking in the sunshine just
outside the cloud veil, and opposite the entrance to the harbour of Sulaco,
bear the name of "The Isabels."
There is the Great
Isabel; the Little Isabel, which is round; and Hermosa, which is the smallest.
That last is no more
than a foot high, and about seven paces across, a mere flat top of a grey rock which
smokes like a hot cinder after a shower, and where no man would care to venture
a naked sole before sunset. On the Little Isabel an old ragged palm, with a
thick bulging trunk rough with spines, a very witch amongst palm trees, rustles
a dismal bunch of dead leaves above the coarse sand. The Great Isabel has a
spring of fresh water issuing from the overgrown side of a ravine. Resembling
an emerald green wedge of land a mile long, and laid flat upon the sea, it
bears two forest trees standing close together, with a wide spread of shade at
the foot of their smooth trunks. A ravine extending the whole length of the
island is full of bushes; and presenting a deep tangled cleft on the high side
spreads itself out on the other into a shallow depression abutting on a small
strip of sandy shore.
From that low end of
the Great Isabel the eye plunges through an opening two miles away, as abrupt
as if chopped with an axe out of the regular sweep of the coast, right into the
harbour of Sulaco. It is an oblong, lake-like piece of water. On one side the
short wooded spurs and valleys of the Cordillera come down at right angles to
the very strand; on the other the open view of the great Sulaco plain passes
into the opal mystery of great distances overhung by dry haze. The town of
Sulaco itself -- tops of walls, a great cupola, gleams of white miradors in a
vast grove of orange trees -- lies between the mountains and the plain, at some
little distance from its harbour and out of the direct line of sight from the
sea.
THE only sign of
commercial activity within the harbour, visible from the beach of the Great
Isabel, is the square blunt end of the wooden jetty which the Oceanic Steam
Navigation Company (the O.S.N. of familiar speech) had thrown over the shallow
part of the bay soon after they had resolved to make of Sulaco one of their
ports of call for the Republic of Costaguana. The State possesses several
harbours on its long sea- board, but except Cayta, an important place, all are
either small and inconvenient inlets in an iron-bound coast -- like Esmeralda,
for instance, sixty miles to the south -- or else mere open roadsteads exposed
to the winds and fretted by the surf.
Perhaps the very
atmospheric conditions which had kept away the merchant fleets of bygone ages
induced the O.S.N. Company to violate the sanctuary of peace sheltering the
calm existence of Sulaco. The variable airs sporting lightly with the vast
semicircle of waters within the head of Azuera could not baffle the steam power
of their excellent fleet. Year after year the black hulls of their ships had
gone up and down the coast, in and out, past Azuera, past the Isabels, past
Punta Mala -- disregarding everything but the tyranny of time. Their names, the
names of all mythology, became the household words of a coast that had never
been ruled by the gods of Olympus. The Juno was known only for her comfortable
cabins amid- ships, the Saturn for the geniality of her captain and the painted
and gilt luxuriousness of her saloon, whereas the Ganymede was fitted out
mainly for cattle transport, and to be avoided by coastwise passengers. The
humblest Indian in the obscurest village on the coast was familiar with the
Cerberus, a little black puffer without charm or living accommodation to speak
of, whose mission was to creep inshore along the wooded beaches close to mighty
ugly rocks, stopping obligingly before every cluster of huts to collect
produce, down to three- pound parcels of indiarubber bound in a wrapper of dry
grass.
And as they seldom failed
to account for the smallest package, rarely lost a bullock, and had never
drowned a single passenger, the name of the O.S.N. stood very high for
trustworthiness. People declared that under the Company's care their lives and
property were safer on the water than in their own houses on shore.
The O.S.N.'s
superintendent in Sulaco for the whole Costaguana section of the service was
very proud of his Company's standing. He resumed it in a saying which was very
often on his lips, "We never make mistakes." To the Company's
officers it took the form of a severe injunction, "We must make no
mistakes. I'll have no mistakes here, no matter what Smith may do at his
end."
Smith, on whom he had
never set eyes in his life, was the other superintendent of the service,
quartered some fifteen hundred miles away from Sulaco. "Don't talk to me
of your Smith."
Then, calming down
suddenly, he would dismiss the subject with studied negligence.
"Smith knows no
more of this continent than a baby."
"Our excellent Señor
Mitchell" for the business and official world of Sulaco; "Fussy
Joe" for the commanders of the Company's ships, Captain Joseph Mitchell
prided himself on his profound knowledge of men and things in the country --
cosas de Costaguana. Amongst these last he accounted as most unfavourable to
the orderly working of his Company the frequent changes of government brought
about by revolutions of the military type.
The political
atmosphere of the Republic was generally stormy in these days. The fugitive
patriots of the defeated party had the knack of turning up again on the coast
with half a steamer's load of small arms and ammunition. Such resourcefulness
Captain Mitchell considered as perfectly wonderful in view of their utter
destitution at the time of flight. He had observed that "they never seemed
to have enough change about them to pay for their passage ticket out of the
country." And he could speak with knowledge; for on a memorable occasion
he had been called upon to save the life of a dictator, together with the lives
of a few Sulaco officials -- the political chief, the director of the customs,
and the head of police -- belonging to an overturned government. Poor Señor
Ribiera (such was the dictator's name) had come pelting eighty miles over
mountain tracks after the lost battle of Socorro, in the hope of out-distancing
the fatal news -- which, of course, he could not manage to do on a lame mule.
The animal, moreover, expired under him at the end of the Alameda, where the
military band plays sometimes in the evenings between the revolutions.
"Sir," Captain Mitchell would pursue with portentous gravity,
"the ill-timed end of that mule attracted attention to the unfortunate
rider. His features were recognized by several deserters from the Dictatorial
army amongst the rascally mob already engaged in smashing the windows of the
Intendencia."
Early on the morning of
that day the local authorities of Sulaco had fled for refuge to the O.S.N.
Company's offices, a strong building near the shore end of the jetty, leaving
the town to the mercies of a revolutionary rabble; and as the Dictator was
execrated by the populace on account of the severe recruitment law his
necessities had compelled him to enforce during the struggle, he stood a good
chance of being torn to pieces. Providentially, Nostromo -- invaluable fellow
-- with some Italian workmen, imported to work upon the National Central
Railway, was at hand, and managed to snatch him away -- for the time at least.
Ultimately, Captain Mitchell succeeded in taking everybody off in his own gig
to one of the Company's steamers -- it was the Minerva -- just then, as luck
would have it, entering the harbour.
He had to lower these
gentlemen at the end of a rope out of a hole in the wall at the back, while the
mob which, pouring out of the town, had spread itself all along the shore,
howled and foamed at the foot of the building in front. He had to hurry them
then the whole length of the jetty; it had been a desperate dash, neck or
nothing -- and again it was Nostromo, a fellow in a thousand, who, at the head,
this time, of the Company's body of lightermen, held the jetty against the
rushes of the rabble, thus giving the fugitives time to reach the gig lying
ready for them at the other end with the Company's flag at the stern. Sticks,
stones, shots flew; knives, too, were thrown. Captain Mitchell exhibited
willingly the long cicatrice of a cut over his left ear and temple, made by a
razor-blade fastened to a stick -- a weapon, he explained, very much in favour
with the "worst kind of nigger out here."
Captain Mitchell was a
thick, elderly man, wearing high, pointed collars and short side-whiskers,
partial to white waistcoats, and really very communicative under his air of
pompous reserve.
"These
gentlemen," he would say, staring with great solemnity, "had to run
like rabbits, sir. I ran like a rabbit myself. Certain forms of death are -- er
-- distasteful to a -- a -- er -- respectable man. They would have pounded me
to death, too. A crazy mob, sir, does not discriminate. Under providence we
owed our preservation to my Capataz de Cargadores, as they called him in the
town, a man who, when I discovered his value, sir, was just the bos'n of an
Italian ship, a big Genoese ship, one of the few European ships that ever came
to Sulaco with a general cargo before the building of the National Central. He
left her on account of some very respectable friends he made here, his own
countrymen, but also, I suppose, to better himself. Sir, I am a pretty good
judge of character. I engaged him to be the foreman of our lightermen, and
caretaker of our jetty. That's all that he was. But without him Señor Ribiera
would have been a dead man. This Nostromo, sir, a man absolutely above
reproach, became the terror of all the thieves in the town. We were infested,
infested, overrun, sir, here at that time by ladrones and matreros, thieves and
murderers from the whole province. On this occasion they had been flocking into
Sulaco for a week past. They had scented the end, sir. Fifty per cent. of that
murdering mob were professional bandits from the Campo, sir, but there wasn't
one that hadn't heard of Nostromo. As to the town leperos, sir, the sight of
his black whiskers and white teeth was enough for them. They quailed before
him, sir. That's what the force of character will do for you."
It could very well be
said that it was Nostromo alone who saved the lives of these gentlemen. Captain
Mitchell, on his part, never left them till he had seen them collapse, panting,
terrified, and exasperated, but safe, on the luxuriant velvet sofas in the
first-class saloon of the Minerva. To the very last he had been careful to
address the ex-Dictator as "Your Excellency."
"Sir, I could do
no other. The man was down -- ghastly, livid, one mass of scratches."
The Minerva never let
go her anchor that call. The superintendent ordered her out of the harbour at
once. No cargo could be landed, of course, and the passengers for Sulaco
naturally refused to go ashore. They could hear the firing and see plainly the
fight going on at the edge of the water. The repulsed mob devoted its energies
to an attack upon the Custom House, a dreary, unfinished-looking structure with
many windows two hundred yards away from the O.S.N. Offices, and the only other
building near the harbour. Captain Mitchell, after directing the commander of
the Minerva to land "these gentlemen" in the first port of call
outside Costaguana, went back in his gig to see what could be done for the
protection of the Company's property. That and the property of the railway were
preserved by the European residents; that is, by Captain Mitchell himself and
the staff of engineers building the road, aided by the Italian and Basque
workmen who rallied faithfully round their English chiefs. The Company's
lightermen, too, natives of the Republic, behaved very well under their
Capataz. An outcast lot of very mixed blood, mainly negroes, everlastingly at
feud with the other customers of low grog shops in the town, they embraced with
delight this opportunity to settle their personal scores under such favourable
auspices. There was not one of them that had not, at some time or other, looked
with terror at Nostromo's revolver poked very close at his face, or been
otherwise daunted by Nostromo's resolution. He was "much of a man,"
their Capataz was, they said, too scornful in his temper ever to utter abuse, a
tireless taskmaster, and the more to be feared because of his aloofness. And
behold! there he was that day, at their head, condescending to make jocular
remarks to this man or the other.
Such leadership was
inspiriting, and in truth all the harm the mob managed to achieve was to set
fire to one -- only one -- stack of railway-sleepers, which, being creosoted,
burned well. The main attack on the rail- way yards, on the O.S.N. Offices, and
especially on the Custom House, whose strong room, it was well known, contained
a large treasure in silver ingots, failed completely. Even the little hotel
kept by old Giorgio, standing alone halfway between the harbour and the town,
escaped looting and destruction, not by a miracle, but because with the safes
in view they had neglected it at first, and afterwards found no leisure to
stop. Nostromo, with his Cargadores, was pressing them too hard then.
IT MIGHT have been said
that there he was only protecting his own. From the first he had been admitted
to live in the intimacy of the family of the hotel-keeper who was a countryman
of his. Old Giorgio Viola, a Genoese with a shaggy white leonine head -- often
called simply "the Garibaldino" (as Mohammedans are called after
their prophet) -- was, to use Captain Mitchell's own words, the
"respectable married friend" by whose advice Nostromo had left his
ship to try for a run of shore luck in Costaguana.
The old man, full of
scorn for the populace, as your austere republican so often is, had disregarded
the preliminary sounds of trouble. He went on that day as usual pottering about
the "casa" in his slippers, muttering angrily to himself his contempt
of the non- political nature of the riot, and shrugging his shoulders. In the
end he was taken unawares by the out-rush of the rabble. It was too late then
to remove his family, and, indeed, where could he have run to with the portly
Signora Teresa and two little girls on that great plain? So, barricading every
opening, the old man sat down sternly in the middle of the darkened café with
an old shot-gun on his knees. His wife sat on another chair by his side,
muttering pious invocations to all the saints of the calendar.
The old republican did
not believe in saints, or in prayers, or in what he called "priest's
religion." Liberty and Garibaldi were his divinities; but he tolerated
"superstition" in women, preserving in these matters a lofty and
silent attitude.
His two girls, the
eldest fourteen, and the other two years younger, crouched on the sanded floor,
on each side of the Signora Teresa, with their heads on their mother's lap,
both scared, but each in her own way, the dark-haired Linda indignant and
angry, the fair Giselle, the younger, bewildered and resigned. The Patrona
removed her arms, which embraced her daughters, for a moment to cross herself
and wring her hands hurriedly. She moaned a little louder.
"Oh! Gian'
Battista, why art thou not here? Oh! why art thou not here?"
She was not then
invoking the saint himself, but calling upon Nostromo, whose patron he was. And
Giorgio, motionless on the chair by her side, would be provoked by these
reproachful and distracted appeals.
"Peace, woman!
Where's the sense of it? There's his duty," he murmured in the dark; and
she would retort, panting --
"Eh! I have no
patience. Duty! What of the woman who has been like a mother to him? I bent my
knee to him this morning; don't you go out, Gian' Battista -- stop in the
house, Battistino -- look at those two little innocent children!"
Mrs. Viola was an
Italian, too, a native of Spezzia, and though considerably younger than her
husband, already middle-aged. She had a handsome face, whose complexion had
turned yellow because the climate of Sulaco did not suit her at all. Her voice
was a rich contralto. When, with her arms folded tight under her ample bosom,
she scolded the squat, thick-legged China girls handling linen, plucking fowls,
pounding corn in wooden mortars amongst the mud outbuildings at the back of the
house, she could bring out such an impassioned, vibrating, sepulchral note that
the chained watch-dog bolted into his kennel with a great rattle. Luis, a
cinnamon-coloured mulatto with a sprouting moustache and thick, dark lips,
would stop sweeping the café with a broom of palm-leaves to let a gentle
shudder run down his spine. His languishing almond eyes would remain closed for
a long time.
This was the staff of
the Casa Viola, but all these people had fled early that morning at the first
sounds of the riot, preferring to hide on the plain rather than trust
themselves in the house; a preference for which they were in no way to blame,
since, whether true or not, it was generally believed in the town that the
Garibaldino had some money buried under the clay floor of the kitchen. The dog,
an irritable, shaggy brute, barked violently and whined plaintively in turns at
the back, running in and out of his kennel as rage or fear prompted him.
Bursts of great
shouting rose and died away, like wild gusts of wind on the plain round the
barricaded house; the fitful popping of shots grew louder above the yelling.
Sometimes there were intervals of unaccountable stillness outside, and nothing
could have been more gaily peaceful than the narrow bright lines of sunlight
from the cracks in the shutters, ruled straight across the café over the
disarranged chairs and tables to the wall opposite. Old Giorgio had chosen that
bare, white- washed room for a retreat. It had only one window, and its only
door swung out upon the track of thick dust fenced by aloe hedges between the
harbour and the town, where clumsy carts used to creak along behind slow yokes
of oxen guided by boys on horseback.
In a pause of stillness
Giorgio cocked his gun. The ominous sound wrung a low moan from the rigid
figure of the woman sitting by his side. A sudden outbreak of defiant yelling
quite near the house sank all at once to a confused murmur of growls. Somebody
ran along; the loud catching of his breath was heard for an instant passing the
door; there were hoarse mutters and footsteps near the wall; a shoulder rubbed
against the shutter, effacing the bright lines of sunshine pencilled across the
whole breadth of the room. Signora Teresa's arms thrown about the kneeling
forms of her daughters embraced them closer with a convulsive pressure.
The mob, driven away
from the Custom House, had broken up into several bands, retreating across the
plain in the direction of the town. The subdued crash of irregular volleys
fired in the distance was answered by faint yells far away. In the intervals
the single shots rang feebly, and the low, long, white building blinded in
every window seemed to be the centre of a turmoil widening in a great circle about
its closed-up silence. But the cautious movements and whispers of a routed
party seeking a momentary shelter behind the wall made the darkness of the
room, striped by threads of quiet sunlight, alight with evil, stealthy sounds.
The Violas had them in their ears as though invisible ghosts hovering about
their chairs had consulted in mutters as to the advisability of setting fire to
this foreigner's casa.
It was trying to the
nerves. Old Viola had risen slowly, gun in hand, irresolute, for he did not see
how he could prevent them. Already voices could be heard talking at the back.
Signora Teresa was beside herself with terror.
"Ah! the traitor!
the traitor!" she mumbled, almost inaudibly. "Now we are going to be
burnt; and I bent my knee to him. No! he must run at the heels of his
English."
She seemed to think
that Nostromo's mere presence in the house would have made it perfectly safe.
So far, she, too, was under the spell of that reputation the Capataz de
Cargadores had made for himself by the waterside, along the railway line, with
the English and with the populace of Sulaco. To his face, and even against her
husband, she invariably affected to laugh it to scorn, sometimes
good-naturedly, more often with a curious bitterness. But then women are unreasonable
in their opinions, as Giorgio used to remark calmly on fitting occasions. On
this occasion, with his gun held at ready before him, he stooped down to his
wife's head, and, keeping his eyes steadfastly on the barricaded door, he
breathed out into her ear that Nostromo would have been powerless to help. What
could two men shut up in a house do against twenty or more bent upon setting
fire to the roof? Gian' Battista was thinking of the casa all the time, he was
sure.
"He think of the
casa! He!" gasped Signora Viola, crazily. She struck her breast with her
open hands. "I know him. He thinks of nobody but himself."
A discharge of firearms
near by made her throw her head back and close her eyes. Old Giorgio set his
teeth hard under his white moustache, and his eyes began to roll fiercely.
Several bullets struck the end of the wall together; pieces of plaster could be
heard falling outside; a voice screamed "Here they come!" and after a
moment of uneasy silence there was a rush of running feet along the front.
Then the tension of old
Giorgio's attitude relaxed, and a smile of contemptuous relief came upon his
lips of an old fighter with a leonine face. These were not a people striving
for justice, but thieves. Even to defend his life against them was a sort of
degradation for a man who had been one of Garibaldi's immortal thousand in the
conquest of Sicily. He had an immense scorn for this outbreak of scoundrels and
leperos, who did not know the meaning of the word "liberty."
He grounded his old gun,
and, turning his head, glanced at the coloured lithograph of Garibaldi in a
black frame on the white wall; a thread of strong sunshine cut it
perpendicularly. His eyes, accustomed to the luminous twilight, made out the
high colouring of the face, the red of the shirt, the outlines of the square
shoulders, the black patch of the Bersagliere hat with cock's feathers curling
over the crown. An immortal hero! This was your liberty; it gave you not only
life, but immortality as well!
For that one man his fanaticism
had suffered no diminution. In the moment of relief from the apprehension of
the greatest danger, perhaps, his family had been exposed to in all their
wanderings, he had turned to the picture of his old chief, first and only, then
laid his hand on his wife's shoulder.
The children kneeling
on the floor had not moved. Signora Teresa opened her eyes a little, as though
he had awakened her from a very deep and dreamless slumber. Before he had time
in his deliberate way to say a reassuring word she jumped up, with the children
clinging to her, one on each side, gasped for breath, and let out a hoarse
shriek.
It was simultaneous
with the bang of a violent blow struck on the outside of the shutter. They
could hear suddenly the snorting of a horse, the restive tramping of hoofs on
the narrow, hard path in front of the house; the toe of a boot struck at the
shutter again; a spur jingled at every blow, and an excited voice shouted,
"Hola! hola, in there!"
ALL the morning
Nostromo had kept his eye from afar on the Casa Viola, even in the thick of the
hottest scrimmage near the Custom House. "If I see smoke rising over
there," he thought to himself, "they are lost." Directly the mob
had broken he pressed with a small band of Italian workmen in that direction,
which, indeed, was the shortest line towards the town. That part of the rabble
he was pursuing seemed to think of making a stand under the house; a volley
fired by his followers from behind an aloe hedge made the rascals fly. In a gap
chopped out for the rails of the harbour branch line Nostromo appeared, mounted
on his silver-grey mare. He shouted, sent after them one shot from his
revolver, and galloped up to the café window. He had an idea that old Giorgio
would choose that part of the house for a refuge.
His voice had
penetrated to them, sounding breathlessly hurried: "Hola! Vecchio! O,
Vecchio! Is it all well with you in there?"
"You see --"
murmured old Viola to his wife. Signora Teresa was silent now. Outside Nostromo
laughed.
"I can hear the
padrona is not dead."
"You have done
your best to kill me with fear," cried Signora Teresa. She wanted to say
something more, but her voice failed her.
Linda raised her eyes
to her face for a moment, but old Giorgio shouted apologetically --
"She is a little
upset."
Outside Nostromo
shouted back with another laugh --
"She cannot upset
me."
Signora Teresa found
her voice.
"It is what I say.
You have no heart -- and you have no conscience, Gian' Battista --"
They heard him wheel
his horse away from the shutters. The party he led were babbling excitedly in
Italian and Spanish, inciting each other to the pursuit. He put himself at
their head, crying, "Avanti!"
"He has not
stopped very long with us. There is no praise from strangers to be got
here," Signora Teresa said tragically. "Avanti! Yes! That is all he
cares for. To be first somewhere -- somehow -- to be first with these English.
They will be showing him to everybody. 'This is our Nostromo!'" She
laughed ominously. "What a name! What is that? Nostromo? He would take a
name that is properly no word from them."
Meantime Giorgio, with
tranquil movements, had been unfastening the door; the flood of light fell on
Signora Teresa, with her two girls gathered to her side, a picturesque woman in
a pose of maternal exaltation. Behind her the wall was dazzlingly white, and
the crude colours of the Garibaldi lithograph paled in the sunshine.
Old Viola, at the door,
moved his arm upwards as if referring all his quick, fleeting thoughts to the
picture of his old chief on the wall. Even when he was cooking for the
"Signori Inglesi" -- the engineers (he was a famous cook, though the
kitchen was a dark place) -- he was, as it were, under the eye of the great man
who had led him in a glorious struggle where, under the walls of Gaeta, tyranny
would have expired for ever had it not been for that accursed Piedmontese race
of kings and ministers. When sometimes a frying-pan caught fire during a
delicate operation with some shredded onions, and the old man was seen backing
out of the doorway, swearing and coughing violently in an acrid cloud of smoke,
the name of Cavour -- the arch intriguer sold to kings and tyrants -- could be
heard involved in imprecations against the China girls, cooking in general, and
the brute of a country where he was reduced to live for the love of liberty
that traitor had strangled.
Then Signora Teresa,
all in black, issuing from another door, advanced, portly and anxious,
inclining her fine, black-browed head, opening her arms, and crying in a
profound tone --
"Giorgio! thou
passionate man! Misericordia Divina! In the sun like this! He will make himself
ill."
At her feet the hens
made off in all directions, with immense strides; if there were any engineers
from up the line staying in Sulaco, a young English face or two would appear at
the billiard-room occupying one end of the house; but at the other end, in the
café, Luis, the mulatto, took good care not to show himself. The Indian girls,
with hair like flowing black manes, and dressed only in a shift and short
petticoat, stared dully from under the square-cut fringes on their foreheads;
the noisy frizzling of fat had stopped, the fumes floated upwards in sunshine,
a strong smell of burnt onions hung in the drowsy heat, enveloping the house;
and the eye lost itself in a vast flat expanse of grass to the west, as if the
plain between the Sierra overtopping Sulaco and the coast range away there
towards Esmeralda had been as big as half the world.
Signora Teresa, after
an impressive pause, remonstrated --
"Eh, Giorgio!
Leave Cavour alone and take care of yourself now we are lost in this country
all alone with the two children, because you cannot live under a king."
And while she looked at
him she would sometimes put her hand hastily to her side with a short twitch of
her fine lips and a knitting of her black, straight eyebrows like a flicker of
angry pain or an angry thought on her handsome, regular features.
It was pain; she
suppressed the twinge. It had come to her first a few years after they had left
Italy to emigrate to America and settle at last in Sulaco after wandering from
town to town, trying shopkeeping in a small way here and there; and once an
organized enterprise of fishing -- in Maldonado -- for Giorgio, like the great
Garibaldi, had been a sailor in his time.
Sometimes she had no
patience with pain. For years its gnawing had been part of the landscape
embracing the glitter of the harbour under the wooded spurs of the range; and
the sunshine itself was heavy and dull -- heavy with pain -- not like the
sunshine of her girlhood, in which middle-aged Giorgio had wooed her gravely
and passionately on the shores of the gulf of Spezzia.
"You go in at
once, Giorgio," she directed. "One would think you do not wish to
have any pity on me -- with four Signori Inglesi staying in the house."
"Va bene, va bene," Giorgio would mutter. He obeyed. The Signori
Inglesi would require their midday meal presently. He had been one of the
immortal and invincible band of liberators who had made the mercenaries of
tyranny fly like chaff before a hurricane, "un uragano terribile."
But that was before he was married and had children; and before tyranny had
reared its head again amongst the traitors who had imprisoned Garibaldi, his
hero.
There were three doors
in the front of the house, and each afternoon the Garibaldino could be seen at
one or another of them with his big bush of white hair, his arms folded, his
legs crossed, leaning back his leonine head against the side, and looking up the
wooded slopes of the foothills at the snowy dome of Higuerota. The front of his
house threw off a black long rectangle of shade, broadening slowly over the
soft ox-cart track. Through the gaps, chopped out in the oleander hedges, the
harbour branch railway, laid out temporarily on the level of the plain, curved
away its shining parallel ribbons on a belt of scorched and withered grass
within sixty yards of the end of the house. In the evening the empty material
trains of flat cars circled round the dark green grove of Sulaco, and ran,
undulating slightly with white jets of steam, over the plain towards the Casa
Viola, on their way to the railway yards by the harbour. The Italian drivers
saluted him from the foot-plate with raised hand, while the negro brakesmen sat
carelessly on the brakes, looking straight forward, with the rims of their big
hats flapping in the wind. In return Giorgio would give a slight sideways jerk
of the head, without unfolding his arms.
On this memorable day
of the riot his arms were not folded on his chest. His hand grasped the barrel
of the gun grounded on the threshold; he did not look up once at the white dome
of Higuerota, whose cool purity seemed to hold itself aloof from a hot earth.
His eyes examined the plain curiously. Tall trails of dust subsided here and
there. In a speckless sky the sun hung clear and blinding. Knots of men ran
headlong; others made a stand; and the irregular rattle of firearms came
rippling to his ears in the fiery, still air. Single figures on foot raced
desperately. Horsemen galloped towards each other, wheeled round together,
separated at speed. Giorgio saw one fall, rider and horse disappearing as if
they had galloped into a chasm, and the movements of the animated scene were
like the passages of a violent game played upon the plain by dwarfs mounted and
on foot, yelling with tiny throats, under the mountain that seemed a colossal
embodiment of silence. Never before had Giorgio seen this bit of plain so full
of active life; his gaze could not take in all its details at once; he shaded
his eyes with his hand, till suddenly the thundering of many hoofs near by
startled him.
A troop of horses had
broken out of the fenced paddock of the Railway Company. They came on like a
whirlwind, and dashed over the line snorting, kicking, squealing in a compact,
piebald, tossing mob of bay, brown, grey backs, eyes staring, necks extended,
nostrils red, long tails streaming. As soon as they had leaped upon the road
the thick dust flew upwards from under their hoofs, and within six yards of
Giorgio only a brown cloud with vague forms of necks and cruppers rolled by,
making the soil tremble on its passage.
Viola coughed, turning
his face away from the dust, and shaking his head slightly.
"There will be
some horse-catching to be done before to-night," he muttered.
In the square of
sunlight falling through the door Signora Teresa, kneeling before the chair,
had bowed her head, heavy with a twisted mass of ebony hair streaked with
silver, into the palm of her hands. The black lace shawl she used to drape
about her face had dropped to the ground by her side. The two girls had got up,
hand-in-hand, in short skirts, their loose hair falling in disorder. The
younger had thrown her arm across her eyes, as if afraid to face the light.
Linda, with her hand on the other's shoulder, stared fearlessly. Viola looked
at his children. The sun brought out the deep lines on his face, and, energetic
in expression, it had the immobility of a carving. It was impossible to
discover what he thought. Bushy grey eyebrows shaded his dark glance.
"Well! And do you
not pray like your mother?"
Linda pouted, advancing
her red lips, which were almost too red; but she had admirable eyes, brown,
with a sparkle of gold in the irises, full of intelligence and meaning, and so
clear that they seemed to throw a glow upon her thin, colourless face. There
were bronze glints in the sombre clusters of her hair, and the eye- lashes,
long and coal black, made her complexion appear still more pale.
"Mother is going
to offer up a lot of candles in the church. She always does when Nostromo has
been away fighting. I shall have some to carry up to the Chapel of the Madonna
in the Cathedral."
She said all this
quickly, with great assurance, in an animated, penetrating voice. Then, giving
her sister's shoulder a slight shake, she added --
"And she will be
made to carry one, too!"
"Why made?"
inquired Giorgio, gravely. "Does she not want to?"
"She is
timid," said Linda, with a little burst of laughter. "People notice
her fair hair as she goes along with us. They call out after her, 'Look at the
Rubia! Look at the Rubiacita!' They call out in the streets. She is
timid."
"And you? You are
not timid -- eh?" the father pronounced, slowly.
She tossed back all her
dark hair.
"Nobody calls out
after me."
Old Giorgio
contemplated his children thoughtfully. There was two years difference between
them. They had been born to him late, years after the boy had died. Had he
lived he would have been nearly as old as Gian' Battista -- he whom the English
called Nostromo; but as to his daughters, the severity of his temper, his
advancing age, his absorption in his memories, had prevented his taking much
notice of them. He loved his children, but girls belong more to the mother, and
much of his affection had been expended in the worship and service of liberty.
When quite a youth he
had deserted from a ship trading to La Plata, to enlist in the navy of
Montevideo, then under the command of Garibaldi. Afterwards, in the Italian
legion of the Republic struggling against the encroaching tyranny of Rosas, he
had taken part, on great plains, on the banks of immense rivers, in the
fiercest fighting perhaps the world had ever known. He had lived amongst men
who had declaimed about liberty, suffered for liberty, died for liberty, with a
desperate exaltation, and with their eyes turned towards an oppressed Italy.
His own enthusiasm had been fed on scenes of carnage, on the examples of lofty
devotion, on the din of armed struggle, on the inflamed language of
proclamations. He had never parted from the chief of his choice -- the fiery
apostle of independence -- keeping by his side in America and in Italy till
after the fatal day of Aspromonte, when the treachery of kings, emperors, and
ministers had been revealed to the world in the wounding and imprisonment of
his hero -- a catastrophe that had instilled into him a gloomy doubt of ever
being able to understand the ways of Divine justice.
He did not deny it,
however. It required patience, he would say. Though he disliked priests, and
would not put his foot inside a church for anything, he believed in God. Were
not the proclamations against tyrants addressed to the peoples in the name of
God and liberty? "God for men -- religions for women," he muttered
sometimes. In Sicily, an Englishman who had turned up in Palermo after its
evacuation by the army of the king, had given him a Bible in Italian -- the
publication of the British and Foreign Bible Society, bound in a dark leather cover.
In periods of political adversity, in the pauses of silence when the
revolutionists issued no proclamations, Giorgio earned his living with the
first work that came to hand -- as sailor, as dock labourer on the quays of
Genoa, once as a hand on a farm in the hills above Spezzia -- and in his spare
time he studied the thick volume. He carried it with him into battles. Now it
was his only reading, and in order not to be deprived of it (the print was
small) he had consented to accept the present of a pair of silver-mounted
spectacles from Señora Emilia Gould, the wife of the Englishman who managed the
silver mine in the mountains three leagues from the town. She was the only
Englishwoman in Sulaco.
Giorgio Viola had a
great consideration for the English. This feeling, born on the battlefields of
Uruguay, was forty years old at the very least. Several of them had poured
their blood for the cause of freedom in America, and the first he had ever
known he remembered by the name of Samuel; he commanded a negro company under
Garibaldi, during the famous siege of Montevideo, and died heroically with his
negroes at the fording of the Boyana. He, Giorgio, had reached the rank of
ensign-alferez-and cooked for the general. Later, in Italy, he, with the rank
of lieutenant, rode with the staff and still cooked for the general. He had
cooked for him in Lombardy through the whole campaign; on the march to Rome he
had lassoed his beef in the Campagna after the American manner; he had been
wounded in the defence of the Roman Republic; he was one of the four fugitives
who, with the general, carried out of the woods the inanimate body of the
general's wife into the farmhouse where she died, exhausted by the hardships of
that terrible retreat. He had survived that disastrous time to attend his
general in Palermo when the Neapolitan shells from the castle crashed upon the
town. He had cooked for him on the field of Volturno after fighting all day.
And everywhere he had seen Englishmen in the front rank of the army of freedom.
He respected their nation because they loved Garibaldi. Their very countesses
and princesses had kissed the general's hands in London, it was said. He could
well believe it; for the nation was noble, and the man was a saint. It was
enough to look once at his face to see the divine force of faith in him and his
great pity for all that was poor, suffering, and oppressed in this world.
The spirit of
self-forgetfulness, the simple devotion to a vast humanitarian idea which
inspired the thought and stress of that revolutionary time, had left its mark
upon Giorgio in a sort of austere contempt for all personal advantage. This
man, whom the lowest class in Sulaco suspected of having a buried hoard in his
kitchen, had all his life despised money. The leaders of his youth had lived
poor, had died poor. It had been a habit of his mind to disregard to-morrow. It
was engendered partly by an existence of excitement, adventure, and wild
warfare. But mostly it was a matter of principle. It did not resemble the
carelessness of a condottiere, it was a puritanism of conduct, born of stern
enthusiasm like the puritanism of religion.
This stern devotion to
a cause had cast a gloom upon Giorgio's old age. It cast a gloom because the
cause seemed lost. Too many kings and emperors flourished yet in the world
which God had meant for the people. He was sad because of his simplicity.
Though always ready to help his countrymen, and greatly respected by the
Italian emigrants wherever he lived (in his exile he called it), he could not
conceal from himself that they cared nothing for the wrongs of down-trodden
nations. They listened to his tales of war readily, but seemed to ask
themselves what he had got out of it after all. There was nothing that they
could see. "We wanted nothing, we suffered for the love of all
humanity!" he cried out furiously sometimes, and the powerful voice, the
blazing eyes, the shaking of the white mane, the brown, sinewy hand pointing
upwards as if to call heaven to witness, impressed his hearers. After the old man
hadbroken off abruptly with a jerk of the head and a movement of the arm,
meaning clearly, "But what's the good of talking to you?" they nudged
each other. There was in old Giorgio an energy of feeling, a personal quality
of conviction, something they called "terribilità" -"an old
lion," they used to say of him. Some slight incident, a chance word would
set him off talking on the beach to the Italian fishermen of Maldonado, in the
little shop he kept afterwards (in Valparaiso) to his countrymen customers; of
an evening, suddenly, in the café at one end of the Casa Viola (the other was
reserved for the English engineers) to the select clientèle of engine-drivers
and foremen of the railway shops.
With their handsome,
bronzed, lean faces, shiny black ringlets, glistening eyes, broad-chested,
bearded, sometimes a tiny gold ring in the lobe of the ear, the aristocracy of
the railway works listened to him, turning away from their cards or dominoes.
Here and there a fair-haired Basque studied his hand meantime, waiting without
protest. No native of Costaguana intruded there. This was the Italian
stronghold. Even the Sulaco policemen on a night patrol let their horses pace
softly by, bending low in the saddle to glance through the window at the heads
in a fog of smoke; and the drone of old Giorgio's declamatory narrative seemed
to sink behind them into the plain. Only now and then the assistant of the
chief of police, some broad-faced, brown little gentleman, with a great deal of
Indian in him, would put in an appearance. Leaving his man outside with the
horses he advanced with a confident, sly smile, and without a word up to the
long trestle table. He pointed to one of the bottles on the shelf; Giorgio,
thrusting his pipe into his mouth abruptly, served him in person. Nothing would
be heard but the slight jingle of the spurs. His glass emptied, he would take a
leisurely, scrutinizing look all round the room, go out, and ride away slowly,
circling towards the town.
IN THIS way only was
the power of the local authorities vindicated amongst the great body of strong-
limbed foreigners who dug the earth, blasted the rocks, drove the engines for
the "progressive and patriotic undertaking." In these very words
eighteen months before the Excellentissimo Señor don Vincente Ribiera, the
Dictator of Costaguana, had described the National Central Railway in his great
speech at the turning of the first sod.
He had come on purpose
to Sulaco, and there was a one-o'clock dinner-party, a convité offered by the
O.S.N. Company on board the Juno after the function on shore. Captain Mitchell
had himself steered the cargo lighter, all draped with flags, which, in tow of
the Juno's steam launch, took the Excellentissimo from the jetty to the ship.
Everybody of note in Sulaco had been invited -- the one or two foreign
merchants, all the representatives of the old Spanish families then in town,
the great owners of estates on the plain, grave, courteous, simple men,
caballeros of pure descent, with small hands and feet, conservative,
hospitable, and kind. The Occidental Province was their stronghold; their
Blanco party had triumphed now; it was their President- Dictator, a Blanco of
the Blancos, who sat smiling urbanely between the representatives of two
friendly foreign powers. They had come with him from Sta. Marta to countenance
by their presence the enterprise in which the capital of their countries was
engaged. The only lady of that company was Mrs. Gould, the wife of Don Carlos,
the administrator of the San Tomé silver mine. The ladies of Sulaco were not
advanced enough to take part in the public life to that extent. They had come
out strongly at the great ball at the Intendencia the evening before, but Mrs.
Gould alone had appeared, a bright spot in the group of black coats behind the
President-Dictator, on the crimson cloth- covered stage erected under a shady
tree on the shore of the harbour, where the ceremony of turning the first sod
had taken place. She had come off in the cargo lighter, full of notabilities,
sitting under the flutter of gay flags, in the place of honour by the side of
Captain Mitchell, who steered, and her clear dress gave the only truly festive
note to the sombre gathering in the long, gorgeous saloon of the Juno.
The head of the
chairman of the railway board (from London), handsome and pale in a silvery
mist of white hair and clipped beard, hovered near her shoulder attentive,
smiling, and fatigued. The journey from London to Sta. Marta in mail boats and
the special carriages of the Sta. Marta coast-line (the only railway so far)
had been tolerable -- even pleasant -- quite tolerable. But the trip over the
mountains to Sulaco was another sort of experience, in an old diligencia over
impassable roads skirting awful precipices.
"We have been
upset twice in one day on the brink of very deep ravines," he was telling
Mrs. Gould in an undertone. "And when we arrived here at last I don't know
what we should have done without your hospitality. What an out-of-the-way place
Sulaco is! -- and for a harbour, too! Astonishing!"
"Ah, but we are
very proud of it. It used to be historically important. The highest
ecclesiastical court for two viceroyalties, sat here in the olden time,"
she instructed him with animation.
"I am impressed. I
didn't mean to be disparaging. You seem very patriotic."
"The place is
lovable, if only by its situation. Perhaps you don't know what an old resident
I am."
"How old, I
wonder," he murmured, looking at her with a slight smile. Mrs. Gould's
appearance was made youthful by the mobile intelligence of her face. "We
can't give you your ecclesiastical court back again; but you shall have more
steamers, a railway, a telegraph-cable -- a future in the great world which is
worth infinitely more than any amount of ecclesiastical past. You shall be
brought in touch with something greater than two viceroyalties. But I had no
notion that a place on a sea-coast could remain so isolated from the world. If
it had been a thousand miles inland now -- most remarkable! Has anything ever
happened here for a hundred years before to-day?"
While he talked in a
slow, humorous tone, she kept her little smile. Agreeing ironically, she assured
him that certainly not -- nothing ever happened in Sulaco. Even the
revolutions, of which there had been two in her time, had respected the repose
of the place. Their course ran in the more populous southern parts of the
Republic, and the great valley of Sta. Marta, which was like one great
battlefield of the parties, with the possession of the capital for a prize and
an outlet to another ocean. They were more advanced over there. Here in Sulaco
they heard only the echoes of these great questions, and, of course, their
official world changed each time, coming to them over their rampart of
mountains which he himself had traversed in an old diligencia, with such a risk
to life and limb.
The chairman of the
railway had been enjoying her hospitality for several days, and he was really
grateful for it. It was only since he had left Sta. Marta that he had utterly
lost touch with the feeling of European life on the background of his exotic
surroundings. In the capital he had been the guest of the Legation, and had
been kept busy negotiating with the members of Don Vincente's Government --
cultured men, men to whom the conditions of civilized business were not
unknown.
What concerned him most
at the time was the acquisition of land for the railway. In the Sta. Marta
Valley, where there was already one line in existence, the people were
tractable, and it was only a matter of price. A commission had been nominated
to fix the values, and the difficulty resolved itself into the judicious
influencing of the Commissioners. But in Sulaco -- the Occidental Province for
whose very development the railway was intended -- there had been trouble. It
had been lying for ages ensconced behind its natural barriers, repelling modern
enterprise by the precipices of its mountain range, by its shallow harbour
opening into the everlasting calms of a gulf full of clouds, by the benighted
state of mind of the owners of its fertile territory -- all these aristocratic
old Spanish families, all those Don Ambrosios this and Don Fernandos that, who
seemed actually to dislike and distrust the coming of the railway over their
lands. It had happened that some of the surveying parties scattered all over
the province had been warned off with threats of violence. In other cases
outrageous pretensions as to price had been raised. But the man of railways
prided himself on being equal to every emergency. Since he was met by the
inimical sentiment of blind conservatism in Sulaco he would meet it by
sentiment, too, before taking his stand on his right alone. The Government was
bound to carry out its part of the contract with the board of the new railway
company, even if it had to use force for the purpose. But he desired nothing
less than an armed disturbance in the smooth working of his plans. They were
much too vast and far-reaching, and too promising to leave a stone unturned;
and so he imagined to get the President-Dictator over there on a tour of
ceremonies and speeches, culminating in a great function at the turning of the
first sod by the harbour shore. After all he was their own creature -- that Don
Vincente. He was the embodied triumph of the best elements in the State. These
were facts, and, unless facts meant nothing, Sir John argued to himself, such a
man's influence must be real, and his personal action would produce the
conciliatory effect he required. He had succeeded in arranging the trip with
the help of a very clever advocate, who was known in Sta. Marta as the agent of
the Gould silver mine, the biggest thing in Sulaco, and even in the whole
Republic. It was indeed a fabulously rich mine. Its so-called agent, evidently
a man of culture and ability, seemed, without official position, to possess an
extraordinary influence in the highest Government spheres. He was able to
assure Sir John that the President-Dictator would make the journey. He
regretted, however, in the course of the same conversation, that General
Montero insisted upon going, too.
General Montero, whom
the beginning of the struggle had found an obscure army captain employed on the
wild eastern frontier of the State, had thrown in his lot with the Ribiera
party at a moment when special circumstances had given that small adhesion a
fortuitous importance. The fortunes of war served him marvellously, and the
victory of Rio Seco (after a day of desperate fighting) put a seal to his
success. At the end he emerged General, Minister of War, and the military head
of the Blanco party, although there was nothing aristocratic in his descent.
Indeed, it was said that he and his brother, orphans, had been brought up by
the munificence of a famous European traveller, in whose service their father
had lost his life. Another story was that their father had been nothing but a
charcoal burner in the woods, and their mother a baptised Indian woman from the
far interior.
However that might be,
the Costaguana Press was in the habit of styling Montero's forest march from
his commandancia to join the Blanco forces at the beginning of the troubles,
the "most heroic military exploit of modern times." About the same
time, too, his brother had turned up from Europe, where he had gone apparently
as secretary to a consul. Having, however, collected a small band of outlaws,
he showed some talent as guerilla chief and had been rewarded at the
pacification by the post of Military Commandant of the capital.
The Minister of War,
then, accompanied the Dictator. The board of the O.S.N. Company, working hand-
in-hand with the railway people for the good of the Republic, had on this
important occasion instructed Captain Mitchell to put the mail-boat Juno at the
disposal of the distinguished party. Don Vincente, journeying south from Sta.
Marta, had embarked at Cayta, the principal port of Costaguana, and came to
Sulaco by sea. But the chairman of the railway company had courageously crossed
the mountains in a ramshackle diligencia, mainly for the purpose of meeting his
engineer-in-chief engaged in the final survey of the road.
For all the
indifference of a man of affairs to nature, whose hostility can always be overcome
by the resources of finance, he could not help being impressed by his
surroundings during his halt at the surveying camp established at the highest
point his railway was to reach. He spent the night there, arriving just too
late to see the last dying glow of sunlight upon the snowy flank of Higuerota.
Pillared masses of black basalt framed like an open portal a portion of the
white field lying aslant against the west. In the transparent air of the high
altitudes everything seemed very near, steeped in a clear stillness as in an
imponderable liquid; and with his ear ready to catch the first sound of the
expected diligencia the engineer-in-chief, at the door of a hut of rough
stones, had contemplated the changing hues on the enormous side of the mountain,
thinking that in this sight, as in a piece of inspired music, there could be
found together the utmost delicacy of shaded expression and a stupendous
magnificence of effect.
Sir John arrived too
late to hear the magnificent and inaudible strain sung by the sunset amongst
the high peaks of the Sierra. It had sung itself out into the breathless pause
of deep dusk before, climbing down the fore wheel of the diligencia with stiff
limbs, he shook hands with the engineer.
They gave him his
dinner in a stone hut like a cubical boulder, with no door or windows in its
two openings; a bright fire of sticks (brought on muleback from the first
valley below) burning outside, sent in a wavering glare; and two candles in tin
candlesticks -- lighted, it was explained to him, in his honour -- stood on a
sort of rough camp table, at which he sat on the right hand of the chief. He
knew how to be amiable; and the young men of the engineering staff, for whom
the surveying of the railway track had the glamour of the first steps on the
path of life, sat there, too, listening modestly, with their smooth faces
tanned by the weather, and very pleased to witness so much affability in so
great a man.
Afterwards, late at
night, pacing to and fro outside, he had a long talk with his chief engineer.
He knew him well of old. This was not the first undertaking in which their
gifts, as elementally different as fire and water, had worked in conjunction.
From the contact of these two personalities, who had not the same vision of the
world, there was generated a power for the world's service -- a subtle force
that could set in motion mighty machines, men's muscles, and awaken also in
human breasts an unbounded devotion to the task. Of the young fellows at the
table, to whom the survey of the track was like the tracing of the path of
life, more than one would be called to meet death before the work was done. But
the work would be done: the force would be almost as strong as a faith. Not
quite, however. In the silence of the sleeping camp upon the moonlit plateau
forming the top of the pass like the floor of a vast arena surrounded by the
basalt walls of precipices, two strolling figures in thick ulsters stood still,
and the voice of the engineer pronounced distinctly the words --
"We can't move
mountains!"
Sir John, raising his
head to follow the pointing gesture, felt the full force of the words. The
white Higuerota soared out of the shadows of rock and earth like a frozen
bubble under the moon. All was still, till near by, behind the wall of a corral
for the camp animals, built roughly of loose stones in the form of a circle, a
pack mule stamped his forefoot and blew heavily twice.
The engineer-in-chief
had used the phrase in answer to the chairman's tentative suggestion that the
tracing of the line could, perhaps, be altered in deference to the prejudices
of the Sulaco landowners. The chief engineer believed that the obstinacy of men
was the lesser obstacle. Moreover, to combat that they had the great influence
of Charles Gould, whereas tunnelling under Higuerota would have been a colossal
undertaking.
"Ah, yes! Gould.
What sort of a man is he?"
Sir John had heard much
of Charles Gould in Sta. Marta, and wanted to know more. The engineer-in- chief
assured him that the administrator of the San Tomé silver mine had an immense
influence over all these Spanish Dons. He had also one of the best houses in
Sulaco, and the Gould hospitality was beyond all praise.
"They received me
as if they had known me for years," he said. "The little lady is
kindness personified. I stayed with them for a month. He helped me to organize
the surveying parties. His practical ownership of the San Tomé silver mine
gives him a special position. He seems to have the ear of every provincial
authority apparently, and, as I said, he can wind all the hidalgos of the
province round his little finger. If you follow his advice the difficulties
will fall away, because he wants the railway. Of course, you must be careful in
what you say. He's English, and besides he must be immensely wealthy. The
Holroyd house is in with him in that mine, so you may imagine --"
He interrupted himself
as, from before one of the little fires burning outside the low wall of the
corral, arose the figure of a man wrapped in a poncho up to the neck. The
saddle which he had been using for a pillow made a dark patch on the ground
against the red glow of embers.
"I shall see
Holroyd himself on my way back through the States," said Sir John.
"I've ascertained that he, too, wants the railway."
The man who, perhaps
disturbed by the proximity of the voices, had arisen from the ground, struck a
match to light a cigarette. The flame showed a bronzed, black-whiskered face, a
pair of eyes gazing straight; then, rearranging his wrappings, he sank full length
and laid his head again on the saddle.
"That's our
camp-master, whom I must send back to Sulaco now we are going to carry our
survey into the Sta. Marta Valley," said the engineer. "A most useful
fellow, lent me by Captain Mitchell of the O.S.N. Company. It was very good of
Mitchell. Charles Gould told me I couldn't do better than take advantage of the
offer. He seems to know how to rule all these muleteers and peons. We had not
the slightest trouble with our people. He shall escort your diligencia right
into Sulaco with some of our railway peons. The road is bad. To have him at
hand may save you an upset or two. He promised me to take care of your person
all the way down as if you were his father."
This camp-master was
the Italian sailor whom all the Europeans in Sulaco, following Captain
Mitchell's mispronunciation, were in the habit of calling Nostromo. And indeed,
taciturn and ready, he did take excellent care of his charge at the bad parts
of the road, as Sir John himself acknowledged to Mrs. Gould afterwards.
AT THAT time Nostromo
had been already long enough in the country to raise to the highest pitch
Captain Mitchell's opinion of the extraordinary value of his discovery. Clearly
he was one of those invaluable subordinates whom to possess is a legitimate
cause of boasting. Captain Mitchell plumed himself upon his eye for men -- but
he was not selfish -- and in the innocence of his pride was already developing
that mania for "lending you my Capataz de Cargadores" which was to
bring Nostromo into personal contact, sooner or later, with every European in
Sulaco, as a sort of universal factotum -- a prodigy of efficiency in his own
sphere of life.
"The fellow is
devoted to me, body and soul!" Captain Mitchell was given to affirm; and
though nobody, perhaps, could have explained why it should be so, it was
impossible on a survey of their relation to throw doubt on that statement,
unless, indeed, one were a bitter, eccentric character like Dr. Monygham -- for
instance -- whose short, hopeless laugh expressed somehow an immense mistrust
of mankind. Not that Dr. Monygham was a prodigal either of laughter or of
words. He was bitterly taciturn when at his best. At his worst people feared
the open scornfulness of his tongue. Only Mrs. Gould could keep his unbelief in
men's motives within due bounds; but even to her (on an occasion not connected
with Nostromo, and in a tone which for him was gentle), even to her, he had
said once, "Really, it is most unreasonable to demand that a man should
think of other people so much better than he is able to think of himself."
And Mrs. Gould had
hastened to drop the subject. There were strange rumours of the English doctor.
Years ago, in the time of Guzman Bento, he had been mixed up, it was whispered,
in a conspiracy which was betrayed and, as people expressed it, drowned in
blood. His hair had turned grey, his hairless, seamed face was of a brick-dust
colour; the large check pattern of his flannel shirt and his old stained Panama
hat were an established defiance to the conventionalities of Sulaco. Had it not
been for the immaculate cleanliness of his apparel he might have been taken for
one of those shiftless Europeans that are a moral eyesore to the respectability
of a foreign colony in almost every exotic part of the world. The young ladies
of Sulaco, adorning with clusters of pretty faces the balconies along the
Street of the Constitution, when they saw him pass, with his limping gait and
bowed head, a short linen jacket drawn on carelessly over the flannel check
shirt, would remark to each other, "Here is the Señor doctor going to call
on Doña Emilia. He has got his little coat on." The inference was true.
Its deeper meaning was hidden from their simple intelligence. Moreover, they
expended no store of thought on the doctor. He was old, ugly, learned -- and a
little "loco" -- mad, if not a bit of a sorcerer, as the common
people suspected him of being. The little white jacket was in reality a
concession to Mrs. Gould's humanizing influence. The doctor, with his habit of
sceptical, bitter speech, had no other means of showing his profound respect
for the character of the woman who was known in the country as the English Señora.
He presented this tribute very seriously indeed; it was no trifle for a man of
his habits. Mrs. Gould felt that, too, perfectly. She would never have thought
of imposing upon him this marked show of deference.
She kept her old
Spanish house (one of the finest specimens in Sulaco) open for the dispensation
of the small graces of existence. She dispensed them with simplicity and charm
because she was guided by an alert perception of values. She was highly gifted
in the art of human intercourse which consists in delicate shades of
self-forgetfulness and in the suggestion of universal comprehension. Charles
Gould (the Gould family, established in Costaguana for three generations,
always went to England for their education and for their wives) imagined that
he had fallen in love with a girl's sound common sense like any other man, but
these were not exactly the reasons why, for instance, the whole surveying camp,
from the youngest of the young men to their mature chief, should have found
occasion to allude to Mrs. Gould's house so frequently amongst the high peaks
of the Sierra. She would have protested that she had done nothing for them,
with a low laugh and a surprised widening of her grey eyes, had anybody told
her how convincingly she was remembered on the edge of the snow-line above
Sulaco. But directly, with a little capable air of setting her wits to work,
she would have found an explanation. "Of course, it was such a surprise
for these boys to find any sort of welcome here. And I suppose they are home-
sick. I suppose everybody must be always just a little homesick."
She was always sorry
for homesick people.
Born in the country, as
his father before him, spare and tall, with a flaming moustache, a neat chin,
clear blue eyes, auburn hair, and a thin, fresh, red face, Charles Gould looked
like a new arrival from over the sea. His grandfather had fought in the cause
of independence under Bolivar, in that famous English legion which on the
battlefield of Carabobo had been saluted by the great Liberator as Saviours of
his country. One of Charles Gould's uncles had been the elected President of
that very province of Sulaco (then called a State) in the days of Federation,
and afterwards had been put up against the wall of a church and shot by the
order of the barbarous Unionist general, Guzman Bento. It was the same Guzman
Bento who, becoming later Perpetual President, famed for his ruthless and cruel
tyranny, readied his apotheosis in the popular legend of a sanguinary
land-haunting spectre whose body had been carried off by the devil in person
from the brick mausoleum in the nave of the Church of Assumption in Sta. Marta.
Thus, at least, the priests explained its disappearance to the barefooted
multitude that streamed in, awestruck, to gaze at the hole in the side of the
ugly box of bricks before the great altar.
Guzman Bento of cruel
memory had put to death great numbers of people besides Charles Gould's uncle;
but with a relative martyred in the cause of aristocracy, the Sulaco Oligarchs
(this was the phraseology of Guzman Bento's time; now they were called Blancos,
and had given up the federal idea), which meant the families of pure Spanish
descent, considered Charles as one of themselves. With such a family record, no
one could be more of a Costaguanero than Don Carlos Gould; but his aspect was
so characteristic that in the talk of common people he was just the Inglez --
the Englishman of Sulaco. He looked more English than a casual tourist, a sort
of heretic pilgrim, however, quite unknown in Sulaco. He looked more English
than the last arrived batch of young railway engineers, than anybody out of the
hunting-field pictures in the numbers of Punch reaching his wife's drawing-room
two months or so after date. It astonished you to hear him talk Spanish
(Castillan, as the natives say) or the Indian dialect of the country-people so
naturally. His accent had never been English; but there was something so
indelible in all these ancestral Goulds -- liberators, explorers, coffee
planters, merchants, revolutionists -- of Costaguana, that he, the only
representative of the third generation in a continent possessing its own style
of horsemanship, went on looking thoroughly English even on horseback. This is
not said of him in the mocking spirit of the Llaneros -- men of the great
plains -- who think that no one in the world knows how to sit a horse but
themselves. Charles Gould, to use the suitably lofty phrase, rode like a
centaur. Riding for him was not a special form of exercise; it was a natural
faculty, as walking straight is to all men sound of mind and limb; but, all the
same, when cantering beside the rutty ox-cart track to the mine he looked in
his English clothes and with his imported saddlery as though he had come this
moment to Costaguana at his easy swift pasotrote, straight out of some green
meadow at the other side of the world.
His way would lie along
the old Spanish road -- the Camino Real of popular speech -- the only remaining
vestige of a fact and name left by that royalty old Giorgio Viola hated, and
whose very shadow had departed from the land; for the big equestrian statue of
Charles IV at the entrance of the Alameda, towering white against the trees,
was only known to the folk from the country and to the beggars of the town that
slept on the steps around the pedestal, as the Horse of Stone. The other
Carlos, turning off to the left with a rapid clatter of hoofs on the disjointed
pavement -- Don Carlos Gould, in his English clothes, looked as incongruous,
but much more at home than the kingly cavalier reining in his steed on the
pedestal above the sleeping leperos, with his marble arm raised towards the
marble rim of a plumed hat.
The weather-stained
effigy of the mounted king, with its vague suggestion of a saluting gesture,
seemed to present an inscrutable breast to the political changes which had
robbed it of its very name; but neither did the other horseman, well known to
the people, keen and alive on his well-shaped, slate-coloured beast with a
white eye, wear his heart on the sleeve of his English coat. His mind preserved
its steady poise as if sheltered in the passionless stability of private and
public decencies at home in Europe. He accepted with a like calm the shocking
manner in which the Sulaco ladies smothered their faces with pearl powder till
they looked like white plaster casts with beautiful living eyes, the peculiar
gossip of the town, and the continuous political changes, the constant
"saving of the country," which to his wife seemed a puerile and
bloodthirsty game of murder and rapine played with terrible earnestness by
depraved children. In the early days of her Costaguana life, the little lady
used to clench her hands with exasperation at not being able to take the public
affairs of the country as seriously as the incidental atrocity of methods
deserved. She saw in them a comedy of naïve pretences, but hardly anything
genuine except her own appalled indignation. Charles, very quiet and twisting
his long moustaches, would decline to discuss them at all. Once, however, he
observed to her gently --
"My dear, you seem
to forget that I was born here." These few words made her pause as if they
had been a sudden revelation. Perhaps the mere fact of being born in the
country did make a difference. She had a great confidence in her husband; it
had always been very great. He had struck her imagination from the first by his
unsentimentalism, by that very quietude of mind which she had erected in her
thought for a sign of perfect competency in the business of living. Don José
Avellanos, their neighbour across the street, a statesman, a poet, a man of
culture, who had represented his country at several European Courts (and had
suffered untold indignities as a state prisoner in the time of the tyrant
Guzman Bento), used to declare in Doña Emilia's drawing-room that Carlos had
all the English qualities of character with a truly patriotic heart.
Mrs. Gould, raising her
eyes to her husband's thin, red and tan face, could not detect the slightest
quiver of a feature at what he must have heard said of his patriotism. Perhaps
he had just dismounted on his return from the mine; he was English enough to
disregard the hottest hours of the day. Basilio, in a livery of white linen and
a red sash, had squatted for a moment behind his heels to unstrap the heavy,
blunt spurs in the patio; and then the Señor Administrator would go up the
staircase into the gallery. Rows of plants in pots, ranged on the balustrade
between the pilasters of the arches, screened the corredor with their leaves
and flowers from the quadrangle below, whose paved space is the true
hearthstone of a South American house, where the quiet hours of domestic life are
marked by the shifting of light and shadow on the flagstones.
Señor Avellanos was in
the habit of crossing the patio at five o'clock almost every day. Don José
chose to come over at tea-time because the English rite at Doña Emilia's house
reminded him of the time he lived in London as Minister Plenipotentiary to the
Court of St. James. He did not like tea; and, usually, rocking his American
chair, his neat little shiny boots crossed on the foot-rest, he would talk on
and on with a sort of complacent virtuosity wonderful in a man of his age,
while he held the cup in his hands for a long time. His close-cropped head was
perfectly white; his eyes coal- black.
On seeing Charles Gould
step into the sala he would nod provisionally and go on to the end of the oratorial
period. Only then he would say --
"Carlos, my
friend, you have ridden from San Tomé in the heat of the day. Always the true
English activity. No? What?"
He drank up all the tea
at once in one draught. This performance was invariably followed by a slight
shudder and a low, involuntary "br-r-r-r," which was not covered by
the hasty exclamation, "Excellent!"
Then giving up the
empty cup into his young friend's hand, extended with a smile, he continued to
expatiate upon the patriotic nature of the San Tomé mine for the simple
pleasure of talking fluently, it seemed, while his reclining body jerked
backwards and forwards in a rocking-chair of the sort exported from the United
States. The ceiling of the largest drawing-room of the Casa Gould extended its
white level far above his head. The loftiness dwarfed the mixture of heavy,
straight- backed Spanish chairs of brown wood with leathern seats, and European
furniture, low, and cushioned all over, like squat little monsters gorged to
bursting with steel springs and horsehair. There were knick-knacks on little
tables, mirrors let into the wall above marble consoles, square spaces of
carpet under the two groups of armchairs, each presided over by a deep sofa;
smaller rugs scattered all over the floor of red tiles; three windows from the
ceiling down to the ground, opening on a balcony, and flanked by the
perpendicular folds of the dark hangings. The stateliness of ancient days
lingered between the four high, smooth walls, tinted a delicate primrose-colour;
and Mrs. Gould, with her little head and shining coils of hair, sitting in a
cloud of muslin and lace before a slender mahogany table, resembled a fairy
posed lightly before dainty philtres dispensed out of vessels of silver and
porcelain.
Mrs. Gould knew the
history of the San Tomé mine. Worked in the early days mostly by means of
lashes on the backs of slaves, its yield had been paid for in its own weight of
human bones. Whole tribes of Indians had perished in the exploitation; and then
the mine was abandoned, since with this primitive method it had ceased to make
a profitable return, no matter how many corpses were thrown into its maw. Then
it became forgotten. It was rediscovered after the War of Independence. An
English company obtained the right to work it, and found so rich a vein that
neither the exactions of successive governments, nor the periodical raids of
recruiting officers upon the population of paid miners they had created, could
discourage their perseverance. But in the end, during the long turmoil of
pronunciamentos that followed the death of the famous Guzman Bento, the native
miners, incited to revolt by the emissaries sent out from the capital, had
risen upon their English chiefs and murdered them to a man. The decree of
confiscation which appeared immediately afterwards in the Diario Official,
published in Sta. Marta, began with the words: "Justly incensed at the
grinding oppression of foreigners, actuated by sordid motives of gain rather
than by love for a country where they come impoverished to seek their fortunes,
the mining population of San Tomé, etc. . . ." and ended with the
declaration: "The chief of the State has resolved to exercise to the full
his power of clemency. The mine, which by every law, international, human, and
divine, reverts now to the Government as national property, shall remain closed
till the sword drawn for the sacred defence of liberal principles has
accomplished its mission of securing the happiness of our beloved
country."
And for many years this
was the last of the San Tomé mine. What advantage that Government had expected
from the spoliation, it is impossible to tell now. Costaguana was made with
difficulty to pay a beggarly money compensation to the families of the victims,
and then the matter dropped out of diplomatic despatches. But afterwards
another Government bethought itself of that valuable asset. It was an ordinary
Costaguana Government -- the fourth in six years -- but it judged of its
opportunities sanely. It remembered the San Tomé mine with a secret conviction
of its worthlessness in their own hands, but with an ingenious insight into the
various uses a silver mine can be put to, apart from the sordid process of
extracting the metal from under the ground. The father of Charles Gould, for a long
time one of the most wealthy merchants of Costaguana, had already lost a
considerable part of his fortune in forced loans to the successive Governments.
He was a man of calm judgment, who never dreamed of pressing his claims; and
when, suddenly, the perpetual concession of the San Tomé mine was offered to
him in full settlement, his alarm became extreme. He was versed in the ways of
Governments. Indeed, the intention of this affair, though no doubt deeply
meditated in the closet, lay open on the surface of the document presented
urgently for his signature. The third and most important clause stipulated that
the concession-holder should pay at once to the Government five years'
royalties on the estimated output of the mine.
Mr. Gould, senior,
defended himself from this fatal favour with many arguments and entreaties, but
without success. He knew nothing of mining; he had no means to put his
concession on the European market; the mine as a working concern did not exist.
The buildings had been burnt down, the mining plant had been destroyed, the
mining population had disappeared from the neighbourhood years and years ago;
the very road had vanished under a flood of tropical vegetation as effectually
as if swallowed by the sea; and the main gallery had fallen in within a hundred
yards from the entrance. It was no longer an abandoned mine; it was a wild,
inaccessible, and rocky gorge of the Sierra, where vestiges of charred timber,
some heaps of smashed bricks, and a few shapeless pieces of rusty iron could have
been found under the matted mass of thorny creepers covering the ground. Mr.
Gould, senior, did not desire the perpetual possession of that desolate
locality; in fact, the mere vision of it arising before his mind in the still
watches of the night had the power to exasperate him into hours of hot and
agitated insomnia.
It so happened,
however, that the Finance Minister of the time was a man to whom, in years gone
by, Mr. Gould had, unfortunately, declined to grant some small pecuniary
assistance, basing his refusal on the ground that the applicant was a notorious
gambler and cheat, besides being more than half suspected of a robbery with
violence on a wealthy ranchero in a remote country district, where he was
actually exercising the function of a judge. Now, after reaching his exalted
position, that politician had proclaimed his intention to repay evil with good
to Señor Gould -- the poor man. He affirmed and reaffirmed this resolution in
the drawing- rooms of Sta. Marta, in a soft and implacable voice, and with such
malicious glances that Mr. Gould's best friends advised him earnestly to
attempt no bribery to get the matter dropped. It would have been useless.
Indeed, it would not have been a very safe proceeding. Such was also the
opinion of a stout, loud-voiced lady of French extraction, the daughter, she
said, of an officer of high rank (officier supérieur de l'armée), who was
accommodated with lodgings within the walls of a secularized convent next door
to the Ministry of Finance. That florid person, when approached on behalf of
Mr. Gould in a proper manner, and with a suitable present, shook her head
despondently. She was good-natured, and her despondency was genuine. She
imagined she could not take money in consideration of something she could not accomplish.
The friend of Mr. Gould, charged with the delicate mission, used to say
afterwards that she was the only honest person closely or remotely connected
with the Government he had ever met. "No go," she had said with a
cavalier, husky intonation which was natural to her, and using turns of
expression more suitable to a child of parents unknown than to the orphaned
daughter of a general officer. "No; it's no go. Pas moyen, mon garçon.
C'est dommage, tout de même. Ah! zut! Je ne vole pas mon monde. Je ne suis pas
ministre -- moi! Vous pouvez emporter votre petit sac."
For a moment, biting
her carmine lip, she deplored inwardly the tyranny of the rigid principles
governing the sale of her influence in high places. Then, significantly, and
with a touch of impatience, "Allez," she added, "et dites bien à
votre bonhomme -- entendez-vous? -- qu'il faut avaler la pilule."
After such a warning
there was nothing for it but to sign and pay. Mr. Gould had swallowed the pill,
and it was as though it had been compounded of some subtle poison that acted
directly on his brain. He became at once mine-ridden, and as he was well read
in light literature it took to his mind the form of the Old Man of the Sea
fastened upon his shoulders. He also began to dream of vampires. Mr. Gould
exaggerated to himself the disadvantages of his new position, because he viewed
it emotionally. His position in Costaguana was no worse than before. But man is
a desperately conservative creature, and the extravagant novelty of this
outrage upon his purse distressed his sensibilities. Everybody around him was
being robbed by the grotesque and murderous bands that played their game of
governments and revolutions after the death of Guzman Bento. His experience had
taught him that, however short the plunder might fall of their legitimate
expectations, no gang in possession of the Presidential Palace would be so
incompetent as to suffer itself to be baffled by the want of a pretext. The
first casual colonel of the barefooted army of scarecrows that came along was
able to expose with force and precision to any mere civilian his titles to a
sum of 10,000 dollars; the while his hope would be immutably fixed upon a
gratuity, at any rate, of no less than a thousand. Mr. Gould knew that very
well, and, armed with resignation, had waited for better times. But to be
robbed under the forms of legality and business was intolerable to his
imagination. Mr. Gould, the father, had one fault in his sagacious and
honourable character: he attached too much importance to form. It is a failing
common to mankind, whose views are tinged by prejudices. There was for him in
that affair a malignancy of perverted justice which, by means of a moral shock,
attacked his vigorous physique. "It will end by killing me," he used
to affirm many times a day. And, in fact, since that time he began to suffer
from fever, from liver pains, and mostly from a worrying inability to think of
anything else. The Finance Minister could have formed no conception of the
profound subtlety of his revenge. Even Mr. Gould's letters to his fourteen-
year-old boy Charles, then away in England for his education, came at last to
talk of practically nothing but the mine. He groaned over the injustice, the
persecution, the outrage of that mine; he occupied whole pages in the
exposition of the fatal consequences attaching to the possession of that mine
from every point of view, with every dismal inference, with words of horror at
the apparently eternal character of that curse. For the Concession had been
granted to him and his descendants for ever. He implored his son never to
return to Costaguana, never to claim any part of his inheritance there, because
it was tainted by the infamous Concession; never to touch it, never to approach
it, to forget that America existed, and pursue a mercantile career in Europe.
And each letter ended with bitter self-reproaches for having stayed too long in
that cavern of thieves, intriguers, and brigands.
To be told repeatedly
that one's future is blighted because of the possession of a silver mine is
not, at the age of fourteen, a matter of prime importance as to its main
statement; but in its form it is calculated to excite a certain amount of
wonder and attention. In course of time the boy, at first only puzzled by the
angry jeremiads, but rather sorry for his dad, began to turn the matter over in
his mind in such moments as he could spare from play and study. In about a year
he had evolved from the lecture of the letters a definite conviction that there
was a silver mine in the Sulaco province of the Republic of Costaguana, where
poor Uncle Harry had been shot by soldiers a great many years before. There was
also connected closely with that mine a thing called the "iniquitous Gould
Concession," apparently written on a paper which his father desired
ardently to "tear and fling into the faces" of presidents, members of
judicature, and ministers of State. And this desire persisted, though the names
of these people, he noticed, seldom remained the same for a whole year together.
This desire (since the thing was iniquitous) seemed quite natural to the boy,
though why the affair was iniquitous he did not know. Afterwards, with
advancing wisdom, he managed to clear the plain truth of the business from the
fantastic intrusions of the Old Man of the Sea, vampires, and ghouls, which had
lent to his father's correspondence the flavour of a gruesome Arabian Nights
tale. In the end, the growing youth attained to as close an intimacy with the
San Tomé mine as the old man who wrote these plaintive and enraged letters on
the other side of the sea. He had been made several times already to pay heavy
fines for neglecting to work the mine, he reported, besides other sums
extracted from him on account of future royalties, on the ground that a man with
such a valuable concession in his pocket could not refuse his financial
assistance to the Government of the Republic. The last of his fortune was
passing away from him against worthless receipts, he wrote, in a rage, whilst
he was being pointed out as an individual who had known how to secure enormous
advantages from the necessities of his country. And the young man in Europe
grew more and more interested in that thing which could provoke such a tumult
of words and passion.
He thought of it every
day; but he thought of it without bitterness. It might have been an unfortunate
affair for his poor dad, and the whole story threw a queer light upon the
social and political life of Costaguana. The view he took of it was sympathetic
to his father, yet calm and reflective. His personal feelings had not been
outraged, and it is difficult to resent with proper and durable indignation the
physical or mental anguish of another organism, even if that other organism is
one's own father. By the time he was twenty Charles Gould had, in his turn,
fallen under the spell of the San Tomé mine. But it was another form of
enchantment, more suitable to his youth, into whose magic formula there entered
hope, vigour, and self- confidence, instead of weary indignation and despair.
Left after he was twenty to his own guidance (except for the severe injunction
not to return to Costaguana), he had pursued his studies in Belgium and France
with the idea of qualifying for a mining engineer. But this scientific aspect
of his labours remained vague and imperfect in his mind. Mines had acquired for
him a dramatic interest. He studied their peculiarities from a personal point
of view, too, as one would study the varied characters of men. He visited them
as one goes with curiosity to call upon remarkable persons. He visited mines in
Germany, in Spain, in Cornwall. Abandoned workings had for him strong
fascination. Their desolation appealed to him like the sight of human misery,
whose causes are varied and profound. They might have been worthless, but also
they might have been misunderstood. His future wife was the first, and perhaps
the only person to detect this secret mood which governed the profoundly
sensible, almost voiceless attitude of this man towards the world of material
things. And at once her delight in him, lingering with half-open wings like
those birds that cannot rise easily from a flat level, found a pinnacle from
which to soar up into the skies.
They had become
acquainted in Italy, where the future Mrs. Gould was staying with an old and
pale aunt who, years before, had married a middle-aged, impoverished Italian
marquis. She now mourned that man, who had known how to give up his life to the
independence and unity of his country, who had known how to be as enthusiastic
in his generosity as the youngest of those who fell for that very cause of
which old Giorgio Viola was a drifting relic, as a broken spar is suffered to
float away disregarded after a naval victory. The Marchesa led a still,
whispering existence, nun-like in her black robes and a white band over the
forehead, in a corner of the first floor of an ancient and ruinous palace,
whose big, empty halls downstairs sheltered under their painted ceilings the
harvests, the fowls, and even the cattle, together with the whole family of the
tenant farmer.
The two young people
had met in Lucca. After that meeting Charles Gould visited no mines, though
they went together in a carriage, once, to see some marble quarries, where the
work resembled mining in so far that it also was the tearing of the raw
material of treasure from the earth. Charles Gould did not open his heart to
her in any set speeches. He simply went on acting and thinking in her sight.
This is the true method of sincerity. One of his frequent remarks was, "I
think sometimes that poor father takes a wrong view of that San Tomé
business." And they discussed that opinion long and earnestly, as if they
could influence a mind across half the globe; but in reality they discussed it
because the sentiment of love can enter into any subject and live ardently in
remote phrases. For this natural reason these discussions were precious to Mrs.
Gould in her engaged state. Charles feared that Mr. Gould, senior, was wasting
his strength and making himself ill by his efforts to get rid of the
Concession. "I fancy that this is not the kind of handling it
requires," he mused aloud, as if to himself. And when she wondered frankly
that a man of character should devote his energies to plotting and intrigues,
Charles would remark, with a gentle concern that understood her wonder,
"You must not forget that he was born there."
She would set her quick
mind to work upon that, and then make the inconsequent retort, which he
accepted as perfectly sagacious, because, in fact, it was so --
"Well, and you?
You were born there, too."
He knew his answer.
"That's different.
I've been away ten years. Dad never had such a long spell; and it was more than
thirty years ago."
She was the first
person to whom he opened his lips after receiving the news of his father's
death.
"It has killed
him!" he said.
He had walked straight
out of town with the news, straight out before him in the noonday sun on the
white road, and his feet had brought him face to face with her in the hall of
the ruined palazzo, a room magnificent and naked, with here and there a long
strip of damask, black with damp and age, hanging down on a bare panel of the
wall. It was furnished with exactly one gilt armchair, with a broken back, and
an octagon columnar stand bearing a heavy marble vase ornamented with
sculptured masks and garlands of flowers, and cracked from top to bottom.
Charles Gould was dusty with the white dust of the road lying on his boots, on
his shoulders, on his cap with two peaks. Water dripped from under it all over
his face, and he grasped a thick oaken cudgel in his bare right hand.
She went very pale
under the roses of her big straw hat, gloved, swinging a clear sunshade, caught
just as she was going out to meet him at the bottom of the hill, where three
poplars stand near the wall of a vineyard.
"It has killed
him!" he repeated. "He ought to have had many years yet. We are a
long-lived family."
She was too startled to
say anything; he was contemplating with a penetrating and motionless stare the
cracked marble urn as though he had resolved to fix its shape for ever in his
memory. It was only when, turning suddenly to her, he blurted out twice,
"I've come to you -- I've come straight to you --," without being
able to finish his phrase, that the great pitifulness of that lonely and
tormented death in Costaguana came to her with the full force of its misery. He
caught hold of her hand, raised it to his lips, and at that she dropped her
parasol to pat him on the cheek, murmured "Poor boy," and began to
dry her eyes under the downward curve of her hat-brim, very small in her
simple, white frock, almost like a lost child crying in the degraded grandeur
of the noble hall, while he stood by her, again perfectly motionless in the
contemplation of the marble urn.
Afterwards they went
out for a long walk, which was silent till he exclaimed suddenly --
"Yes. But if he
had only grappled with it in a proper way!"
And then they stopped.
Everywhere there were long shadows lying on the hills, on the roads, on the
enclosed fields of olive trees; the shadows of poplars, of wide chestnuts, of
farm buildings, of stone walls; and in mid-air the sound of a bell, thin and
alert, was like the throbbing pulse of the sunset glow. Her lips were slightly
parted as though in surprise that he should not be looking at her with his
usual expression. His usual expression was unconditionally approving and
attentive. He was in his talks with her the most anxious and deferential of
dictators, an attitude that pleased her immensely. It affirmed her power
without detracting from his dignity. That slight girl, with her little feet,
little hands, little face attractively overweighted by great coils of hair;
with a rather large mouth, whose mere parting seemed to breathe upon you the
fragrance of frankness and generosity, had the fastidious soul of an
experienced woman. She was, before all things and all flatteries, careful of
her pride in the object of her choice. But now he was actually not looking at
her at all; and his expression was tense and irrational, as is natural in a man
who elects to stare at nothing past a young girl's head.
"Well, yes. It was
iniquitous. They corrupted him thoroughly, the poor old boy. Oh! why wouldn't
he let me go back to him? But now I shall know how to grapple with this."
After pronouncing these
words with immense assurance, he glanced down at her, and at once fell a prey
to distress, incertitude, and fear.
The only thing he
wanted to know now, he said, was whether she did love him enough -- whether she
would have the courage to go with him so far away? He put these questions to
her in a voice that trembled with anxiety -- for he was a determined man.
She did. She would. And
immediately the future hostess of all the Europeans in Sulaco had the physical
experience of the earth falling away from under her. It vanished completely,
even to the very sound of the bell. When her feet touched the ground again, the
bell was still ringing in the valley; she put her hands up to her hair,
breathing quickly, and glanced up and down the stony lane. It was reassuringly
empty. Meantime, Charles, stepping with one foot into a dry and dusty ditch,
picked up the open parasol, which had bounded away from them with a martial
sound of drum taps. He handed it to her soberly, a little crestfallen.
They turned back, and
after she had slipped her hand on his arm, the first words he pronounced were
--
"It's lucky that
we shall be able to settle in a coast town. You've heard its name. It is
Sulaco. I am so glad poor father did get that house. He bought a big house
there years ago, in order that there should always be a Casa Gould in the
principal town of what used to be called the Occidental Province. I lived there
once, as a small boy, with my dear mother, for a whole year, while poor father
was away in the United States on business. You shall be the new mistress of the
Casa Gould."
And later, in the
inhabited corner of the Palazzo above the vineyards, the marble hills, the
pines and olives of Lucca, he also said --
"The name of Gould
has been always highly respected in Sulaco. My uncle Harry was chief of the
State for some time, and has left a great name amongst the first families. By
this I mean the pure Creole families, who take no part in the miserable farce
of governments. Uncle Harry was no adventurer. In Costaguana we Goulds are no
adventurers. He was of the country, and he loved it, but he remained
essentially an Englishman in his ideas. He made use of the political cry of his
time. It was Federation. But he was no politician. He simply stood up for
social order out of pure love for rational liberty and from his hate of
oppression. There was no nonsense about him. He went to work in his own way
because it seemed right, just as I feel I must lay hold of that mine."
In such words he talked
to her because his memory was very full of the country of his childhood, his
heart of his life with that girl, and his mind of the San Tomé Concession. He
added that he would have to leave her for a few days to find an American, a man
from San Francisco, who was still somewhere in Europe. A few months before he
had made his acquaintance in an old historic German town, situated in a mining
district. The American had his womankind with him, but seemed lonely while they
were sketching all day long the old doorways and the turreted corners of the
mediæval houses. Charles Gould had with him the inseparable companionship of
the mine. The other man was interested in mining enterprises, knew something of
Costaguana, and was no stranger to the name of Gould. They had talked together
with some intimacy which was made possible by the difference of their ages.
Charles wanted now to find that capitalist of shrewd mind and accessible character.
His father's fortune in Costaguana, which he had supposed to be still
considerable, seemed to have melted in the rascally crucible of revolutions.
Apart from some ten thousand pounds deposited in England, there appeared to be
nothing left except the house in Sulaco, a vague right of forest exploitation
in a remote and savage district, and the San Tomé Concession, which had
attended his poor father to the very brink of the grave.
He explained those
things. It was late when they parted. She had never before given him such a
fascinating vision of herself. All the eagerness of youth for a strange life,
for great distances, for a future in which there was an air of adventure, of
combat -- a subtle thought of redress and conquest, had filled her with an
intense excitement, which she returned to the giver with a more open and
exquisite display of tenderness.
He left her to walk
down the hill, and directly he found himself alone he became sober. That
irreparable change a death makes in the course of our daily thoughts can be
felt in a vague and poignant discomfort of mind. It hurt Charles Gould to feel
that never more, by no effort of will, would he be able to think of his father
in the same way he used to think of him when the poor man was alive. His breathing
image was no longer in his power. This consideration, closely affecting his own
identity, filled his breast with a mournful and angry desire for action. In
this his instinct was unerring. Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of
thought and the friend of flattering illusions. Only in the conduct of our
action can we find the sense of mastery over the Fates. For his action, the
mine was obviously the only field. It was imperative sometimes to know how to
disobey the solemn wishes of the dead. He resolved firmly to make his
disobedience as thorough (by way of atonement) as it well could be. The mine
had been the cause of an absurd moral disaster; its working must be made a
serious and moral success. He owed it to the dead man's memory. Such were the --
properly speaking -- emotions of Charles Gould. His thoughts ran upon the means
of raising a large amount of capital in San Francisco or elsewhere; and
incidentally there occurred to him also the general reflection that the counsel
of the departed must be an unsound guide. Not one of them could be aware
beforehand what enormous changes the death of any given individual may produce
in the very aspect of the world.
The latest phase in the
history of the mine Mrs. Gould knew from personal experience. It was in essence
the history of her married life. The mantle of the Goulds' hereditary position
in Sulaco had descended amply upon her little person; but she would not allow
the peculiarities of the strange garment to weigh down the vivacity of her
character, which was the sign of no mere mechanical sprightliness, but of an
eager intelligence. It must not be supposed that Mrs. Gould's mind was
masculine. A woman with a masculine mind is not a being of superior efficiency;
she is simply a phenomenon of imperfect differentiation -- interestingly barren
and without importance. Doña Emilia's intelligence being feminine led her to
achieve the conquest of Sulaco, simply by lighting the way for her
unselfishness and sympathy. She could converse charmingly, but she was not
talkative. The wisdom of the heart having no concern with the erection or
demolition of theories any more than with the defence of prejudices, has no
random words at its command. The words it pronounces have the value of acts of
integrity, tolerance, and compassion. A woman's true tenderness, like the true
virility of man, is expressed in action of a conquering kind. The ladies of
Sulaco adored Mrs. Gould. "They still look upon me as something of a
monster," Mrs. Gould had said pleasantly to one of the three gentlemen
from San Francisco she had to entertain in her new Sulaco house just about a
year after her marriage.
They were her first
visitors from abroad, and they had come to look at the San Tomé mine. She
jested most agreeably, they thought; and Charles Gould, besides knowing
thoroughly what he was about, had shown himself a real hustler. These facts
caused them to be well disposed towards his wife. An unmistakable enthusiasm,
pointed by a slight flavour of irony, made her talk of the mine absolutely
fascinating to her visitors, and provoked them to grave and indulgent smiles in
which there was a good deal of deference. Perhaps had they known how much she
was inspired by an idealistic view of success they would have been amazed at
the state of her mind as the Spanish-American ladies had been amazed at the
tireless activity of her body. She would -- in her own words -- have been for
them "something of a monster." However, the Goulds were in essentials
a reticent couple, and their guests departed without the suspicion of any other
purpose but simple profit in the working of a silver mine. Mrs. Gould had out
her own carriage, with two white mules, to drive them down to the harbour,
whence the Ceres was to carry them off into the Olympus of plutocrats. Captain
Mitchell had snatched at the occasion of leave-taking to remark to Mrs. Gould,
in a low, confidential mutter, "This marks an epoch."
Mrs. Gould loved the
patio of her Spanish house. A broad flight of stone steps was overlooked
silently from a niche in the wall by a Madonna in blue robes with the crowned
child sitting on her arm. Subdued voices ascended in the early mornings from
the paved well of the quadrangle, with the stamping of horses and mules led out
in pairs to drink at the cistern. A tangle of slender bamboo stems drooped its
narrow, blade-like leaves over the square pool of water, and the fat coachman
sat muffled up on the edge, holding lazily the ends of halters in his hand.
Barefooted servants passed to and fro, issuing from dark, low doorways below;
two laundry girls with baskets of washed linen; the baker with the tray of
bread made for the day; Leonarda -- her own camerista -- bearing high up, swung
from her hand raised above her raven black head, a bunch of starched
under-skirts dazzlingly white in the slant of sunshine. Then the old porter
would hobble in, sweeping the flagstones, and the house was ready for the day.
All the lofty rooms on three sides of the quadrangle opened into each other and
into the corredor, with its wrought-iron railings and a border of flowers,
whence, like the lady of the mediæval castle, she could witness from above all
the departures and arrivals of the Casa, to which the sonorous arched gateway
lent an air of stately importance.
She had watched her
carriage roll away with the three guests from the north. She smiled. Their
three arms went up simultaneously to their three hats. Captain Mitchell, the
fourth, in attendance, had already begun a pompous discourse. Then she
lingered. She lingered, approaching her face to the clusters of flowers here
and there as if to give time to her thoughts to catch up with her slow
footsteps along the straight vista of the corredor.
A fringed Indian
hammock from Aroa, gay with coloured featherwork, had been swung judiciously in
a corner that caught the early sun; for the mornings are cool in Sulaco. The
cluster of flor de noche buena blazed in great masses before the open glass
doors of the reception rooms. A big green parrot, brilliant like an emerald in
a cage that flashed like gold, screamed out ferociously, "Viva
Costaguana!" then called twice mellifluously, "Leonarda!
Leonarda!" in imitation of Mrs. Gould's voice, and suddenly took refuge in
immobility and silence. Mrs. Gould reached the end of the gallery and put her
head through the door of her husband's room.
Charles Gould, with one
foot on a low wooden stool, was already strapping his spurs. He wanted to hurry
back to the mine. Mrs. Gould, without coming in, glanced about the room. One
tall, broad bookcase, with glass doors, was full of books; but in the other,
without shelves, and lined with red baize, were arranged firearms: Winchester
carbines, revolvers, a couple of shot-guns, and even two pairs of
double-barrelled holster pistols. Between them, by itself, upon a strip of
scarlet velvet, hung an old cavalry sabre, once the property of Don Enrique
Gould, the hero of the Occidental Province, presented by Don José Avellanos,
the hereditary friend of the family.
Otherwise, the
plastered white walls were completely bare, except for a water-colour sketch of
the San Tomé mountain -- the work of Doña Emilia herself. In the middle of the
red-tiled floor stood two long tables littered with plans and papers, a few
chairs, and a glass show-case containing specimens of ore from the mine. Mrs.
Gould, looking at all these things in turn, wondered aloud why the talk of
these wealthy and enterprising men discussing the prospects, the working, and
the safety of the mine rendered her so impatient and uneasy,whereas she could
talk of the mine by the hour with her husband with unwearied interest and
satisfaction. And dropping her eyelids expressively, she added --
"What do you feel
about it, Charley?"
Then, surprised at her
husband's silence, she raised her eyes, opened wide, as pretty as pale flowers.
He had done with the spurs, and, twisting his moustache with both hands,
horizontally, he contemplated her from the height of his long legs with a visible
appreciation of her appearance. The consciousness of being thus contemplated
pleased Mrs. Gould.
"They are
considerable men," he said.
"I know. But have
you listened to their conversation? They don't seem to have understood anything
they have seen here."
"They have seen
the mine. They have understood that to some purpose," Charles Gould
interjected, in defence of the visitors; and then his wife mentioned the name
of the most considerable of the three. He was considerable in finance and in
industry. His name was familiar to many millions of people. He was so
considerable that he would never have travelled so far away from the centre of
his activity if the doctors had not insisted, with veiled menaces, on his
taking a long holiday.
"Mr. Holroyd's sense
of religion," Mrs. Gould pursued, "was shocked and disgusted at the
tawdriness of the dressed-up saints in the cathedral -- the worship, he called
it, of wood and tinsel. But it seemed to me that he looked upon his own God as
a sort of influential partner, who gets his share of profits in the endowment
of churches. That's a sort of idolatry. He told me he endowed churches every
year, Charley."
"No end of
them," said Mr. Gould, marvelling inwardly at the mobility of her
physiognomy. "All over the country. He's famous for that sort of
munificence." "Oh, he didn't boast," Mrs. Gould declared,
scrupulously. "I believe he's really a good man, but so stupid! A poor
Chulo who offers a little silver arm or leg to thank his god for a cure is as
rational and more touching."
"He's at the head
of immense silver and iron interests," Charles Gould observed.
"Ah, yes! The
religion of silver and iron. He's a very civil man, though he looked awfully
solemn when he first saw the Madonna on the staircase, who's only wood and
paint; but he said nothing to me. My dear Charley, I heard those men talk among
themselves. Can it be that they really wish to become, for an immense
consideration, drawers of water and hewers of wood to all the countries and
nations of the earth?"
"A man must work
to some end," Charles Gould said, vaguely.
Mrs. Gould, frowning,
surveyed him from head to foot. With his riding breeches, leather leggings (an
article of apparel never before seen in Costaguana), a Norfolk coat of grey
flannel, and those great flaming moustaches, he suggested an officer of cavalry
turned gentleman farmer. This combination was gratifying to Mrs. Gould's
tastes. "How thin the poor boy is!" she thought. "He overworks
himself." But there was no denying that his fine-drawn, keen red face, and
his whole, long-limbed, lank person had an air of breeding and distinction. And
Mrs. Gould relented.
"I only wondered
what you felt," she murmured, gently.
During the last few
days, as it happened, Charles Gould had been kept too busy thinking twice
before he spoke to have paid much attention to the state of his feelings. But
theirs was a successful match, and he had no difficulty in finding his answer.
"The best of my
feelings are in your keeping, my dear," he said, lightly; and there was so
much truth in that obscure phrase that he experienced towards her at the moment
a great increase of gratitude and tenderness.
Mrs. Gould, however,
did not seem to find this answer in the least obscure. She brightened up
delicately; already he had changed his tone.
"But there are
facts. The worth of the mine -- as a mine -- is beyond doubt. It shall make us
very wealthy. The mere working of it is a matter of technical knowledge, which
I have -- which ten thousand other men in the world have. But its safety, its
continued existence as an enterprise, giving a return to men -- to strangers,
comparative strangers -- who invest money in it, is left altogether in my
hands. I have inspired confidence in a man of wealth and position. You seem to
think this perfectly natural -- do you? Well, I don't know. I don't know why I
have; but it is a fact. This fact makes everything possible, because without it
I would never have thought of disregarding my father's wishes. I would never
have disposed of the Concession as a speculator disposes of a valuable right to
a company -- for cash and shares, to grow rich eventually if possible, but at
any rate to put some money at once in his pocket. No. Even if it had been
feasible -- which I doubt -- I would not have done so. Poor father did not
understand. He was afraid I would hang on to the ruinous thing, waiting for
just some such chance, and waste my life miserably. That was the true sense of
his prohibition, which we have deliberately set aside."
They were walking up
and down the corredor. Her head just reached to his shoulder. His arm, extended
downwards, was about her waist. His spurs jingled slightly.
"He had not seen
me for ten years. He did not know me. He parted from me for my sake, and he
would never let me come back. He was always talking in his letters of leaving
Costaguana, of abandoning everything and making his escape. But he was too
valuable a prey. They would have thrown him into one of their prisons at the
first suspicion."
His spurred feet clinked
slowly. He was bending over his wife as they walked. The big parrot, turning
its head askew, followed their pacing figures with a round, unblinking eye.
"He was a lonely
man. Ever since I was ten years old he used to talk to me as if I had been
grown up. When I was in Europe he wrote to me every month. Ten, twelve pages
every month of my life for ten years. And, after all, he did not know me! Just
think of it -- ten whole years away; the years I was growing up into a man. He
could not know me. Do you think he could?"
Mrs. Gould shook her
head negatively; which was just what her husband had expected from the strength
of the argument. But she shook her head negatively only because she thought
that no one could know her Charles -- really know him for what he was but
herself. The thing was obvious. It could be felt. It required no argument. And
poor Mr. Gould, senior, who had died too soon to ever hear of their engagement,
remained too shadowy a figure for her to be credited with knowledge of any sort
whatever.
"No, he did not
understand. In my view this mine could never have been a thing to sell. Never!
After all his misery I simply could not have touched it for money alone,"
Charles Gould pursued: and she pressed her head to his shoulder approvingly.
These two young people
remembered the life which had ended wretchedly just when their own lives had
come together in that splendour of hopeful love, which to the most sensible
minds appears like a triumph of good over all the evils of the earth. A vague idea
of rehabilitation had entered the plan of their life. That it was so vague as
to elude the support of argument made it only the stronger. It had presented
itself to them at the instant when the woman's instinct of devotion and the
man's instinct of activity receive from the strongest of illusions their most
powerful impulse. The very prohibition imposed the necessity of success. It was
as if they had been morally bound to make good their vigorous view of life
against the unnatural error of weariness and despair. If the idea of wealth was
present to them it was only in so far as it was bound with that other success.
Mrs. Gould, an orphan from early childhood and without fortune, brought up in
an atmosphere of intellectual interests, had never considered the aspects of
great wealth. They were too remote, and she had not learned that they were
desirable. On the other hand, she had not known anything of absolute want. Even
the very poverty of her aunt, the Marchesa, had nothing intolerable to a
refined mind; it seemed in accord with a great grief: it had the austerity of a
sacrifice offered to a noble ideal. Thus even the most legitimate touch of
materialism was wanting in Mrs. Gould's character. The dead man of whom she
thought with tenderness (because he was Charley's father) and with some
impatience (because he had been weak), must be put completely in the wrong.
Nothing else would do to keep their prosperity without a stain on its only
real, on its immaterial side!
Charles Gould, on his
part, had been obliged to keep the idea of wealth well to the fore; but he
brought it forward as a means, not as an end. Unless the mine was good business
it could not be touched. He had to insist on that aspect of the enterprise. It
was his lever to move men who had capital. And Charles Gould believed in the
mine. He knew everything that could be known of it. His faith in the mine was
contagious, though it was not served by a great eloquence; but business men are
frequently as sanguine and imaginative as lovers. They are affected by a
personality much oftener than people would suppose; and Charles Gould, in his
unshaken assurance, was absolutely convincing. Besides, it was a matter of
common knowledge to the men to whom he addressed himself that mining in
Costaguana was a game that could be made considably more than worth the candle.
The men of affairs knew that very well. The real difficulty in touching it was
elsewhere. Against that there was an implication of calm and implacable
resolution in Charles Gould's very voice. Men of affairs venture sometimes on
acts that the common judgment of the world would pronounce absurd; they make
their decisions on apparently impulsive and human grounds. "Very
well," had said the considerable personage to whom Charles Gould on his
way out through San Francisco had lucidly exposed his point of view. "Let
us suppose that the mining affairs of Sulaco are taken in hand. There would
then be in it: first, the house of Holroyd, which is all right; then, Mr.
Charles Gould, a citizen of Costaguana, who is also all right; and, lastly, the
Government of the Republic. So far this resembles the first start of the
Atacama nitrate fields, where there was a financing house, a gentleman of the
name of Edwards, and -- a Government; or, rather, two Governments -- two South
American Governments. And you know what came of it. War came of it; devastating
and prolonged war came of it, Mr. Gould. However, here we possess the advantage
of having only one South American Government hanging around for plunder out of
the deal. It is an advantage; but then there are degrees of badness, and that
Government is the Costaguana Government."
Thus spoke the
considerable personage, the millionaire endower of churches on a scale
befitting the greatness of his native land -- the same to whom the doctors used
the language of horrid and veiled menaces. He was a big-limbed, deliberate man,
whose quiet burliness lent to an ample silk-faced frock-coat a superfine
dignity. His hair was iron grey, his eyebrows were still black, and his massive
profile was the profile of a Cæsar's head on an old Roman coin. But his
parentage was German and Scotch and English, with remote strains of Danish and
French blood, giving him the temperament of a Puritan and an insatiable
imagination of conquest. He was completely unbending to his visitor, because of
the warm introduction the visitor had brought from Europe, and because of an
irrational liking for earnestness and determination wherever met, to whatever
end directed.
"The Costaguana
Government shall play its hand for all it's worth -- and don't you forget it,
Mr. Gould. Now, what is Costaguana? It is the bottomless pit of pean capital
has been flung into it with both hands for years. Not ours, though. We in this
country know just about enough to keep indoors when it rains. We can sit and
watch. Of course, some day we shall step in. We are bound to. But there's no
hurry. Time itself has got to wait on the greatest country in the whole of
God's Universe. We shall be giving the word for everything: industry, trade,
law, journalism, art, politics, and religion, from Cape Horn clear over to
Smith's Sound, and beyond, too, if anything worth taking hold of turns up at
the North Pole. And then we shall have the leisure to take in hand the outlying
islands and continents of the earth. We shall run the world's business whether
the world likes it or not. The world can't help it -- and neither can we, I
guess."
By this he meant to
express his faith in destiny in words suitable to his intelligence, which was
unskilled in the presentation of general ideas. His intelligence was nourished
on facts; and Charles Gould, whose imagination had been permanently affected by
the one great fact of a silver mine, had no objection to this theory of the
world's future. If it had seemed distasteful for a moment it was because the
sudden statement of such vast eventualities dwarfed almost to nothingness the
actual matter in hand. He and his plans and all the mineral wealth of the
Occidental Province appeared suddenly robbed of every vestige of magnitude. The
sensation was disagreeable; but Charles Gould was not dull. Already he felt
that he was producing a favourable impression; the consciousness of that
flattering fact helped him to a vague smile, which his big interlocutor took
for a smile of discreet and admiring assent. He smiled quietly, too; and
immediately Charles Gould, with that mental agility mankind will display in
defence of a cherished hope, reflected that the very apparent insignificance of
his aim would help him to success. His personality and his mine would be taken
up because it was a matter of no great consequence, one way or another, to a
man who referred his action to such a prodigious destiny. And Charles Gould was
not humiliated by this consideration, because the thing remained as big as ever
for him. Nobody else's vast conceptions of destiny could diminish the aspect of
his desire for the redemption of the San Tomé mine. In comparison to the
correctness of his aim, definite in space and absolutely attainable within a
limited time, the other man appeared for an instant as a dreamy idealist of no
importance.
The great man, massive
and benignant, had been looking at him thoughtfully; when he broke the short
silence it was to remark that concessions flew about thick in the air of
Costaguana. Any simple soul that just yearned to be taken in could bring down a
concession at the first shot.
"Our consuls get
their mouths stopped with them," he continued, with a twinkle of genial
scorn in his eyes. But in a moment he became grave. "A conscientious,
upright man, that cares nothing for boodle, and keeps clear of their intrigues,
conspiracies, and factions, soon gets his passports. See that, Mr. Gould?
Persona non grata. That's the reason our Government is never properly informed.
On the other hand, Europe must be kept out of this continent, and for proper
interference on our part the time is not yet ripe, I dare say. But we here --
we are not this country's Government, neither are we simple souls. Your affair
is all right. The main question for us is whether the second partner, and
that's you, is the right sort to hold his own against the third and unwelcome
partner, which is one or another of the high and mighty robber gangs that run
the Costaguana Government. What do you think, Mr. Gould, eh?"
He bent forward to look
steadily into the unflinching eyes of Charles Gould, who, remembering the large
box full of his father's letters, put the accumulated scorn and bitterness of
many years into the tone of his answer --
"As far as the
knowledge of these men and their methods and their politics is concerned, I can
answer for myself. I have been fed on that sort of knowledge since I was a boy.
I am not likely to fall into mistakes from excess of optimism."
"Not likely, eh?
That's all right. Tact and a stiff upper lip is what you'll want; and you could
bluff a little on the strength of your backing. Not too much, though. We will
go with you as long as the thing runs straight. But we won't be drawn into any
large trouble. This is the experiment which I am willing to make. There is some
risk, and we will take it; but if you can't keep up your end, we will stand our
loss, of course, and then -- we'll let the thing go. This mine can wait; it has
been shut up before, as you know. You must understand that under no
circumstances will we consent to throw good money after bad."
Thus the great
personage had spoken then, in his own private office, in a great city where
other men (very considerable in the eyes of a vain populace) waited with
alacrity upon a wave of his hand. And rather more than a year later, during his
unexpected appearance in Sulaco, he had emphasized his uncompromising attitude
with a freedom of sincerity permitted to his wealth and influence. He did this
with the less reserve, perhaps, because the inspection of what had been done,
and more still the way in which successive steps had been taken, had impressed
him with the conviction that Charles Gould was perfectly capable of keeping up
his end.
"This young
fellow," he thought to himself, "may yet become a power in the
land."
This thought flattered
him, for hitherto the only account of this young man he could give to his
intimates was --
"My brother-in-law
met him in one of these one- horse old German towns, near some mines, and sent
him on to me with a letter. He's one of the Costaguana Goulds, pure-bred
Englishmen, but all born in the country. His uncle went into politics, was the
last Provincial President of Sulaco, and got shot after a battle. His father
was a prominent business man in Sta. Marta, tried to keep clear of their
politics, and died ruined after a lot of revolutions. And that's your
Costaguana in a nutshell."
Of course, he was too
great a man to be questioned as to his motives, even by his intimates. The
outside world was at liberty to wonder respectfully at the hidden meaning of
his actions. He was so great a man that his lavish patronage of the "purer
forms of Christianity" (which in its naïve form of church-building amused
Mrs. Gould) was looked upon by his fellow- citizens as the manifestation of a
pious and humble spirit. But in his own circles of the financial world the
taking up of such a thing as the San Tomé mine was regarded with respect,
indeed, but rather as a subject for discreet jocularity. It was a great man's
caprice. In the great Holroyd building (an enormous pile of iron, glass, and
blocks of stone at the corner of two streets, cobwebbed aloft by the radiation
of telegraph wires) the heads of principal departments exchanged humorous
glances, which meant that they were not let into the secrets of the San Tomé
business. The Costaguana mail (it was never large -- one fairly heavy envelope)
was taken unopened straight into the great man's room, and no instructions
dealing with it had ever been issued thence. The office whispered that he
answered personally -- and not by dictation either, but actually writing in his
own hand, with pen and ink, and, it was to be supposed, taking a copy in his
own private press copy-book, inaccessible to profane eyes. Some scornful young
men, insignificant pieces of minor machinery in that eleven-storey-high
workshop of great affairs, expressed frankly their private opinion that the
great chief had done at last something silly, and was ashamed of his folly; others,
elderly and insignificant, but full of romantic reverence for the business that
had devoured their best years, used to mutter darkly and knowingly that this
was a portentous sign; that the Holroyd connection meant by-and-by to get hold
of the whole Republic of Costaguana, lock, stock, and barrel. But, in fact, the
hobby theory was the right one. It interested the great man to attend
personally to the San Tomé mine; it interested him so much that he allowed this
hobby to give a direction to the first complete holiday he had taken for quite
a startling number of years. He was not running a great enterprise there; no
mere railway board or industrial corporation. He was running a man! A success
would have pleased him very much on refreshingly novel grounds; but, on the
other side of the same feeling, it was incumbent upon him to cast it off
utterly at the first sign of failure. A man may be thrown off. The papers had
unfortunately trumpeted all over the land his journey to Costaguana. If he was
pleased at the way Charles Gould was going on, he infused an added grimness
into his assurances of support. Even at the very last interview, half an hour
or so before he rolled out of the patio, hat in hand, behind Mrs. Gould's white
mules, he had said in Charles's room --
"You go ahead in
your own way, and I shall know how to help you as long as you hold your own.
But you may rest assured that in a given case we shall know how to drop you in
time."
To this Charles Gould's
only answer had been: "You may begin sending out the machinery as soon as
you like."
And the great man had
liked this imperturbable assurance. The secret of it was that to Charles
Gould's mind these uncompromising terms were agreeable. Like this the mine
preserved its identity, with which he had endowed it as a boy; and it remained
dependent on himself alone. It was a serious affair, and he, too, took it
grimly.
"Of course,"
he said to his wife, alluding to this last conversation with the departed
guest, while they walked slowly up and down the corredor, followed by the
irritated eye of the parrot -- "of course, a man of that sort can take up
a thing or drop it when he likes. He will suffer from no sense of defeat. He
may have to give in, or he may have to die to-morrow, but the great silver and
iron interests will survive, and some day will get hold of Costaguana along
with the rest of the world."
They had stopped near
the cage. The parrot, catching the sound of a word belonging to his vocabulary,
was moved to interfere. Parrots are very human.
"Viva
Costaguana!" he shrieked, with intense self- assertion, and, instantly
ruffling up his feathers, assumed an air of puffed-up somnolence behind the
glittering wires.
"And do you
believe that, Charley?" Mrs. Gould asked. "This seems to me most awful
materialism, and --"
"My dear, it's
nothing to me," interrupted her husband, in a reasonable tone. "I
make use of what I see. What's it to me whether his talk is the voice of
destiny or simply a bit of clap-trap eloquence? There's a good deal of eloquence
of one sort or another produced in both Americas. The air of the New World
seems favourable to the art of declamation. Have you forgotten how dear
Avellanos can hold forth for hours here --?"
"Oh, but that's
different," protested Mrs. Gould, almost shocked. The allusion was not to
the point. Don José was a dear good man, who talked very well, and was
enthusiastic about the greatness of the San Tomé mine. "How can you
compare them, Charles?" she exclaimed, reproachfully. "He has
suffered -- and yet he hopes."
The working competence
of men -- which she never questioned -- was very surprising to Mrs. Gould,
because upon so many obvious issues they showed themselves strangely
muddle-headed.
Charles Gould, with a
careworn calmness which secured for him at once his wife's anxious sympathy,
assured her that he was not comparing. He was an American himself, after all,
and perhaps he could understand both kinds of eloquence -- "if it were
worth while to try," he added, grimly. But he had breathed the air of
England longer than any of his people had done for three generations, and
really he begged to be excused. His poor father could be eloquent, too. And he
asked his wife whether she remembered a passage in one of his father's last
letters where Mr. Gould had expressed the conviction that "God looked
wrathfully at these countries, or else He would let some ray of hope fall
through a rift in the appalling darkness of intrigue, bloodshed, and crime that
hung over the Queen of Continents."
Mrs. Gould had not
forgotten. "You read it to me, Charley," she murmured. "It was a
striking pronouncement. How deeply your father must have felt its terrible
sadness!"
"He did not like
to be robbed. It exasperated him," said Charles Gould. "But the image
will serve well enough. What is wanted here is law, good faith, order,
security. Any one can declaim about these things, but I pin my faith to
material interests. Only let the material interests once get a firm footing,
and they are bound to impose the conditions on which alone they can continue to
exist. That's how your money-making is justified here in the face of
lawlessness and disorder. It is justified because the security which it demands
must be shared with an oppressed people. A better justice will come afterwards.
That's your ray of hope." His arm pressed her slight form closer to his
side for a moment. "And who knows whether in that sense even the San Tomé
mine may not become that little rift in the darkness which poor father
despaired of ever seeing?"
She glanced up at him
with admiration. He was competent; he had given a vast shape to the vagueness
of her unselfish ambitions.
"Charley,"
she said, "you are splendidly disobedient."
He left her suddenly in
the corredor to go and get his hat, a soft, grey sombrero, an article of
national costume which combined unexpectedly well with his English get-up. He
came back, a riding-whip under his arm, buttoning up a dogskin glove; his face
reflected the resolute nature of his thoughts. His wife had waited for him at the
head of the stairs, and before he gave her the parting kiss he finished the
conversation --
"What should be
perfectly clear to us," he said, "is the fact that there is no going
back. Where could we begin life afresh? We are in now for all that there is in
us."
He bent over her
upturned face very tenderly and a little remorsefully. Charles Gould was
competent because he had no illusions. The Gould Concession had to fight for
life with such weapons as could be found at once in the mire of a corruption that
was so universal as almost to lose its significance. He was prepared to stoop
for his weapons. For a moment he felt as if the silver mine, which had killed
his father, had decoyed him further than he meant to go; and with the round-
about logic of emotions, he felt that the worthiness of his life was bound up
with success. There was no going back.
"MRS. GOULD was
too intelligently sympathetic not to share that feeling. It made life exciting,
and she was too much of a woman not to like excitement. But it frightened her,
too, a little; and when Don José Avellanos, rocking in the American chair,
would go so far as to say, "Even, my dear Carlos, if you had failed; even
if some untoward event were yet to destroy your work -- which God forbid! --
you would have deserved well of your country," Mrs. Gould would look up
from the tea-table profoundly at her unmoved husband stirring the spoon in the
cup as though he had not heard a word.
Not that Don José
anticipated anything of the sort. He could not praise enough dear Carlos's tact
and courage. His English, rock-like quality of character was his best
safeguard, Don José affirmed; and, turning to Mrs. Gould, "As to you,
Emilia, my soul" -- he would address her with the familiarity of his age
and old friendship -- "you are as true a patriot as though you had been
born in our midst."
This might have been
less or more than the truth. Mrs. Gould, accompanying her husband all over the
province in the search for labour, had seen the land with a deeper glance than
a trueborn Costaguanera could have done. In her travel-worn riding habit, her
face powdered white like a plaster cast, with a further protection of a small
silk mask during the heat of the day, she rode on a well-shaped, light-footed
pony in the centre of a little cavalcade. Two mozos de campo, picturesque in
great hats, with spurred bare heels, in white embroidered calzoneras, leather
jackets and striped ponchos, rode ahead with carbines across their shoulders,
swaying in unison to the pace of the horses. A tropilla of pack mules brought
up the rear in charge of a thin brown muleteer, sitting his long-eared beast
very near the tail, legs thrust far forward, the wide brim of his hat set far
back, making a sort of halo for his head. An old Costaguana officer, a retired
senior major of humble origin, but patronized by the first families on account
of his Blanco opinions, had been recommended by Don José for commissary and
organizer of that expedition. The points of his grey moustache hung far below
his chin, and, riding on Mrs. Gould's left hand, he looked about with kindly
eyes, pointing out the features of the country, telling the names of the little
pueblos and of the estates, of the smooth-walled haciendas like long fortresses
crowning the knolls above the level of the Sulaco Valley. It unrolled itself,
with green young crops, plains, woodland, and gleams of water, park-like, from
the blue vapour of the distant sierra to an immense quivering horizon of grass
and sky, where big white clouds seemed to fall slowly into the darkness of
their own shadows.
Men ploughed with
wooden ploughs and yoked oxen, small on a boundless expanse, as if attacking
immensity itself. The mounted figures of vaqueros galloped in the distance, and
the great herds fed with all their horned heads one way, in one single wavering
line as far as eye could reach across the broad potreros. A spreading
cotton-wool tree shaded a thatched ranche by the road; the trudging files of
burdened Indians taking off their hats, would lift sad, mute eyes to the
cavalcade raising the dust of the crumbling camino real made by the hands of
their enslaved forefathers. And Mrs. Gould, with each day's journey, seemed to
come nearer to the soul of the land in the tremendous disclosure of this
interior unaffected by the slight European veneer of the coast towns, a great
land of plain and mountain and people, suffering and mute, waiting for the
future in a pathetic immobility of patience.
She knew its sights and
its hospitality, dispensed with a sort of slumbrous dignity in those great
houses presenting long, blind walls and heavy portals to the wind- swept
pastures. She was given the head of the tables, where masters and dependants
sat in a simple and patriarchal state. The ladies of the house would talk
softly in the moonlight under the orange trees of the courtyards, impressing
upon her the sweetness of their voices and the something mysterious in the quietude
of their lives. In the morning the gentlemen, well mounted in braided sombreros
and embroidered riding suits, with much silver on the trappings of their
horses, would ride forth to escort the departing guests before committing them,
with grave good-byes, to the care of God at the boundary pillars of their
estates. In all these households she could hear stories of political outrage;
friends, relatives, ruined, imprisoned, killed in the battles of senseless
civil wars, barbarously executed in ferocious proscriptions, as though the
government of the country had been a struggle of lust between bands of absurd
devils let loose upon the land with sabres and uniforms and grandiloquent
phrases. And on all the lips she found a weary desire for peace, the dread of
officialdom with its nightmarish parody of administration without law, without
security, and without justice.
She bore a whole two
months of wandering very well; she had that power of resistance to fatigue
which one discovers here and there in some quite frail-looking women with
surprise -- like a state of possession by a remarkably stubborn spirit. Don Pépé
-- the old Costaguana major -- after much display of solicitude for the
delicate lady, had ended by conferring upon her the name of the
"Never-tired Señora." Mrs. Gould was indeed becoming a Costaguanera.
Having acquired in Southern Europe a knowledge of true peasantry, she was able
to appreciate the great worth of the people. She saw the man under the silent,
sad-eyed beast of burden. She saw them on the road carrying loads, lonely
figures upon the plain, toiling under great straw hats, with their white
clothing flapping about their limbs in the wind; she remembered the villages by
some group of Indian women at the fountain impressed upon her memory, by the
face of some young Indian girl with a melancholy and sensual profile, raising
an earthenware vessel of cool water at the door of a dark hut with a wooden
porch cumbered with great brown jars. The solid wooden wheels of an ox-cart,
halted with its shafts in the dust, showed the strokes of the axe; and a party
of charcoal carriers, with each man's load resting above his head on the top of
the low mud wall, slept stretched in a row within the strip of shade.
The heavy stonework of
bridges and churches left by the conquerors proclaimed the disregard of human
labour, the tribute-labour of vanished nations. The power of king and church
was gone, but at the sight of some heavy ruinous pile overtopping from a knoll
the low mud walls of a village, Don Pépé would interrupt the tale of his
campaigns to exclaim --
"Poor Costaguana!
Before, it was everything for the Padres, nothing for the people; and now it is
everything for those great politicos in Sta. Marta, for negroes and
thieves."
Charles talked with the
alcaldes, with the fiscales, with the principal people in towns, and with the
caballeros on the estates. The commandantes of the districts offered him
escorts -- for he could show an authorization from the Sulaco political chief
of the day. How much the document had cost him in gold twenty- dollar pieces
was a secret between himself, a great man in the United States (who
condescended to answer the Sulaco mail with his own hand), and a great man of
another sort, with a dark olive complexion and shifty eyes, inhabiting then the
Palace of the Intendencia in Sulaco, and who piqued himself on his culture and
Europeanism generally in a rather French style because he had lived in Europe
for some years -- in exile, he said. However, it was pretty well known that
just before this exile he had incautiously gambled away all the cash in the
Custom House of a small port where a friend in power had procured for him the
post of sub- collector. That youthful indiscretion had, amongst other
inconveniences, obliged him to earn his living for a time as a café waiter in
Madrid; but his talents must have been great, after all, since they had enabled
him to retrieve his political fortunes so splendidly. Charles Gould, exposing
his business with an imperturbable steadiness, called him Excellency.
The provincial
Excellency assumed a weary superiority, tilting his chair far back near an open
window in the true Costaguana manner. The military band happened to be braying
operatic selections on the plaza just then, and twice he raised his hand
imperatively for silence in order to listen to a favourite passage.
"Exquisite,
delicious!" he murmured; while Charles Gould waited, standing by with
inscrutable patience. "Lucia, Lucia di Lammermoor! I am passionate for
music. It transports me. Ha! the divine -- ha! -- Mozart. Si! divine . . . What
is it you were saying?"
Of course, rumours had
reached him already of the newcomer's intentions. Besides, he had received an
official warning from Sta. Marta. His manner was intended simply to conceal his
curiosity and impress his visitor. But after he had locked up something
valuable in the drawer of a large writing-desk in a distant part of the room,
he became very affable, and walked back to his chair smartly.
"If you intend to
build villages and assemble a population near the mine, you shall require a
decree of the Minister of the Interior for that," he suggested in a
business-like manner.
"I have already
sent a memorial," said Charles Gould, steadily, "and I reckon now
confidently upon your Excellency's favourable conclusions."
The Excellency was a
man of many moods. With the receipt of the money a great mellowness had
descended upon his simple soul. Unexpectedly he fetched a deep sigh.
"Ah, Don Carlos!
What we want is advanced men like you in the province. The lethargy -- the
lethargy of these aristocrats! The want of public spirit! The absence of all
enterprise! I, with my profound studies in Europe, you understand --"
With one hand thrust
into his swelling bosom, he rose and fell on his toes, and for ten minutes,
almost without drawing breath, went on hurling himself intellectually to the
assault of Charles Gould's polite silence; and when, stopping abruptly, he fell
back into his chair, it was as though he had been beaten off from a fortress.
To save his dignity he hastened to dismiss this silent man with a solemn
inclination of the head and the words, pronounced with moody, fatigued
condescension --
"You may depend
upon my enlightened goodwill as long as your conduct as a good citizen deserves
it."
He took up a paper fan
and began to cool himself with a consequential air, while Charles Gould bowed
and withdrew. Then he dropped the fan at once, and stared with an appearance of
wonder and perplexity at the closed door for quite a long time. At last he
shrugged his shoulders as if to assure himself of his disdain. Cold, dull. No
intellectuality. Red hair. A true Englishman. He despised him.
His face darkened. What
meant this unimpressed and frigid behaviour? He was the first of the successive
politicians sent out from the capital to rule the Occidental Province whom the
manner of Charles Gould in official intercourse was to strike as offensively
independent.
Charles Gould assumed
that if the appearance of listening to deplorable balderdash must form part of
the price he had to pay for being left unmolested, the obligation of uttering
balderdash personally was by no means included in the bargain. He drew the line
there. To these provincial autocrats, before whom the peaceable population of
all classes had been accustomed to tremble, the reserve of that English-looking
engineer caused an uneasiness which swung to and fro between cringing and
truculence. Gradually all of them discovered that, no matter what party was in
power, that man remained in most effective touch with the higher authorities in
Sta. Marta.
This was a fact, and it
accounted perfectly for the Goulds being by no means so wealthy as the
engineer-in- chief on the new railway could legitimately suppose. Following the
advice of Don José Avellanos, who was a man of good counsel (though rendered
timid by his horrible experiences of Guzman Bento's time), Charles Gould had
kept clear of the capital; but in the current gossip of the foreign residents
there he was known (with a good deal of seriousness underlying the irony) by
the nickname of "King of Sulaco." An advocate of the Costaguana Bar,
a man of reputed ability and good character, member of the distinguished Moraga
family possessing extensive estates in the Sulaco Valley, was pointed out to
strangers, with a shade of mystery and respect, as the agent of the San Tomé
mine -- "political, you know." He was tall, black-whiskered, and
discreet. It was known that he had easy access to ministers, and that the
numerous Costaguana generals were always anxious to dine at his house.
Presidents granted him audience with facility. He corresponded actively with
his maternal uncle, Don José Avellanos; but his letters -- unless those
expressing formally his dutiful affection -- were seldom entrusted to the
Costaguana Post Office. There the envelopes are opened, indiscriminately, with
the frankness of a brazen and childish impudence characteristic of some
Spanish- American Governments. But it must be noted that at about the time of
the re-opening of the San Tomé mine the muleteer who had been employed by
Charles Gould in his preliminary travels on the Campo added his small train of
animals to the thin stream of traffic carried over the mountain passes between
the Sta. Marta upland and the Valley of Sulaco. There are no travellers by that
arduous and unsafe route unless under very exceptional circumstances, and the
state of inland trade did not visibly require additional transport facilities;
but the man seemed to find his account in it. A few packages were always found
for him whenever he took the road. Very brown and wooden, in goatskin breeches
with the hair outside, he sat near the tail of his own smart mule, his great
hat turned against the sun, an expression of blissful vacancy on his long face,
humming day after day a love-song in a plaintive key, or, without a change of
expression, letting out a yell at his small tropilla in front. A round little
guitar hung high up on his back; and there was a place scooped out artistically
in the wood of one of his pack-saddles where a tightly rolled piece of paper
could be slipped in, the wooden plug replaced, and the coarse canvas nailed on
again. When in Sulaco it was his practice to smoke and doze all day long (as
though he had no care in the world) on a stone bench outside the doorway of the
Casa Gould and facing the windows of the Avellanos house. Years and years ago
his mother had been chief laundry- woman in that family -- very accomplished in
the matter of clear-starching. He himself had been born on one of their
haciendas. His name was Bonifacio, and Don José, crossing the street about five
o'clock to call on Doña Emilia, always acknowledged his humble salute by some
movement of hand or head. The porters of both houses conversed lazily with him in
tones of grave intimacy. His evenings he devoted to gambling and to calls in a
spirit of generous festivity upon the peyne d'oro girls in the more remote
side-streets of the town. But he, too, was a discreet man.
THOSE of us whom business
or curiosity took to Sulaco in these years before the first advent of the
railway can remember the steadying effect of the San Tomé mine upon the life of
that remote province. The outward appearances had not changed then as they have
changed since, as I am told, with cable cars running along the streets of the
Constitution, and carriage roads far into the country, to Rincon and other
villages, where the foreign merchants and the Ricos generally have their modern
villas, and a vast rail-way goods yard by the harbour, which has a quay-side, a
long range of warehouses, and quite serious, organized labour troubles of its
own.
Nobody had ever heard
of labour troubles then. The Cargadores of the port formed, indeed, an unruly
brotherhood of all sorts of scum, with a patron saint of their own. They went
on strike regularly (every bull-fight day), a form of trouble that even
Nostromo at the height of his prestige could never cope with efficiently; but
the morning after each fiesta, before the Indian market-women had opened their
mat parasols on the plaza, when the snows of Higuerota gleamed pale over the
town on a yet black sky, the appearance of a phantom-like horseman mounted on a
silver-grey mare solved the problem of labour without fail. His steed paced the
lanes of the slums and the weed-grown enclosures within the old ramparts,
between the black, lightless cluster of huts, like cow-byres, like dog-
kennels. The horseman hammered with the butt of a heavy revolver at the doors
of low pulperias, of obscene lean-to sheds sloping against the tumble-down
piece of a noble wall, at the wooden sides of dwellings so flimsy that the
sound of snores and sleepy mutters within could be heard in the pauses of the
thundering clatter of his blows. He called out men's names menacingly from the
saddle, once, twice. The drowsy answers -- grumpy, conciliating, savage,
jocular, or deprecating -- came out into the silent darkness in which the
horseman sat still, and presently a dark figure would flit out coughing in the
still air. Sometimes a low- toned woman cried through the window-hole softly,
"He's coming directly, señor," and the horseman waited silent on a
motionless horse. But if perchance he had to dismount, then, after a while,
from the door of that hovel or of that pulperia, with a ferocious scuffle and
stifled imprecations, a cargador would fly out head first and hands abroad, to
sprawl under the forelegs of the silver-grey mare, who only pricked forward her
sharp little ears. She was used to that work; and the man, picking himself up,
would walk away hastily from Nostromo's revolver, reeling a little along the
street and snarling low curses. At sunrise Captain Mitchell, coming out
anxiously in his night attire on to the wooden balcony running the whole length
of the O.S.N. Company's lonely building by the shore, would see the lighters
already under way, figures moving busily about the cargo cranes, perhaps hear
the invaluable Nostromo, now dismounted and in the checked shirt and red sash
of a Mediterranean sailor, bawling orders from the end of the jetty in a
stentorian voice. A fellow in a thousand!
The material apparatus
of perfected civilization which obliterates the individuality of old towns
under the stereotyped conveniences of modern life had not intruded as yet; but
over the worn-out antiquity of Sulaco, so characteristic with its stuccoed
houses and barred windows, with the great yellowy-white walls of abandoned
convents behind the rows of sombre green cypresses, that fact -- very modern in
its spirit -- the San Tomé mine had already thrown its subtle influence. It had
altered, too, the outward character of the crowds on feast days on the plaza
before the open portal of the cathedral, by the number of white ponchos with a
green stripe affected as holiday wear by the San Tomé miners. They had also
adopted white hats with green cord and braid -- articles of good quality, which
could be obtained in the storehouse of the administration for very little
money. A peaceable Cholo wearing these colours (unusual in Costaguana) was
somehow very seldom beaten to within an inch of his life on a charge of
disrespect to the town police; neither ran he much risk of being suddenly
lassoed on the road by a recruiting party of lanceros -- a method of voluntary
enlistment looked upon as almost legal in the Republic. Whole villages were
known to have volunteered for the army in that way; but, as Don Pépé would say
with a hopeless shrug to Mrs. Gould, "What would you! Poor people!
Pobrecitos! Pobrecitos! But the State must have its soldiers."
Thus professionally
spoke Don Pépé, the fighter, with pendent moustaches, a nut-brown, lean face,
and a clean run of a cast-iron jaw, suggesting the type of a cattle-herd
horseman from the great Llanos of the South. "If you will listen to an old
officer of Paez, señores," was the exordium of all his speeches in the
Aristocratic Club of Sulaco, where he was admitted on account of his past
services to the extinct cause of Federation. The club, dating from the days of
the proclamation of Costaguana's independence, boasted many names of liberators
amongst its first founders. Suppressed arbitrarily innumerable times by various
Governments, with memories of proscriptions and of at least one wholesale
massacre of its members, sadly assembled for a banquet by the order of a
zealous military commandante (their bodies were afterwards stripped naked and
flung into the plaza out of the windows by the lowest scum of the populace), it
was again flourishing, at that period, peacefully. It extended to strangers the
large hospitality of the cool, big rooms of its historic quarters in the front
part of a house, once the residence of a high official of the Holy Office. The
two wings, shut up, crumbled behind the nailed doors, and what may be described
as a grove of young orange trees grown in the unpaved patio concealed the utter
ruin of the back part facing the gate. You turned in from the street, as if
entering a secluded orchard, where you came upon the foot of a disjointed
staircase, guarded by a moss-stained effigy of some saintly bishop, mitred and
staffed, and bearing the indignity of a broken nose meekly, with his fine stone
hands crossed on his breast. The chocolate-coloured faces of servants with mops
of black hair peeped at you from above; the click of billiard balls came to
your ears, and ascending the steps, you would perhaps see in the first sala,
very stiff upon a straight-backed chair, in a good light, Don Pépé moving his
long moustaches as he spelt his way, at arm's length, through an old Sta. Marta
newspaper. His horse -- a stony-hearted but persevering black brute with a
hammer head -- you would have seen in the street dozing motionless under an
immense saddle, with its nose almost touching the curbstone of the sidewalk.
Don Pépé, when
"down from the mountain," as the phrase, often heard in Sulaco, went,
could also be seen in the drawing-room of the Casa Gould. He sat with modest
assurance at some distance from the tea-table. With his knees close together,
and a kindly twinkle of drollery in his deep-set eyes, he would throw his small
and ironic pleasantries into the current of conversation. There was in that man
a sort of sane, humorous shrewdness, and a vein of genuine humanity so often
found in simple old soldiers of proved courage who have seen much desperate
service. Of course he knew nothing whatever of mining, but his employment was
of a special kind. He was in charge of the whole population in the territory of
the mine, which extended from the head of the gorge to where the cart track
from the foot of the mountain enters the plain, crossing a stream over a little
wooden bridge painted green -- green, the colour of hope, being also the colour
of the mine.
It was reported in
Sulaco that up there "at the mountain" Don Pépé walked about
precipitous paths, girt with a great sword and in a shabby uniform with
tarnished bullion epaulettes of a senior major. Most miners being Indians, with
big wild eyes, addressed him as Taita (father), as these barefooted people of
Costaguana will address anybody who wears shoes; but it was Basilio, Mr.
Gould's own mozo and the head servant of the Casa, who, in all good faith and
from a sense of propriety, announced him once in the solemn words, "El Señor
Gobernador has arrived."
Don José Avellanos,
then in the drawing-room, was delighted beyond measure at the aptness of the
title, with which he greeted the old major banteringly as soon as the latter's
soldierly figure appeared in the doorway. Don Pépé only smiled in his long
moustaches, as much as to say, "You might have found a worse name for an
old soldier."
And El Señor Gobernador
he had remained, with his small jokes upon his function and upon his domain,
where he affirmed with humorous exaggeration to Mrs. Gould --
"No two stones
could come together anywhere without the Gobernador hearing the click, señora."
And he would tap his
ear with the tip of his forefinger knowingly. Even when the number of the
miners alone rose to over six hundred he seemed to know each of them
individually, all the innumerable Josés, Manuels, Ignacios, from the villages
primero -- segundo -- or tercero (there were three mining villages) under his
government. He could distinguish them not only by their flat, joyless faces,
which to Mrs. Gould looked all alike, as if run into the same ancestral mould
of suffering and patience, but apparently also by the infinitely graduated
shades of reddish-brown, of blackish-brown, of coppery-brown backs, as the two
shifts, stripped to linen drawers and leather skull-caps, mingled together with
a confusion of naked limbs, of shouldered picks, swinging lamps, in a great
shuffle of sandalled feet on the open plateau before the entrance of the main
tunnel. It was a time of pause. The Indian boys leaned idly against the long
line of little cradle wagons standing empty; the screeners and ore-breakers
squatted on their heels smoking long cigars; the great wooden shoots slanting
over the edge of the tunnel plateau were silent; and only the ceaseless,
violent rush of water in the open flumes could be heard, murmuring fiercely,
with the splash and rumble of revolving turbine- wheels, and the thudding march
of the stamps pounding to powder the treasure rock on the plateau below. The
heads of gangs, distinguished by brass medals hanging on their bare breasts,
marshalled their squads; and at last the mountain would swallow one-half of the
silent crowd, while the other half would move off in long files down the zigzag
paths leading to the bottom of the gorge. It was deep; and, far below, a thread
of vegetation winding between the blazing rock faces resembled a slender green
cord, in which three lumpy knots of banana patches, palm-leaf roots, and shady
trees marked the Village One, Village Two, Village Three, housing the miners of
the Gould Concession.
Whole families had been
moving from the first towards the spot in the Higuerota range, whence the
rumour of work and safety had spread over the pastoral Campo, forcing its way
also, even as the waters of a high flood, into the nooks and crannies of the
distant blue walls of the Sierras. Father first, in a pointed straw hat, then
the mother with the bigger children, generally also a diminutive donkey, all
under burdens, except the leader himself, or perhaps some grown girl, the pride
of the family, stepping barefooted and straight as an arrow, with braids of
raven hair, a thick, haughty profile, and no load to carry but the small guitar
of the country and a pair of soft leather sandals tied together on her back. At
the sight of such parties strung out on the cross trails between the pastures,
or camped by the side of the royal road, travellers on horseback would remark
to each other --
"More people going
to the San Tomé mine. We shall see others to-morrow."
And spurring on in the
dusk they would discuss the great news of the province, the news of the San Tomé
mine. A rich Englishman was going to work it -- and perhaps not an Englishman,
Quien sabe! A foreigner with much money. Oh, yes, it had begun. A party of men
who had been to Sulaco with a herd of black bulls for the next corrida had
reported that from the porch of the posada in Rincon, only a short league from
the town, the lights on the mountain were visible, twinkling above the trees.
And there was a woman seen riding a horse sideways, not in the chair seat, but
upon a sort of saddle, and a man's hat on her head. She walked about, too, on
foot up the mountain paths. A woman engineer, it seemed she was.
"What an
absurdity! Impossible, señor!"
"Si! Si! Una
Americana del Norte."
"Ah, well! if your
worship is informed. Una Americana; it need be something of that sort."
And they would laugh a
little with astonishment and scorn, keeping a wary eye on the shadows of the
road, for one is liable to meet bad men when travelling late on the Campo.
And it was not only the
men that Don Pépé knew so well, but he seemed able, with one attentive,
thoughtful glance, to classify each woman, girl, or growing youth of his
domain. It was only the small fry that puzzled him sometimes. He and the padre
could be seen frequently side by side, meditative and gazing across the street
of a village at a lot of sedate brown children, trying to sort them out, as it
were, in low, consulting tones, or else they would together put searching
questions as to the parentage of some small, staid urchin met wandering, naked
and grave, along the road with a cigar in his baby mouth, and perhaps his
mother's rosary, purloined for purposes of ornamentation, hanging in a loop of
beads low down on his rotund little stomach. The spiritual and temporal pastors
of the mine flock were very good friends. With Dr. Monygham, the medical
pastor, who had accepted the charge from Mrs. Gould, and lived in the hospital
building, they were on not so intimate terms. But no one could be on intimate terms
with El Señor Doctor, who, with his twisted shoulders, drooping head, sardonic
mouth, and side-long bitter glance, was mysterious and uncanny. The other two
authorities worked in harmony. Father Roman, dried-up, small, alert, wrinkled,
with big round eyes, a sharp chin, and a great snuff- taker, was an old
campaigner, too; he had shriven many simple souls on the battlefields of the
Republic, kneeling by the dying on hillsides, in the long grass, in the gloom
of the forests, to hear the last confession with the smell of gunpowder smoke
in his nostrils, the rattle of muskets, the hum and spatter of bullets in his
ears. And where was the harm if, at the presbytery, they had a game with a pack
of greasy cards in the early evening, before Don Pépé went his last rounds to
see that all the watchmen of the mine -- a body organized by himself -- were at
their posts? For that last duty before he slept Don Pépé did actually gird his
old sword on the verandah of an unmistakable American white frame house, which
Father Roman called the presbytery. Near by, a long, low, dark building,
steeple-roofed, like a vast barn with a wooden cross over the gable, was the
miners' chapel. There Father Roman said Mass every day before a sombre altar-
piece representing the Resurrection, the grey slab of the tombstone balanced on
one corner, a figure soaring upwards, long-limbed and livid, in an oval of
pallid light, and a helmeted brown legionary smitten down, right across the
bituminous foreground. "This picture, my children, muy linda e
maravillosa," Father Roman would say to some of his flock, "which you
behold here through the munificence of the wife of our Señor Administrador, has
been painted in Europe, a country of saints and miracles, and much greater than
our Costaguana." And he would take a pinch of snuff with unction. But when
once an inquisitive spirit desired to know in what direction this Europe was
situated, whether up or down the coast, Father Roman, to conceal his
perplexity, became very reserved and severe. "No doubt it is extremely far
away. But ignorant sinners like you of the San Tomé mine should think earnestly
of ever- lasting punishment instead of inquiring into the magnitude of the
earth, with its countries and populations altogether beyond your
understanding."
With a
"Good-night, Padre," "Good-night, Don Pépé," the Gobernador
would go off, holding up his sabre against his side, his body bent forward,
with a long, plodding stride in the dark. The jocularity proper to an innocent
card game for a few cigars or a bundle of yerba was replaced at once by the
stern duty mood of an officer setting out to visit the outposts of an encamped
army. One loud blast of the whistle that hung from his neck provoked instantly
a great shrilling of responding whistles, mingled with the barking of dogs,
that would calm down slowly at last, away up at the head of the gorge; and in
the stillness two serenos, on guard by the bridge, would appear walking
noiselessly towards him. On one side of the road a long frame building -- the
store -- would be closed and barricaded from end to end; facing it another
white frame house, still longer, and with a verandah -- the hospital -- would
have lights in the two windows of Dr. Monygham's quarters. Even the delicate
foliage of a clump of pepper trees did not stir, so breathless would be the
darkness warmed by the radiation of the over-heated rocks. Don Pépé would stand
still for a moment with the two motionless serenos before him, and, abruptly,
high up on the sheer face of the mountain, dotted with single torches, like
drops of fire fallen from the two great blazing clusters of lights above, the
ore shoots would begin to rattle. The great clattering, shuffling noise,
gathering speed and weight, would be caught up by the walls of the gorge, and
sent upon the plain in a growl of thunder. The pasadero in Rincon swore that on
calm nights, by listening intently, he could catch the sound in his doorway as
of a storm in the mountains.
To Charles Gould's
fancy it seemed that the sound must reach the uttermost limits of the province.
Riding at night towards the mine, it would meet him at the edge of a little
wood just beyond Rincon. There was no mistaking the growling mutter of the
mountain pouring its stream of treasure under the stamps; and it came to his heart
with the peculiar force of a proclamation thundered forth over the land and the
marvellousness of an accomplished fact fulfilling an audacious desire. He had
heard this very sound in his imagination on that far-off evening when his wife
and himself, after a tortuous ride through a strip of forest, had reined in
their horses near the stream, and had gazed for the first time upon the
jungle-grown solitude of the gorge. The head of a palm rose here and there. In
a high ravine round the corner of the San Tomé mountain (which is square like a
block- house) the thread of a slender waterfall flashed bright and glassy
through the dark green of the heavy fronds of tree-ferns. Don Pépé, in
attendance, rode up, and, stretching his arm up the gorge, had declared with
mock solemnity, "Behold the very paradise of snakes, señora."
And then they had
wheeled their horses and ridden back to sleep that night at Rincon. The alcalde
-- an old, skinny Moreno, a sergeant of Guzman Bento's time -- had cleared
respectfully out of his house with his three pretty daughters, to make room for
the foreign señora and their worships the Caballeros. All he asked Charles
Gould (whom he took for a mysterious and official person) to do for him was to
remind the supreme Government -- El Gobierno supreme -- of a pension (amounting
to about a dollar a month) to which he believed himself entitled. It had been
promised to him, he affirmed, straightening his bent back martially, "many
years ago, for my valour in the wars with the wild Indios when a young man, señor."
The waterfall existed
no longer. The tree-ferns that had luxuriated in its spray had died around the
dried- up pool, and the high ravine was only a big trench half filled up with
the refuse of excavations and tailings. The torrent, dammed up above, sent its
water rushing along the open flumes of scooped tree trunks striding on
trestle-legs to the turbines working the stamps on the lower plateau -- the
mesa grande of the San Tomé mountain. Only the memory of the waterfall, with
its amazing fernery, like a hanging garden above the rocks of the gorge, was
preserved in Mrs. Gould's water- colour sketch; she had made it hastily one day
from a cleared patch in the bushes, sitting in the shade of a roof of straw
erected for her on three rough poles under Don Pépé's direction.
Mrs. Gould had seen it
all from the beginning: the clearing of the wilderness, the making of the road,
the cutting of new paths up the cliff face of San Tomé. For weeks together she
had lived on the spot with her husband; and she was so little in Sulaco during
that year that the appearance of the Gould carriage on the Alameda would cause
a social excitement. From the heavy family coaches full of stately señoras and
black- eyed señoritas rolling solemnly in the shaded alley white hands were
waved towards her with animation in a flutter of greetings. Doña Emilia was
"down from the mountain."
But not for long. Doña
Emilia would be gone "up to the mountain" in a day or two, and her
sleek carriage mules would have an easy time of it for another long spell. She
had watched the erection of the first frame- house put up on the lower mesa for
an office and Don Pépé's quarters; she heard with a thrill of thankful emotion
the first wagon load of ore rattle down the then only shoot; she had stood by
her husband's side perfectly silent, and gone cold all over with excitement at
the instant when the first battery of only fifteen stamps was put in motion for
the first time. On the occasion when the fires under the first set of retorts in
their shed had glowed far into the night she did not retire to rest on the
rough cadre set up for her in the as yet bare frame-house till she had seen the
first spongy lump of silver yielded to the hazards of the world by the dark
depths of the Gould Concession; she had laid her unmercenary hands, with an
eagerness that made them tremble, upon the first silver ingot turned out still
warm from the mould; and by her imaginative estimate of its power she endowed
that lump of metal with a justificative conception, as though it were not a
mere fact, but something far-reaching and impalpable, like the true expression
of an emotion or the emergence of a principle.
Don Pépé, extremely
interested, too, looked over her shoulder with a smile that, making longitudinal
folds on his face, caused it to resemble a leathern mask with a benignantly
diabolic expression.
"Would not the
muchachos of Hernandez like to get hold of this insignificant object, that
looks, por Dios, very much like a piece of tin?" he remarked, jocularly.
Hernandez, the robber,
had been an inoffensive, small ranchero, kidnapped with circumstances of
peculiar atrocity from his home during one of the civil wars, and forced to
serve in the army. There his conduct as soldier was exemplary, till, watching
his chance, he killed his colonel, and managed to get clear away. With a band
of deserters, who chose him for their chief, he had taken refuge beyond the
wild and waterless Bolson de Tonoro. The haciendas paid him blackmail in cattle
and horses; extraordinary stories were told of his powers and of his wonderful
escapes from capture. He used to ride, single-handed, into the villages and the
little towns on the Campo, driving a pack mule before him, with two revolvers
in his belt, go straight to the shop or store, select what he wanted, and ride
away unopposed because of the terror his exploits and his audacity inspired.
Poor country people he usually left alone; the upper class were often stopped
on the roads and robbed; but any unlucky official that fell into his hands was
sure to get a severe flogging. The army officers did not like his name to be
mentioned in their presence. His followers, mounted on stolen horses, laughed
at the pursuit of the regular cavalry sent to hunt them down, and whom they took
pleasure to ambush most scientifically in the broken ground of their own
fastness. Expeditions had been fitted out; a price had been put upon his head;
even attempts had been made, treacherously of course, to open negotiations with
him, without in the slightest way affecting the even tenor of his career. At
last, in true Costaguana fashion, the Fiscal of Tonoro, who was ambitious of
the glory of having reduced the famous Hernandez, offered him a sum of money
and a safe conduct out of the country for the betrayal of his band. But
Hernandez evidently was not of the stuff of which the distinguished military
politicians and conspirators of Costaguana are made. This clever but common
device (which frequently works like a charm in putting down revolutions) failed
with the chief of vulgar Salteadores. It promised well for the Fiscal at first,
but ended very badly for the squadron of lanceros posted (by the Fiscal's
directions) in a fold of the ground into which Hernandez had promised to lead
his unsuspecting followers They came, indeed, at the appointed time, but
creeping on their hands and knees through the bush, and only let their presence
be known by a general discharge of firearms, which emptied many saddles. The
troopers who escaped came riding very hard into Tonoro. It is said that their
commanding officer (who, being better mounted, rode far ahead of the rest)
afterwards got into a state of despairing intoxication and beat the ambitious
Fiscal severely with the flat of his sabre in the presence of his wife and
daughters, for bringing this disgrace upon the National Army. The highest civil
official of Tonoro, falling to the ground in a swoon, was further kicked all
over the body and rowelled with sharp spurs about the neck and face because of
the great sensitiveness of his military colleague. This gossip of the inland
Campo, so characteristic of the rulers of the country with its story of
oppression, inefficiency, fatuous methods, treachery, and savage brutality, was
perfectly known to Mrs. Gould. That it should be accepted with no indignant
comment by people of intelligence, refinement, and character as something
inherent in the nature of things was one of the symptoms of degradation that
had the power to exasperate her almost to the verge of despair. Still looking
at the ingot of silver, she shook her head at Don Pépé's remark --
"If it had not
been for the lawless tyranny of your Government, Don Pépé, many an outlaw now
with Hernandez would be living peaceably and happy by the honest work of his
hands."
"Señora,"
cried Don Pépé, with enthusiasm, "it is true! It is as if God had given
you the power to look into the very breasts of people. You have seen them
working round you, Doña Emilia -- meek as lambs, patient like their own burros,
brave like lions. I have led them to the very muzzles of guns -- I, who stand
here before you, señora -- in the time of Paez, who was full of generosity, and
in courage only approached by the uncle of Don Carlos here, as far as I know.
No wonder there are bandits in the Campo when there are none but thieves,
swindlers, and sanguinary macaques to rule us in Sta. Marta. However, all the
same, a bandit is a bandit, and we shall have a dozen good straight Winchesters
to ride with the silver down to Sulaco."
Mrs. Gould's ride with
the first silver escort to Sulaco was the closing episode of what she called
"my camp life" before she had settled in her town-house permanently,
as was proper and even necessary for the wife of the administrator of such an
important institution as the San Tomé mine. For the San Tomé mine was to become
an institution, a rallying point for everything in the province that needed
order and stability to live. Security seemed to flow upon this land from the
mountain-gorge. The authorities of Sulaco had learned that the San Tomé mine
could make it worth their while to leave things and people alone. This was the
nearest approach to the rule of common-sense and justice Charles Gould felt it
possible to secure at first. In fact, the mine, with its organization, its population
growing fiercely attached to their position of privileged safety, with its
armoury, with its Don Pépé, with its armed body of serenos (where, it was said,
many an outlaw and deserter -- and even some members of Hernandez's band -- had
found a place), the mine was a power in the land. As a certain prominent man in
Sta. Marta had exclaimed with a hollow laugh, once, when discussing the line of
action taken by the Sulaco authorities at a time of political crisis --
"You call these
men Government officials? They? Never! They are officials of the mine -
-officials of the Concession -- I tell you."
The prominent man (who
was then a person in power, with a lemon-coloured face and a very short and
curly, not to say woolly, head of hair) went so far in his temporary discontent
as to shake his yellow fist under the nose of his interlocutor, and shriek --
"Yes! All!
Silence! All! I tell you! The political Géfé, the chief of the police, the
chief of the customs, the general, all, all, are the officials of that
Gould."
Thereupon an intrepid
but low and argumentative murmur would flow on for a space in the ministerial
cabinet, and the prominent man's passion would end in a cynical shrug of the
shoulders. After all, he seemed to say, what did it matter as long as the minister
himself was not forgotten during his brief day of authority? But all the same,
the unofficial agent of the San Tomé mine, working for a good cause, had his
moments of anxiety, which were reflected in his letters to Don José Avellanos,
his maternal uncle.
"No sanguinary
macaque from Sta. Marta shall set foot on that part of Costaguana which lies
beyond the San Tomé bridge," Don Pépé used to assure Mrs. Gould.
"Except, of course, as an honoured guest -- for our Señor Administrador is
a deep politico." But to Charles Gould, in his own room, the old Major
would remark with a grim and soldierly cheeriness, "We are all playing our
heads at this game."
Don José Avellanos
would mutter "Imperium in imperio, Emilia, my soul," with an air of
profound self- satisfaction which, somehow, in a curious way, seemed to contain
a queer admixture of bodily discomfort. But that, perhaps, could only be
visible to the initiated. And for the initiated it was a wonderful place, this
drawing-room of the Casa Gould, with its momentary glimpses of the master -- El
Señor Administrador -- older, harder, mysteriously silent, with the lines
deepened on his English, ruddy, out-of-doors complexion; flitting on his thin
cavalryman's legs across the doorways, either just "back from the mountain"
or with jingling spurs and riding-whip under his arm, on the point of starting
"for the mountain." Then Don Pépé, modestly martial in his chair, the
llanero who seemed somehow to have found his martial jocularity, his knowledge
of the world, and his manner perfect for his station, in the midst of savage
armed contests with his kind; Avellanos, polished and familiar, the diplomatist
with his loquacity covering much caution and wisdom in delicate advice, with
his manuscript of a historical work on Costaguana, entitled "Fifty Years
of Misrule," which, at present, he thought it was not prudent (even if it
were possible) "to give to the world"; these three, and also Doña
Emilia amongst them, gracious, small, and fairy-like, before the glittering
tea-set, with one common master- thought in their heads, with one common
feeling of a tense situation, with one ever-present aim to preserve the
inviolable character of the mine at every cost. And there was also to be seen
Captain Mitchell, a little apart, near one of the long windows, with an air of
old-fashioned neat old bachelorhood about him, slightly pompous, in a white
waistcoat, a little disregarded and unconscious of it; utterly in the dark, and
imagining himself to be in the thick of things. The good man, having spent a
clear thirty years of his life on the high seas before getting what he called a
"shore billet," was astonished at the importance of transactions
(other than relating to shipping) which take place on dry land. Almost every
event out of the usual daily course "marked an epoch" for him or else
was "history"; unless with his pomposity struggling with a
discomfited droop of his rubicund, rather handsome face, set off by snow-white
close hair and short whiskers, he would mutter --
"Ah, that! That,
sir, was a mistake."
The reception of the
first consignment of San Tomé silver for shipment to San Francisco in one of
the O.S.N. Co.'s mail-boats had, of course, "marked an epoch" for
Captain Mitchell. The ingots packed in boxes of stiff ox-hide with plaited
handles, small enough to be carried easily by two men, were brought down by the
serenos of the mine walking in careful couples along the half- mile or so of
steep, zigzag paths to the foot of the mountain. There they would be loaded
into a string of two-wheeled carts, resembling roomy coffers with a door at the
back, and harnessed tandem with two mules each, waiting under the guard of
armed and mounted serenos. Don Pépé padlocked each door in succession, and at
the signal of his whistle the string of carts would move off, closely
surrounded by the clank of spur and carbine, with jolts and cracking of whips,
with a sudden deep rumble over the boundary bridge ("into the land of
thieves and sanguinary macaques," Don Pépé defined that crossing); hats
bobbing in the first light of the dawn, on the heads of cloaked figures;
Winchesters on hip; bridle hands protruding lean and brown from under the
falling folds of the ponchos. The convoy skirting a little wood, along the mine
trail, between the mud huts and low walls of Rincon, increased its pace on the
camino real, mules urged to speed, escort galloping, Don Carlos riding alone
ahead of a dust storm affording a vague vision of long ears of mules, of
fluttering little green and white flags stuck upon each cart; of raised arms in
a mob of sombreros with the white gleam of ranging eyes; and Don Pépé, hardly
visible in the rear of that rattling dust trail, with a stiff seat and
impassive face, rising and falling rhythmically on an ewe-necked silver-bitted
black brute with a hammer head.
The sleepy people in
the little clusters of huts, in the small ranches near the road, recognized by
the headlong sound the charge of the San Tomé silver escort towards the
crumbling wall of the city on the Campo side. They came to the doors to see it
dash by over ruts and stones, with a clatter and clank and cracking of whips,
with the reckless rush and precise driving of a field battery hurrying into
action, and the solitary English figure of the Señor Administrador riding far
ahead in the lead.
In the fenced roadside
paddocks loose horses galloped wildly for a while; the heavy cattle stood up
breast deep in the grass, lowing mutteringly at the flying noise; a meek Indian
villager would glance back once and hasten to shove his loaded little donkey
bodily against a wall, out of the way of the San Tomé silver escort going to
the sea; a small knot of chilly leperos under the Stone Horse of the Alameda
would mutter: "Caramba!" on seeing it take a wide curve at a gallop
and dart into the empty Street of the Constitution; for it was considered the
correct thing, the only proper style by the mule-drivers of the San Tomé mine
to go through the waking town from end to end without a check in the speed as
if chased by a devil.
The early sunshine
glowed on the delicate primrose, pale pink, pale blue fronts of the big houses
with all their gates shut yet, and no face behind the iron bars of the windows.
In the whole sunlit range of empty balconies along the street only one white
figure would be visible high up above the clear pavement -- the wife of the Señor
Administrador -- leaning over to see the escort go by to the harbour, a mass of
heavy, fair hair twisted up negligently on her little head, and a lot of lace
about the neck of her muslin wrapper. With a smile to her husband's single,
quick, upward glance, she would watch the whole thing stream past below her
feet with an orderly uproar, till she answered by a friendly sign the salute of
the galloping Don Pépé, the stiff, deferential inclination with a sweep of the
hat below the knee.
The string of padlocked
carts lengthened, the size of the escort grew bigger as the years went on.
Every three months an increasing stream of treasure swept through the streets
of Sulaco on its way to the strong room in the O.S.N. Co.'s building by the
harbour, there to await shipment for the North. Increasing in volume, and of
immense value also; for, as Charles Gould told his wife once with some
exultation, there had never been seen anything in the world to approach the
vein of the Gould Concession. For them both, each passing of the escort under
the balconies of the Casa Gould was like another victory gained in the conquest
of peace for Sulaco.
No doubt the initial
action of Charles Gould had been helped at the beginning by a period of
comparative peace which occurred just about that time; and also by the general
softening of manners as compared with the epoch of civil wars whence had
emerged the iron tyranny of Guzman Bento of fearful memory. In the contests
that broke out at the end of his rule (which had kept peace in the country for
a whole fifteen years) there was more fatuous imbecility, plenty of cruelty and
suffering still, but much less of the old-time fierce and blindly ferocious
political fanaticism. It was all more vile, more base, more contemptible, and
infinitely more manageable in the very outspoken cynicism of motives. It was
more clearly a brazen-faced scramble for a constantly diminishing quantity of
booty; since all enterprise had been stupidly killed in the land. Thus it came
to pass that the province of Sulaco, once the field of cruel party vengeances,
had become in a way one of the considerable prizes of political career. The
great of the earth (in Sta. Marta) reserved the posts in the old Occidental
State to those nearest and dearest to them: nephews, brothers, husbands of
favourite sisters, bosom friends, trusty supporters -- or prominent supporters
of whom perhaps they were afraid. It was the blessed province of great
opportunities and of largest salaries; for the San Tomé mine had its own
unofficial pay list, whose items and amounts, fixed in consultation by Charles
Gould and Señor Avellanos, were known to a prominent business man in the United
States, who for twenty minutes or so in every month gave his undivided
attention to Sulaco affairs. At the same time the material interests of all
sorts, backed up by the influence of the San Tomé mine, were quietly gathering
substance in that part of the Republic. If, for instance, the Sulaco Collectorship
was generally understood, in the political world of the capital, to open the
way to the Ministry of Finance, and so on for every official post, then, on the
other hand, the despondent business circles of the Republic had come to
consider the Occidental Province as the promised land of safety, especially if
a man managed to get on good terms with the administration of the mine.
"Charles Gould; excellent fellow! Absolutely necessary to make sure of him
before taking a single step. Get an introduction to him from Moraga if you can
-- the agent of the King of Sulaco, don't you know."
No wonder, then, that
Sir John, coming from Europe to smooth the path for his railway, had been
meeting the name (and even the nickname) of Charles Gould at every turn in
Costaguana. The agent of the San Tomé Administration in Sta. Marta (a polished,
well-informed gentleman, Sir John thought him) had certainly helped so greatly
in bringing about the presidential tour that he began to think that there was
something in the faint whispers hinting at the immense occult influence of the
Gould Concession. What was currently whispered was this -- that the San Tomé
Administration had, in part, at least, financed the last revolution, which had
brought into a five-year dictatorship Don Vincente Ribiera, a man of culture
and of unblemished character, invested with a mandate of reform by the best
elements of the State. Serious, well-informed men seemed to believe the fact,
to hope for better things, for the establishment of legality, of good faith and
order in public life. So much the better, then, thought Sir John. He worked
always on a great scale; there was a loan to the State, and a project for
systematic colonization of the Occidental Province, involved in one vast scheme
with the construction of the National Central Railway. Good faith, order,
honesty, peace, were badly wanted for this great development of material
interests. Anybody on the side of these things, and especially if able to help,
had an importance in Sir John's eyes. He had not been disappointed in the
"King of Sulaco." The local difficulties had fallen away, as the
engineer-in-chief had foretold they would, before Charles Gould's mediation.
Sir John had been extremely fêted in Sulaco, next to the President-Dictator, a
fact which might have accounted for the evident ill-humour General Montero
displayed at lunch given on board the Juno just before she was to sail, taking
away from Sulaco the President- Dictator and the distinguished foreign guests
in his train.
The Excellentissimo
("the hope of honest men," as Don José had addressed him in a public
speech delivered in the name of the Provincial Assembly of Sulaco) sat at the
head of the long table; Captain Mitchell, positively stony-eyed and purple in
the face with the solemnity of this "historical event," occupied the
foot as the representative of the O.S.N. Company in Sulaco, the hosts of that
informal function, with the captain of the ship and some minor officials from
the shore around him. Those cheery, swarthy little gentlemen cast jovial
side-glances at the bottles of champagne beginning to pop behind the guests'
backs in the hands of the ship's stewards. The amber wine creamed up to the
rims of the glasses.
Charles Gould had his
place next to a foreign envoy, who, in a listless undertone, had been talking
to him fitfully of hunting and shooting. The well-nourished, pale face, with an
eyeglass and drooping yellow moustache, made the Señor Administrador appear by
contrast twice as sunbaked, more flaming red, a hundred times more intensely
and silently alive. Don José Avellanos touched elbows with the other foreign
diplomat, a dark man with a quiet, watchful, self-confident demeanour, and a
touch of reserve. All etiquette being laid aside on the occasion, General Montero
was the only one there in full uniform, so stiff with embroideries in front
that his broad chest seemed protected by a cuirass of gold. Sir John at the
beginning had got away from high places for the sake of sitting near Mrs.
Gould.
The great financier was
trying to express to her his grateful sense of her hospitality and of his
obligation to her husband's "enormous influence in this part of the
country," when she interrupted him by a low "Hush!" The
President was going to make an informal pronouncement.
The Excellentissimo was
on his legs. He said only a few words, evidently deeply felt, and meant perhaps
mostly for Avellanos -- his old friend -- as to the necessity of unremitting
effort to secure the lasting welfare of the country emerging after this last
struggle, he hoped, into a period of peace and material prosperity.
Mrs. Gould, listening
to the mellow, slightly mournful voice, looking at this rotund, dark,
spectacled face, at the short body, obese to the point of infirmity, thought
that this man of delicate and melancholy mind, physically almost a cripple,
coming out of his retirement into a dangerous strife at the call of his
fellows, had the right to speak with the authority of his self- sacrifice. And
yet she was made uneasy. He was more pathetic than promising, this first
civilian Chief of the State Costaguana had ever known, pronouncing, glass in
hand, his simple watchwords of honesty, peace, respect for law, political good
faith abroad and at home -- the safeguards of national honour.
He sat down. During the
respectful, appreciative buzz of voices that followed the speech, General
Montero raised a pair of heavy, drooping eyelids and rolled his eyes with a
sort of uneasy dullness from face to face. The military backwoods hero of the
party, though secretly impressed by the sudden novelties and splendours of his
position (he had never been on board a ship before, and had hardly ever seen
the sea except from a distance), understood by a sort of instinct the advantage
his surly, unpolished attitude of a savage fighter gave him amongst all these
refined Blanco aristocrats. But why was it that nobody was looking at him? he
wondered to himself angrily. He was able to spell out the print of newspapers,
and knew that he had performed the "greatest military exploit of modern
times."
"My husband wanted
the railway," Mrs. Gould said to Sir John in the general murmur of resumed
conversations. "All this brings nearer the sort of future we desire for
the country, which has waited for it in sorrow long enough, God knows. But I
will confess that the other day, during my afternoon drive when I suddenly saw
an Indian boy ride out of a wood with the red flag of a surveying party in his
hand, I felt something of a shock. The future means change -- an utter change.
And yet even here there are simple and picturesque things that one would like
to preserve."
Sir John listened,
smiling. But it was his turn now to hush Mrs. Gould.
"General Montero
is going to speak," he whispered, and almost immediately added, in comic
alarm, "Heavens! he's going to propose my own health, I believe."
General Montero had
risen with a jingle of steel scabbard and a ripple of glitter on his
gold-embroidered breast; a heavy sword-hilt appeared at his side above the edge
of the table. In this gorgeous uniform, with his bull neck, his hooked nose
flattened on the tip upon a blue-black, dyed moustache, he looked like a
disguised and sinister vaquero. The drone of his voice had a strangely rasping,
soulless ring. He floundered, lowering, through a few vague sentences; then
suddenly raising his big head and his voice together, burst out harshly --
"The honour of the
country is in the hands of the army. I assure you I shall be faithful to
it." He hesitated till his roaming eyes met Sir John's face upon which he
fixed a lurid, sleepy glance; and the figure of the lately negotiated loan came
into his mind. He lifted his glass. "I drink to the health of the man who
brings us a million and a half of pounds."
He tossed off his
champagne, and sat down heavily with a half-surprised, half-bullying look all
round the faces in the profound, as if appalled, silence which succeeded the
felicitous toast. Sir John did not move.
"I don't think I
am called upon to rise," he murmured to Mrs. Gould. "That sort of
thing speaks for itself." But Don José Avellanos came to the rescue with a
short oration, in which he alluded pointedly to England's goodwill towards
Costaguana -- "a goodwill," he continued, significantly, "of
which I, having been in my time accredited to the Court of St. James, am able
to speak with some knowledge."
Only then Sir John
thought fit to respond, which he did gracefully in bad French, punctuated by
bursts of applause and the "Hear! Hears!" of Captain Mitchell, who
was able to understand a word now and then. Directly he had done, the financier
of railways turned to Mrs. Gould --
"You were good
enough to say that you intended to ask me for something," he reminded her,
gallantly. "What is it? Be assured that any request from you would be
considered in the light of a favour to myself."
She thanked him by a
gracious smile. Everybody was rising from the table.
"Let us go on
deck," she proposed, "where I'll be able to point out to you the very
object of my request."
An enormous national
flag of Costaguana, diagonal red and yellow, with two green palm trees in the
middle, floated lazily at the mainmast head of the Juno. A multitude of
fireworks being let off in their thousands at the water's edge in honour of the
President kept up a mysterious crepitating noise half round the harbour. Now
and then a lot of rockets, swishing upwards invisibly, detonated overhead with
only a puff of smoke in the bright sky. Crowds of people could be seen between
the town gate and the harbour, under the bunches of multicoloured flags
fluttering on tall poles. Faint bursts of military music would be heard
suddenly, and the remote sound of shouting. A knot of ragged negroes at the end
of the wharf kept on loading and firing a small iron cannon time after time. A
greyish haze of dust hung thin and motionless against the sun.
Don Vincente Ribiera
made a few steps under the deck-awning, leaning on the arm of Señor Avellanos;
a wide circle was formed round him, where the mirthless smile of his dark lips
and the sightless glitter of his spectacles could be seen turning amiably from
side to side. The informal function arranged on purpose on board the Juno to
give the President-Dictator an opportunity to meet intimately some of his most
notable adherents in Sulaco was drawing to an end. On one side, General
Montero, his bald head covered now by a plumed cocked hat, remained motionless
on a skylight seat, a pair of big gauntleted hands folded on the hilt of the
sabre standing upright between his legs. The white plume, the coppery tint of
his broad face, the blue-black of the moustaches under the curved beak, the
mass of gold on sleeves and breast, the high shining boots with enormous spurs,
the working nostrils, the imbecile and domineering stare of the glorious victor
of Rio Seco had in them something ominous and incredible; the exaggeration of a
cruel caricature, the fatuity of solemn masquerading, the atrocious grotesqueness
of some military idol of Aztec conception and European bedecking, awaiting the
homage of worshippers. Don José approached diplomatically this weird and
inscrutable portent, and Mrs. Gould turned her fascinated eyes away at last.
Charles, coming up to
take leave of Sir John, heard him say, as he bent over his wife's hand,
"Certainly. Of course, my dear Mrs. Gould, for a protégé of yours! Not the
slightest difficulty. Consider it done."
Going ashore in the
same boat with the Goulds, Don José Avellanos was very silent. Even in the
Gould carriage he did not open his lips for a long time. The mules trotted
slowly away from the wharf between the extended hands of the beggars, who for
that day seemed to have abandoned in a body the portals of churches. Charles
Gould sat on the back seat and looked away upon the plain. A multitude of
booths made of green boughs, of rushes, of odd pieces of plank eked out with
bits of canvas had been erected all over it for the sale of cana, of dulces, of
fruit, of cigars. Over little heaps of glowing charcoal Indian women, squatting
on mats, cooked food in black earthen pots, and boiled the water for the maté
gourds, which they offered in soft, caressing voices to the country people. A
racecourse had been staked out for the vaqueros; and away to the left, from
where the crowd was massed thickly about a huge temporary erection, like a
circus tent of wood with a conical grass roof, came the resonant twanging of
harp strings, the sharp ping of guitars, with the grave drumming throb of an
Indian gombo pulsating steadily through the shrill choruses of the dancers.
Charles Gould said
presently --
"All this piece of
land belongs now to the Railway Company. There will be no more popular feasts
held here."
Mrs. Gould was rather
sorry to think so. She took this opportunity to mention how she had just
obtained from Sir John the promise that the house occupied by Giorgio Viola
should not be interfered with. She declared she could never understand why the
survey engineers ever talked of demolishing that old building. It was not in
the way of the projected harbour branch of the line in the least.
She stopped the
carriage before the door to reassure at once the old Genoese, who came out
bare-headed and stood by the carriage step. She talked to him in Italian, of
course, and he thanked her with calm dignity. An old Garibaldino was grateful
to her from the bottom of his heart for keeping the roof over the heads of his
wife and children. He was too old to wander any more.
"And is it for
ever, signora?" he asked.
"For as long as
you like."
"Bene. Then the
place must be named, It was not worth while before."
He smiled ruggedly,
with a running together of wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. "I shall
set about the painting of the name to-morrow."
"And what is it
going to be, Giorgio?"
"Albergo d'Italia
Una," said the old Garibaldino, looking away for a moment. "More in
memory of those who have died," he added, "than for the country
stolen from us soldiers of liberty by the craft of that accursed Piedmontese
race of kings and ministers."
Mrs. Gould smiled
slightly, and, bending over a little, began to inquire about his wife and
children. He had sent them into town on that day. The padrona was better in
health; many thanks to the signora for inquiring.
People were passing in
twos and threes, in whole parties of men and women attended by trotting
children. A horseman mounted on a silver-grey mare drew rein quietly in the
shade of the house after taking off his hat to the party in the carriage, who
returned smiles and familiar nods. Old Viola, evidently very pleased with the
news he had just heard, interrupted himself for a moment to tell him rapidly
that the house was secured, by the kindness of the English signora, for as long
as he liked to keep it. The other listened attentively, but made no response.
When the carriage moved
on he took off his hat again, a grey sombrero with a silver cord and tassels.
The bright colours of a Mexican serape twisted on the cantle, the enormous silver
buttons on the embroidered leather jacket, the row of tiny silver buttons down
the seam of the trousers, the snowy linen, a silk sash with embroidered ends,
the silver plates on headstall and saddle, proclaimed the unapproachable style
of the famous Capataz de Cargadores -- a Mediterranean sailor -- got up with
more finished splendour than any well-to-do young ranchero of the Campo had
ever displayed on a high holiday.
"It is a great
thing for me," murmured old Giorgio, still thinking of the house, for now
he had grown weary of change. "The signora just said a word to the
Englishman."
"The old
Englishman who has enough money to pay for a railway? He is going off in an
hour," remarked Nostromo, carelessly. "Buon viaggio, then. I've
guarded his bones all the way from the Entrada pass down to the plain and into
Sulaco, as though he had been my own father."
Old Giorgio only moved
his head sideways absently. Nostromo pointed after the Goulds' carriage,
nearing the grass-grown gate in the old town wall that was like a wall of
matted jungle.
"And I have sat
alone at night with my revolver in the Company's warehouse time and again by
the side of that other Englishman's heap of silver, guarding it as though it
had been my own."
Viola seemed lost in
thought. "It is a great thing for me," he repeated again, as if to
himself.
"It is,"
agreed the magnificent Capataz de Cargadores, calmly. "Listen, Vecchio --
go in and bring me, out a cigar, but don't look for it in my room. There's
nothing there." Viola stepped into the café and came out directly, still
absorbed in his idea, and tendered him a cigar, mumbling thoughtfully in his
moustache, "Children growing up -- and girls, too! Girls!" He sighed
and fell silent.
"What, only
one?" remarked Nostromo, looking down with a sort of comic inquisitiveness
at the unconscious old man. "No matter," he added, with lofty
negligence; "one is enough till another is wanted."
He lit it and let the
match drop from his passive fingers. Giorgio Viola looked up, and said abruptly
--
"My son would have
been just such a fine young man as you, Gian' Battista, if he had lived."
"What? Your son?
But you are right, padrone. If he had been like me he would have been a
man."
He turned his horse
slowly, and paced on between the booths, checking the mare almost to a
standstill now and then for children, for the groups of people from the distant
Campo, who stared after him with admiration. The Company's lightermen saluted
him from afar; and the greatly envied Capataz de Cargadores advanced, amongst
murmurs of recognition and obsequious greetings, towards the huge circus-like
erection. The throng thickened; the guitars tinkled louder; other horsemen sat
motionless, smoking calmly above the heads of the crowd; it eddied and pushed
before the doors of the high-roofed building, whence issued a shuffle and
thumping of feet in time to the dance music vibrating and shrieking with a
racking rhythm, overhung by the tremendous, sustained, hollow roar of the
gombo. The barbarous and imposing noise of the big drum, that can madden a
crowd, and that even Europeans cannot hear without a strange emotion, seemed to
draw Nostromo on to its source, while a man, wrapped up in a faded, torn
poncho, walked by his stirrup, and, buffeted right and left, begged "his
worship" insistently for employment on the wharf. He whined, offering the
Señor Capataz half his daily pay for the privilege of being admitted to the
swaggering fraternity of Cargadores; the other half would be enough for him, he
protested. But Captain Mitchell's right-hand man -- "invaluable for our
work -- a perfectly incorruptible fellow" -- after looking down critically
at the ragged mozo, shook his head without a word in the uproar going on
around.
The man fell back; and
a little further on Nostromo had to pull up. From the doors of the dance hall
men and women emerged tottering, streaming with sweat, trembling in every limb,
to lean, panting, with staring eyes and parted lips, against the wall of the
structure, where the harps and guitars played on with mad speed in an incessant
roll of thunder. Hundreds of hands clapped in there; voices shrieked, and then
all at once would sink low, chanting in unison the refrain of a love song, with
a dying fall. A red flower, flung with a good aim from somewhere in the crowd,
struck the resplendent Capataz on the cheek.
He caught it as it
fell, neatly, but for some time did not turn his head. When at last he
condescended to look round, the throng near him had parted to make way for a
pretty Morenita, her hair held up by a small golden comb, who was walking
towards him in the open space.
Her arms and neck
emerged plump and bare from a snowy chemisette; the blue woollen skirt, with
all the fullness gathered in front, scanty on the hips and tight across the
back, disclosed the provoking action of her walk. She came straight on and laid
her hand on the mare's neck with a timid, coquettish look upwards out of the
corner of her eyes.
"Querido,"
she murmured, caressingly, "why do you pretend not to see me when I
pass?"
"Because I don't
love thee any more," said Nostromo, deliberately, after a moment of
reflective silence.
The hand on the mare's
neck trembled suddenly. She dropped her head before all the eyes in the wide
circle formed round the generous, the terrible, the inconstant Capataz de
Cargadores, and his Morenita.
Nostromo, looking down,
saw tears beginning to fall down her face.
"Has it come,
then, ever beloved of my heart?" she whispered. "Is it true?"
"No," said
Nostromo, looking away carelessly. "It was a lie. I love thee as much as
ever."
"Is that
true?" she cooed, joyously, her cheeks still wet with tears.
"It is true."
"True on the
life?"
"As true as that;
but thou must not ask me to swear it on the Madonna that stands in thy
room." And the Capataz laughed a little in response to the grins of the
crowd.
She pouted -- very
pretty -- a little uneasy.
"No, I will not
ask for that. I can see love in your eyes." She laid her hand on his knee.
"Why are you trembling like this? From love?" she continued, while
the cavernous thundering of the gombo went on without a pause. "But if you
love her as much as that, you must give your Paquita a gold-mounted rosary of
beads for the neck of her Madonna."
"No," said
Nostromo, looking into her uplifted, begging eyes, which suddenly turned stony
with surprise.
"No? Then what else
will your worship give me on the day of the fiesta?" she asked, angrily;
"so as not to shame me before all these people."
"There is no shame
for thee in getting nothing from thy lover for once."
"True! The shame
is your worship's -- my poor lover's," she flared up, sarcastically.
Laughs were heard at
her anger, at her retort. What an audacious spitfire she was! The people aware
of this scene were calling out urgently to others in the crowd. The circle
round the silver-grey mare narrowed slowly.
The girl went off a
pace or two, confronting the mocking curiosity of the eyes, then flung back to
the stirrup, tiptoeing, her enraged face turned up to Nostromo with a pair of
blazing eyes. He bent low to her in the saddle.
"Juan," she
hissed, "I could stab thee to the heart!"
The dreaded Capataz de
Cargadores, magnificent and carelessly public in his amours, flung his arm
round her neck and kissed her spluttering lips. A murmur went round.
"A knife!" he
demanded at large, holding her firmly by the shoulder.
Twenty blades flashed
out together in the circle. A young man in holiday attire, bounding in, thrust
one in Nostromo's hand and bounded back into the ranks, very proud of himself.
Nostromo had not even looked at him.
"Stand on my
foot," he commanded the girl, who, suddenly subdued, rose lightly, and
when he had her up, encircling her waist, her face near to his, he pressed the
knife into her little hand.
"No, Morenita! You
shall not put me to shame," he said. "You shall have your present;
and so that everyone should know who is your lover to-day, you may cut all the
silver buttons off my coat."
There were shouts of
laughter and applause at this witty freak, while the girl passed the keen
blade, and the impassive rider jingled in his palm the increasing hoard of
silver buttons. He eased her to the ground with both her hands full. After
whispering for a while with a very strenuous face, she walked away, staring
haughtily, and vanished into the crowd.
The circle had broken
up, and the lordly Capataz de Cargadores, the indispensable man, the tried and
trusty Nostromo, the Mediterranean sailor come ashore casually to try his luck
in Costaguana, rode slowly towards the harbour. The Juno was just then swinging
round; and even as Nostromo reined up again to look on, a flag ran up on the
improvised flagstaff erected in an ancient and dismantled little fort at the
harbour entrance. Half a battery of field guns had been hurried over there from
the Sulaco barracks for the purpose of firing the regulation salutes for the
President- Dictator and the War Minister. As the mail-boat headed through the
pass, the badly timed reports announced the end of Don Vincente Ribiera's first
official visit to Sulaco, and for Captain Mitchell the end of another
"historic occasion." Next time when the "Hope of honest
men" was to come that way, a year and a half later, it was unofficially,
over the mountain tracks, fleeing after a defeat on a lame mule, to be only
just saved by Nostromo from an ignominious death at the hands of a mob. It was
a very different event, of which Captain Mitchell used to say --
"It was history --
history, sir! And that fellow of mine, Nostromo, you know, was right in it.
Absolutely making history, sir."
But this event,
creditable to Nostromo, was to lead immediately to another, which could not be
classed either as "history" or as "a mistake" in Captain
Mitchell's phraseology. He had another word for it.
"Sir" he used
to say afterwards, "that was no mistake. It was a fatality. A misfortune,
pure and simple, sir. And that poor fellow of mine was right in it -- right in
the middle of it! A fatality, if ever there was one -- and to my mind he has
never been the same man since."
THROUGH good and evil
report in the varying fortune of that struggle which Don José had characterized
in the phrase, "the fate of national honesty trembles in the
balance," the Gould Concession, "Imperium in Imperio," had gone
on working; the square mountain had gone on pouring its treasure down the
wooden shoots to the unresting batteries of stamps; the lights of San Tomé had
twinkled night after night upon the great, limitless shadow of the Campo; every
three months the silver escort had gone down to the sea as if neither the war
nor its consequences could ever affect the ancient Occidental State secluded
beyond its high barrier of the Cordillera. All the fighting took place on the
other side of that mighty wall of serrated peaks lorded over by the white dome
of Higuerota and as yet unbreached by the railway, of which only the first
part, the easy Campo part from Sulaco to the Ivie Valley at the foot of the
pass, had been laid. Neither did the telegraph line cross the mountains yet;
its poles, like slender beacons on the plain, penetrated into the forest fringe
of the foot-hills cut by the deep avenue of the track; and its wire ended
abruptly in the construction camp at a white deal table supporting a Morse
apparatus, in a long hut of planks with a corrugated iron roof overshadowed by
gigantic cedar trees -- the quarters of the engineer in charge of the advance
section.
The harbour was busy,
too, with the traffic in railway material, and with the movements of troops
along the coast. The O.S.N. Company found much occupation for its fleet.
Costaguana had no navy, and, apart from a few coastguard cutters, there were no
national ships except a couple of old merchant steamers used as transports.
Captain Mitchell,
feeling more and more in the thick of history, found time for an hour or so
during an afternoon in the drawing-room of the Casa Gould, where, with a
strange ignorance of the real forces at work around him, he professed himself
delighted to get away from the strain of affairs. He did not know what he would
have done without his invaluable Nostromo, he declared. Those confounded
Costaguana politics gave him more work -- he confided to Mrs. Gould -- than he
had bargained for.
Don José Avellanos had
displayed in the service of the endangered Ribiera Government an organizing
activity and an eloquence of which the echoes reached even Europe. For, after
the new loan to the Ribiera Government, Europe had become interested in
Costaguana. The Sala of the Provincial Assembly (in the Municipal Buildings of
Sulaco), with its portraits of the Liberators on the walls and an old flag of
Cortez preserved in a glass case above the President's chair, had heard all
these speeches -- the early one containing the impassioned declaration
"Militarism is the enemy," the famous one of the "trembling
balance" delivered on the occasion of the vote for the raising of a second
Sulaco regiment in the defence of the reforming Government; and when the provinces
again displayed their old flags (proscribed in Guzman Bento's time) there was
another of those great orations, when Don José greeted these old emblems of the
war of Independence, brought out again in the name of new Ideals. The old idea
of Federalism had disappeared. For his part he did not wish to revive old
political doctrines. They were perishable. They died. But the doctrine of
political rectitude was immortal. The second Sulaco regiment, to whom he was
presenting this flag, was going to show its valour in a contest for order,
peace, progress; for the establishment of national self-respect without which
-- he declared with energy -- "we are a reproach and a byword amongst the
powers of the world."
Don José Avellanos
loved his country. He had served it lavishly with his fortune during his
diplomatic career, and the later story of his captivity and barbarous ill-usage
under Guzman Bento was well known to his listeners. It was a wonder that he had
not been a victim of the ferocious and summary executions which marked the course
of that tyranny; for Guzman had ruled the country with the sombre imbecility of
political fanaticism. The power of Supreme Government had become in his dull
mind an object of strange worship, as if it were some sort of cruel deity. It
was incarnated in himself, and his adversaries, the Federalists, were the
supreme sinners, objects of hate, abhorrence, and fear, as heretics would be to
a convinced Inquisitor. For years he had carried about at the tail of the Army
of Pacification, all over the country, a captive band of such atrocious
criminals, who considered themselves most unfortunate at not having been
summarily executed. It was a diminishing company of nearly naked skeletons,
loaded with irons, covered with dirt, with vermin, with raw wounds, all men of
position, of education, of wealth, who had learned to fight amongst themselves
for scraps of rotten beef thrown to them by soldiers, or to beg a negro cook
for a drink of muddy water in pitiful accents. Don José Avellanos, clanking his
chains amongst the others, seemed only to exist in order to prove how much
hunger, pain, degradation, and cruel torture a human body can stand without
parting with the last spark of life. Sometimes interrogatories, backed by some
primitive method of torture, were administered to them by a commission of
officers hastily assembled in a hut of sticks and branches, and made pitiless
by the fear for their own lives. A lucky one or two of that spectral company of
prisoners would perhaps be led tottering behind a bush to be shot by a file of
soldiers. Always an army chaplain -- some unshaven, dirty man, girt with a
sword and with a tiny cross embroidered in white cotton on the left breast of a
lieutenant's uniform -- would follow, cigarette in the corner of the mouth,
wooden stool in hand, to hear the confession and give absolution; for the
Citizen Saviour of the Country (Guzman Bento was called thus officially in
petitions) was not averse from the exercise of rational clemency. The irregular
report of the firing squad would be heard, followed sometimes by a single
finishing shot; a little bluish cloud of smoke would float up above the green
bushes, and the Army of Pacification would move on over the savannas, through
the forests, crossing rivers, invading rural pueblos, devastating the haciendas
of the horrid aristocrats, occupying the inland towns in the fulfilment of its
patriotic mission, and leaving behind a united land wherein the evil taint of
Federalism could no longer be detected in the smoke of burning houses and the smell
of spilt blood. Don José Avellanos had survived that time. Perhaps, when
contemptuously signifying to him his release, the Citizen Saviour of the
Country might have thought this benighted aristocrat too broken in health and
spirit and fortune to be any longer dangerous. Or, perhaps, it may have been a
simple caprice. Guzman Bento, usually full of fanciful fears and brooding
suspicions, had sudden accesses of unreasonable self- confidence when he
perceived himself elevated on a pinnacle of power and safety beyond the reach
of mere mortal plotters. At such times he would impulsively command the
celebration of a solemn Mass of thanksgiving, which would be sung in great pomp
in the cathedral of Sta. Marta by the trembling, subservient Archbishop of his
creation. He heard it sitting in a gilt armchair placed before the high altar,
surrounded by the civil and military heads of his Government. The unofficial
world of Sta. Marta would crowd into the cathedral, for it was not quite safe
for anybody of mark to stay away from these manifestations of presidential
piety. Having thus acknowledged the only power he was at all disposed to
recognize as above himself, he would scatter acts of political grace in a
sardonic wantonness of clemency. There was no other way left now to enjoy his
power but by seeing his crushed adversaries crawl impotently into the light of
day out of the dark, noisome cells of the Collegio. Their harmlessness fed his
insatiable vanity, and they could always be got hold of again. It was the rule
for all the women of their families to present thanks afterwards in a special
audience. The incarnation of that strange god, El Gobierno Supremo, received
them standing, cocked hat on head, and exhorted them in a menacing mutter to
show their gratitude by bringing up their children in fidelity to the
democratic form of government, "which I have established for the happiness
of our country." His front teeth having been knocked out in some accident
of his former herdsman's life, his utterance was spluttering and indistinct. He
had been working for Costaguana alone in the midst of treachery and opposition.
Let it cease now lest he should become weary of forgiving!
Don José Avellanos had
known this forgiveness.
He was broken in health
and fortune deplorably enough to present a truly gratifying spectacle to the
supreme chief of democratic institutions. He retired to Sulaco. His wife had an
estate in that province, and she nursed him back to life out of the house of
death and captivity. When she died, their daughter, an only child, was old
enough to devote herself to "poor papa."
Miss Avellanos, born in
Europe and educated partly in England, was a tall, grave girl, with a
self-possessed manner, a wide, white forehead, a wealth of rich brown hair, and
blue eyes.
The other young ladies
of Sulaco stood in awe of her character and accomplishments. She was reputed to
be terribly learned and serious. As to pride, it was well known that all the
Corbelàns were proud, and her mother was a Corbelàn. Don José Avellanos depended
very much upon the devotion of his beloved Antonia. He accepted it in the
benighted way of men, who, though made in God's image, are like stone idols
without sense before the smoke of certain burnt offerings. He was ruined in
every way, but a man possessed of passion is not a bankrupt in life. Don José
Avellanos desired passionately for his country: peace, prosperity, and (as the
end of the preface to "Fifty Years of Misrule" has it) "an
honourable place in the comity of civilized nations." In this last phrase
the Minister Plenipotentiary, cruelly humiliated by the bad faith of his
Government towards the foreign bondholders, stands disclosed in the patriot.
The fatuous turmoil of
greedy factions succeeding the tyranny of Guzman Bento seemed to bring his
desire to the very door of opportunity. He was too old to descend personally
into the centre of the arena at Sta. Marta. But the men who acted there sought
his advice at every step. He himself thought that he could be most useful at a
distance, in Sulaco. His name, his connections, his former position, his
experience commanded the respect of his class. The discovery that this man,
living in dignified poverty in the Corbelàn town residence (opposite the Casa
Gould), could dispose of material means towards the support of the cause
increased his influence. It was his open letter of appeal that decided the
candidature of Don Vincente Ribiera for the Presidency. Another of these
informal State papers drawn up by Don José (this time in the shape of an
address from the Province) induced that scrupulous constitutionalist to accept
the extraordinary powers conferred upon him for five years by an overwhelming
vote of congress in Sta. Marta. It was a specific mandate to establish the
prosperity of the people on the basis of firm peace at home, and to redeem the
national credit by the satisfaction of all just claims abroad.
On the afternoon the
news of that vote had reached Sulaco by the usual roundabout postal way through
Cayta, and up the coast by steamer. Don José, who had been waiting for the mail
in the Goulds' drawing- room, got out of the rocking-chair, letting his hat
fall off his knees. He rubbed his silvery, short hair with both hands,
speechless with the excess of joy.
"Emilia, my
soul," he had burst out, "let me embrace you! Let me --"
Captain Mitchell, had
he been there, would no doubt have made an apt remark about the dawn of a new
era; but if Don José thought something of the kind, his eloquence failed him on
this occasion. The inspirer of that revival of the Blanco party tottered where
he stood. Mrs. Gould moved forward quickly and, as she offered her cheek with a
smile to her old friend, managed very cleverly to give him the support of her
arm he really needed.
Don José had recovered
himself at once, but for a time he could do no more than murmur, "Oh, you
two patriots! Oh, you two patriots!" -- looking from one to the other.
Vague plans of another historical work, wherein all the devotions to the
regeneration of the country he loved would be enshrined for the reverent
worship of posterity, flitted through his mind. The historian who had enough
elevation of soul to write of Guzman Bento: "Yet this monster, imbrued in
the blood of his countrymen, must not be held unreservedly to the execration of
future years. It appears to be true that he, too, loved his country. He had
given it twelve years of peace; and, absolute master of lives and fortunes as
he was, he died poor. His worst fault, perhaps, was not his ferocity, but his
ignorance;" the man who could write thus of a cruel persecutor (the
passage occurs in his "History of Misrule") felt at the foreshadowing
of success an almost boundless affection for his two helpers, for these two
young people from over the sea.
Just as years ago,
calmly, from the conviction of practical necessity, stronger than any abstract
political doctrine, Henry Gould had drawn the sword, so now, the times being
changed, Charles Gould had flung the silver of the San Tomé into the fray. The
Inglez of Sulaco, the "Costaguana Englishman" of the third
generation, was as far from being a political intriguer as his uncle from a
revolutionary swashbuckler. Springing from the instinctive uprightness of their
natures their action was reasoned. They saw an opportunity and used the weapon
to hand.
Charles Gould's
position -- a commanding position in the background of that attempt to retrieve
the peace and the credit of the Republic -- was very clear. At the beginning he
had had to accommodate himself to existing circumstances of corruption so naïvely
brazen as to disarm the hate of a man courageous enough not to be afraid of its
irresponsible potency to ruin everything it touched. It seemed to him too
contemptible for hot anger even. He made use of it with a cold, fearless scorn,
manifested rather than concealed by the forms of stony courtesy which did away
with much of the ignominy of the situation. At bottom, perhaps, he suffered
from it, for he was not a man of cowardly illusions, but he refused to discuss
the ethical view with his wife. He trusted that, though a little disenchanted,
she would be intelligent enough to understand that his character safeguarded
the enterprise of their lives as much or more than his policy. The
extraordinary development of the mine had put a great power into his hands. To
feel that prosperity always at the mercy of unintelligent greed had grown
irksome to him. To Mrs. Gould it was humiliating. At any rate, it was
dangerous. In the confidential communications passing between Charles Gould,
the King of Sulaco, and the head of the silver and steel interests far away in
California, the conviction was growing that any attempt made by men of
education and integrity ought to be discreetly supported. "You may tell
your friend Avellanos that I think so," Mr. Holroyd had written at the
proper moment from his inviolable sanctuary within the eleven-storey high
factory of great affairs. And shortly afterwards, with a credit opened by the
Third Southern Bank (located next door but one to the Holroyd Building), the
Ribierist party in Costaguana took a practical shape under the eye of the
administrator of the San Tomé mine. And Don José, the hereditary friend of the
Gould family, could say: "Perhaps, my dear Carlos, I shall not have
believed in vain."
AFTER another armed
struggle, decided by Montero's victory of Rio Seco, had been added to the tale
of civil wars, the "honest men," as Don José called them, could
breathe freely for the first time in half a century. The Five-Year-Mandate law
became the basis of that regeneration, the passionate desire and hope for which
had been like the elixir of everlasting youth for Don José Avellanos.
And when it was
suddenly -- and not quite unexpectedly -- endangered by that "brute
Montero," it was a passionate indignation that gave him a new lease of
life, as it were. Already, at the time of the President- Dictator's visit to
Sulaco, Moraga had sounded a note of warning from Sta. Marta about the War
Minister. Montero and his brother made the subject of an earnest talk between
the Dictator-President and the Nestor- inspirer of the party. But Don Vincente,
a doctor of philosophy from the Cordova University, seemed to have an
exaggerated respect for military ability, whose mysteriousness -- since it
appeared to be altogether independent of intellect -- imposed upon his
imagination. The victor of Rio Seco was a popular hero. His services were so
recent that the President-Dictator quailed before the obvious charge of
political ingratitude. Great regenerating transactions were being initiated --
the fresh loan, a new railway line, a vast colonization scheme. Anything that
could unsettle the public opinion in the capital was to be avoided. Don José
bowed to these arguments and tried to dismiss from his mind the gold-laced
portent in boots, and with a sabre, made meaningless now at last, he hoped, in
the new order of things.
Less than six months
after the President-Dictator's visit, Sulaco learned with stupefaction of the
military revolt in the name of national honour. The Minister of War, in a
barrack-square allocution to the officers of the artillery regiment he had been
inspecting, had declared the national honour sold to foreigners. The Dictator,
by his weak compliance with the demands of the European powers -- for the
settlement of long outstanding money claims -- had showed himself unfit to
rule. A letter from Moraga explained afterwards that the initiative, and even
the very text, of the incendiary allocution came, in reality, from the other
Montero, the ex-guerillero, the Commandante de Plaza. The energetic treatment
of Dr. Monygham, sent for in haste "to the mountain," who came
galloping three leagues in the dark, saved Don José from a dangerous attack of
jaundice.
After getting over the
shock, Don José refused to let himself be prostrated. Indeed, better news
succeeded at first. The revolt in the capital had been suppressed after a night
of fighting in the streets. Unfortunately, both the Monteros had been able to
make their escape south, to their native province of Entre-Montes. The hero of
the forest march, the victor of Rio Seco, had been received with frenzied
acclamations in Nicoya, the provincial capital. The troops in garrison there
had gone to him in a body. The brothers were organizing an army, gathering
malcontents, sending emissaries primed with patriotic lies to the people, and
with promises of plunder to the wild llaneros. Even a Monterist press had come
into existence, speaking oracularly of the secret promises of support given by
"our great sister Republic of the North" against the sinister
land-grabbing designs of European powers, cursing in every issue the
"miserable Ribiera," who had plotted to deliver his country, bound
hand and foot, for a prey to foreign speculators.
Sulaco, pastoral and
sleepy, with its opulent Campo and the rich silver mine, heard the din of arms
fitfully in its fortunate isolation. It was nevertheless in the very forefront
of the defence with men and money; but the very rumours reached it circuitously
-- from abroad even, so much was it cut off from the rest of the Republic, not
only by natural obstacles, but also by the vicissitudes of the war. The
Monteristos were besieging Cayta, an important postal link. The overland
couriers ceased to come across the mountains, and no muleteer would consent to
risk the journey at last; even Bonifacio on one occasion failed to return from
Sta. Marta, either not daring to start, or perhaps captured by the parties of
the enemy raiding the country between the Cordillera and the capital. Monterist
publications, however, found their way into the province, mysteriously enough;
and also Monterist emissaries preaching death to aristocrats in the villages
and towns of the Campo. Very early, at the beginning of the trouble, Hernandez,
the bandit, had proposed (through the agency of an old priest of a village in
the wilds) to deliver two of them to the Ribierist authorities in Tonoro. They
had come to offer him a free pardon and the rank of colonel from General
Montero in consideration of joining the rebel army with his mounted band. No
notice was taken at the time of the proposal. It was joined, as an evidence of
good faith, to a petition praying the Sulaco Assembly for permission to enlist,
with all his followers, in the forces being then raised in Sulaco for the
defence of the Five- Year Mandate of regeneration. The petition, like
everything else, had found its way into Don José's hands. He had showed to Mrs.
Gould these pages of dirty-greyish rough paper (perhaps looted in some village
store), covered with the crabbed, illiterate handwriting of the old padre,
carried off from his hut by the side of a mud-walled church to be the secretary
of the dreaded Salteador. They had both bent in the lamp- light of the Gould
drawing-room over the document containing the fierce and yet humble appeal of
the man against the blind and stupid barbarity turning an honest ranchero into
a bandit. A postscript of the priest stated that, but for being deprived of his
liberty for ten days, he had been treated with humanity and the respect due to
his sacred calling. He had been, it appears, confessing and absolving the chief
and most of the band, and he guaranteed the sincerity of their good
disposition. He had distributed heavy penances, no doubt in the way of litanies
and fasts; but he argued shrewdly that it would be difficult for them to make
their peace with God durably till they had made peace with men.
Never before, perhaps,
had Hernandez's head been in less jeopardy than when he petitioned humbly for
permission to buy a pardon for himself and his gang of deserters by armed
service. He could range afar from the waste lands protecting his fastness,
unchecked, because there were no troops left in the whole province. The usual
garrison of Sulaco had gone south to the war, with its brass band playing the
Bolivar march on the bridge of one of the O.S.N. Company's steamers. The great
family coaches drawn up along the shore of the harbour were made to rock on the
high leathern springs by the enthusiasm of the señoras and the señoritas
standing up to wave their lace handkerchiefs, as lighter after lighter packed
full of troops left the end of the jetty.
Nostromo directed the
embarkation, under the super- intendendence of Captain Mitchell, red-faced in the
sun, conspicuous in a white waistcoat, representing the allied and anxious
goodwill of all the material interests of civilization. General Barrios, who
commanded the troops, assured Don José on parting that in three weeks he would
have Montero in a wooden cage drawn by three pair of oxen ready for a tour
through all the towns of the Republic.
"And then, señora,"
he continued, baring his curly iron-grey head to Mrs. Gould in her landau --
"and then, señora, we shall convert our swords into ploughshares and grow
rich. Even I, myself, as soon as this little business is settled, shall open a
fundacion on some land I have on the llanos and try to make a little money in
peace and quietness. Señora, you know, all Costaguana knows -- what do I say?
-- this whole South American continent knows, that Pablo Barrios has had his
fill of military glory."
Charles Gould was not
present at the anxious and patriotic send-off. It was not his part to see the
soldiers embark. It was neither his part, nor his inclination, nor his policy.
His part, his inclination, and his policy were united in one endeavour to keep
unchecked the flow of treasure he had started single-handed from the re-opened
scar in the flank of the mountain. As the mine developed he had trained for
himself some native help. There were foremen, artificers and clerks, with Don Pépé
for the gobernador of the mining population. For the rest his shoulders alone
sustained the whole weight of the "Imperium in Imperio," the great
Gould Concession whose mere shadow had been enough to crush the life out of his
father.
Mrs. Gould had no
silver mine to look after. In the general life of the Gould Concession she was
represented by her two lieutenants, the doctor and the priest, but she fed her
woman's love of excitement on events whose significance was purified to her by
the fire of her imaginative purpose. On that day she had brought the Avellanos,
father and daughter, down to the harbour with her.
Amongst his other
activities of that stirring time, Don José had become the chairman of a
Patriotic Committee which had armed a great proportion of troops in the Sulaco
command with an improved model of a military rifle. It had been just discarded
for something still more deadly by one of the great European powers. How much
of the market-price for second-hand weapons was covered by the voluntary
contributions of the principal families, and how much came from those funds Don
José was understood to command abroad, remained a secret which he alone could
have disclosed; but the Ricos, as the populace called them, had contributed
under the pressure of their Nestor's eloquence. Some of the more enthusiastic
ladies had been moved to bring offerings of jewels into the hands of the man
who was the life and soul of the party.
There were moments when
both his life and his soul seemed overtaxed by so many years of undiscouraged
belief in regeneration. He appeared almost inanimate, sitting rigidly by the
side of Mrs. Gould in the landau, with his fine, old, clean-shaven face of a
uniform tint as if modelled in yellow wax, shaded by a soft felt hat, the dark
eyes looking out fixedly. Antonia, the beautiful Antonia, as Miss Avellanos was
called in Sulaco, leaned back, facing them; and her full figure, the grave oval
of her face with full red lips, made her look more mature than Mrs. Gould, with
her mobile expression and small, erect person under a slightly swaying
sunshade.
Whenever possible
Antonia attended her father; her recognized devotion weakened the shocking
effect of her scorn for the rigid conventions regulating the life of
Spanish-American girlhood. And, in truth, she was no longer girlish. It was
said that she often wrote State papers from her father's dictation, and was
allowed to read all the books in his library. At the receptions -- where the
situation was saved by the presence of a very decrepit old lady (a relation of
the Corbelàns), quite deaf and motionless in an armchair -- Antonia could hold
her own in a discussion with two or three men at a time. Obviously she was not the
girl to be content with peeping through a barred window at a cloaked figure of
a lover ensconced in a doorway opposite -- which is the correct form of
Costaguana courtship. It was generally believed that with her foreign
upbringing and foreign ideas the learned and proud Antonia would never marry --
unless, indeed, she married a foreigner from Europe or North America, now that
Sulaco seemed on the point of being invaded by all the world.
WHEN General Barrios
stopped to address Mrs. Gould, Antonia raised negligently her hand holding an
open fan, as if to shade from the sun her head, wrapped in a light lace shawl.
The clear gleam of her blue eyes gliding behind the black fringe of eyelashes
paused for a moment upon her father, then travelled further to the figure of a
young man of thirty at most, of medium height, rather thick-set, wearing a
light overcoat. Bearing down with the open palm of his hand upon the knob of a
flexible cane, he had been looking on from a distance; but directly he saw
himself noticed, he approached quietly and put his elbow over the door of the
landau.
The shirt collar, cut
low in the neck, the big bow of his cravat, the style of his clothing, from the
round hat to the varnished shoes, suggested an idea of French elegance; but
otherwise he was the very type of a fair Spanish creole. The fluffy moustache
and the short, curly, golden beard did not conceal his lips, rosy, fresh,
almost pouting in expression. His full, round face was of that warm, healthy
creole white which is never tanned by its native sunshine. Martin Decoud was
seldom exposed to the Costaguana sun under which he was born. His people had
been long settled in Paris, where he had studied law, had dabbled in
literature, had hoped now and then in moments of exaltation to become a poet
like that other foreigner of Spanish blood, José Maria Herédia. In other
moments he had, to pass the time, condescended to write articles on European
affairs for the Semenario, the principal newspaper in Sta. Marta, which printed
them under the heading "From our special correspondent," though the
authorship was an open secret. Everybody in Costaguana, where the tale of
compatriots in Europe is jealously kept, knew that it was "the son
Decoud," a talented young man, supposed to be moving in the higher spheres
of Society. As a matter of fact, he was an idle boulevardier, in touch with
some smart journalists, made free of a few newspaper offices, and welcomed in
the pleasure haunts of pressmen. This life, whose dreary superficiality is
covered by the glitter of universal blague, like the stupid clowning of a
harlequin by the spangles of a motley costume, induced in him a Frenchified --
but most un-French -- cosmopolitanism, in reality a mere barren indifferentism
posing as intellectual superiority. Of his own country he used to say to his
French associates: "Imagine an atmosphere of opera-bouffe in which all the
comic business of stage statesmen, brigands, etc., etc., all their farcical
stealing, intriguing, and stabbing is done in dead earnest. It is screamingly
funny, the blood flows all the time, and the actors believe themselves to be
influencing the fate of the universe. Of course, government in general, any
government anywhere, is a thing of exquisite comicality to a discerning mind;
but really we Spanish-Americans do overstep the bounds. No man of ordinary
intelligence can take part in the intrigues of une farce macabre. However,
these Ribierists, of whom we hear so much just now, are really trying in their
own comical way to make the country habitable, and even to pay some of its
debts. My friends, you had better write up Señor Ribiera all you can in
kindness to your own bondholders. Really, if what I am told in my letters is
true, there is some chance for them at last."
And he would explain
with railing verve what Don Vincente Ribiera stood for -- a mournful little man
oppressed by his own good intentions, the significance of battles won, who
Montero was (un grotesque vaniteux et féroce), and the manner of the new loan
connected with railway development, and the colonization of vast tracts of land
in one great financial scheme.
And his French friends
would remark that evidently this little fellow Decoud connaissait la question à
fond. An important Parisian review asked him for an article on the situation.
It was composed in a serious tone and in a spirit of levity. Afterwards he
asked one of his intimates --
"Have you read my
thing about the regeneration of Costaguana -- une bonne blague, hein?"
He imagined himself
Parisian to the tips of his fingers. But far from being that he was in danger
of remaining a sort of nondescript dilettante all his life. He had pushed the
habit of universal raillery to a point where it blinded him to the genuine
impulses of his own nature. To be suddenly selected for the executive member of
the patriotic small-arms committee of Sulaco seemed to him the height of the
unexpected, one of those fantastic moves of which only his "dear
countrymen" were capable.
"It's like a tile
falling on my head. I --I -- executive member! It's the first I hear of it!
What do I know of military rifles? C'est funambulesque!" he had exclaimed
to his favourite sister; for the Decoud family -- except the old father and
mother -- used the French language amongst themselves. "And you should see
the explanatory and confidential letter! Eight pages of it -- no less!"
This letter, in
Antonia's handwriting, was signed by Don José, who appealed to the "young
and gifted Costaguanero" on public grounds, and privately opened his heart
to his talented god-son, a man of wealth and leisure, with wide relations, and
by his parentage and bringing-up worthy of all confidence.
"Which
means," Martin commented, cynically, to his sister, "that I am not
likely to misappropriate the funds, or go blabbing to our Chargé d'Affaires
here."
The whole thing was
being carried out behind the back of the War Minister, Montero, a mistrusted
member of the Ribiera Government, but difficult to get rid of at once. He was
not to know anything of it till the troops under Barrios's command had the new
rifle in their hands. The President-Dictator, whose position was very
difficult, was alone in the secret.
"How funny!"
commented Martin's sister and confidante; to which the brother, with an air of
best Parisian blague, had retorted:
"It's immense! The
idea of that Chief of the State engaged, with the help of private citizens, in
digging a mine under his own indispensable War Minister. No! We are
unapproachable!" And he laughed immoderately.
Afterwards his sister
was surprised at the earnestness and ability he displayed in carrying out his
mission, which circumstances made delicate, and his want of special knowledge
rendered difficult. She had never seen Martin take so much trouble about
anything in his whole life.
"It amuses
me," he had explained, briefly. "I am beset by a lot of swindlers
trying to sell all sorts of gas- pipe weapons. They are charming; they invite
me to expensive luncheons; I keep up their hopes; it's extremely entertaining.
Meanwhile, the real affair is being carried through in quite another
quarter."
When the business was
concluded he declared suddenly his intention of seeing the precious consignment
delivered safely in Sulaco. The whole burlesque business, he thought, was worth
following up to the end. He mumbled his excuses, tugging at his golden beard,
before the acute young lady who (after the first wide stare of astonishment)
looked at him with narrowed eyes, and pronounced slowly --
"I believe you
want to see Antonia."
"What
Antonia?" asked the Costaguana boulevardier, in a vexed and disdainful
tone. He shrugged his shoulders, and spun round on his heel. His sister called
out after him joyously --
"The Antonia you
used to know when she wore her hair in two plaits down her back."
He had known her some
eight years since, shortly before the Avellanos had left Europe for good, as a
tall girl of sixteen, youthfully austere, and of a character already so formed
that she ventured to treat slightingly his pose of disabused wisdom. On one
occasion, as though she had lost all patience, she flew out at him about the
aimlessness of his life and the levity of his opinions. He was twenty then, an
only son, spoiled by his adoring family. This attack disconcerted him so
greatly that he had faltered in his affectation of amused superiority before
that insignificant chit of a school-girl. But the impression left was so strong
that ever since all the girl friends of his sisters recalled to him Antonia
Avellanos by some faint resemblance, or by the great force of contrast. It was,
he told himself, like a ridiculous fatality. And, of course, in the news the
Decouds received regularly from Costaguana, the name of their friends, the
Avellanos, cropped up frequently -- the arrest and the abominable treatment of
the ex-Minister, the dangers and hardships endured by the family, its
withdrawal in poverty to Sulaco, the death of the mother.
The Monterist
pronunciamento had taken place before Martin Decoud reached Costaguana. He came
out in a roundabout way, through Magellan's Straits by the main line and the
West Coast Service of the O.S.N. Company. His precious consignment arrived just
in time to convert the first feelings of consternation into a mood of hope and
resolution. Publicly he was made much of by the familias principales. Privately
Don José, still shaken and weak, embraced him with tears in his eyes.
"You have come out
yourself! No less could be expected from a Decoud. Alas! our worst fears have
been realized," he moaned, affectionately. And again he hugged his
god-son. This was indeed the time for men of intellect and conscience to rally
round the endangered cause.
It was then that Martin
Decoud, the adopted child of Western Europe, felt the absolute change of
atmosphere. He submitted to being embraced and talked to without a word. He was
moved in spite of himself by that note of passion and sorrow unknown on the
more refined stage of European politics. But when the tall Antonia, advancing
with her light step in the dimness of the big bare Sala of the Avellanos house,
offered him her hand (in her emancipated way), and murmured, "I am glad to
see you here, Don Martin," he felt how impossible it would be to tell
these two people that he had intended to go away by the next month's packet.
Don José, meantime, continued his praises. Every accession added to public
confidence, and, besides, what an example to the young men at home from the
brilliant defender of the country's regeneration, the worthy expounder of the
party's political faith before the world! Everybody had read the magnificent
article in the famous Parisian Review. The world was now informed: and the
author's appearance at this moment was like a public act of faith. Young Decoud
felt overcome by a feeling of impatient confusion. His plan had been to return
by way of the United States through California, visit Yellowstone Park, see
Chicago, Niagara, have a look at Canada, perhaps make a short stay in New York,
a longer one in Newport, use his letters of introduction. The pressure of
Antonia's hand was so frank, the tone of her voice was so unexpectedly
unchanged in its approving warmth, that all he found to say after his low bow
was --
"I am
inexpressibly grateful for your welcome; but why need a man be thanked for
returning to his native country? I am sure Doña Antonia does not think
so."
"Certainly not, señor,"
she said, with that perfectly calm openness of manner which characterized all
her utterances. "But when he returns, as you return, one may be glad --
for the sake of both."
Martin Decoud said
nothing of his plans. He not only never breathed a word of them to any one, but
only a fortnight later asked the mistress of the Casa Gould (where he had of course
obtained admission at once), leaning forward in his chair with an air of
well-bred familiarity, whether she could not detect in him that day a marked
change -- an air, he explained, of more excellent gravity. At this Mrs. Gould
turned her face full towards him with the silent inquiry of slightly widened
eyes and the merest ghost of a smile, an habitual movement with her, which was
very fascinating to men by something subtly devoted, finely self- forgetful in
its lively readiness of attention. Because, Decoud continued imperturbably, he
felt no longer an idle cumberer of the earth. She was, he assured her, actually
beholding at that moment the Journalist of Sulaco. At once Mrs. Gould glanced
towards Antonia, posed upright in the corner of a high, straight- backed
Spanish sofa, a large black fan waving slowly against the curves of her fine
figure, the tips of crossed feet peeping from under the hem of the black skirt.
Decoud's eyes also remained fixed there, while in an undertone he added that
Miss Avellanos was quite aware of his new and unexpected vocation, which in
Costaguana was generally the speciality of half- educated negroes and wholly
penniless lawyers. Then, confronting with a sort of urbane effrontery Mrs.
Gould's gaze, now turned sympathetically upon himself, he breathed out the
words, "Pro Patria!"
What had happened was
that he had all at once yielded to Don José's pressing entreaties to take the
direction of a newspaper that would "voice the aspirations of the
province." It had been Don José's old and cherished idea. The necessary
plant (on a modest scale) and a large consignment of paper had been received
from America some time before; the right man alone was wanted. Even Señor
Moraga in Sta. Marta had not been able to find one, and the matter was now
becoming pressing; some organ was absolutely needed to counteract the effect of
the lies disseminated by the Monterist press: the atrocious calumnies, the
appeals to the people calling upon them to rise with their knives in their
hands and put an end once for all to the Blancos, to these Gothic remnants, to
these sinister mummies, these impotent paraliticos, who plotted with foreigners
for the surrender of the lands and the slavery of the people.
The clamour of this
Negro Liberalism frightened Seńor Avellanos. A newspaper was the
only remedy. And now that the right man had been found in Decoud, great black
letters appeared painted between the windows above the arcaded ground floor of
a house on the Plaza. It was next to Anzani's great emporium of boots, silks,
ironware, muslins, wooden toys, tiny silver arms, legs, heads, hearts (for
ex-voto offerings), rosaries, champagne, women's hats, patent medicines, even a
few dusty books in paper covers and mostly in the French language. The big black
letters formed the words, "Offices of the Porvenir." From these
offices a single folded sheet of Martin's journalism issued three times a week;
and the sleek yellow Anzani prowling in a suit of ample black and carpet
slippers, before the many doors of his establishment, greeted by a deep,
side-long inclination of his body the Journalist of Sulaco going to and fro on
the business of his august calling.
PERHAPS it was in the
exercise of his calling that he had come to see the troops depart. The Porvenir
of the day after next would no doubt relate the event, but its editor, leaning
his side against the landau, seemed to look at nothing. The front rank of the
company of infantry drawn up three deep across the shore end of the jetty when
pressed too close would bring their bayonets to the charge ferociously, with an
awful rattle; and then the crowd of spectators swayed back bodily, even under
the noses of the big white mules. Notwithstanding the great multitude there was
only a low, muttering noise; the dust hung in a brown haze, in which the
horsemen, wedged in the throng here and there, towered from the hips upwards,
gazing all one way over the heads. Almost every one of them had mounted a
friend, who steadied himself with both hands grasping his shoulders from
behind; and the rims of their hats touching, made like one disc sustaining the
cones of two pointed crowns with a double face underneath. A hoarse mozo would
bawl out something to an acquaintance in the ranks, or a woman would shriek suddenly
the word Adios! followed by the Christian name of a man.
General Barrios, in a
shabby blue tunic and white peg-top trousers falling upon strange red boots,
kept his head uncovered and stooped slightly, propping himself up with a thick
stick. No! He had earned enough military glory to satiate any man, he insisted
to Mrs. Gould, trying at the same time to put an air of gallantry into his
attitude. A few jetty hairs hung sparsely from his upper lip, he had a salient
nose, a thin, long jaw, and a black silk patch over one eye. His other eye,
small and deep-set, twinkled erratically in all directions, aimlessly affable.
The few European spectators, all men, who had naturally drifted into the
neighbourhood of the Gould carriage, betrayed by the solemnity of their faces
their impression that the general must have had too much punch (Swedish punch,
imported in bottles by Anzani) at the Amarilla Club before he had started with
his Staff on a furious ride to the harbour. But Mrs. Gould bent forward,
self-possessed, and declared her conviction that still more glory awaited the
general in the near future.
"Señora!" he
remonstrated, with great feeling, "in the name of God, reflect! How can
there be any glory for a man like me in overcoming that bald-headed embustero
with the dyed moustaches?"
Pablo Ignacio Barrios,
son of a village alcalde, general of division, commanding in chief the
Occidental Military district, did not frequent the higher society of the town.
He preferred the unceremonious gatherings of men where he could tell
jaguar-hunt stories, boast of his powers with the lasso, with which he could
perform extremely difficult feats of the sort "no married man should
attempt," as the saying goes amongst the llaneros; relate tales of
extraordinary night rides, encounters with wild bulls, struggles with
crocodiles, adventures in the great forests, crossings of swollen rivers. And
it was not mere boastfulness that prompted the general's reminiscences, but a
genuine love of that wild life which he had led in his young days before he
turned his back for ever on the thatched roof of the parental tolderia in the
woods. Wandering away as far as Mexico he had fought against the French by the
side (as he said) of Juarez, and was the only military man of Costaguana who had
ever encountered European troops in the field. That fact shed a great lustre
upon his name till it became eclipsed by the rising star of Montero. All his
life he had been an inveterate gambler. He alluded himself quite openly to the
current story how once, during some campaign (when in command of a brigade), he
had gambled away his horses, pistols, and accoutrements, to the very
epaulettes, playing monte with his colonels the night before the battle.
Finally, he had sent under escort his sword (a presentation sword, with a gold
hilt) to the town in the rear of his position to be immediately pledged for
five hundred pesetas with a sleepy and frightened shop-keeper. By daybreak he
had lost the last of that money, too, when his only remark, as he rose calmly,
was, "Now let us go and fight to the death." From that time he had
become aware that a general could lead his troops into battle very well with a
simple stick in his hand. "It has been my custom ever since," he
would say.
He was always
overwhelmed with debts; even during the periods of splendour in his varied
fortunes of a Costaguana general, when he held high military commands, his
gold-laced uniforms were almost always in pawn with some tradesman. And at
last, to avoid the incessant difficulties of costume caused by the anxious
lenders, he had assumed a disdain of military trappings, an eccentric fashion
of shabby old tunics, which had become like a second nature. But the faction
Barrios joined needed to fear no political betrayal. He was too much of a real
soldier for the ignoble traffic of buying and selling victories. A member of
the foreign diplomatic body in Sta. Marta had once passed a judgment upon him:
"Barrios is a man of perfect honesty and even of some talent for war, mais
il manquede tenue." After the triumph of the Ribierists he had obtained
the reputedly lucrative Occidental command, mainly through the exertions of his
creditors (the Sta. Marta shopkeepers, all great politicians), who moved heaven
and earth in his interest publicly, and privately besieged Señor Moraga, the
influential agent of the San Tomé mine, with the exaggerated lamentations that
if the general were passed over, "We shall all be ruined." An
incidental but favourable mention of his name in Mr. Gould senior's long
correspondence with his son had something to do with his appointment, too; but
most of all undoubtedly his established political honesty. No one questioned
the personal bravery of the Tiger-killer, as the populace called him. He was,
however, said to be unlucky in the field -- but this was to be the beginning of
an era of peace. The soldiers liked him for his humane temper, which was like a
strange and precious flower unexpectedly blooming on the hotbed of corrupt
revolutions; and when he rode slowly through the streets during some military
display, the contemptuous good humour of his solitary eye roaming over the
crowds extorted the acclamations of the populace. The women of that class
especially seemed positively fascinated by the long drooping nose, the peaked chin,
the heavy lower lip, the black silk eye- patch and band slanting rakishly over
the forehead. His high rank always procured an audience of Caballeros for his
sporting stories, which he detailed very well with a simple, grave enjoyment.
As to the society of ladies, it was irksome by the restraints it imposed
without any equivalent, as far as he could see. He had not, perhaps, spoken
three times on the whole to Mrs. Gould since he had taken up his high command;
but he had observed her frequently riding with the Señor Administrador, and had
pronounced that there was more sense in her little bridle-hand than in all the
female heads in Sulaco. His impulse had been to be very civil on parting to a
woman who did not wobble in the saddle, and happened to be the wife of a
personality very important to a man always short of money. He even pushed his
attentions so far as to desire the aide-de- camp at his side (a thick-set,
short captain with a Tartar physiognomy) to bring along a corporal with a file
of men in front of the carriage, lest the crowd in its backward surges should
"incommode the mules of the señora." Then, turning to the small knot
of silent Europeans looking on within earshot, he raised his voice protectingly
--
"Señores, have no
apprehension. Go on quietly making your Ferro Carril -- your railways, your
telegraphs. Your -- There's enough wealth in Costaguana to pay for everything
-- or else you would not be here. Ha! ha! Don't mind this little picardia of my
friend Montero. In a little while you shall behold his dyed moustaches through
the bars of a strong wooden cage. Si, señores! Fear nothing, develop the
country, work, work!"
The little group of
engineers received this exhortation without a word, and after waving his hand
at them loftily, he addressed himself again to Mrs. Gould --
"That is what Don
José says we must do. Be enterprising! Work! Grow rich! To put Montero in a
cage is my work; and when that insignificant piece of business is done, then,
as Don José wishes us, we shall grow rich, one and all, like so many
Englishmen, because it is money that saves a country, and --"
But a young officer in
a very new uniform, hurrying up from the direction of the jetty, interrupted
his interpretation of Señor Avellanos's ideals. The general made a movement of
impatience; the other went on talking to him insistently, with an air of
respect. The horses of the Staff had been embarked, the steamer's gig was
awaiting the general at the boat steps; and Barrios, after a fierce stare of
his one eye, began to take leave. Don José roused himself for an appropriate
phrase pronounced mechanically. The terrible strain of hope and fear was
telling on him, and he seemed to husband the last sparks of his fire for those
oratorical efforts of which even the distant Europe was to hear. Antonia, her
red lips firmly closed, averted her head behind the raised fan; and young
Decoud, though he felt the girl's eyes upon him, gazed away persistently,
hooked on his elbow, with a scornful and complete detachment. Mrs. Gould heroically
concealed her dismay at the appearance of men and events so remote from her
racial conventions, dismay too deep to be uttered in words even to her husband.
She understood his voiceless reserve better now. Their confidential intercourse
fell, not in moments of privacy, but precisely in public, when the quick
meeting of their glances would comment upon some fresh turn of events. She had
gone to his school of uncompromising silence, the only one possible, since so
much that seemed shocking, weird, and grotesque in the working out of their
purposes had to be accepted as normal in this country. Decidedly, the stately
Antonia looked more mature and infinitely calm; but she would never have known
how to reconcile the sudden sinkings of her heart with an amiable mobility of
expression.
Mrs. Gould smiled a
good-bye at Barrios, nodded round to the Europeans (who raised their hats
simultaneously) with an engaging invitation, "I hope to see you all
presently, at home"; then said nervously to Decoud, "Get in, Don Martin,"
and heard him mutter to himself in French, as he opened the carriage door,
"Le sort en est jeté." She heard him with a sort of exasperation.
Nobody ought to have known better than himself that the first cast of dice had
been already thrown long ago in a most desperate game. Distant acclamations,
words of command yelled out, and a roll of drums on the jetty greeted the
departing general. Something like a slight faintness came over her, and she
looked blankly at Antonia's still face, wondering what would happen to Charley
if that absurd man failed. "A la casa, Ignacio," she cried at the
motionless broad back of the coachman, who gathered the reins without haste,
mumbling to himself under his breath, "Si, la casa. Si, si niña."
The carriage rolled
noiselessly on the soft track, the shadows fell long on the dusty little plain
interspersed with dark bushes, mounds of turned-up earth, low wooden buildings
with iron roofs of the Railway Company; the sparse row of telegraph poles
strode obliquely clear of the town, bearing a single, almost invisible wire far
into the great campo -- like a slender, vibrating feeler of that progress
waiting outside for a moment of peace to enter and twine itself about the weary
heart of the land.
The café window of the
Albergo d'ltalia Una was full of sunburnt, whiskered faces of railway men. But
at the other end of the house, the end of the Signori Inglesi, old Giorgio, at
the door with one of his girls on each side, bared his bushy head, as white as
the snows of Higuerota. Mrs. Gould stopped the carriage. She seldom failed to
speak to her protégé; moreover, the excitement, the heat, and the dust had made
her thirsty. She asked for a glass of water. Giorgio sent the children indoors
for it, and approached with pleasure expressed in his whole rugged countenance.
It was not often that he had occasion to see his benefactress, who was also an
Englishwoman -- another title to his regard. He offered some excuses for his
wife. It was a bad day with her; her oppressions -- he tapped his own broad
chest. She could not move from her chair that day.
Decoud, ensconced in
the corner of his seat, observed gloomily Mrs. Gould's old revolutionist, then,
offhand --
"Well, and what do
you think of it all, Garibaldino?"
Old Giorgio, looking at
him with some curiosity, said civilly that the troops had marched very well.
One- eyed Barrios and his officers had done wonders with the recruits in a
short time. Those Indios, only caught the other day, had gone swinging past in
double quick time, like bersaglieri; they looked well fed, too, and had whole
uniforms. "Uniforms!" he repeated with a half-smile of pity. A look
of grim retrospect stole over his piercing, steady eyes. It had been otherwise
in his time when men fought against tyranny, in the forests of Brazil, or on
the plains of Uruguay, starving on half- raw beef without salt, half naked,
with often only a knife tied to a stick for a weapon. "And yet we used to
prevail against the oppressor," he concluded, proudly.
His animation fell; the
slight gesture of his hand expressed discouragement; but he added that he had
asked one of the sergeants to show him the new rifle. There was no such weapon
in his fighting days; and if Barrios could not --
"Yes, yes,"
broke in Don José, almost trembling with eagerness. "We are safe. The good
Señor Viola is a man of experience. Extremely deadly -- is it not so? You have
accomplished your mission admirably, my dear Martin."
Decoud, lolling back
moodily, contemplated old Viola.
"Ah! Yes. A man of
experience. But who are you for, really, in your heart?"
Mrs. Gould leaned over
to the children. Linda had brought out a glass of water on a tray, with extreme
care; Giselle presented her with a bunch of flowers gathered hastily.
"For the people,"
declared old Viola, sternly.
"We are all for
the people -- in the end."
"Yes,"
muttered old Viola, savagely. "And meantime they fight for you. Blind.
Esclavos!"
At that moment young
Scarfe of the railway staff emerged from the door of the part reserved for the
Signori Inglesi. He had come down to headquarters from somewhere up the line on
a light engine, and had had just time to get a bath and change his clothes. He
was a nice boy, and Mrs. Gould welcomed him.
"It's a delightful
surprise to see you, Mrs. Gould. I've just come down. Usual luck. Missed
everything, of course. This show is just over, and I hear there has been a
great dance at Don Juste Lopez's last night. Is it true?"
"The young
patricians," Decoud began suddenly in his precise English, "have
indeed been dancing before they started off to the war with the Great
Pompey."
Young Scarfe stared,
astounded. "You haven't met before," Mrs. Gould intervened. "Mr.
Decoud -- Mr. Scarfe."
"Ah! But we are
not going to Pharsalia," protested Don José, with nervous haste, also in
English. "You should not jest like this, Martin."
Antonia's breast rose
and fell with a deeper breath. The young engineer was utterly in the dark.
"Great what?" he muttered, vaguely.
"Luckily, Montero
is not a Cæsar," Decoud continued. "Not the two Monteros put together
would make a decent parody of a Cæsar." He crossed his arms on his breast,
looking at Señor Avellanos, who had returned to his immobility. "It is
only you, Don José, who are a genuine old Roman -- vir Romanus -- eloquent and
inflexible."
Since he had heard the
name of Montero pronounced, young Scarfe had been eager to express his simple
feelings. In a loud and youthful tone he hoped that this Montero was going to
be licked once for all and done with. There was no saying what would happen to
the railway if the revolution got the upper hand. Perhaps it would have to be
abandoned. It would not be the first railway gone to pot in Costaguana.
"You know, it's one of their so-called national things," he ran on,
wrinkling up his nose as if the word had a suspicious flavour to his profound
experience of South American affairs. And, of course, he chatted with
animation, it had been such an immense piece of luck for him at his age to get
appointed on the staff "of a big thing like that -- don't you know."
It would give him the pull over a lot of chaps all through life, he asserted.
"Therefore -- down with Montero! Mrs. Gould." His artless grin
disappeared slowly before the unanimous gravity of the faces turned upon him
from the carriage; only that "old chap," Don José, presenting a
motionless, waxy profile, stared straight on as if deaf. Scarfe did not know
the Avellanos very well. They did not give balls, and Antonia never appeared at
a ground-floor window, as some other young ladies used to do attended by elder
women, to chat with the caballeros on horseback in the Calle. The stares of
these creoles did not matter much; but what on earth had come to Mrs. Gould?
She said, "Go on, Ignacio," and gave him a slow inclination of the
head. He heard a short laugh from that round-faced, Frenchified fellow. He
coloured up to the eyes, and stared at Giorgio Viola, who had fallen back with
the children, hat in hand.
"I shall want a
horse presently," he said with some asperity to the old man.
"Si, señor. There
are plenty of horses," murmured the Garibaldino, smoothing absently, with
his brown hands, the two heads, one dark with bronze glints, the other fair
with a coppery ripple, of the two girls by his side. The returning stream of
sightseers raised a great dust on the road. Horsemen noticed the group.
"Go to your mother," he said. "They are growing up as I am
growing older, and there is nobody --"
He looked at the young
engineer and stopped, as if awakened from a dream; then, folding his arms on
his breast, took up his usual position, leaning back in the doorway with an
upward glance fastened on the white shoulder of Higuerota far away.
In the carriage Martin
Decoud, shifting his position as though he could not make himself comfortable,
muttered as he swayed towards Antonia, "I suppose you hate me." Then
in a loud voice he began to congratulate Don José upon all the engineers being
convinced Ribierists. The interest of all those foreigners was gratifying.
"You have heard this one. He is an enlightened well-wisher. It is pleasant
to think that the prosperity of Costaguana is of some use to the world."
"He is very
young," Mrs. Gould remarked, quietly.
"And so very wise
for his age," retorted Decoud. "But here we have the naked truth from
the mouth of that child. You are right, Don José. The natural treasures of
Costaguana are of importance to the progressive Europe represented by this
youth, just as three hundred years ago the wealth of our Spanish fathers was a
serious object to the rest of Europe -- as represented by the bold buccaneers.
There is a curse of futility upon our character: Don Quixote and Sancho Panza,
chivalry and materialism, high-sounding sentiments and a supine morality,
violent efforts for an idea and a sullen acquiescence in every form of
corruption. We convulsed a continent for our independence only to become the
passive prey of a democratic parody, the helpless victims of scoundrels and
cut-throats, our institutions a mockery, our laws a farce -- a Guzman Bento our
master! And we have sunk so low that when a man like you has awakened our
conscience, a stupid barbarian of a Montero -- Great Heavens! a Montero! --
becomes a deadly danger, and an ignorant, boastful Indio, like Barrios, is our
defender."
But Don José,
disregarding the general indictment as though he had not heard a word of it,
took up the defence of Barrios. The man was competent enough for his special
task in the plan of campaign. It consisted in an offensive movement, with Cayta
as base, upon the flank of the Revolutionist forces advancing from the south
against Sta. Marta, which was covered by another army with the
President-Dictator in its midst. Don José became quite animated with a great
flow of speech, bending forward anxiously under the steady eyes of his
daughter. Decoud, as if silenced by so much ardour, did not make a sound. The
bells of the city were striking the hour of Oracion when the carriage rolled
under the old gateway facing the harbour like a shapeless monument of leaves
and stones. The rumble of wheels under the sonorous arch was traversed by a
strange, piercing shriek, and Decoud, from his back seat, had a view of the
people behind the carriage trudging along the road outside, all turning their
heads, in sombreros and rebozos, to look at a locomotive which rolled quickly
out of sight behind Giorgio Viola's house, under a white trail of steam that
seemed to vanish in the breathless, hysterically prolonged scream of warlike
triumph. And it was all like a fleeting vision, the shrieking ghost of a
railway engine fleeing across the frame of the archway, behind the startled
movement of the people streaming back from a military spectacle with silent
footsteps on the dust of the road. It was a material train returning from the
Campo to the palisaded yards. The empty cars rolled lightly on the single
track; there was no rumble of wheels, no tremor of the ground. The
engine-driver, running past the Casa Viola with the salute of an uplifted arm,
checked his speed smartly before entering the yard; and when the ear-splitting
screech of the steam-whistle for the brakes had stopped, a series of hard,
battering shocks, mingled with the clanking of chain-couplings, made a tumult
of blows and shaken fetters under the vault of the gate.
THE Gould carriage was
the first to return from the harbour to the empty town. On the ancient
pavement, laid out in patterns, sunk into ruts and holes, the portly Ignacio,
mindful of the springs of the Parisian-built landau, had pulled up to a walk,
and Decoud in his corner contemplated moodily the inner aspect of the gate. The
squat turreted sides held up between them a mass of masonry with bunches of
grass growing at the top, and a grey, heavily scrolled, armorial shield of
stone above the apex of the arch with the arms of Spain nearly smoothed out as
if in readiness for some new device typical of the impending progress.
The explosive noise of
the railway trucks seemed to augment Decoud's irritation. He muttered something
to himself, then began to talk aloud in curt, angry phrases thrown at the
silence of the two women. They did not look at him at all; while Don José, with
his semi- translucent, waxy complexion, overshadowed by the soft grey hat,
swayed a little to the jolts of the carriage by the side of Mrs. Gould.
"This sound puts a
new edge on a very old truth."
Decoud spoke in French,
perhaps because of Ignacio on the box above him; the old coachman, with his
broad back filling a short, silver-braided jacket, had a big pair of ears,
whose thick rims stood well away from his cropped head.
"Yes, the noise
outside the city wall is new, but the principle is old."
He ruminated his
discontent for a while, then began afresh with a sidelong glance at Antonia --
"No, but just
imagine our forefathers in morions and corselets drawn up outside this gate,
and a band of adventurers just landed from their ships in the harbour there.
Thieves, of course. Speculators, too. Their expeditions, each one, were the
speculations of grave and reverend persons in England. That is history, as that
absurd sailor Mitchell is always saying."
"Mitchell's
arrangements for the embarkation of the troops were excellent!" exclaimed
Don José.
"That! -- that!
oh, that's really the work of that Genoese seaman! But to return to my noises;
there used to be in the old days the sound of trumpets outside that gate. War
trumpets! I'm sure they were trumpets. I have read somewhere that Drake, who
was the greatest of these men, used to dine alone in his cabin on board ship to
the sound of trumpets. In those days this town was full of wealth. Those men
came to take it. Now the whole land is like a treasure- house, and all these
people are breaking into it, whilst we are cutting each other's throats. The
only thing that keeps them out is mutual jealousy. But they'll come to an
agreement some day -- and by the time we've settled our quarrels and become
decent and honourable, there'll be nothing left for us. It has always been the
same. We are a wonderful people, but it has always been our fate to be" --
he did not say "robbed," but added, after a pause --
"exploited!"
Mrs. Gould said,
"Oh, this is unjust!" And Antonia interjected, "Don't answer
him, Emilia. He is attacking me."
"You surely do not
think I was attacking Don Carlos!" Decoud answered.
And then the carriage
stopped before the door of the Casa Gould. The young man offered his hand to
the ladies. They went in first together; Don José walked by the side of Decoud,
and the gouty old porter tottered after them with some light wraps on his arm.
Don José slipped his
hand under the arm of the journalist of Sulaco.
"The Porvenir must
have a long and confident article upon Barrios and the irresistibleness of his
army of Cayta! The moral effect should be kept up in the country. We must cable
encouraging extracts to Europe and the United States to maintain a favourable
impression abroad."
Decoud muttered,
"Oh, yes, we must comfort our friends, the speculators."
The long open gallery
was in shadow, with its screen of plants in vases along the balustrade, holding
out motionless blossoms, and all the glass doors of the reception-rooms thrown
open. A jingle of spurs died out at the further end.
Basilio, standing aside
against the wall, said in a soft tone to the passing ladies, "The Señor
Administrador is just back from the mountain."
In the great sala, with
its groups of ancient Spanish and modern European furniture making as if
different centres under the high white spread of the ceiling, the silver and
porcelain of the tea-service gleamed among a cluster of dwarf chairs, like a
bit of a lady's boudoir, putting in a note of feminine and intimate delicacy.
Don José in his
rocking-chair placed his hat on his lap, and Decoud walked up and down the
whole length of the room, passing between tables loaded with knickknacks and
almost disappearing behind the high backs of leathern sofas. He was thinking of
the angry face of Antonia; he was confident that he would make his peace with
her. He had not stayed in Sulaco to quarrel with Antonia.
Martin Decoud was angry
with himself. All he saw and heard going on around him exasperated the
preconceived views of his European civilization. To contemplate revolutions
from the distance of the Parisian Boulevards was quite another matter. Here on
the spot it was not possible to dismiss their tragic comedy with the
expression, "Quelle farce!"
The reality of the
political action, such as it was, seemed closer, and acquired poignancy by
Antonia's belief in the cause. Its crudeness hurt his feelings. He was
surprised at his own sensitiveness.
"I suppose I am
more of a Costaguanero than I would have believed possible," he thought to
himself.
His disdain grew like a
reaction of his scepticism against the action into which he was forced by his
infatuation for Antonia. He soothed himself by saying he was not a patriot, but
a lover.
The ladies came in
bareheaded, and Mrs. Gould sank low before the little tea-table. Antonia took
up her usual place at the reception hour -- the corner of a leathern couch,
with a rigid grace in her pose and a fan in her hand. Decoud, swerving from the
straight line of his march, came to lean over the high back of her seat.
For a long time he
talked into her ear from behind, softly, with a half smile and an air of
apologetic familiarity. Her fan lay half grasped on her knees. She never looked
at him. His rapid utterance grew more and more insistent and caressing. At last
he ventured a slight laugh.
"No, really. You
must forgive me. One must be serious sometimes." He paused. She turned her
head a little; her blue eyes glided slowly towards him, slightly upwards,
mollified and questioning.
"You can't think I
am serious when I call Montero a gran' bestia every second day in the Porvenir?
That is not a serious occupation. No occupation is serious, not even when a
bullet through the heart is the penalty of failure!"
Her hand closed firmly
on her fan.
"Some reason, you
understand, I mean some sense, may creep into thinking; some glimpse of truth.
I mean some effective truth, for which there is no room in politics or
journalism. I happen to have said what I thought. And you are angry! If you do
me the kindness to think a little you will see that I spoke like a
patriot."
She opened her red lips
for the first time, not unkindly.
"Yes, but you
never see the aim. Men must be used as they are. I suppose nobody is really
disinterested, unless, perhaps, you, Don Martin."
"God forbid! It's
the last thing I should like you to believe of me." He spoke lightly, and
paused.
She began to fan
herself with a slow movement without raising her hand. After a time he
whispered passionately --
"Antonia!"
She smiled, and
extended her hand after the English manner towards Charles Gould, who was
bowing before her; while Decoud, with his elbows spread on the back of the
sofa, dropped his eyes and murmured, "Bonjour."
The Señor Administrador
of the San Tomé mine bent over his wife for a moment. They exchanged a few
words, of which only the phrase, "The greatest enthusiasm,"
pronounced by Mrs. Gould, could be heard.
"Yes," Decoud
began in a murmur. "Even he!"
"This is sheer
calumny," said Antonia, not very severely.
"You just ask him
to throw his mine into the melting- pot for the great cause," Decoud
whispered.
Don José had raised his
voice. He rubbed his hands cheerily. The excellent aspect of the troops and the
great quantity of new deadly rifles on the shoulders of those brave men seemed
to fill him with an ecstatic confidence.
Charles Gould, very
tall and thin before his chair, listened, but nothing could be discovered in
his face except a kind and deferential attention.
Meantime, Antonia had
risen, and, crossing the room, stood looking out of one of the three long
windows giving on the street. Decoud followed her. The window was thrown open,
and he leaned against the thickness of the wall. The long folds of the damask
curtain, falling straight from the broad brass cornice, hid him partly from the
room. He folded his arms on his breast, and looked steadily at Antonia's
profile.
The people returning
from the harbour filled the pavements; the shuffle of sandals and a low murmur
of voices ascended to the window. Now and then a coach rolled slowly along the
disjointed roadway of the Calle de la Constitucion. There were not many private
carriages in Sulaco; at the most crowded hour on the Alameda they could be
counted with one glance of the eye. The great family arks swayed on high
leathern springs, full of pretty powdered faces in which the eyes looked
intensely alive and black. And first Don Juste Lopez, the President of the
Provincial Assembly, passed with his three lovely daughters, solemn in a black
frock-coat and stiff white tie, as when directing a debate from a high tribune.
Though they all raised their eyes, Antonia did not make the usual greeting
gesture of a fluttered hand, and they affected not to see the two young people,
Costaguaneros with European manners, whose eccentricities were discussed behind
the barred windows of the first families in Sulaco. And then the widowed Señora
Gavilaso de Valdes rolled by, handsome and dignified, in a great machine in
which she used to travel to and from her country house, surrounded by an armed
retinue in leather suits and big sombreros, with carbines at the bows of their
saddles. She was a woman of most distinguished family, proud, rich, and
kind-hearted. Her second son, Jaime, had just gone off on the Staff of Barrios.
The eldest, a worthless fellow of a moody disposition, filled Sulaco with the
noise of his dissipations, and gambled heavily at the club. The two youngest
boys, with yellow Ribierist cockades in their caps, sat on the front seat. She,
too, affected not to see the Señor Decoud talking publicly with Antonia in
defiance of every convention. And he not even her novio as far as the world
knew! Though, even in that case, it would have been scandal enough. But the
dignified old lady, respected and admired by the first families, would have
been still more shocked if she could have heard the words they were exchanging.
"Did you say I
lost sight of the aim? I have only one aim in the world."
She made an almost
imperceptible negative movement of her head, still staring across the street at
the Avellanos's house, grey, marked with decay, and with iron bars like a
prison.
"And it would be
so easy of attainment," he continued, "this aim which, whether
knowingly or not, I have always had in my heart -- ever since the day when you
snubbed me so horribly once in Paris, you remember."
A slight smile seemed
to move the corner of the lip that was on his side.
"You know you were
a very terrible person, a sort of Charlotte Corday in a schoolgirl's dress; a ferocious
patriot. I suppose you would have stuck a knife into Guzman Bento?"
She interrupted him.
"You do me too much honour."
"At any
rate," he said, changing suddenly to a tone of bitter levity, "you
would have sent me to stab him without compunction."
"Ah, par
exemple!" she murmured in a shocked tone.
"Well," he
argued, mockingly, "you do keep me here writing deadly nonsense. Deadly to
me! It has already killed my self-respect. And you may imagine," he
continued, his tone passing into light banter, "that Montero, should he be
successful, would get even with me in the only way such a brute can get even
with a man of intelligence who condescends to call him a gran' bestia three
times a week. It's a sort of intellectual death; but there is the other one in
the background for a journalist of my ability."
"If he is
successful!" said Antonia, thoughtfully.
"You seem
satisfied to see my life hang on a thread," Decoud replied, with a broad
smile. "And the other Montero, the 'my trusted brother' of the
proclamations, the guerrillero -- haven't I written that he was taking the
guests' overcoats and changing plates in Paris at our Legation in the intervals
of spying on our refugees there, in the time of Rojas? He will wash out that
sacred truth in blood. In my blood! Why do you look annoyed? This is simply a
bit of the biography of one of our great men. What do you think he will do to
me? There is a certain convent wall round the corner of the Plaza, opposite the
door of the Bull Ring. You know? Opposite the door with the inscription,
Intrada de la Sombra.' Appropriate, perhaps! That's where the uncle of our host
gave up his Anglo-South-American soul. And, note, he might have run away. A man
who has fought with weapons may run away. You might have let me go with Barrios
if you had cared for me. I would have carried one of those rifles, in which Don
José believes, with the greatest satisfaction, in the ranks of poor peons and
Indios, that know nothing either of reason or politics. The most forlorn hope
in the most forlorn army on earth would have been safer than that for which you
made me stay here. When you make war you may retreat, but not when you spend
your time in inciting poor ignorant fools to kill and to die."
His tone remained
light, and as if unaware of his presence she stood motionless, her hands
clasped lightly, the fan hanging down from her interlaced fingers. He waited
for a while, and then --
"I shall go to the
wall," he said, with a sort of jocular desperation.
Even that declaration
did not make her look at him. Her head remained still, her eyes fixed upon the
house of the Avellanos, whose chipped pilasters, broken cornices, the whole
degradation of dignity was hidden now by the gathering dusk of the street. In
her whole figure her lips alone moved, forming the words --
"Martin, you will
make me cry."
He remained silent for
a minute, startled, as if overwhelmed by a sort of awed happiness, with the
lines of the mocking smile still stiffened about his mouth, and incredulous
surprise in his eyes. The value of a sentence is in the personality which
utters it, for nothing new can be said by man or woman; and those were the last
words, it seemed to him, that could ever have been spoken by Antonia. He had
never made it up with her so completely in all their intercourse of small
encounters; but even before she had time to turn towards him, which she did
slowly with a rigid grace, he had begun to plead --
"My sister is only
waiting to embrace you. My father is transported with joy. I won't say anything
of my mother! Our mothers were like sisters. There is the mail-boat for the
south next week -- let us go. That Moraga is a fool! A man like Montero is
bribed. It's the practice of the country. It's tradition -- it's politics. Read
'Fifty Years of Misrule.'"
"Leave poor papa
alone, Don Martin. He believes --"
"I have the
greatest tenderness for your father," he began, hurriedly. "But I
love you, Antonia! And Moraga has miserably mismanaged this business. Perhaps
your father did, too; I don't know. Montero was bribeable. Why, I suppose he
only wanted his share of this famous loan for national development. Why didn't
the stupid Sta. Marta people give him a mission to Europe, or something? He
would have taken five years' salary in advance, and gone on loafing in Paris,
this stupid, ferocious Indio!"
"The man,"
she said, thoughtfully, and very calm before this outburst, "was
intoxicated with vanity. We had all the information, not from Moraga only; from
others, too. There was his brother intriguing, too."
"Oh, yes!" he
said. "Of course you know. You know everything. You read all the
correspondence, you write all the papers -- all those State papers that are
inspired here, in this room, in blind deference to a theory of political
purity. Hadn't you Charles Gould before your eyes? Rey de Sulaco! He and his
mine are the practical demonstration of what could have been done. Do you think
he succeeded by his fidelity to a theory of virtue? And all those railway
people, with their honest work! Of course, their work is honest! But what if
you cannot work honestly till the thieves are satisfied? Could he not, a
gentleman, have told this Sir John what's-his-name that Montero had to be
bought off -- he and all his Negro Liberals hanging on to his gold-laced
sleeve? He ought to have been bought off with his own stupid weight of gold --
his weight of gold, I tell you, boots, sabre, spurs, cocked hat, and all."
She shook her head
slightly. "It was impossible," she murmured.
"He wanted the
whole lot? What?"
She was facing him now
in the deep recess of the window, very close and motionless. Her lips moved
rapidly. Decoud, leaning his back against the wall, listened with crossed arms
and lowered eyelids. He drank the tones of her even voice, and watched the
agitated life of her throat, as if waves of emotion had run from her heart to
pass out into the air in her reasonable words. He also had his aspirations, he
aspired to carry her away out of these deadly futilities of pronunciamientos
and reforms. All this was wrong -- utterly wrong; but she fascinated him, and sometimes
the sheer sagacity of a phrase would break the charm, replace the fascination
by a sudden unwilling thrill of interest. Some women hovered, as it were, on
the threshold of genius, he reflected. They did not want to know, or think, or
understand. Passion stood for all that, and he was ready to believe that some
startlingly profound remark, some appreciation of character, or a judgment upon
an event, bordered on the miraculous. In the mature Antonia he could see with
an extraordinary vividness the austere schoolgirl of the earlier days. She
seduced his attention; sometimes he could not restrain a murmur of assent; now
and then he advanced an objection quite seriously. Gradually they began to
argue; the curtain half hid them from the people in the sala.
Outside it had grown
dark. From the deep trench of shadow between the houses, lit up vaguely by the
glimmer of street lamps, ascended the evening silence of Sulaco; the silence of
a town with few carriages, of unshod horses, and a softly sandalled population.
The windows of the Casa Gould flung their shining parallelograms upon the house
of the Avellanos. Now and then a shuffle of feet passed below with the
pulsating red glow of a cigarette at the foot of the walls; and the night air,
as if cooled by the snows of Higuerota, refreshed their faces.
"We
Occidentals," said Martin Decoud, using the usual term the provincials of
Sulaco applied to themselves, "have been always distinct and separated. As
long as we hold Cayta nothing can reach us. In all our troubles no army has
marched over those mountains. A revolution in the central provinces isolates us
at once. Look how complete it is now! The news of Barrios' movement will be
cabled to the United States, and only in that way will it reach Sta. Marta by
the cable from the other seaboard. We have the greatest riches, the greatest
fertility, the purest blood in our great families, the most laborious
population. The Occidental Province should stand alone. The early Federalism
was not bad for us. Then came this union which Don Henrique Gould resisted. It
opened the road to tyranny; and, ever since, the rest of Costaguana hangs like
a millstone round our necks. The Occidental territory is large enough to make
any man's country. Look at the mountains! Nature itself seems to cry to us,
'Separate!'"
She made an energetic
gesture of negation. A silence fell.
"Oh, yes, I know
it's contrary to the doctrine laid down in the 'History of Fifty Years'
Misrule.' I am only trying to be sensible. But my sense seems always to give
you cause for offence. Have I startled you very much with this perfectly
reasonable aspiration?"
She shook her head. No,
she was not startled, but the idea shocked her early convictions. Her
patriotism was larger. She had never considered that possibility.
"It may yet be the
means of saving some of your convictions," he said, prophetically.
She did not answer. She
seemed tired. They leaned side by side on the rail of the little balcony, very
friendly, having exhausted politics, giving themselves up to the silent feeling
of their nearness, in one of those profound pauses that fall upon the rhythm of
passion. Towards the plaza end of the street the glowing coals in the brazeros
of the market women cooking their evening meal gleamed red along the edge of
the pavement. A man appeared without a sound in the light of a street lamp,
showing the coloured inverted triangle of his bordered poncho, square on his
shoulders, hanging to a point below his knees. From the harbour end of the
Calle a horseman walked his soft-stepping mount, gleaming silver-grey abreast
each lamp under the dark shape of the rider.
"Behold the
illustrious Capataz de Cargadores," said Decoud, gently, "coming in
all his splendour after his work is done. The next great man of Sulaco after
Don Carlos Gould. But he is good-natured, and let me make friends with
him."
"Ah, indeed!"
said Antonia. "How did you make friends?"
"A journalist
ought to have his finger on the popular pulse, and this man is one of the
leaders of the populace. A journalist ought to know remarkable men -- and this
man is remarkable in his way."
"Ah, yes!"
said Antonia, thoughtfully. "It is known that this Italian has a great
influence."
The horseman had passed
below them, with a gleam of dim light on the shining broad quarters of the grey
mare, on a bright heavy stirrup, on a long silver spur; but the short flick of
yellowish flame in the dusk was powerless against the muffled-up mysteriousness
of the dark figure with an invisible face concealed by a great sombrero.
Decoud and Antonia
remained leaning over the balcony, side by side, touching elbows, with their
heads overhanging the darkness of the street, and the brilliantly lighted sala
at their backs. This was a tête-à-tête of extreme impropriety; something of
which in the whole extent of the Republic only the extraordinary Antonia could
be capable -- the poor, motherless girl, never accompanied, with a careless
father, who had thought only of making her learned. Even Decoud himself seemed
to feel that this was as much as he could expect of having her to himself till
-- till the revolution was over and he could carry her off to Europe, away from
the endlessness of civil strife, whose folly seemed even harder to bear than
its ignominy. After one Montero there would be another, the lawlessness of a
populace of all colours and races, barbarism, irremediable tyranny. As the
great Liberator Bolivar had said in the bitterness of his spirit, "America
is ungovernable. Those who worked for her independence have ploughed the
sea." He did not care, he declared boldly; he seized every opportunity to
tell her that though she had managed to make a Blanco journalist of him, he was
no patriot. First of all, the word had no sense for cultured minds, to whom the
narrowness of every belief is odious; and secondly, in connection with the
everlasting troubles of this unhappy country it was hopelessly besmirched; it
had been the cry of dark barbarism, the cloak of lawlessness, of crimes, of
rapacity, of simple thieving.
He was surprised at the
warmth of his own utterance. He had no need to drop his voice; it had been low
all the time, a mere murmur in the silence of dark houses with their shutters
closed early against the night air, as is the custom of Sulaco. Only the sala
of the Casa Gould flung out defiantly the blaze of its four windows, the bright
appeal of light in the whole dumb obscurity of the street. And the murmur on
the little balcony went on after a short pause.
"But we are
labouring to change all that," Antonia protested. "It is exactly what
we desire. It is our object. It is the great cause. And the word you despise
has stood also for sacrifice, for courage, for constancy, for suffering. Papa,
who --"
"Ploughing the
sea," interrupted Decoud, looking down.
There was below the
sound of hasty and ponderous footsteps.
"Your uncle, the
grand-vicar of the cathedral, has just turned under the gate," observed
Decoud. "He said Mass for the troops in the Plaza this morning. They had
built for him an altar of drums, you know. And they brought outside all the
painted blocks to take the air. All the wooden saints stood militarily in a row
at the top of the great flight of steps. They looked like a gorgeous escort
attending the Vicar-General. I saw the great function from the windows of the
Porvenir. He is amazing, your uncle, the last of the Corbelàns. He glittered
exceedingly in his vestments with a great crimson velvet cross down his back.
And all the time our saviour Barrios sat in the Amarilla Club drinking punch at
an open window. Esprit fort -- our Barrios. I expected every moment your uncle
to launch an excommunication there and then at the black eye-patch in the
window across the Plaza. But not at all. Ultimately the troops marched off.
Later Barrios came down with some of the officers, and stood with his uniform
all unbuttoned, discoursing at the edge of the pavement. Suddenly your uncle
appeared, no longer glittering, but all black, at the cathedral door with that
threatening aspect he has -- you know, like a sort of avenging spirit. He gives
one look, strides over straight at the group of uniforms, and leads away the
general by the elbow. He walked him for a quarter of an hour in the shade of a
wall. Never let go his elbow for a moment, talking all the time with exaltation,
and gesticulating with a long black arm. It was a curious scene. The officers
seemed struck with astonishment. Remarkable man, your missionary uncle. He
hates an infidel much less than a heretic, and prefers a heathen many times to
an infidel. He condescends graciously to call me a heathen, sometimes, you
know."
Antonia listened with
her hands over the balustrade, opening and shutting the fan gently; and Decoud
talked a little nervously, as if afraid that she would leave him at the first
pause. Their comparative isolation, the precious sense of intimacy, the slight
contact of their arms, affected him softly; for now and then a tender
inflection crept into the flow of his ironic murmurs.
"Any slight sign
of favour from a relative of yours is welcome, Antonia. And perhaps he
understands me, after all! But I know him, too, our Padre Corbelàn. The idea of
political honour, justice, and honesty for him consists in the restitution of
the confiscated Church property. Nothing else could have drawn that fierce converter
of savage Indians out of the wilds to work for the Ribierist cause! Nothing
else but that wild hope! He would make a pronunciamiento himself for such an
object against any Government if he could only get followers! What does Don
Carlos Gould think of that? But, of course, with his English impenetrability,
nobody can tell what he thinks. Probably he thinks of nothing apart from his
mine; of his 'Imperium in Imperio.' As to Mrs. Gould, she thinks of her
schools, of her hospitals, of the mothers with the young babies, of every sick
old man in the three villages. If you were to turn your head now you would see
her extracting a report from that sinister doctor in a check shirt -- what's
his name? Monygham -- or else catechising Don Pépé or perhaps listening to
Padre Romàn. They are all down here to-day -- all her ministers of state. Well,
she is a sensible woman, and perhaps Don Carlos is a sensible man. It's a part
of solid English sense not to think too much; to see only what may be of
practical use at the moment. These people are not like ourselves. We have no
political reason; we have political passions -- sometimes. What is a
conviction? A particular view of our personal advantage either practical or
emotional. No one is a patriot for nothing. The word serves us well. But I am
clear-sighted, and I shall not use that word to you, Antonia! I have no
patriotic illusions. I have only the supreme illusion of a lover."
He paused, then
muttered almost inaudibly, "That can lead one very far, though."
Behind their backs the
political tide that once in every twenty-four hours set with a strong flood
through the Gould drawing-room could be heard, rising higher in a hum of
voices. Men had been dropping in singly, or in twos and threes: the higher
officials of the province, engineers of the railway, sunburnt and in tweeds,
with the frosted head of their chief smiling with slow, humorous indulgence
amongst the young eager faces. Scarfe, the lover of fandangos, had already
slipped out in search of some dance, no matter where, on the outskirts of the
town. Don Juste Lopez, after taking his daughters home, had entered solemnly,
in a black creased coat buttoned up under his spreading brown beard. The few
members of the Provincial Assembly present clustered at once around their
President to discuss the news of the war and the last proclamation of the rebel
Montero, the miserable Montero, calling in the name of "a justly incensed
democracy" upon all the Provincial Assemblies of the Republic to suspend
their sittings till his sword had made peace and the will of the people could
be consulted. It was practically an invitation to dissolve: an unheard-of
audacity of that evil madman.
The indignation ran
high in the knot of deputies behind José Avellanos. Don José, lifting up his
voice, cried out to them over the high back of his chair, "Sulaco has
answered by sending to-day an army upon his flank. If all the other provinces
show only half as much patriotism as we Occidentals --"
A great outburst of
acclamations covered the vibrating treble of the life and soul of the party.
Yes! Yes! This was true! A great truth! Sulaco was in the forefront, as ever!
It was a boastful tumult, the hopefulness inspired by the event of the day
breaking out amongst those caballeros of the Campo thinking of their herds, of
their lands, of the safety of their families. Everything was at stake. . . .
No! It was impossible that Montero should succeed! This criminal, this
shameless Indio! The clamour continued for some time, everybody else in the room
looking towards the group where Don Juste had put on his air of impartial
solemnity as if presiding at a sitting of the Provincial Assembly. Decoud had
turned round at the noise, and, leaning his back on the balustrade, shouted
into the room with all the strength of his lungs, "Gran' bestia!"
This unexpected cry had
the effect of stilling the noise. All the eyes were directed to the window with
an approving expectation; but Decoud had already turned his back upon the room,
and was again leaning out over the quiet street.
"This is the
quintessence of my journalism; that is the supreme argument," he said to
Antonia. "I have invented this definition, this last word on a great
question. But I am no patriot. I am no more of a patriot than the Capataz of
the Sulaco Cargadores, this Genoese who has done such great things for this
harbour -- this active usher-in of the material implements for our progress.
You have heard Captain Mitchell confess over and over again that till he got
this man he could never tell how long it would take to unload a ship. That is
bad for progress. You have seen him pass by after his labours on his famous
horse to dazzle the girls in some ballroom with an earthen floor. He is a
fortunate fellow! His work is an exercise of personal powers; his leisure is
spent in receiving the marks of extraordinary adulation. And he likes it, too.
Can anybody be more fortunate? To be feared and admired is --"
"And are these
your highest aspirations, Don Martin?" interrupted Antonia.
"I was speaking of
a man of that sort," said Decoud, curtly. "The heroes of the world
have been feared and admired. What more could he want?"
Decoud had often felt
his familiar habit of ironic thought fall shattered against Antonia's gravity.
She irritated him as if she, too, had suffered from that inexplicable feminine
obtuseness which stands so often between a man and a woman of the more ordinary
sort. But he overcame his vexation at once. He was very far from thinking
Antonia ordinary, whatever verdict his scepticism might have pronounced upon
himself. With a touch of penetrating tenderness in his voice he assured her
that his only aspiration was to a felicity so high that it seemed almost
unrealizable on this earth.
She coloured invisibly,
with a warmth against which the breeze from the sierra seemed to have lost its
cooling power in the sudden melting of the snows. His whisper could not have
carried so far, though there was enough ardour in his tone to melt a heart of
ice. Antonia turned away abruptly, as if to carry his whispered assurance into
the room behind, full of light, noisy with voices.
The tide of political
speculation was beating high within the four walls of the great sala, as if
driven beyond the marks by a great gust of hope. Don Juste's fan-shaped beard
was still the centre of loud and animated discussions. There was a
self-confident ring in all the voices. Even the few Europeans around Charles
Gould -- a Dane, a couple of Frenchmen, a discreet fat German, smiling, with
down-cast eyes, the representatives of those material interests that had got a
footing in Sulaco under the protecting might of the San Tomé mine -- had
infused a lot of good humour into their deference. Charles Gould, to whom they
were paying their court, was the visible sign of the stability that could be
achieved on the shifting ground of revolutions. They felt hopeful about their
various undertakings. One of the two Frenchmen, small, black, with glittering
eyes lost in an immense growth of bushy beard, waved his tiny brown hands and
delicate wrists. He had been travelling in the interior of the province for a
syndicate of European capitalists. His forcible "Monsieur l'
Administrateur" returning every minute shrilled above the steady hum of
conversations. He was relating his discoveries. He was ecstatic. Charles Gould
glanced down at him courteously.
At a given moment of
these necessary receptions it was Mrs. Gould's habit to withdraw quietly into a
little drawing-room, especially her own, next to the great sala. She had risen,
and, waiting for Antonia, listened with a slightly worried graciousness to the
engineer-in-chief of the railway, who stooped over her, relating slowly,
without the slightest gesture, something apparently amusing, for his eyes had a
humorous twinkle. Antonia, before she advanced into the room to join Mrs.
Gould, turned her head over her shoulder towards Decoud, only for a moment.
"Why should any
one of us think his aspirations unrealizable?" she said, rapidly.
"I am going to
cling to mine to the end, Antonia," he answered, through clenched teeth,
then bowed very low, a little distantly.
The engineer-in-chief
had not finished telling his amusing story. The humours of railway building in
South America appealed to his keen appreciation of the absurd, and he told his
instances of ignorant prejudice and as ignorant cunning very well. Now, Mrs.
Gould gave him all her attention as he walked by her side escorting the ladies
out of the room. Finally all three passed unnoticed through the glass doors in
the gallery. Only a tall priest stalking silently in the noise of the sala
checked himself to look after them. Father Corbelàn, whom Decoud had seen from
the balcony turning into the gateway of the Casa Gould, had addressed no one
since coming in. The long, skimpy soutane accentuated the tallness of his
stature; he carried his powerful torso thrown forward; and the straight, black
bar of his joined eyebrows, the pugnacious outline of the bony face, the white
spot of a scar on the bluish shaven cheeks (a testimonial to his apostolic zeal
from a party of unconverted Indians), suggested something unlawful behind his
priesthood, the idea of a chaplain of bandits.
He separated his bony,
knotted hands clasped behind his back, to shake his finger at Martin.
Decoud had stepped into
the room after Antonia. But he did not go far. He had remained just within,
against the curtain, with an expression of not quite genuine gravity, like a
grown-up person taking part in a game of children. He gazed quietly at the threatening
finger.
"I have watched
your reverence converting General Barrios by a special sermon on the
Plaza," he said, without making the slightest movement.
"What miserable
nonsense!" Father Corbelàn's deep voice resounded all over the room,
making all the heads turn on the shoulders. "The man is a drunkard. Señores,
the God of your General is a bottle!"
His contemptuous,
arbitrary voice caused an uneasy suspension of every sound, as if the
self-confidence of the gathering had been staggered by a blow. But nobody took
up Father Corbelàn's declaration.
It was known that
Father Corbelàn had come out of the wilds to advocate the sacred rights of the
Church with the same fanatical fearlessness with which he had gone preaching to
bloodthirsty savages, devoid of human compassion or worship of any kind.
Rumours of legendary proportions told of his successes as a missionary beyond
the eye of Christian men. He had baptized whole nations of Indians, living with
them like a savage himself. It was related that the padre used to ride with his
Indians for days, half naked, carrying a bullock-hide shield, and, no doubt, a
long lance, too -- who knows? That he had wandered clothed in skins, seeking
for proselytes somewhere near the snow line of the Cordillera. Of these
exploits Padre Corbelàn himself was never known to talk. But he made no secret
of his opinion that the politicians of Sta. Marta had harder hearts and more
corrupt minds than the heathen to whom he had carried the word of God. His
injudicious zeal for the temporal welfare of the Church was damaging the
Ribierist cause. It was common knowledge that he had refused to be made titular
bishop of the Occidental diocese till justice was done to a despoiled Church.
The political Géfé of Sulaco (the same dignitary whom Captain Mitchell saved
from the mob afterwards) hinted with naíve cynicism that doubtless their
Excellencies the Ministers sent the padre over the mountains to Sulaco in the
worst season of the year in the hope that he would be frozen to death by the
icy blasts of the high paramos. Every year a few hardy muleteers -- men inured
to exposure -- were known to perish in that way. But what would you have? Their
Excellencies possibly had not realized what a tough priest he was. Meantime,
the ignorant were beginning to murmur that the Ribierist reforms meant simply
the taking away of the land from the people. Some of it was to be given to
foreigners who made the railway; the greater part was to go to the padres.
These were the results
of the Grand Vicar's zeal. Even from the short allocution to the troops on the
Plaza (which only the first ranks could have heard) he had not been able to
keep out his fixed idea of an outraged Church waiting for reparation from a
penitent country. The political Géfé had been exasperated. But he could not
very well throw the brother-in-law of Don José into the prison of the Cabildo.
The chief magistrate, an easy-going and popular official, visited the Casa
Gould, walking over after sunset from the Intendencia, unattended, acknowledging
with dignified courtesy the salutations of high and low alike. That evening he
had walked up straight to Charles Gould and had hissed out to him that he would
have liked to deport the Grand Vicar out of Sulaco, anywhere, to some desert
island, to the Isabels, for instance. "The one without water preferably --
eh, Don Carlos?" he had added in a tone between jest and earnest. This
uncontrollable priest, who had rejected his offer of the episcopal palace for a
residence and preferred to hang his shabby hammock amongst the rubble and
spiders of the sequestrated Dominican Convent, had taken into his head to
advocate an unconditional pardon for Hernandez the Robber! And this was not
enough; he seemed to have entered into communication with the most audacious
criminal the country had known for years. The Sulaco police knew, of course,
what was going on. Padre Corbelàn had got hold of that reckless Italian, the
Capataz de Cargadores, the only man fit for such an errand, and had sent a
message through him. Father Corbelàn had studied in Rome, and could speak
Italian. The Capataz was known to visit the old Dominican Convent at night. An
old woman who served the Grand Vicar had heard the name of Hernandez
pronounced; and only last Saturday afternoon the Capataz had been observed
galloping out of town. He did not return for two days. The police would have
laid the Italian by the heels if it had not been for fear of the Cargadores, a
turbulent body of men, quite apt to raise a tumult. Nowadays it was not so easy
to govern Sulaco. Bad characters flocked into it, attracted by the money in the
pockets of the railway workmen. The populace was made restless by Father Corbelàn's
discourses. And the first magistrate explained to Charles Gould that now the
province was stripped of troops any outbreak of lawlessness would find the
authorities with their boots off, as it were.
Then he went away
moodily to sit in an armchair, smoking a long, thin cigar, not very far from
Don José, with whom, bending over sideways, he exchanged a few words from time
to time. He ignored the entrance of the priest, and whenever Father Corbelàn's
voice was raised behind him, he shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
Father Corbelàn had
remained quite motionless for a time with that something vengeful in his
immobility which seemed to characterize all his attitudes. A lurid glow of
strong convictions gave its peculiar aspect to the black figure. But its
fierceness became softened as the padre, fixing his eyes upon Decoud, raised
his long, black arm slowly, impressively --
"And you -- you
are a perfect heathen," he said, in a subdued, deep voice.
He made a step nearer,
pointing a forefinger at the young man's breast. Decoud, very calm, felt the
wall behind the curtain with the back of his head. Then, with his chin tilted
well up, he smiled.
"Very well,"
he agreed with the slightly weary nonchalance of a man well used to these
passages. "But is it perhaps that you have not discovered yet what is the
God of my worship? It was an easier task with our Barrios."
The priest suppressed a
gesture of discouragement. "You believe neither in stick nor stone,"
he said.
"Nor bottle,"
added Decoud without stirring. "Neither does the other of your reverence's
confidants. I mean the Capataz of the Cargadores. He does not drink. Your
reading of my character does honour to your perspicacity. But why call me a
heathen?"
"True,"
retorted the priest. "You are ten times worse. A miracle could not convert
you."
"I certainly do
not believe in miracles," said Decoud, quietly. Father Corbelàn shrugged
his high, broad shoulders doubtfully.
"A sort of
Frenchman -- godless -- a materialist," he pronounced slowly, as if
weighing the terms of a careful analysis. "Neither the son of his own
country nor of any other," he continued, thoughtfully.
"Scarcely human,
in fact," Decoud commented under his breath, his head at rest against the
wall, his eyes gazing up at the ceiling.
"The victim of
this faithless age," Father Corbelàn resumed in a deep but subdued voice.
"But of some use
as a journalist." Decoud changed his pose and spoke in a more animated
tone. "Has your worship neglected to read the last number of the Porvenir?
I assure you it is just like the others. On the general policy it continues to
call Montero a gran' bestia, and stigmatize his brother, the guerrillero, for a
combination of lackey and spy. What could be more effective? In local affairs
it urges the Provincial Government to enlist bodily into the national army the
band of Hernandez the Robber -- who is apparently the protégé of the Church --
or at least of the Grand Vicar. Nothing could be more sound."
The priest nodded and
turned on the heels of his square-toed shoes with big steel buckles. Again,
with his hands clasped behind his back, he paced to and fro, planting his feet
firmly. When he swung about, the skirt of his soutane was inflated slightly by
the brusqueness of his movements.
The great sala had been
emptying itself slowly. When the Géfé Político rose to go, most of those still
remaining stood up suddenly in sign of respect, and Don José Avellanos stopped
the rocking of his chair. But the good-natured First Official made a
deprecatory gesture, waved his hand to Charles Gould, and went out discreetly.
In the comparative
peace of the room the screaming "Monsieur l'Administrateur" of the
frail, hairy Frenchman seemed to acquire a preternatural shrillness. The
explorer of the Capitalist syndicate was still enthusiastic. "Ten million
dollars' worth of copper practically in sight, Monsieur l'Administrateur. Ten
millions in sight! And a railway coming -- a railway! They will never believe
my report. C'est trop beau." He fell a prey to a screaming ecstasy, in the
midst of sagely nodding heads, before Charles Gould's imperturbable calm.
And only the priest
continued his pacing, flinging round the skirt of his soutane at each end of
his beat. Decoud murmured to him ironically: "Those gentlemen talk about
their gods."
Father Corbelàn stopped
short, looked at the journalist of Sulaco fixedly for a moment, shrugged his
shoulders slightly, and resumed his plodding walk of an obstinate traveller.
And now the Europeans
were dropping off from the group around Charles Gould till the Administrador of
the Great Silver Mine could be seen in his whole lank length, from head to
foot, left stranded by the ebbing tide of his guests on the great square of
carpet, as it were a multi-coloured shoal of flowers and arabesques under his
brown boots. Father Corbelàn approached the rocking-chair of Don José Avellanos.
"Come,
brother," he said, with kindly brusqueness and a touch of relieved
impatience a man may feel at the end of a perfectly useless ceremony. "A
la Casa! Ala Casa! This has been all talk. Let us now go and think and pray for
guidance from Heaven."
He rolled his black
eyes upwards. By the side of the frail diplomatist -- the life and soul of the
party -- he seemed gigantic, with a gleam of fanaticism in the glance. But the
voice of the party, or, rather, its mouthpiece, the "son Decoud" from
Paris, turned journalist for the sake of Antonia's eyes, knew very well that it
was not so, that he was only a strenuous priest with one idea, feared by the
women and execrated by the men of the people. Martin Decoud, the dilettante in
life, imagined himself to derive an artistic pleasure from watching the
picturesque extreme of wrong- headedness into which an honest, almost sacred,
conviction may drive a man. "It is like madness. It must be -- because
it's self-destructive," Decoud had said to himself often. It seemed to him
that every conviction, as soon as it became effective, turned into that form of
dementia the gods send upon those they wish to destroy. But he enjoyed the
bitter flavour of that example with the zest of a connoisseur in the art of his
choice. Those two men got on well together, as if each had felt respectively
that a masterful conviction, as well as utter scepticism, may lead a man very
far on the by-paths of political action.
Don José obeyed the
touch of the big hairy hand. Decoud followed out the brothers-in-law. And there
remained only one visitor in the vast empty sala, bluishly hazy with tobacco
smoke, a heavy-eyed, round- cheeked man, with a drooping moustache, a hide
merchant from Esmeralda, who had come overland to Sulaco, riding with a few
peons across the coast range. He was very full of his journey, undertaken
mostly for the purpose of seeing the Senor Administrador of San Tomé in
relation to some assistance he required in his hide-exporting business. He
hoped to enlarge it greatly now that the country was going to be settled. It
was going to be settled, he repeated several times, degrading by a strange,
anxious whine the sonority of the Spanish language, which he pattered rapidly,
like some sort of cringing jargon. A plain man could carry on his little
business now in the country, and even think of enlarging it -- with safety. Was
it not so? He seemed to beg Charles Gould for a confirmatory word, a grunt of
assent, a simple nod even.
He could get nothing.
His alarm increased, and in the pauses he would dart his eyes here and there;
then, loth to give up, he would branch off into feeling allusion to the dangers
of his journey. The audacious Hernandez, leaving his usual haunts, had crossed
the Campo of Sulaco, and was known to be lurking in the ravines of the coast
range. Yesterday, when distant only a few hours from Sulaco, the hide merchant
and his servants had seen three men on the road arrested suspiciously, with
their horses' heads together. Two of these rode off at once and disappeared in
a shallow quebrada to the left. "We stopped," continued the man from
Esmeralda, "and I tried to hide behind a small bush. But none of my mozos
would go forward to find out what it meant, and the third horseman seemed to be
waiting for us to come up. It was no use. We had been seen. So we rode slowly
on, trembling. He let us pass -- a man on a grey horse with his hat down on his
eyes -- without a word of greeting; but by-and-by we heard him galloping after
us. We faced about, but that did not seem to intimidate him. He rode up at
speed, and touching my foot with the toe of his boot, asked me for a cigar,
with a blood-curdling laugh. He did not seem armed, but when he put his hand
back to reach for the matches I saw an enormous revolver strapped to his waist.
I shuddered. He had very fierce whiskers, Don Carlos, and as he did not offer
to go on we dared not move. At last, blowing the smoke of my cigar into the air
through his nostrils, he said, 'Señor, it would be perhaps better for you if I
rode behind your party. You are not very far from Sulaco now. Go you with God.'
What would you? We went on. There was no resisting him. He might have been
Hernandez himself; though my servant, who has been many times to Sulaco by sea,
assured me that he had recognized him very well for the Capataz of the
Steamship Company's Cargadores. Later, that same evening, I saw that very man
at the corner of the Plaza talking to a girl, a Morenita, who stood by the
stirrup with her hand on the grey horse's mane."
"I assure you, Señor
Hirsch," murmured Charles Gould, "that you ran no risk on this
occasion."
"That may be, señor,
though I tremble yet. A most fierce man -- to look at. And what does it mean? A
person employed by the Steamship Company talking with salteadores -- no less,
señor; the other horsemen were salteadores -- in a lonely place, and behaving
like a robber himself! A cigar is nothing, but what was there to prevent him
asking me for my purse?"
"No, no, Señor
Hirsch," Charles Gould murmured, letting his glance stray away a little
vacantly from the round face, with its hooked beak upturned towards him in an
almost childlike appeal. "If it was the Capataz de Cargadores you met --
and there is no doubt, is there? -- you were perfectly safe."
"Thank you. You
are very good. A very fierce- looking man, Don Carlos. He asked me for a cigar
in a most familiar manner. What would have happened if I had not had a cigar? I
shudder yet. What business had he to be talking with robbers in a lonely
place?"
But Charles Gould,
openly preoccupied now, gave not a sign, made no sound. The impenetrability of
the embodied Gould Concession had its surface shades. To be dumb is merely a
fatal affliction; but the King of Sulaco had words enough to give him all the
mysterious weight of a taciturn force. His silences, backed by the power of
speech, had as many shades of significance as uttered words in the way of
assent, of doubt, of negation -- even of simple comment. Some seemed to say
plainly, "Think it over"; others meant clearly, "Go ahead";
a simple, low "I see," with an affirmative nod, at the end of a
patient listening half-hour was the equivalent of a verbal contract, which men
had learned to trust implicitly, since behind it all there was the great San
Tomé mine, the head and front of the material interests, so strong that it
depended on no man's goodwill in the whole length and breadth of the Occidental
Province -- that is, on no goodwill which it could not buy ten times over. But
to the little hook-nosed man from Esmeralda, anxious about the export of hides,
the silence of Charles Gould portended a failure. Evidently this was no time
for extending a modest man's business. He enveloped in a swift mental
malediction the whole country, with all its inhabitants, partisans of Ribiera and
Montero alike; and there were incipient tears in his mute anger at the thought
of the innumerable ox-hides going to waste upon the dreamy expanse of the
Campo, with its single palms rising like ships at sea within the perfect circle
of the horizon, its clumps of heavy timber motionless like solid islands of
leaves above the running waves of grass. There were hides there, rotting, with
no profit to anybody -- rotting where they had been dropped by men called away
to attend the urgent necessities of political revolutions. The practical,
mercantile soul of Señor Hirsch rebelled against all that foolishness, while he
was taking a respectful but disconcerted leave of the might and majesty of the
San Tomé mine in the person of Charles Gould. He could not restrain a
heart-broken murmur, wrung out of his very aching heart, as it were.
"It is a great,
great foolishness, Don Carlos, all this. The price of hides in Hamburg is gone
up -- up. Of course the Ribierist Government will do away with all that -- when
it gets established firmly. Meantime --"
He sighed.
"Yes,
meantime," repeated Charles Gould, inscrutably.
The other shrugged his
shoulders. But he was not ready to go yet. There was a little matter he would
like to mention very much if permitted. It appeared he had some good friends in
Hamburg (he murmured the name of the firm) who were very anxious to do
business, in dynamite, he explained. A contract for dynamite with the San Tomé
mine, and then, perhaps, later on, other mines, which were sure to -- The
little man from Esmeralda was ready to enlarge, but Charles interrupted him. It
seemed as though the patience of the Senor Administrador was giving way at
last.
"Señor
Hirsch," he said, "I have enough dynamite stored up at the mountain
to send it down crashing into the valley" -- his voice rose a little --
"to send half Sulaco into the air if I liked."
Charles Gould smiled at
the round, startled eyes of the dealer in hides, who was murmuring hastily,
"Just so. Just so." And now he was going. It was impossible to do
business in explosives with an Administrador so well provided and so
discouraging. He had suffered agonies in the saddle and had exposed himself to
the atrocities of the bandit Hernandez for nothing at all. Neither hides nor
dynamite -- and the very shoulders of the enterprising Israelite expressed
dejection. At the door he bowed low to the engineer-in- chief. But at the
bottom of the stairs in the patio he stopped short, with his podgy hand over
his lips in an attitude of meditative astonishment.
"What does he want
to keep so much dynamite for?" he muttered. "And why does he talk
like this to me?"
The engineer-in-chief,
looking in at the door of the empty sala, whence the political tide had ebbed
out to the last insignificant drop, nodded familiarly to the master of the
house, standing motionless like a tall beacon amongst the deserted shoals of
furniture.
"Good-night, I am
going. Got my bike downstairs. The railway will know where to go for dynamite
should we get short at any time. We have done cutting and chopping for a while
now. We shall begin soon to blast our way through."
"Don't come to
me," said Charles Gould, with perfect serenity. "I shan't have an
ounce to spare for anybody. Not an ounce. Not for my own brother, if I had a
brother, and he were the engineer-in-chief of the most promising railway in the
world."
"What's
that?" asked the engineer-in-chief, with equanimity.
"Unkindness?"
"No," said
Charles Gould, stolidly. "Policy."
"Radical, I should
think," the engineer-in-chief observed from the doorway.
"Is that the right
name?" Charles Gould said, from the middle of the room.
"I mean, going to
the roots, you know," the engineer explained, with an air of enjoyment.
"Why, yes,"
Charles pronounced, slowly. "The Gould Concession has struck such deep
roots in this country, in this province, in that gorge of the mountains, that
nothing but dynamite shall be allowed to dislodge it from there. It's my
choice. It's my last card to play."
The engineer-in-chief
whistled low. "A pretty game," he said, with a shade of discretion.
"And have you told Holroyd of that extraordinary trump card you hold in
your hand?"
"Card only when
it's played; when it falls at the end of the game. Till then you may call it a
-- a --"
"Weapon,"
suggested the railway man.
"No. You may call
it rather an argument," corrected Charles Gould, gently. "And that's
how I've presented it to Mr. Holroyd."
"And what did he
say to it?" asked the engineer, with undisguised interest.
"He" --
Charles Gould spoke after a slight pause -- "he said something about
holding on like grim death and putting our trust in God. I should imagine he
must have been rather startled. But then" -- pursued the Administrador of
the San Tomé mine -- "but then, he is very far away, you know, and, as
they say in this country, God is very high above."
The engineer's
appreciative laugh died away down the stairs, where the Madonna with the Child
on her arm seemed to look after his shaking broad back from her shallow niche.
A PROFOUND stillness
reigned in the Casa Gould. The master of the house, walking along the corredor,
opened the door of his room, and saw his wife sitting in a big armchair -- his
own smoking armchair -- thoughtful, contemplating her little shoes. And she did
not raise her eyes when he walked in.
"Tired?"
asked Charles Gould.
"A little,"
said Mrs. Gould. Still without looking up, she added with feeling, "There
is an awful sense of unreality about all this."
Charles Gould, before
the long table strewn with papers, on which lay a hunting crop and a pair of
spurs, stood looking at his wife: "The heat and dust must have been awful
this afternoon by the waterside," he murmured, sympathetically. "The
glare on the water must have been simply terrible."
"One could close
one's eyes to the glare," said Mrs. Gould. "But, my dear Charley, it
is impossible for me to close my eyes to our position; to this awful . .
."
She raised her eyes and
looked at her husband's face, from which all sign of sympathy or any other
feeling had disappeared. "Why don't you tell me something? " she
almost wailed.
"I thought you had
understood me perfectly from the first," Charles Gould said, slowly.
"I thought we had said all there was to say a long time ago. There is
nothing to say now. There were things to be done. We have done them; we have
gone on doing them. There is no going back now. I don't suppose that, even from
the first, there was really any possible way back. And, what's more, we can't
even afford to stand still."
"Ah, if one only
knew how far you mean to go," said his wife. inwardly trembling, but in an
almost playful tone.
"Any distance, any
length, of course," was the answer, in a matter-of-fact tone, which caused
Mrs. Gould to make another effort to repress a shudder.
She stood up, smiling
graciously, and her little figure seemed to be diminished still more by the
heavy mass of her hair and the long train of her gown.
"But always to
success," she said, persuasively.
Charles Gould,
enveloping her in the steely blue glance of his attentive eyes, answered
without hesitation --
"Oh, there is no
alternative."
He put an immense
assurance into his tone. As to the words, this was all that his conscience
would allow him to say.
Mrs. Gould's smile
remained a shade too long upon her lips. She murmured --
"I will leave you;
I've a slight headache. The heat, the dust, were indeed -- I suppose you are
going back to the mine before the morning?"
"At
midnight," said Charles Gould. "We are bringing down the silver
to-morrow. Then I shall take three whole days off in town with you."
"Ah, you are going
to meet the escort. I shall be on the balcony at five o'clock to see you pass.
Till then, good-bye."
Charles Gould walked
rapidly round the table, and, seizing her hands, bent down, pressing them both
to his lips. Before he straightened himself up again to his full height she had
disengaged one to smooth his cheek with a light touch, as if he were a little
boy.
"Try to get some
rest for a couple of hours," she murmured, with a glance at a hammock
stretched in a distant part of the room. Her long train swished softly after
her on the red tiles. At the door she looked back.
Two big lamps with
unpolished glass globes bathed in a soft and abundant light the four white
walls of the room, with a glass case of arms, the brass hilt of Henry Gould's
cavalry sabre on its square of velvet, and the water-colour sketch of the San
Tomé gorge. And Mrs. Gould, gazing at the last in its black wooden frame,
sighed out --
"Ah, if we had
left it alone, Charley!"
"No," Charles
Gould said, moodily; "it was impossible to leave it alone."
"Perhaps it was
impossible," Mrs. Gould admitted, slowly. Her lips quivered a little, but
she smiled with an air of dainty bravado. "We have disturbed a good many
snakes in that Paradise, Charley, haven't we?"
"Yes, I
remember," said Charles Gould, "it was Don Pépé who called the gorge
the Paradise of snakes. No doubt we have disturbed a great many. But remember,
my dear, that it is not now as it was when you made that sketch." He waved
his hand towards the small water-colour hanging alone upon the great bare wall.
"It is no longer a Paradise of snakes. We have brought mankind into it,
and we cannot turn our backs upon them to go and begin a new life
elsewhere."
He confronted his wife
with a firm, concentrated gaze, which Mrs. Gould returned with a brave
assumption of fearlessness before she went out, closing the door gently after her.
In contrast with the
white glaring room the dimly lit corredor had a restful mysteriousness of a
forest glade, suggested by the stems and the leaves of the plants ranged along
the balustrade of the open side. In the streaks of light falling through the
open doors of the reception-rooms, the blossoms, white and red and pale lilac,
came out vivid with the brilliance of flowers in a stream of sunshine; and Mrs.
Gould, passing on, had the vividness of a figure seen in the clear patches of
sun that chequer the gloom of open glades in the woods. The stones in the rings
upon her hand pressed to her forehead glittered in the lamplight abreast of the
door of the sala.
"Who's
there?" she asked, in a startled voice. "Is that you, Basilio?"
She looked in, and saw Martin Decoud walking about, with an air of having lost
something, amongst the chairs and tables.
"Antonia has
forgotten her fan in here," said Decoud, with a strange air of
distraction; "so I entered to see."
But, even as he said
this, he had obviously given up his search, and walked straight towards Mrs.
Gould, who looked at him with doubtful surprise.
"Señora," he
began, in a low voice.
"What is it, Don
Martin?" asked Mrs. Gould. And then she added, with a slight laugh,
"I am so nervous to-day," as if to explain the eagerness of the
question.
"Nothing
immediately dangerous," said Decoud, who now could not conceal his
agitation. "Pray don't distress yourself. No, really, you must not
distress yourself."
Mrs. Gould, with her
candid eyes very wide open, her lips composed into a smile, was steadying
herself with a little bejewelled hand against the side of the door.
"Perhaps you don't
know how alarming you are, appearing like this unexpectedly --"
"I!
Alarming!" he protested, sincerely vexed and surprised. "I assure you
that I am not in the least alarmed myself. A fan is lost; well, it will be
found again. But I don't think it is here. It is a fan I am looking for. I
cannot understand how Antonia could -- Well! Have you found it, amigo?"
"No, señor,"
said behind Mrs. Gould the soft voice of Basilio, the head servant of the Casa.
"I don't think the señorita could have left it in this house at all."
"Go and look for
it in the patio again. Go now, my friend; look for it on the steps, under the
gate; examine every flagstone; search for it till I come down again. . . . That
fellow" -- he addressed himself in English to Mrs. Gould -- "is
always stealing up behind one's back on his bare feet. I set him to look for
that fan directly I came in to justify my reappearance, my sudden return."
He paused and Mrs.
Gould said, amiably, "You are always welcome." She paused for a
second, too. "But I am waiting to learn the cause of your return."
Decoud affected
suddenly the utmost nonchalance.
"I can't bear to
be spied upon. Oh, the cause? Yes, there is a cause; there is something else
that is lost besides Antonia's favourite fan. As I was walking home after
seeing Don José and Antonia to their house, the Capataz de Cargadores, riding
down the street, spoke to me."
"Has anything
happened to the Violas?" inquired Mrs. Gould.
"The Violas? You
mean the old Garibaldino who keeps the hotel where the engineers live? Nothing
happened there. The Capataz said nothing of them; he only told me that the
telegraphist of the Cable Company was walking on the Plaza, bareheaded, looking
out for me. There is news from the interior, Mrs. Gould. I should rather say
rumours of news."
"Good news?"
said Mrs. Gould in a low voice.
"Worthless, I
should think. But if I must define them, I would say bad. They are to the
effect that a two days' battle had been fought near Sta. Marta, and that the
Ribierists are defeated. It must have happened a few days ago -- perhaps a
week. The rumour has just reached Cayta, and the man in charge of the cable
station there has telegraphed the news to his colleague here. We might just as
well have kept Barrios in Sulaco."
"What's to be done
now?" murmured Mrs. Gould.
"Nothing. He's at
sea with the troops. He will get to Cayta in a couple of days' time and learn
the news there. What he will do then, who can say? Hold Cayta? Offer his
submission to Montero? Disband his army -- this last most likely, and go
himself in one of the O.S.N. Company's steamers, north or south -- to
Valparaiso or to San Francisco, no matter where. Our Barrios has a great
practice in exiles and repatriations, which mark the points in the political
game."
Decoud, exchanging a
steady stare with Mrs. Gould, added, tentatively, as it were, "And yet, if
we had Barrios with his 2,000 improved rifles here, something could have been
done."
"Montero
victorious, completely victorious!" Mrs. Gould breathed out in a tone of
unbelief.
"A canard,
probably. That sort of bird is hatched in great numbers in such times as these.
And even if it were true? Well, let us put things at their worst, let us say it
is true."
"Then everything
is lost," said Mrs. Gould, with the calmness of despair.
Suddenly she seemed to
divine, she seemed to see Decoud's tremendous excitement under its cloak of
studied carelessness. It was, indeed, becoming visible in his audacious and
watchful stare, in the curve, half- reckless, half-contemptuous, of his lips.
And a French phrase came upon them as if, for this Costaguanero of the
Boulevard, that had been the only forcible language --
"Non, Madame. Rien
n'est perdu."
It electrified Mrs.
Gould out of her benumbed attitude, and she said, vivaciously --
"What would you
think of doing?"
But already there was something
of mockery in Decoud's suppressed excitement.
"What would you
expect a true Costaguanero to do? Another revolution, of course. On my word of
honour, Mrs. Gould, I believe I am a true hijo del pays, a true son of the
country, whatever Father Corbelàn may say. And I'm not so much of an unbeliever
as not to have faith in my own ideas, in my own remedies, in my own
desires."
"Yes," said
Mrs. Gould, doubtfully.
"You don't seem
convinced," Decoud went on again in French. "Say, then, in my
passions."
Mrs. Gould received
this addition unflinchingly. To understand it thoroughly she did not require to
hear his muttered assurance --
"There is nothing
I would not do for the sake of Antonia. There is nothing I am not prepared to
undertake. There is no risk I am not ready to run."
Decoud seemed to find a
fresh audacity in this voicing of his thoughts. "You would not believe me
if I were to say that it is the love of the country which --"
She made a sort of
discouraged protest with her arm, as if to express that she had given up
expecting that motive from any one.
"A Sulaco
revolution," Decoud pursued in a forcible undertone. "The Great Cause
may be served here, on the very spot of its inception, in the place of its
birth, Mrs. Gould."
Frowning, and biting
her lower lip thoughtfully, she made a step away from the door.
"You are not going
to speak to your husband?" Decoud arrested her anxiously.
"But you will need
his help?"
"No doubt,"
Decoud admitted without hesitation. "Everything turns upon the San Tomé
mine, but I would rather he didn't know anything as yet of my -- my
hopes."
A puzzled look came
upon Mrs. Gould's face, and Decoud, approaching, explained confidentially --
"Don't you see,
he's such an idealist."
Mrs. Gould flushed pink,
and her eyes grew darker at the same time.
"Charley an
idealist!" she said, as if to herself, wonderingly. "What on earth do
you mean?"
"Yes,"
conceded Decoud, "it's a wonderful thing to say with the sight of the San
Tomé mine, the greatest fact in the whole of South America, perhaps, before our
very eyes. But look even at that, he has idealized this fact to a point
--" He paused. "Mrs. Gould, are you aware to what point he has
idealized the existence, the worth, the meaning of the San Tomé mine? Are you
aware of it?"
He must have known what
he was talking about.
The effect he expected
was produced. Mrs. Gould, ready to take fire, gave it up suddenly with a low
little sound that resembled a moan.
"What do you
know?" she asked in a feeble voice.
"Nothing,"
answered Decoud, firmly. "But, then, don't you see, he's an
Englishman?"
"Well, what of
that?" asked Mrs. Gould.
"Simply that he
cannot act or exist without idealizing every simple feeling, desire, or
achievement. He could not believe his own motives if he did not make them first
a part of some fairy tale. The earth is not quite good enough for him, I fear.
Do you excuse my frankness? Besides, whether you excuse it or not, it is part
of the truth of things which hurts the -- what do you call them? -- the
Anglo-Saxon's susceptibilities, and at the present moment I don't feel as if I
could treat seriously either his conception of things or -- if you allow me to
say so -- or yet yours."
Mrs. Gould gave no sign
of being offended. "I suppose Antonia understands you thoroughly?"
"Understands?
Well, yes. But I am not sure that she approves. That, however, makes no
difference. I am honest enough to tell you that, Mrs. Gould."
"Your idea, of
course, is separation," she said.
"Separation, of
course," declared Martin. "Yes; separation of the whole Occidental
Province from the rest of the unquiet body. But my true idea, the only one I
care for, is not to be separated from Antonia."
"And that is
all?" asked Mrs. Gould, without severity.
"Absolutely. I am
not deceiving myself about my motives. She won't leave Sulaco for my sake,
therefore Sulaco must leave the rest of the Republic to its fate. Nothing could
be clearer than that. I like a clearly defined situation. I cannot part with
Antonia, therefore the one and indivisible Republic of Costaguana must be made
to part with its western province. Fortunately it happens to be also a sound
policy. The richest, the most fertile part of this land may be saved from
anarchy. Personally, I care little, very little; but it's a fact that the
establishment of Montero in power would mean death to me. In all the
proclamations of general pardon which I have seen, my name, with a few others,
is specially excepted. The brothers hate me, as you know very well, Mrs. Gould;
and behold, here is the rumour of them having won a battle. You say that
supposing it is true, I have plenty of time to run away."
The slight, protesting
murmur on the part of Mrs. Gould made him pause for a moment, while he looked
at her with a sombre and resolute glance.
"Ah, but I would,
Mrs. Gould. I would run away if it served that which at present is my only
desire. I am courageous enough to say that, and to do it, too. But women, even
our women, are idealists. It is Antonia that won't run away. A novel sort of
vanity."
"You call it
vanity," said Mrs. Gould, in a shocked voice.
"Say pride, then,
which. Father Corbelàn would tell you, is a mortal sin. But I am not proud. I
am simply too much in love to run away. At the same time I want to live. There
is no love for a dead man. Therefore it is necessary that Sulaco should not
recognize the victorious Montero."
"And you think my
husband will give you his support?"
"I think he can be
drawn into it, like all idealists, when he once sees a sentimental basis for
his action. But I wouldn't talk to him. Mere clear facts won't appeal to his
sentiment. It is much better for him to convince himself in his own way. And,
frankly, I could not, perhaps, just now pay sufficient respect to either his motives
or even, perhaps, to yours, Mrs. Gould."
It was evident that
Mrs. Gould was very determined not to be offended. She smiled vaguely, while
she seemed to think the matter over. As far as she could judge from the girl's
half-confidences, Antonia understood that young man. Obviously there was
promise of safety in his plan, or rather in his idea. Moreover, right or wrong,
the idea could do no harm. And it was quite possible, also, that the rumour was
false.
"You have some
sort of a plan," she said.
"Simplicity
itself. Barrios has started, let him go on then; he will hold Cayta, which is
the door of the sea route to Sulaco. They cannot send a sufficient force over
the mountains. No; not even to cope with the band of Hernandez. Meantime we
shall organize our resistance here. And for that, this very Hernandez will be
useful. He has defeated troops as a bandit; he will no doubt accomplish the
same thing if he is made a colonel or even a general. You know the country well
enough not to be shocked by what I say, Mrs. Gould. I have heard you assert
that this poor bandit was the living,breathing example of cruelty, injustice,
stupidity, and oppression, that ruin men's souls as well as their fortunes in
this country. Well, there would be some poetical retribution in that man
arising to crush the evils which had driven an honest ranchero into a life of
crime. A fine idea of retribution in that, isn't there?"
Decoud had dropped
easily into English, which he spoke with precision, very correctly, but with
too many z sounds.
"Think also of
your hospitals, of your schools, of your ailing mothers and feeble old men, of
all that population which you and your husband have brought into the rocky
gorge of San Tomé. Are you not responsible to your conscience for all these people?
Is it not worth while to make another effort, which is not at all so desperate
as it looks, rather than --"
Decoud finished his
thought with an upward toss of the arm, suggesting annihilation; and Mrs. Gould
turned away her head with a look of horror.
"Why don't you say
all this to my husband?" she asked, without looking at Decoud, who stood
watching the effect of his words.
"Ah! But Don
Carlos is so English," he began. Mrs. Gould interrupted --
"Leave that alone,
Don Martin. He's as much a Costaguanero -- No! He's more of a Costaguanero than
yourself."
"Sentimentalist,
sentimentalist," Decoud almost cooed, in a tone of gentle and soothing
deference. "Sentimentalist, after the amazing manner of your people. I
have been watching El Rey de Sulaco since I came here on a fool's errand, and
perhaps impelled by some treason of fate lurking behind the unaccountable turns
of a man's life. But I don't matter, I am not a sentimentalist, I cannot endow
my personal desires with a shining robe of silk and jewels. Life is not for me
a moral romance derived from the tradition of a pretty fairy tale. No, Mrs.
Gould; I am practical. I am not afraid of my motives. But, pardon me, I have
been rather carried away. What I wish to say is that I have been observing. I
won't tell you what I have discovered -- "
"No. That is
unnecessary," whispered Mrs. Gould, once more averting her head.
"It is. Except one
little fact, that your husband does not like me. It's a small matter, which, in
the circumstances, seems to acquire a perfectly ridiculous importance.
Ridiculous and immense; for, clearly, money is required for my plan," he reflected;
then added, meaningly, "and we have two sentimentalists to deal
with."
"I don't know that
I understand you, Don Martin," said Mrs. Gould, coldly, preserving the low
key of their conversation. "But, speaking as if I did, who is the
other?"
"The great Holroyd
in San Francisco, of course," Decoud whispered, lightly. "I think you
understand me very well. Women are idealists; but then they are so
perspicacious."
But whatever was the
reason of that remark, disparaging and complimentary at the same time, Mrs. Gould
seemed not to pay attention to it. The name of Holroyd had given a new tone to
her anxiety.
"The silver escort
is coming down to the harbour tomorrow; a whole six months' working, Don
Martin!" she cried in dismay.
"Let it come down,
then," breathed out Decoud, earnestly, almost into her ear.
"But if the rumour
should get about, and especially if it turned out true, troubles might break
out in the town," objected Mrs. Gould.
Decoud admitted that it
was possible. He knew well the town children of the Sulaco Campo: sullen,
thievish, vindictive, and bloodthirsty, whatever great qualities their brothers
of the plain might have had. But then there was that other sentimentalist, who
attached a strangely idealistic meaning to concrete facts. This stream of
silver must be kept flowing north to return in the form of financial backing
from the great house of Holroyd. Up at the mountain in the strong room of the
mine the silver bars were worth less for his purpose than so much lead, from
which at least bullets may be run. Let it come down to the harbour, ready for
shipment.
The next north-going
steamer would carry it off for the very salvation of the San Tomé mine, which
had produced so much treasure. And, moreover, the rumour was probably false, he
remarked, with much conviction in his hurried tone.
"Besides, señora,"
concluded Decoud, "we may suppress it for many days. I have been talking
with the telegraphist in the middle of the Plaza Mayor; thus I am certain that
we could not have been overheard. There was not even a bird in the air near us.
And also let me tell you something more. I have been making friends with this
man called Nostromo, the Capataz. We had a conversation this very evening, I
walking by the side of his horse as he rode slowly out of the town just now. He
promised me that if a riot took place for any reason -- even for the most
political of reasons, you understand -- his Cargadores, an important part of
the populace, you will admit, should be found on the side of the
Europeans."
"He has promised
you that?" Mrs. Gould inquired, with interest. "What made him make
that promise to you?"
"Upon my word, I
don't know," declared Decoud, in a slightly surprised tone. "He
certainly promised me that, but now you ask me why, I could not tell you his
reasons. He talked with his usual carelessness, which, if he had been anything
else but a common sailor, I would call a pose or an affectation."
Decoud, interrupting
himself, looked at Mrs. Gould curiously.
"Upon the
whole," he continued, "I suppose he expects something to his
advantage from it. You mustn't forget that he does not exercise his
extraordinary power over the lower classes without a certain amount of personal
risk and without a great profusion in spending his money. One must pay in some
way or other for such a solid thing as individual prestige. He told me after we
made friends at a dance, in a Posada kept by a Mexican just outside the walls,
that he had come here to make his fortune. I suppose he looks upon his prestige
as a sort of investment."
"Perhaps he prizes
it for its own sake," Mrs. Gould said in a tone as if she were repelling
an undeserved aspersion. "Viola, the Garibaldino, with whom he has lived
for some years, calls him the Incorruptible."
"Ah! he belongs to
the group of your protégés out there towards the harbour, Mrs. Gould. Muy bien.
And Captain Mitchell calls him wonderful. I have heard no end of tales of his
strength, his audacity, his fidelity. No end of fine things. H'm!
incorruptible! It is indeed a name of honour for the Capataz of the Cargadores
of Sulaco. Incorruptible! Fine, but vague. However, I suppose he's sensible,
too. And I talked to him upon that sane and practical assumption."
"I prefer to think
him disinterested, and therefore trustworthy," Mrs. Gould said, with the
nearest approach to curtness it was in her nature to assume.
"Well, if so, then
the silver will be still more safe. Let it come down, señora. Let it come down,
so that it may go north and return to us in the shape of credit."
Mrs. Gould glanced
along the corredor towards the door of her husband's room. Decoud, watching her
as if she had his fate in her hands, detected an almost imperceptible nod of
assent. He bowed with a smile, and, putting his hand into the breast pocket of
his coat, pulled out a fan of light feathers set upon painted leaves of
sandal-wood. "I had it in my pocket," he murmured, triumphantly,
"for a plausible pretext." He bowed again. "Good-night, señora."
Mrs. Gould continued
along the corredor away from her husband's room. The fate of the San Tomé mine
was lying heavy upon her heart. It was a long time now since she had begun to
fear it. It had been an idea. She had watched it with misgivings turning into a
fetish, and now the fetish had grown into a monstrous and crushing weight. It
was as if the inspiration of their early years had left her heart to turn into
a wall of silver-bricks, erected by the silent work of evil spirits, between
her and her husband. He seemed to dwell alone within a circumvallation of precious
metal, leaving her outside with her school, her hospital, the sick mothers and
the feeble old men, mere insignificant vestiges of the initial inspiration.
"Those poor people!" she murmured to herself.
Below she heard the
voice of Martin Decoud in the patio speaking loudly:
"I have found Dona
Antonia's fan, Basilio. Look. here it is!"
IT WAS part of what
Decoud would have called his sane materialism that he did not believe in the
possibility of friendship between man and woman.
The one exception he
allowed confirmed, he maintained, that absolute rule. Friendship was possible
between brother and sister, meaning by friendship the frank unreserve, as
before another human being, of thoughts and sensations; all the objectless and
necessary sincerity of one's innermost life trying to react upon the profound
sympathies of another existence.
His favourite sister,
the handsome, slightly arbitrary and resolute angel, ruling the father and
mother Decoud in the first-floor apartments of a very fine Parisian house, was
the recipient of Martin Decoud's confidences as to his thoughts, actions,
purposes, doubts, and even failures. . . .
"Prepare our
little circle in Paris for the birth of another South American Republic. One
more or less, what does it matter? They may come into the world like evil
flowers on a hotbed of rotten institutions; but the seed of this one has
germinated in your brother's brain, and that will be enough for your devoted
assent. I am writing this to you by the light of a single candle, in a sort of
inn, near the harbour, kept by an Italian called Viola, a protégé of Mrs.
Gould. The whole building, which, for all I know, may have been contrived by a
Conquistador farmer of the pearl fishery three hundred years ago, is perfectly
silent. So is the plain between the town and the harbour; silent, but not so
dark as the house, because the pickets of Italian workmen guarding the railway
have lighted little fires all along the line. It was not so quiet around here
yesterday. We had an awful riot -- a sudden outbreak of the populace, which was
not suppressed till late to- day. Its object, no doubt, was loot, and that was
defeated, as you may have learned already from the cablegram sent via San
Francisco and New York last night, when the cables were still open. You have
read already there that the energetic action of the Europeans of the railway
has saved the town from destruction, and you may believe that. I wrote out the
cable myself. We have no Reuter's agency man here. I have also fired at the mob
from the windows of the club, in company with some other young men of position.
Our object was to keep the Calle de la Constitucion clear for the exodus of the
ladies and children, who have taken refuge on board a couple of cargo ships now
in the harbour here. That was yesterday. You should also have learned from the
cable that the missing President, Ribiera, who had disappeared after the battle
of Sta. Marta, has turned up here in Sulaco by one of those strange
coincidences that are almost incredible, riding on a lame mule into the very
midst of the street fighting. It appears that he had fled, in company of a
muleteer called Bonifacio, across the mountains from the threats of Montero
into the arms of an enraged mob.
"The Capataz of
Cargadores, that Italian sailor of whom I have written to you before, has saved
him from an ignoble death. That man seems to have a particular talent for being
on the spot whenever there is something picturesque to be done.
"He was with me at
four o'clock in the morning at the offices of the Porvenir, where he had turned
up so early in order to warn me of the coming trouble, and also to assure me
that he would keep his Cargadores on the side of order. When the full daylight
came we were looking together at the crowd on foot and on horseback,
demonstrating on the Plaza and shying stones at the windows of the Intendencia.
Nostromo (that is the name they call him by here) was pointing out to me his
Cargadores interspersed in the mob.
"The sun shines
late upon Sulaco, for it has first to climb above the mountains. In that clear
morning light, brighter than twilight, Nostromo saw right across the vast
Plaza, at the end of the street beyond the cathedral, a mounted man apparently
in difficulties with a yelling knot of leperos. At once he said to me, 'That's
a stranger. What is it they are doing to him?' Then he took out the silver
whistle he is in the habit of using on the wharf (this man seems to disdain the
use of any metal less precious than silver) and blew into it twice, evidently a
preconcerted signal for his Cargadores. He ran out immediately, and they
rallied round him. I ran out, too, but was too late to follow them and help in
the rescue of the stranger, whose animal had fallen. I was set upon at once as
a hated aristocrat, and was only too glad to get into the club, where Don Jaime
Berges (you may remember him visiting at our house in Paris some three years
ago) thrust a sporting gun into my hands. They were already firing from the windows.
There were little heaps of cartridges lying about on the open card-tables. I
remember a couple of overturned chairs, some bottles rolling on the floor
amongst the packs of cards scattered suddenly as the caballeros rose from their
game to open fire upon the mob. Most of the young men had spent the night at
the club in the expectation of some such disturbance. In two of the candelabra,
on the consoles, the candles were burning down in their sockets. A large iron
nut, probably stolen from the railway workshops, flew in from the street as I
entered, and broke one of the large mirrors set in the wall. I noticed also one
of the club servants tied up hand and foot with the cords of the curtain and
flung in a corner. I have a vague recollection of Don Jaime assuring me hastily
that the fellow had been detected putting poison into the dishes at supper. But
I remember distinctly he was shrieking for mercy, without stopping at all,
continuously, and so absolutely disregarded that nobody even took the trouble
to gag him. The noise he made was so disagreeable that I had half a mind to do
it myself. But there was no time to waste on such trifles. I took my place at
one of the windows and began firing.
"I didn't learn
till later in the afternoon whom it was that Nostromo, with his Cargadores and
some Italian workmen as well, had managed to save from those drunken rascals.
That man has a peculiar talent when anything striking to the imagination has to
be done. I made that remark to him afterwards when we met after some sort of
order had been restored in the town, and the answer he made rather surprised
me. He said quite moodily, 'And how much do I get for that, señor?' Then it
dawned upon me that perhaps this man's vanity has been satiated by the
adulation of the common people and the confidence of his superiors!"
Decoud paused to light
a cigarette, then, with his head still over his writing, he blew a cloud of
smoke, which seemed to rebound from the paper. He took up the pencil again.
"That was
yesterday evening on the Plaza, while he sat on the steps of the cathedral, his
hands between his knees, holding the bridle of his famous silver-grey mare. He
had led his body of Cargadores splendidly all day long. He looked fatigued. I
don't know how I looked. Very dirty, I suppose. But I suppose I also looked
pleased. From the time the fugitive President had been got off to the S. S.
Minerva, the tide of success had turned against the mob. They had been driven
off the harbour, and out of the better streets of the town, into their own maze
of ruins and tolderias. You must understand that this riot, whose primary
object was undoubtedly the getting hold of the San Tomé silver stored in the
lower rooms of the Custom House (besides the general looting of the Ricos), had
acquired a political colouring from the fact of two Deputies to the Provincial
Assembly, Señores Gamacho and Fuentes, both from Bolson, putting themselves at
the head of it -- late in the afternoon, it is true, when the mob, disappointed
in their hopes of loot, made a stand in the narrow streets to the cries of
'Viva la Libertad! Down with Feudalism!' (I wonder what they imagine feudalism
to be?) 'Down with the Goths and Paralytics.' I suppose the Señores Gamacho and
Fuentes knew what they were doing. They are prudent gentlemen. In the Assembly
they called themselves Moderates, and opposed every energetic measure with
philanthropic pensiveness. At the first rumours of Montero's victory, they
showed a subtle change of the pensive temper, and began to defy poor Don Juste Lopez
in his Presidential tribune with an effrontery to which the poor man could only
respond by a dazed smoothing of his beard and the ringing of the presidential
bell. Then, when the downfall of the Ribierist cause became confirmed beyond
the shadow of a doubt, they have blossomed into convinced Liberals, acting
together as if they were Siamese twins, and ultimately taking charge, as it
were, of the riot in the name of Monterist principles.
"Their last move
of eight o'clock last night was to organize themselves into a Monterist
Committee which sits, as far as I know, in a posada kept by a retired Mexican
bull-fighter, a great politician, too, whose name I have forgotten. Thence they
have issued a communication to us, the Goths and Paralytics of the Amarilla
Club (who have our own committee), inviting us to come to some provisional
understanding for a truce, in order, they have the impudence to say, that the
noble cause of Liberty 'should not be stained by the criminal excesses of
Conservative selfishness!' As I came out to sit with Nostromo on the cathedral
steps the club was busy considering a proper reply in the principal room,
littered with exploded cartridges, with a lot of broken glass, blood smears,
candlesticks, and all sorts of wreckage on the floor. But all this is nonsense.
Nobody in the town has any real power except the railway engineers, whose men
occupy the dismantled houses acquired by the Company for their town station on
one side of the Plaza, and Nostromo, whose Cargadores were sleeping under the
arcades along the front of Anzani's shops. A fire of broken furniture out of
the Intendencia saloons, mostly gilt, was burning on the Plaza, in a high flame
swaying right upon the statue of Charles IV. The dead body of a man was lying
on the steps of the pedestal, his arms thrown wide open, and his sombrero
covering his face -- the attention of some friend, perhaps. The light of the
flames touched the foliage of the first trees on the Alameda, and played on the
end of a side street near by, blocked up by a jumble of ox-carts and dead
bullocks. Sitting on one of the carcasses, a lepero, muffled up, smoked a
cigarette. It was a truce, you understand. The only other living being on the
Plaza besides ourselves was a Cargador walking to and fro, with a long, bare
knife in his hand, like a sentry before the Arcades, where his friends were
sleeping. And the only other spot of light in the dark town were the lighted
windows of the club, at the corner of the Calle."
After having written so
far, Don Martin Decoud, the exotic dandy of the Parisian boulevard, got up and
walked across the sanded floor of the café at one end of the Albergo of United
Italy, kept by Giorgio Viola, the old companion of Garibaldi. The highly
coloured lithograph of the Faithful Hero seemed to look dimly, in the light of
one candle, at the man with no faith in anything except the truth of his own
sensations. Looking out of the window, Decoud was met by a darkness so
impenetrable that he could see neither the mountains nor the town, nor yet the
buildings near the harbour; and there was not a sound, as if the tremendous
obscurity of the Placid Gulf, spreading from the waters over the land, had made
it dumb as well as blind. Presently Decoud felt a light tremor of the floor and
a distant clank of iron. A bright white light appeared, deep in the darkness,
growing bigger with a thundering noise. The rolling stock usually kept on the
sidings in Rincon was being run back to the yards for safe keeping. Like a
mysterious stirring of the darkness behind the headlight of the engine, the
train passed in a gust of hollow uproar, by the end of the house, which seemed
to vibrate all over in response. And nothing was clearly visible but, on the
end of the last flat car, a negro, in white trousers and naked to the waist,
swinging a blazing torch basket incessantly with a circular movement of his
bare arm. Decoud did not stir.
Behind him, on the back
of the chair from which he had risen, hung his elegant Parisian overcoat, with
a pearl-grey silk lining. But when he turned back to come to the table the
candlelight fell upon a face that was grimy and scratched. His rosy lips were
blackened with heat, the smoke of gun-powder. Dirt and rust tarnished the
lustre of his short beard. His shirt collar and cuffs were crumpled; the blue
silken tie hung down his breast like a rag; a greasy smudge crossed his white
brow. He had not taken off his clothing nor used water, except to snatch a
hasty drink greedily, for some forty hours. An awful restlessness had made him
its own, had marked him with all the signs of desperate strife, and put a dry,
sleepless stare into his eyes. He murmured to himself in a hoarse voice,
"I wonder if there's any bread here," looked vaguely about him, then
dropped into the chair and took the pencil up again. He became aware he had not
eaten anything for many hours.
It occurred to him that
no one could understand him so well as his sister. In the most sceptical heart
there lurks at such moments, when the chances of existence are involved, a desire
to leave a correct impression of the feelings, like a light by which the action
may be seen when personality is gone, gone where no light of investigation can
ever reach the truth which every death takes out of the world. Therefore,
instead of looking for something to eat, or trying to snatch an hour or so of
sleep, Decoud was filling the pages of a large pocket-book with a letter to his
sister.
In the intimacy of that
intercourse he could not keep out his weariness, his great fatigue, the close
touch of his bodily sensations. He began again as if he were talking to her.
With almost an illusion of her presence, he wrote the phrase, "I am very
hungry."
"I have the
feeling of a great solitude around me," he continued. "Is it,
perhaps, because I am the only man with a definite idea in his head, in the
complete collapse of every resolve, intention, and hope about me? But the
solitude is also very real. All the engineers are out, and have been for two
days, looking after the property of the National Central Railway, of that great
Costaguana undertaking which is to put money into the pockets of Englishmen,
Frenchmen, Americans, Germans, and God knows who else. The silence about me is
ominous. There is above the middle part of this house a sort of first floor,
with narrow openings like loopholes for windows, probably used in old times for
the better defence against the savages, when the persistent barbarism of our
native continent did not wear the black coats of politicians, but went about
yelling, half- naked, with bows and arrows in its hands. The woman of the house
is dying up there, I believe, all alone with her old husband. There is a narrow
staircase, the sort of staircase one man could easily defend against a mob,
leading up there, and I have just heard, through the thickness of the wall, the
old fellow going down into their kitchen for something or other. It was a sort
of noise a mouse might make behind the plaster of a wall. All the servants they
had ran away yesterday and have not returned yet, if ever they do. For the
rest, there are only two children here, two girls. The father has sent them
downstairs, and they have crept into this café, perhaps because I am here. They
huddle together in a corner, in each other's arms; I just noticed them a few
minutes ago, and I feel more lonely than ever."
Decoud turned half
round in his chair, and asked, "Is there any bread here?"
Linda's dark head was
shaken negatively in response, above the fair head of her sister nestling on
her breast.
"You couldn't get
me some bread?" insisted Decoud. The child did not move; he saw her large
eyes stare at him very dark from the corner. "You're not afraid of
me?" he said.
"No," said
Linda, "we are not afraid of you. You came here with Gian' Battista."
"You mean Nostromo?"
said Decoud.
"The English call
him so, but that is no name either for man or beast," said the girl,
passing her hand gently over her sister's hair.
"But he lets
people call him so," remarked Decoud.
"Not in this
house," retorted the child.
"Ah! well, I shall
call him the Capataz then."
Decoud gave up the
point, and after writing steadily for a while turned round again.
"When do you
expect him back?" he asked.
"After he brought
you here he rode off to fetch the Señor Doctor from the town for mother. He
will be back soon."
"He stands a good
chance of getting shot somewhere on the road," Decoud murmured to himself
audibly; and Linda declared in her high-pitched voice --
"Nobody would dare
to fire a shot at Gian' Battista."
"You believe that,"
asked Decoud, "do you?"
"I know it,"
said the child, with conviction. "There is no one in this place brave
enough to attack Gian' Battista."
"It doesn't
require much bravery to pull a trigger behind a bush," muttered Decoud to
himself. "Fortunately, the night is dark, or there would be but little
chance of saving the silver of the mine."
He turned again to his
pocket-book, glanced back through the pages, and again started his pencil.
"That was the
position yesterday, after the Minerva with the fugitive President had gone out
of harbour, and the rioters had been driven back into the side lanes of the
town. I sat on the steps of the cathedral with Nostromo, after sending out the
cable message for the information of a more or less attentive world. Strangely
enough, though the offices of the Cable Company are in the same building as the
Porvenir, the mob, which has thrown my presses out of the window and scattered
the type all over the Plaza, has been kept from interfering with the
instruments on the other side of the courtyard. As I sat talking with Nostromo,
Bernhardt, the telegraphist, came out from under the Arcades with a piece of
paper in his hand. The little man had tied himself up to an enormous sword and
was hung all over with revolvers. He is ridiculous, but the bravest German of
his size that ever tapped the key of a Morse transmitter. He had received the
message from Cayta reporting the transports with Barrios's army just entering
the port, and ending with the words, 'The greatest enthusiasm prevails.' I
walked off to drink some water at the fountain, and I was shot at from the
Alameda by somebody hiding behind a tree. But I drank, and didn't care; with
Barrios in Cayta and the great Cordillera between us and Montero's victorious
army I seemed, notwithstanding Messrs. Gamacho and Fuentes, to hold my new
State in the hollow of my hand. I was ready to sleep, but when I got as far as
the Casa Gould I found the patio full of wounded laid out on straw. Lights were
burning, and in that enclosed courtyard on that hot night a faint odour of
chloroform and blood hung about. At one end Doctor Monygham, the doctor of the
mine, was dressing the wounds; at the other, near the stairs, Father Corbelàn,
kneeling, listened to the confession of a dying Cargador. Mrs. Gould was
walking about through these shambles with a large bottle in one hand and a lot
of cotton wool in the other. She just looked at me and never even winked. Her
camerista was following her, also holding a bottle, and sobbing gently to
herself.
"I busied myself
for some time in fetching water from the cistern for the wounded. Afterwards I
wandered upstairs, meeting some of the first ladies of Sulaco, paler than I had
ever seen them before, with bandages over their arms. Not all of them had fled
to the ships. A good many had taken refuge for the day in the Casa Gould. On
the landing a girl, with her hair half down, was kneeling against the wall
under the niche where stands a Madonna in blue robes and a gilt crown on her
head. I think it was the eldest Miss Lopez; I couldn't see her face, but I
remember looking at the high French heel of her little shoe. She did not make a
sound, she did not stir, she was not sobbing; she remained there, perfectly
still, all black against the white wall, a silent figure of passionate piety. I
am sure she was no more frightened than the other white- faced ladies I met
carrying bandages. One was sitting on the top step tearing a piece of linen
hastily into strips --the young wife of an elderly man of fortune here. She
interrupted herself to wave her hand to my bow, as though she were in her
carriage on the Alameda. The women of our country are worth looking at during a
revolution. The rouge and pearl powder fall off, together with that passive
attitude towards the outer world which education, tradition, custom impose upon
them from the earliest infancy. I thought of your face, which from your infancy
had the stamp of intelligence instead of that patient and resigned cast which
appears when some political commotion tears down the veil of cosmetics and
usage.
"In the great sala
upstairs a sort of Junta of Notables was sitting, the remnant of the vanished
Provincial Assembly. Don Juste Lopez had had half his beard singed off at the
muzzle of a trabuco loaded with slugs, of which every one missed him,
providentially. And as he turned his head from side to side it was exactly as
if there had been two men inside his frock-coat, one nobly whiskered and
solemn, the other untidy and scared.
"They raised a cry
of 'Decoud! Don Martin!' at my entrance. I asked them, 'What are you
deliberating upon, gentlemen?' There did not seem to be any president, though
Don José Avellanos sat at the head of the table. They all answered together,
'On the preservation of life and property.' 'Till the new officials arrive,'
Don Juste explained to me, with the solemn side of his face offered to my view.
It was as if a stream of water had been poured upon my glowing idea of a new
State. There was a hissing sound in my ears, and the room grew dim, as if
suddenly filled with vapour.
"I walked up to
the table blindly, as though I had been drunk. 'You are deliberating upon
surrender,' I said. They all sat still, with their noses over the sheet of
paper each had before him, God only knows why. Only Don José hid his face in
his hands, muttering, 'Never, never!' But as I looked at him, it seemed to me
that I could have blown him away with my breath, he looked so frail, so weak,
so worn out. Whatever happens, he will not survive. The deception is too great
for a man of his age; and hasn't he seen the sheets of 'Fifty Years of
Misrule,' which we have begun printing on the presses of the Porvenir,
littering the Plaza, floating in the gutters, fired out as wads for trabucos
loaded with handfuls of type, blown in the wind, trampled in the mud? I have
seen pages floating upon the very waters of the harbour. It would be
unreasonable to expect him to survive. It would be cruel.
"'Do you know,' I
cried, 'what surrender means to you, to your women, to your children, to your
property?'
"I declaimed for
five minutes without drawing breath, it seems to me, harping on our best
chances, on the ferocity of Montero, whom I made out to be as great a beast as
I have no doubt he would like to be if he had intelligence enough to conceive a
systematic reign of terror. And then for another five minutes or more I poured
out an impassioned appeal to their courage and manliness, with all the passion
of my love for Antonia. For if ever man spoke well, it would be from a personal
feeling, denouncing an enemy, defending himself, or pleading for what really
may be dearer than life. My dear girl, I absolutely thundered at them. It
seemed as if my voice would burst the walls asunder, and when I stopped I saw
all their scared eyes looking at me dubiously. And that was all the effect I
had produced! Only Don José's head had sunk lower and lower on his breast. I
bent my ear to his withered lips, and made out his whisper, something like, 'In
God's name, then, Martin, my son!' I don't know exactly. There was the name of
God in it, I am certain. It seems to me I have caught his last breath -- the
breath of his departing soul on his lips.
"He lives yet, it
is true. I have seen him since; but it was only a senile body, lying on its
back, covered to the chin, with open eyes, and so still that you might have
said it was breathing no longer. I left him thus, with Antonia kneeling by the
side of the bed, just before I came to this Italian's posada, where the
ubiquitous death is also waiting. But I know that Don José has really died
there, in the Casa Gould, with that whisper urging me to attempt what no doubt
his soul, wrapped up in the sanctity of diplomatic treaties and solemn
declarations, must have abhorred. I had exclaimed very loud, 'There is never
any God in a country where men will not help themselves.'
"Meanwhile, Don
Juste had begun a pondered oration whose solemn effect was spoiled by the
ridiculous disaster to his beard. I did not wait to make it out. He seemed to
argue that Montero's (he called him The General) intentions were probably not
evil, though, he went on, 'that distinguished man' (only a week ago we used to
call him a gran' bestia) 'was perhaps mistaken as to the true means.' As you
may imagine, I didn't stay to hear the rest. I know the intentions of Montero's
brother, Pedrito, the guerrillero, whom I exposed in Paris, some years ago, in
a café frequented by South American students, where he tried to pass himself
off for a Secretary of Legation. He used to come in and talk for hours,
twisting his felt hat in his hairy paws, and his ambition seemed to become a
sort of Duc de Morny to a sort of Napoleon. Already, then, he used to talk of
his brother in inflated terms. He seemed fairly safe from being found out,
because the students, all of the Blanco families, did not, as you may imagine,
frequent the Legation. It was only Decoud, a man without faith and principles,
as they used to say, that went in there sometimes for the sake of the fun, as
it were to an assembly of trained monkeys. I know his intentions. I have seen
him change the plates at table. Whoever is allowed to live on in terror, I must
die the death.
"No, I didn't stay
to the end to hear Don Juste Lopez trying to persuade himself in a grave
oration of the clemency and justice, and honesty, and purity of the brothers
Montero. I went out abruptly to seek Antonia. I saw her in the gallery. As I
opened the door, she extended to me her clasped hands.
"'What are they
doing in there?' she asked.
"'Talking,' I
said, with my eyes looking into hers.
"'Yes, yes, but
--'
"'Empty speeches,'
I interrupted her. 'Hiding their fears behind imbecile hopes. They are all
great Parliamentarians there -- on the English model, as you know.' I was so
furious that I could hardly speak. She made a gesture of despair.
"Through the door
I held a little ajar behind me, we heard Dun Juste's measured mouthing monotone
go on from phrase to phrase, like a sort of awful and solemn madness.
"'After all, the
Democratic aspirations have, perhaps, their legitimacy. The ways of human
progress are inscrutable, and if the fate of the country is in the hand of
Montero, we ought --'
"I crashed the
door to on that; it was enough; it was too much. There was never a beautiful
face expressing more horror and despair than the face of Antonia. I couldn't
bear it; I seized her wrists.
"'Have they killed
my father in there?' she asked.
"Her eyes blazed
with indignation, but as I looked on, fascinated, the light in them went out.
"'It is a
surrender,' I said. And I remember I was shaking her wrists I held apart in my
hands. 'But it's more than talk. Your father told me to go on in God's name.'
"My dear girl,
there is that in Antonia which would make me believe in the feasibility of
anything. One look at her face is enough to set my brain on fire. And yet I
love her as any other man would -- with the heart, and with that alone. She is
more to me than his Church to Father Corbelàn (the Grand Vicar disappeared last
night from the town; perhaps gone to join the band of Hernandez). She is more
to me than his precious mine to that sentimental Englishman. I won't speak of
his wife. She may have been sentimental once. The San Tomé mine stands now
between those two people. 'Your father himself, Antonia,' I repeated; 'your
father, do you understand? has told me to go on.'
"She averted her
face, and in a pained voice --
"'He has?' she
cried. 'Then, indeed, I fear he will never speak again.'
"She freed her
wrists from my clutch and began to cry in her handkerchief. I disregarded her
sorrow; I would rather see her miserable than not see her at all, never any
more; for whether I escaped or stayed to die, there was for us no coming
together, no future. And that being so, I had no pity to waste upon the passing
moments of her sorrow. I sent her off in tears to fetch Doña Emilia and Don
Carlos, too. Their sentiment was necessary to the very life of my plan; the
sentimentalism of the people that will never do anything for the sake of their
passionate desire, unless it comes to them clothed in the fair robes of an
idea.
"Late at night we
formed a small junta of four -- the two women, Don Carlos, and myself -- in
Mrs. Gould's blue-and-white boudoir.
"El Rey de Sulaco
thinks himself, no doubt, a very honest man. And so he is, if one could look
behind his taciturnity. Perhaps he thinks that this alone makes his honesty
unstained. Those Englishmen live on illusions which somehow or other help them
to get a firm hold of the substance. When he speaks it is by a rare 'yes' or
'no' that seems as impersonal as the words of an oracle. But he could not
impose on me by his dumb reserve. I knew what he had in his head; he has his
mine in his head; and his wife had nothing in her head but his precious person,
which he has bound up with the Gould Concession and tied up to that little
woman's neck. No matter. The thing was to make him present the affair to
Holroyd (the Steel and Silver King) in such a manner as to secure his financial
support. At that time last night, just twenty-four hours ago, we thought the
silver of the mine safe in the Custom House vaults till the north-bound steamer
came to take it away. And as long as the treasure flowed north, without a
break, that utter sentimentalist, Holroyd, would not drop his idea of
introducing, not only justice, industry, peace, to the benighted continents,
but also that pet dream of his of a purer form of Christianity. Later on, the
principal European really in Sulaco, the engineer-in-chief of the railway, came
riding up the Calle, from the harbour, and was admitted to our conclave.
Meantime, the Junta of the Notables in the great sala was still deliberating;
only, one of them had run out in the corredor to ask the servant whether something
to eat couldn't be sent in. The first words the engineer-in-chief said as he
came into the boudoir were, 'What is your house, dear Mrs. Gould? A war
hospital below, and apparently a restaurant above. I saw them carrying trays
full of good things into the sala.'
"'And here, in
this boudoir,' I said, 'you behold the inner cabinet of the Occidental Republic
that is to be.'
"He was so
preoccupied that he didn't smile at that, he didn't even look surprised.
"He told us that
he was attending to the general dispositions for the defence of the railway
property at the railway yards when he was sent for to go into the railway
telegraph office. The engineer of the railhead, at the foot of the mountains,
wanted to talk to him from his end of the wire. There was nobody in the office
but himself and the operator of the railway telegraph, who read off the clicks
aloud as the tape coiled its length upon the floor. And the purport of that
talk, clicked nervously from a wooden shed in the depths of the forests, had
informed the chief that President Ribiera had been, or was being, pursued. This
was news, indeed, to all of us in Sulaco. Ribiera himself, when rescued,
revived, and soothed by us, had been inclined to think that he had not been
pursued.
"Ribiera had
yielded to the urgent solicitations of his friends, and had left the
headquarters of his discomfited army alone, under the guidance of Bonifacio,
the muleteer, who had been willing to take the responsibility with the risk. He
had departed at day- break of the third day. His remaining forces had melted
away during the night. Bonifacio and he rode hard on horses towards the
Cordillera; then they obtained mules, entered the passes, and crossed the
Paramo of Ivie just before a freezing blast swept over that stony plateau,
burying in a drift of snow the little shelter-hut of stones in which they had
spent the night. Afterwards poor Ribiera had many adventures, got separated
from his guide, lost his mount, struggled down to the Campo on foot, and if he
had not thrown himself on the mercy of a ranchero would have perished a long
way from Sulaco. That man, who, as a matter of fact, recognized him at once,
let him have a fresh mule, which the fugitive, heavy and unskilful, had ridden
to death. And it was true he had been pursued by a party commanded by no less a
person than Pedro Montero, the brother of the general. The cold wind of the
Paramo luckily caught the pursuers on the top of the pass. Some few men, and
all the animals, perished in the icy blast. The stragglers died, but the main
body kept on. They found poor Bonifacio lying half-dead at the foot of a snow
slope, and bayoneted him promptly in the true Civil War style. They would have
had Ribiera, too, if they had not, for some reason or other, turned off the
track of the old Camino Real, only to lose their way in the forests at the foot
of the lower slopes. And there they were at last, having stumbled in
unexpectedly upon the construction camp. The engineer at the railhead told his
chief by wire that he had Pedro Montero absolutely there, in the very office,
listening to the clicks. He was going to take possession of Sulaco in the name
of the Democracy. He was very overbearing. His men slaughtered some of the
Railway Company's cattle without asking leave, and went to work broiling the
meat on the embers. Pedrito made many pointed inquiries as to the silver mine,
and what had become of the product of the last six months' working. He had said
peremptorily, "Ask your chief up there by wire, he ought to know; tell him
that Don Pedro Montero, Chief of the Campo and Minister of the Interior of the
new Government, desires to be correctly informed.'
"He had his feet
wrapped up in blood-stained rags, a lean, haggard face, ragged beard and hair,
and had walked in limping, with a crooked branch of a tree for a staff. His
followers were perhaps in a worse plight, but apparently they had not thrown
away their arms, and, at any rate, not all their ammunition. Their lean faces
filled the door and the windows of the telegraph hut. As it was at the same
time the bedroom of the engineer-in-charge there, Montero had thrown himself on
his clean blankets and lay there shivering and dictating requisitions to be
transmitted by wire to Sulaco. He demanded a train of cars to be sent down at
once to transport his men up.
"'To this I
answered from my end,' the engineer-in- chief related to us, 'that I dared not
risk the rolling- stock in the interior, as there had been attempts to wreck
trains all along the line several times. I did that for your sake, Gould,' said
the chief engineer. 'The answer to this was, in the words of my subordinate,
"The filthy brute on my bed said, 'Suppose I were to have you shot?'"
To which my subordinate, who, it appears, was himself operating, remarked that
it would not bring the cars up. Upon that, the other, yawning, said,
"Never mind, there is no lack of horses on the Campo." And, turning
over, went to sleep on Harris's bed.'
"This is why, my
dear girl, I am a fugitive to-night. The last wire from railhead says that
Pedro Montero and his men left at daybreak, after feeding on asado beef all
night. They took all the horses; they will find more on the road; they'll be
here in less than thirty hours, and thus Sulaco is no place either for me or
the great store of silver belonging to the Gould Concession.
"But that is not
the worst. The garrison of Esmeralda has gone over to the victorious party. We
have heard this by means of the telegraphist of the Cable Company, who came to
the Casa Gould in the early morning with the news. In fact, it was so early
that the day had not yet quite broken over Sulaco. His colleague in Esmeralda
had called him up to say that the garrison, after shooting some of their
officers, had taken possession of a Government steamer laid up in the harbour.
It is really a heavy blow for me. I thought I could depend on every man in this
province. It was a mistake. It was a Monterist Revolution in Esmeralda, just
such as was attempted in Sulaco, only that that one came off. The telegraphist
was signalling to Bernhardt all the time, and his last transmitted words were,
'They are bursting in the door, and taking possession of the cable office. You
are cut off. Can do no more.'
"But, as a matter
of fact, he managed somehow to escape the vigilance of his captors, who had
tried to stop the communication with the outer world. He did manage it. How it
was done I don't know, but a few hours afterwards he called up Sulaco again,
and what he said was, 'The insurgent army has taken possession of the
Government transport in the bay and are filling her with troops, with the
intention of going round the coast to Sulaco. Therefore look out for
yourselves. They will be ready to start in a few hours, and may be upon you before
daybreak.'
"This is all he
could say. They drove him away from his instrument this time for good, because
Bernhardt has been calling up Esmeralda ever since without getting an
answer."
After setting these
words down in the pocket-book which he was filling up for the benefit of his
sister, Decoud lifted his head to listen. But there were no sounds, neither in
the room nor in the house, except the drip of the water from the filter into
the vast earthenware jar under the wooden stand. And outside the house there
was a great silence. Decoud lowered his head again over the pocket-book.
"I am not running
away, you understand," he wrote on. "I am simply going away with that
great treasure of silver which must be saved at all costs. Pedro Montero from
the Campo and the revolted garrison of Esmeralda from the sea are converging
upon it. That it is there lying ready for them is only an accident. The real
objective is the San Tomé mine itself, as you may well imagine; otherwise the
Occidental Province would have been, no doubt, left alone for many weeks, to be
gathered at leisure into the arms of the victorious party. Don Carlos Gould
will have enough to do to save his mine, with its organization and its people;
this 'Imperium in Imperio,' this wealth-producing thing, to which his
sentimentalism attaches a strange idea of justice. He holds to it as some men
hold to the idea of love or revenge. Unless I am much mistaken in the man, it
must remain inviolate or perish by an act of his will alone. A passion has crept
into his cold and idealistic life. A passion which I can only comprehend
intellectually. A passion that is not like the passions we know, we men of
another blood. But it is as dangerous as any of ours.
"His wife has
understood it, too. That is why she is such a good ally of mine. She seizes
upon all my suggestions with a sure instinct that in the end they make for the
safety of the Gould Concession. And he defers to her because he trusts her
perhaps, but I fancy rather as if he wished to make up for some subtle wrong,
for that sentimental unfaithfulness which surrenders her happiness, her life,
to the seduction of an idea. The little woman has discovered that he lives for
the mine rather than for her. But let them be. To each his fate, shaped by
passion or sentiment. The principal thing is that she has backed up my advice
to get the silver out of the town, out of the country, at once, at any cost, at
any risk. Don Carlos' mission is to preserve unstained the fair fame of his
mine; Mrs. Gould's mission is to save him from the effects of that cold and
overmastering passion, which she dreads more than if it were an infatuation for
another woman. Nostromo's mission is to save the silver. The plan is to load it
into the largest of the Company's lighters, and send it across the gulf to a
small port out of Costaguana territory just on the other side the Azuera, where
the first north- bound steamer will get orders to pick it up. The waters here
are calm. We shall slip away into the darkness of the gulf before the Esmeralda
rebels arrive; and by the time the day breaks over the ocean we shall be out of
sight, invisible, hidden by Azuera, which itself looks from the Sulaco shore
like a faint blue cloud on the horizon.
"The incorruptible
Capataz de Cargadores is the man for that work; and I, the man with a passion,
but without a mission, I go with him to return -- to play my part in the farce
to the end, and, if successful, to receive my reward, which no one but Antonia
can give me.
"I shall not see
her again now before I depart. I left her, as I have said, by Don José's
bedside. The street was dark, the houses shut up, and I walked out of the town
in the night. Not a single street-lamp had been lit for two days, and the
archway of the gate was only a mass of darkness in the vague form of a tower,
in which I heard low, dismal groans, that seemed to answer the murmurs of a
man's voice.
"I recognized
something impassive and careless in its tone, characteristic of that Genoese
sailor who, like me, has come casually here to be drawn into the events for
which his scepticism as well as mine seems to entertain a sort of passive
contempt. The only thing he seems to care for, as far as I have been able to
discover, is to be well spoken of. An ambition fit for noble souls, but also a
profitable one for an exceptionally intelligent scoundrel. Yes. His very words,
'To be well spoken of. Si, señor.' He does not seem to make any dif-. ference
between speaking and thinking. Is it sheer naïveness or the practical point of
view, I wonder? Exceptional individualities always interest me, because they
are true to the general formula expressing the moral state of humanity.
"He joined me on
the harbour road after I had passed them under the dark archway without
stopping. It was a woman in trouble he had been talking to. Through discretion
I kept silent while he walked by my side. After a time he began to talk
himself. It was not what I expected. It was only an old woman, an old
lace-maker, in search of her son, one of the street- sweepers employed by the
municipality. Friends had come the day before at daybreak to the door of their
hovel calling him out. He had gone with them, and she had not seen him since;
so she had left the food she had been preparing half-cooked on the extinct
embers and had crawled out as far as the harbour, where she had heard that some
town mozos had been killed on the morning of the riot. One of the Cargadores
guarding the Custom House had brought out a lantern, and had helped her to look
at the few dead left lying about there. Now she was creeping back, having
failed in her search. So she sat down on the stone seat under the arch,
moaning, because she was very tired. The Capataz had questioned her, and after
hearing her broken and groaning tale had advised her to go and look amongst the
wounded in the patio of the Casa Gould. He had also given her a quarter dollar,
he mentioned carelessly.
"'Why did you do
that?' I asked. 'Do you know her?'
"'No, señor. I
don't suppose I have ever seen her before. How should I? She has not probably
been out in the streets for years. She is one of those old women that you find
in this country at the back of huts, crouching over fireplaces, with a stick on
the ground by their side, and almost too feeble to drive away the stray dogs from
their cooking-pots. Caramba! I could tell by her voice that death had forgotten
her. But, old or young, they like money, and will speak well of the man who
gives it to them.' He laughed a little. 'Señor, you should have felt the clutch
of her paw as I put the piece in her palm.' He paused. 'My last, too,' he
added.
"I made no
comment. He's known for his liberality and his bad luck at the game of monte,
which keeps him as poor as when he first came here.
"'I suppose, Don
Martin,' he began, in a thoughtful, speculative tone, 'that the Señor
Administrador of San Tomé will reward me some day if I save his silver?'
"I said that it
could not be otherwise, surely. He walked on, muttering to himself. 'Si, si,
without doubt, without doubt; and, look you, Señor Martin, what it is to be
well spoken of! There is not another man that could have been even thought of
for such a thing. I shall get something great for it some day. And let it come
soon,' he mumbled. 'Time passes in this country as quick as anywhere else.'
"This, sœur chérie,
is my companion in the great escape for the sake of the great cause. He is more
naïve than shrewd, more masterful than crafty, more generous with his
personality than the people who make use of him are with their money. At least,
that is what he thinks himself with more pride than sentiment. I am glad I have
made friends with him. As a companion he acquires more importance than he ever
had as a sort of minor genius in his way -- as an original Italian sailor whom
I allowed to come in in the small hours and talk familiarly to the editor of
the Porvenir while the paper was going through the press. And it is curious to
have met a man for whom the value of life seems to consist in personal
prestige.
"I am waiting for
him here now. On arriving at the posada kept by Viola we found the children
alone down below, and the old Genoese shouted to his countryman to go and fetch
the doctor. Otherwise we would have gone on to the wharf, where it appears
Captain Mitchell with some volunteer Europeans and a few picked Cargadores are
loading the lighter with the silver that must be saved from Montero's clutches
in order to be used for Montero's defeat. Nostromo galloped furiously back
towards the town. He has been long gone already. This delay gives me time to
talk to you. By the time this pocket-book reaches your hands much will have
happened. But now it is a pause under the hovering wing of death in this silent
house buried in the black night, with this dying woman, the two children
crouching without a sound, and that old man whom I can hear through the
thickness of the wall passing up and down with a light rubbing noise no louder
than a mouse. And I, the only other with them, don't really know whether to
count myself with the living or with the dead. 'Quien sabe?' as the people here
are prone to say in answer to every question. But no! feeling for you is
certainly not dead, and the whole thing, the house, the dark night, the silent
children in this dim room, my very presence here -- all this is life, must be
life, since it is so much like a dream."
With the writing of the
last line there came upon Decoud a moment of sudden and complete oblivion. He
swayed over the table as if struck by a bullet. The next moment he sat up,
confused, with the idea that he had heard his pencil roll on the floor. The low
door of the café, wide open, was filled with the glare of a torch in which was
visible half of a horse, switching its tail against the leg of a rider with a
long iron spur strapped to the naked heel. The two girls were gone, and
Nostromo, standing in the middle of the room, looked at him from under the
round brim of the sombrero low down over his brow.
"I have brought
that sour-faced English doctor in Señora Gould's carriage," said Nostromo.
"I doubt if, with all his wisdom, he can save the Padrona this time. They
have sent for the children. A bad sign that."
He sat down on the end
of a bench. "She wants to give them her blessing, I suppose."
Dazedly Decoud observed
that he must have fallen sound asleep, and Nostromo said, with a vague smile,
that he had looked in at the window and had seen him lying still across the
table with his head on his arms. The English señora had also come in the
carriage, and went upstairs at once with the doctor. She had told him not to
wake up Don Martin yet; but when they sent for the children he had come into
the café.
The half of the horse
with its half of the rider swung round outside the door; the torch of tow and
resin in the iron basket which was carried on a stick at the saddle- bow flared
right into the room for a moment, and Mrs. Gould entered hastily with a very
white, tired face. The hood of her dark, blue cloak had fallen back. Both men
rose.
"Teresa wants to
see you, Nostromo," she said. The Capataz did not move. Decoud, with his
back to the table, began to button up his coat.
"The silver, Mrs.
Gould, the silver," he murmured in English. "Don't forget that the
Esmeralda garrison have got a steamer. They may appear at any moment at the
harbour entrance."
"The doctor says
there is no hope," Mrs. Gould spoke rapidly, also in English. "I
shall take you down to the wharf in my carriage and then come back to fetch
away the girls." She changed swiftly into Spanish to address Nostromo.
"Why are you wasting time? Old Giorgio's wife wishes to see you."
"I am going to
her, señora," muttered the Capataz. Dr. Monygham now showed himself,
bringing back the children. To Mrs. Gould's inquiring glance he only shook his
head and went outside at once, followed by Nostromo.
The horse of the
torch-bearer, motionless, hung his head low, and the rider had dropped the
reins to light a cigarette. The glare of the torch played on the front of the
house crossed by the big black letters of its inscription in which only the
word ITALIA was lighted fully. The patch of wavering glare reached as far as
Mrs. Gould's carriage waiting on the road, with the yellow-faced, portly
Ignacio apparently dozing on the box. By his side Basilio, dark and skinny,
held a Winchester carbine in front of him, with both hands, and peered
fearfully into the darkness. Nostromo touched lightly the doctor's shoulder.
"Is she really
dying, señor doctor?"
"Yes," said
the doctor, with a strange twitch of his scarred cheek. "And why she wants
to see you I cannot imagine."
"She has been like
that before," suggested Nostromo, looking away.
"Well, Capataz, I
can assure you she will never be like that again," snarled Dr. Monygham.
"You may go to her or stay away. There is very little to be got from
talking to the dying. But she told Doña Emilia in my hearing that she has been
like a mother to you ever since you first set foot ashore here."
"Si! And she never
had a good word to say for me to anybody. It is more as if she could not
forgive me for being alive, and such a man, too, as she would have liked her
son to be."
"Maybe!"
exclaimed a mournful deep voice near them. "Women have their own ways of
tormenting themselves." Giorgio Viola had come out of the house. He threw
a heavy black shadow in the torchlight, and the glare fell on his big face, on
the great bushy head of white hair. He motioned the Capataz indoors with his
extended arm.
Dr. Monygham, after
busying himself with a little medicament box of polished wood on the seat of
the landau, turned to old Giorgio and thrust into his big, trembling hand one
of the glass-stoppered bottles out of the case.
"Give her a
spoonful of this now and then, in water," he said. "It will make her
easier."
"And there is
nothing more for her?" asked the old man, patiently.
"No. Not on
earth," said the doctor, with his back to him, clicking the lock of the
medicine case.
Nostromo slowly crossed
the large kitchen, all dark but for the glow of a heap of charcoal under the
heavy mantel of the cooking-range, where water was boiling in an iron pot with
a loud bubbling sound. Between the two walls of a narrow staircase a bright
light streamed from the sick-room above; and the magnificent Capataz de
Cargadores stepping noiselessly in soft leather sandals, bushy whiskered, his
muscular neck and bronzed chest bare in the open check shirt, resembled a Mediterranean
sailor just come ashore from some wine or fruit-laden felucca. At the top he
paused, broad shouldered, narrow hipped and supple, looking at the large bed,
like a white couch of state, with a profusion of snowy linen, amongst which the
Padrona sat unpropped and bowed, her handsome, black-browed face bent over her
chest. A mass of raven hair with only a few white threads in it covered her
shoulders; one thick strand fallen forward half veiled her cheek. Perfectly
motionless in that pose, expressing physical anxiety and unrest, she turned her
eyes alone towards Nostromo.
The Capataz had a red
sash wound many times round his waist, and a heavy silver ring on the
forefinger of the hand he raised to give a twist to his moustache.
"Their revolutions,
their revolutions," gasped Señora Teresa. "Look, Gian' Battista, it
has killed me at last!"
Nostromo said nothing,
and the sick woman with an upward glance insisted. "Look, this one has
killed me, while you were away fighting for what did not concern you, foolish
man."
"Why talk like
this?" mumbled the Capataz between his teeth. "Will you never believe
in my good sense? It concerns me to keep on being what I am: every day
alike."
"You never change,
indeed," she said, bitterly. "Always thinking of yourself and taking
your pay out in fine words from those who care nothing for you."
There was between them
an intimacy of antagonism as close in its way as the intimacy of accord and
affection. He had not walked along the way of Teresa's expectations. It was she
who had encouraged him to leave his ship, in the hope of securing a friend and
defender for the girls. The wife of old Giorgio was aware of her precarious
health, and was haunted by the fear of her aged husband's loneliness and the
unprotected state of the children. She had wanted to annex that apparently
quiet and steady young man, affectionate and pliable, an orphan from his
tenderest age, as he had told her, with no ties in Italy except an uncle, owner
and master of a felucca, from whose ill-usage he had run away before he was
fourteen. He had seemed to her courageous, a hard worker, determined to make
his way in the world. From gratitude and the ties of habit he would become like
a son to herself and Giorgio; and then, who knows, when Linda had grown up. . .
. Ten years' difference between husband and wife was not so much. Her own great
man was nearly twenty years older than herself. Gian' Battista was an
attractive young fellow, besides; attractive to men, women, and children, just
by that profound quietness of personality which, like a serene twilight,
rendered more seductive the promise of his vigorous form and the resolution of
his conduct.
Old Giorgio, in
profound ignorance of his wife's views and hopes, had a great regard for his
young countryman. "A man ought not to be tame," he used to tell her,
quoting the Spanish proverb in defence of the splendid Capataz. She was growing
jealous of his success. He was escaping from her, she feared. She was
practical, and he seemed to her to be an absurd spendthrift of these qualities
which made him so valuable. He got too little for them. He scattered them with
both hands amongst too many people, she thought. He laid no money by. She
railed at his poverty, his exploits, his adventures, his loves and his
reputation; but in her heart she had never given him up, as though, indeed, he
had been her son.
Even now, ill as she
was, ill enough to feel the chill, black breath of the approaching end, she had
wished to see him. It was like putting out her benumbed hand to regain her
hold. But she had presumed too much on her strength. She could not command her
thoughts; they had become dim, like her vision. The words faltered on her lips,
and only the paramount anxiety and desire of her life seemed to be too strong
for death.
The Capataz said,
"I have heard these things many times. You are unjust, but it does not
hurt me. Only now you do not seem to have much strength to talk, and I have but
little time to listen. I am engaged in a work of very great moment."
She made an effort to
ask him whether it was true that he had found time to go and fetch a doctor for
her. Nostromo nodded affirmatively.
She was pleased: it
relieved her sufferings to know that the man had condescended to do so much for
those who really wanted his help. It was a proof of his friendship. Her voice
become stronger.
"I want a priest
more than a doctor," she said, pathetically. She did not move her head;
only her eyes ran into the corners to watch the Capataz standing by the side of
her bed. "Would you go to fetch a priest for me now? Think! A dying woman
asks you!"
Nostromo shook his head
resolutely. He did not believe in priests in their sacerdotal character. A
doctor was an efficacious person; but a priest, as priest, was nothing, incapable
of doing either good or harm. Nostromo did not even dislike the sight of them
as old Giorgio did. The utter uselessness of the errand was what struck him
most.
"Padrona," he
said, "you have been like this before, and got better after a few days. I
have given you already the very last moments I can spare. Ask Señora Gould to
send you one."
He was feeling uneasy
at the impiety of this refusal. The Padrona believed in priests, and confessed
herself to them. But all women did that. It could not be of much consequence.
And yet his heart felt oppressed for a moment -- at the thought what absolution
would mean to her if she believed in it only ever so little. No matter. It was
quite true that he had given her already the very last moment he could spare.
"You refuse to
go?" she gasped. "Ah! you are always yourself, indeed."
"Listen to reason,
Padrona," he said. "I am needed to save the silver of the mine. Do
you hear? A greater treasure than the one which they say is guarded by ghosts
and devils on Azuera. It is true. I am resolved to make this the most desperate
affair I was ever engaged on in my whole life."
She felt a despairing
indignation. The supreme test had failed. Standing above her, Nostromo did not
see the distorted features of her face, distorted by a paroxysm of pain and
anger. Only she began to tremble all over. Her bowed head shook. The broad
shoulders quivered.
"Then God,
perhaps, will have mercy upon me! But do you look to it, man, that you get
something for yourself out of it, besides the remorse that shall overtake you
some day."
She laughed feebly.
"Get riches at least for once, you indispensable, admired Gian' Battista,
to whom the peace of a dying woman is less than the praise of people who have
given you a silly name -- and nothing besides -- in exchange for your soul and
body."
The Capataz de
Cargadores swore to himself under his breath.
"Leave my soul
alone, Padrona, and I shall know how to take care of my body. Where is the harm
of people having need of me? What are you envying me that I have robbed you and
the children of? Those very people you are throwing in my teeth have done more
for old Giorgio than they ever thought of doing for me."
He struck his breast
with his open palm; his voice had remained low though he had spoken in a
forcible tone. He twisted his moustaches one after another, and his eyes
wandered a little about the room.
"Is it my fault
that I am the only man for their purposes? What angry nonsense are you talking,
mother? Would you rather have me timid and foolish, selling water-melons on the
market-place or rowing a boat for passengers along the harbour, like a soft
Neapolitan without courage or reputation? Would you have a young man live like
a monk? I do not believe it. Would you want a monk for your eldest girl? Let
her grow. What are you afraid of? You have been angry with me for everything I
did for years; ever since you first spoke to me, in secret from old Giorgio,
about your Linda. Husband to one and brother to the other, did you say? Well,
why not! I like the little ones, and a man must marry some time. But ever since
that time you have been making little of me to everyone. Why? Did you think you
could put a collar and chain on me as if I were one of the watch-dogs they keep
over there in the rail- way yards? Look here, Padrona, I am the same man who
came ashore one evening and sat down in the thatched ranche you lived in at
that time on the other side of the town and told you all about himself. You
were not unjust to me then. What has happened since? I am no longer an
insignificant youth. A good name, Giorgio says, is a treasure, Padrona."
"They have turned
your head with their praises," gasped the sick woman. "They have been
paying you with words. Your folly shall betray you into poverty, misery,
starvation. The very leperos shall laugh at you -- the great Capataz."
Nostromo stood for a time as if struck dumb. She never looked at him. A
self-confident, mirthless smile passed quickly from his lips, and then he
backed away. His disregarded figure sank down beyond the doorway. He descended
the stairs backwards, with the usual sense of having been somehow baffled by
this woman's disparagement of this reputation he had obtained and desired to
keep.
Downstairs in the big
kitchen a candle was burning, surrounded by the shadows of the walls, of the
ceiling, but no ruddy glare filled the open square of the outer door. The
carriage with Mrs. Gould and Don Martin, preceded by the horseman bearing the
torch, had gone on to the jetty. Dr. Monygham, who had remained, sat on the
corner of a hard wood table near the candlestick, his seamed, shaven face
inclined sideways, his arms crossed on his breast, his lips pursed up, and his
prominent eyes glaring stonily upon the floor of black earth. Near the
overhanging mantel of the fireplace, where the pot of water was still boiling
violently, old Giorgio held his chin in his hand, one foot advanced, as if
arrested by a sudden thought.
"Adios,
viejo," said Nostromo, feeling the handle of his revolver in the belt and
loosening his knife in its sheath. He picked up a blue poncho lined with red
from the table, and put it over his head. "Adios, look after the things in
my sleeping-room, and if you hear from me no more, give up the box to Paquita.
There is not much of value there, except my new serape from Mexico, and a few
silver buttons on my best jacket. No matter! The things will look well enough
on the next lover she gets, and the man need not be afraid I shall linger on
earth after I am dead, like those Gringos that haunt the Azuera."
Dr. Monygham twisted
his lips into a bitter smile. After old Giorgio, with an almost imperceptible
nod and without a word, had gone up the narrow stairs, he said --
"Why, Capataz! I
thought you could never fail in anything."
Nostromo, glancing
contemptuously at the doctor, lingered in the doorway rolling a cigarette, then
struck a match, and, after lighting it, held the burning piece of wood above
his head till the flame nearly touched his fingers.
"No wind!" he
muttered to himself. "Look here, señor -- do you know the nature of my
undertaking?"
Dr. Monygham nodded
sourly.
"It is as if I
were taking up a curse upon me, señor doctor. A man with a treasure on this
coast will have every knife raised against him in every place upon the shore.
You see that, señor doctor? I shall float along with a spell upon my life till
I meet somewhere the north-bound steamer of the Company, and then indeed they
will talk about the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores from one end of America to
another."
Dr. Monygham laughed
his short, throaty laugh. Nostromo turned round in the doorway.
"But if your
worship can find any other man ready and fit for such business I will stand
back. I am not exactly tired of my life, though I am so poor that I can carry
all I have with myself on my horse's back."
"You gamble too
much, and never say 'no' to a pretty face, Capataz," said Dr. Monygham,
with sly simplicity. "That's not the way to make a fortune. But nobody
that I know ever suspected you of being poor. I hope you have made a good
bargain in case you come back safe from this adventure."
"What bargain
would your worship have made?" asked Nostromo, blowing the smoke out of
his lips through the doorway.
Dr. Monygham listened
up the staircase for a moment before he answered, with another of his short,
abrupt laughs --
"Illustrious
Capataz, for taking the curse of death upon my back, as you call it, nothing
else but the whole treasure would do."
Nostromo vanished out
of the doorway with a grunt of discontent at this jeering answer. Dr. Monygham
heard him gallop away. Nostromo rode furiously in the dark. There were lights
in the buildings of the O.S.N. Company near the wharf, but before he got there
he met the Gould carriage. The horseman preceded it with the torch, whose light
showed the white mules trotting, the portly Ignacio driving, and Basilio with
the carbine on the box. From the dark body of the landau Mrs. Gould's voice
cried, "They are waiting for you, Capataz!" She was returning, chilly
and excited, with Decoud's pocket-book still held in her hand. He had confided
it to her to send to his sister. "Perhaps my last words to her," he
had said, pressing Mrs. Gould's hand.
The Capataz never
checked his speed. At the head of the wharf vague figures with rifles leapt to
the head of his horse; others closed upon him -- cargadores of the company
posted by Captain Mitchell on the watch. At a word from him they fell back with
subservient murmurs, recognizing his voice. At the other end of the jetty, near
a cargo crane, in a dark group with glowing cigars, his name was pronounced in
a tone of relief. Most of the Europeans in Sulaco were there, rallied round
Charles Gould, as if the silver of the mine had been the emblem of a common
cause, the symbol of the supreme importance of material interests. They had
loaded it into the lighter with their own hands. Nostromo recognized Don Carlos
Gould, a thin, tall shape standing a little apart and silent, to whom another
tall shape, the engineer-in-chief, said aloud, "If it must be lost, it is
a million times better that it should go to the bottom of the sea."
Martin Decoud called
out from the lighter, "Au revoir, messieurs, till we clasp hands again
over the new-born Occidental Republic." Only a subdued murmur responded to
his clear, ringing tones; and then it seemed to him that the wharf was floating
away into the night; but it was Nostromo, who was already pushing against a
pile with one of the heavy sweeps. Decoud did not move; the effect was that of
being launched into space. After a splash or two there was not a sound but the
thud of Nostromo's feet leaping about the boat. He hoisted the big sail; a
breath of wind fanned Decoud's cheek. Everything had vanished but the light of
the lantern Captain Mitchell had hoisted upon the post at the end of the jetty
to guide Nostromo out of the harbour.
The two men, unable to
see each other, kept silent till the lighter, slipping before the fitful
breeze, passed out between almost invisible headlands into the still deeper
darkness of the gulf. For a time the lantern on the jetty shone after them. The
wind failed, then fanned up again, but so faintly that the big, half-decked
boat slipped along with no more noise than if she had been suspended in the
air.
"We are out in the
gulf now," said the calm voice of Nostromo. A moment after he added,
"Señor Mitchell has lowered the light."
"Yes," said
Decoud; "nobody can find us now."
A great recrudescence
of obscurity embraced the boat. The sea in the gulf was as black as the clouds
above. Nostromo, after striking a couple of matches to get a glimpse of the
boat-compass he had with him in the lighter, steered by the feel of the wind on
his cheek.
It was a new experience
for Decoud, this mysteriousness of the great waters spread out strangely
smooth, as if their restlessness had been crushed by the weight of that dense
night. The Placido was sleeping profoundly under its black poncho.
The main thing now for
success was to get away from the coast and gain the middle of the gulf before
day broke. The Isabels were somewhere at hand. "On your left as you look
forward, señor," said Nostromo, suddenly. When his voice ceased, the
enormous stillness, without light or sound, seemed to affect Decoud's senses
like a powerful drug. He didn't even know at times whether he were asleep or
awake. Like a man lost in slumber, he heard nothing, he saw nothing. Even his
hand held before his face did not exist for his eyes. The change from the
agitation, the passions and the dangers, from the sights and sounds of the
shore, was so complete that it would have resembled death had it not been for
the survival of his thoughts. In this foretaste of eternal peace they floated
vivid and light, like unearthly clear dreams of earthly things that may haunt
the souls freed by death from the misty atmosphere of regrets and hopes. Decoud
shook himself, shuddered a bit, though the air that drifted past him was warm.
He had the strangest sensation of his soul having just returned into his body
from the circumambient darkness in which land, sea, sky, the mountains, and the
rocks were as if they had not been.
Nostromo's voice was
speaking, though he, at the tiller, was also as if he were not. "Have you
been asleep, Don Martin? Caramba! If it were possible I would think that I,
too, have dozed off. I have a strange notion somehow of having dreamt that
there was a sound of blubbering, a sound a sorrowing man could make, somewhere
near this boat. Something between a sigh and a sob."
"Strange!"
muttered Decoud, stretched upon the pile of treasure boxes covered by many
tarpaulins. "Could it be that there is another boat near us in the gulf?
We could not see it, you know."
Nostromo laughed a
little at the absurdity of the idea. They dismissed it from their minds. The
solitude could almost be felt. And when the breeze ceased, the blackness seemed
to weigh upon Decoud like a stone.
"This is
overpowering," he muttered. "Do we move at all, Capataz?"
"Not so fast as a
crawling beetle tangled in the grass," answered Nostromo, and his voice
seemed deadened by the thick veil of obscurity that felt warm and hopeless all
about them. There were long periods when he made no sound, invisible and
inaudible as if he had mysteriously stepped out of the lighter.
In the featureless
night Nostromo was not even certain which way the lighter headed after the wind
had completely died out. He peered for the islands. There was not a hint of
them to be seen, as if they had sunk to the bottom of the gulf. He threw
himself down by the side of Decoud at last, and whispered into his ear that if
daylight caught them near the Sulaco shore through want of wind, it would be
possible to sweep the lighter behind the cliff at the high end of the Great
Isabel, where she would lie concealed. Decoud was surprised at the grimness of
his anxiety. To him the removal of the treasure was a political move. It was
necessary for several reasons that it should not fall into the hands of
Montero, but here was a man who took another view of this enterprise. The
Caballeros over there did not seem to have the slightest idea of what they had
given him to do. Nostromo, as if affected by the gloom around, seemed nervously
resentful. Decoud was surprised. The Capataz, indifferent to those dangers that
seemed obvious to his companion, allowed himself to become scornfully
exasperated by the deadly nature of the trust put, as a matter of course, into
his hands. It was more dangerous, Nostromo said, with a laugh and a curse, than
sending a man to get the treasure that people said was guarded by devils and
ghosts in the deep ravines of Azuera. "Señor," he said, "we must
catch the steamer at sea. We must keep out in the open looking for her till we
have eaten and drunk all that has been put on board here. And if we miss her by
some mischance, we must keep away from the land till we grow weak, and perhaps
mad, and die, and drift dead, until one or another of the steamers of the
Compania comes upon the boat with the two dead men who have saved the treasure.
That, señor, is the only way to save it; for, don't you see? for us to come to
the land anywhere in a hundred miles along this coast with this silver in our
possession is to run the naked breast against the point of a knife. This thing
has been given to me like a deadly disease. If men discover it I am dead, and
you, too, señor, since you would come with me. There is enough silver to make a
whole province rich, let alone a seaboard pueblo inhabited by thieves and
vagabonds. Señor, they would think that heaven itself sent these riches into
their hands, and would cut our throats without hesitation. I would trust no
fair words from the best man around the shores of this wild gulf. Reflect that,
even by giving up the treasure at the first demand, we would not be able to
save our lives. Do you understand this, or must I explain?"
"No, you needn't
explain," said Decoud, a little listlessly. "I can see it well enough
myself, that the possession of this treasure is very much like a deadly disease
for men situated as we are. But it had to be removed from Sulaco, and you were
the man for the task."
"I was; but I
cannot believe," said Nostromo, "that its loss would have
impoverished Don Carlos Gould very much. There is more wealth in the mountain.
I have heard it rolling down the shoots on quiet nights when I used to ride to
Rincon to see a certain girl, after my work at the harbour was done. For years
the rich rocks have been pouring down with a noise like thunder, and the miners
say that there is enough at the heart of the mountain to thunder on for years
and years to come. And yet, the day before yesterday, we have been fighting to
save it from the mob, and to-night I am sent out with it into this darkness,
where there is no wind to get away with; as if it were the last lot of silver
on earth to get bread for the hungry with. Ha! ha! Well, I am going to make it
the most famous and desperate affair of my life -- wind or no wind. It shall be
talked about when the little children are grown up and the grown men are old.
Aha! the Monterists must not get hold of it, I am told, whatever happens to
Nostromo the Capataz; and they shall not have it, I tell you, since it has been
tied for safety round Nostromo's neck."
"I see it,"
murmured Decoud. He saw, indeed, that his companion had his own peculiar view
of this enterprise.
Nostromo interrupted
his reflections upon the way men's qualities are made use of, without any
fundamental knowledge of their nature, by the proposal they should slip the
long oars out and sweep the lighter in the direction of the Isabels. It
wouldn't do for daylight to reveal the treasure floating within a mile or so of
the harbour entrance. The denser the darkness generally, the smarter were the
puffs of wind on which he had reckoned to make his way; but tonight the gulf,
under its poncho of clouds, remained breathless, as if dead rather than asleep.
Don Martin's soft hands
suffered cruelly, tugging at the thick handle of the enormous oar. He stuck to
it manfully, setting his teeth. He, too, was in the toils of an imaginative
existence, and that strange work of pulling a lighter seemed to belong
naturally to the inception of a new state, acquired an ideal meaning from his
love for Antonia. For all their efforts, the heavily laden lighter hardly
moved. Nostromo could be heard swearing to himself between the regular splashes
of the sweeps. "We are making a crooked path," he muttered to
himself. "I wish I could see the islands."
In his unskilfulness
Don Martin over-exerted himself. Now and then a sort of muscular faintness
would run from the tips of his aching fingers through every fibre of his body,
and pass off in a flush of heat. He had fought, talked, suffered mentally and
physically, exerting his mind and body for the last forty-eight hours without
intermission. He had had no rest, very little food, no pause in the stress of
his thoughts and his feelings. Even his love for Antonia, whence he drew his
strength and his inspiration, had reached the point of tragic tension during
their hurried interview by Don José's bedside. And now, suddenly, he was thrown
out of all this into a dark gulf, whose very gloom, silence, and breathless
peace added a torment to the necessity for physical exertion. He imagined the
lighter sinking to the bottom with an extraordinary shudder of delight. "I
am on the verge of delirium," he thought. He mastered the trembling of all
his limbs, of his breast, the inward trembling of all his body exhausted of its
nervous force.
"Shall we rest,
Capataz?" he proposed in a careless tone. "There are many hours of
night yet before us."
"True. It is but a
mile or so, I suppose. Rest your arms, señor, if that is what you mean. You
will find no other sort of rest, I can promise you, since you let yourself be
bound to this treasure whose loss would make no poor man poorer. No, señor;
there is no rest till we find a north-bound steamer, or else some ship finds us
drifting about stretched out dead upon the Englishman's silver. Or rather --
no; por Dios! I shall cut down the gunwale with the axe right to the water's
edge before thirst and hunger rob me of my strength. By all the saints and
devils I shall let the sea have the treasure rather than give it up to any
stranger. Since it was the good pleasure of the Caballeros to send me off on
such an errand, they shall learn I am just the man they take me for."
Decoud lay on the
silver boxes panting. All his active sensations and feelings from as far back
as he could remember seemed to him the maddest of dreams. Even his passionate
devotion to Antonia into which he had worked himself up out of the depths of
his scepticism had lost all appearance of reality. For a moment he was the prey
of an extremely languid but not unpleasant indifference.
"I am sure they
didn't mean you to take such a desperate view of this affair," he said.
"What was it,
then? A joke?" snarled the man, who on the pay-sheets of the O.S.N.
Company's establishment in Sulaco was described as "Foreman of the
wharf" against the figure of his wages. "Was it for a joke they woke
me up from my sleep after two days of street fighting to make me stake my life
upon a bad card? Everybody knows, too, that I am not a lucky gambler."
"Yes, everybody
knows of your good luck with women, Capataz," Decoud propitiated his
companion in a weary drawl.
"Look here, señor,"
Nostromo went on. "I never even remonstrated about this affair. Directly I
heard what was wanted I saw what a desperate affair it must be, and I made up
my mind to see it out. Every minute was of importance. I had to wait for you
first. Then, when we arrived at the Italia Una, old Giorgio shouted to me to go
for the English doctor. Later on, that poor dying woman wanted to see me, as
you know. Señor, I was reluctant to go. I felt already this cursed silver
growing heavy upon my back, and I was afraid that, knowing herself to be dying,
she would ask me to ride off again for a priest. Father Corbelàn, who is
fearless, would have come at a word; but Father Corbelàn is far away, safe with
the band of Hernandez, and the populace, that would have liked to tear him to
pieces, are much incensed against the priests. Not a single fat padre would
have consented to put his head out of his hiding-place to-night to save a
Christian soul, except, perhaps, under my protection. That was in her mind. I
pretended I did not believe she was going to die. Señor, I refused to fetch a
priest for a dying woman . . ."
Decoud was heard to
stir.
"You did,
Capataz!" he exclaimed. His tone changed. "Well, you know -- it was
rather fine."
"You do not
believe in priests, Don Martin? Neither do I. What was the use of wasting time?
But she -- she believes in them. The thing sticks in my throat. She may be dead
already, and here we are floating helpless with no wind at all. Curse on all
superstition. She died thinking I deprived her of Paradise, I suppose. It shall
be the most desperate affair of my life."
Decoud remained lost in
reflection. He tried to analyze the sensations awaked by what he had been told.
The voice of the Capataz was heard again:
"Now, Don Martin,
let us take up the sweeps and try to find the Isabels. It is either that or
sinking the lighter if the day overtakes us. We must not forget that the
steamer from Esmeralda with the soldiers may be coming along. We will pull
straight on now. I have discovered a bit of a candle here, and we must take the
risk of a small light to make a course by the boat compass. There is not enough
wind to blow it out -- may the curse of Heaven fall upon this blind gulf!"
A small flame appeared
burning quite straight. It showed fragmentarily the stout ribs and planking in
the hollow, empty part of the lighter. Decoud could see Nostromo standing up to
pull. He saw him as high as the red sash on his waist, with a gleam of a white-
handled revolver and the wooden haft of a long knife protruding on his left
side. Decoud nerved himself for the effort of rowing. Certainly there was not
enough wind to blow the candle out, but its flame swayed a little to the slow
movement of the heavy boat. It was so big that with their utmost efforts they
could not move it quicker than about a mile an hour. This was sufficient,
however, to sweep them amongst the Isabels long before daylight came. There was
a good six hours of darkness before them, and the distance from the harbour to
the Great Isabel did not exceed two miles. Decoud put this heavy toil to the
account of the Capataz's impatience. Sometimes they paused, and then strained
their ears to hear the boat from Esmeralda. In this perfect quietness a steamer
moving would have been heard from far off. As to seeing anything it was out of
the question. They could not see each other. Even the lighter's sail, which
remained set, was invisible. Very often they rested.
"Caramba!"
said Nostromo, suddenly, during one of those intervals when they lolled idly
against the heavy handles of the sweeps. "What is it? Are you distressed,
Don Martin?"
Decoud assured him that
he was not distressed in the least. Nostromo for a time kept perfectly still,
and then in a whisper invited Martin to come aft.
With his lips touching
Decoud's ear he declared his belief that there was somebody else besides
themselves upon the lighter. Twice now he had heard the sound of stifled
sobbing.
"Señor," he
whispered with awed wonder, "I am certain that there is somebody weeping
in this lighter."
Decoud had heard
nothing. He expressed his incredulity. However, it was easy to ascertain the
truth of the matter.
"It is most
amazing," muttered Nostromo. "Could anybody have concealed himself on
board while the lighter was lying alongside the wharf?"
"And you say it
was like sobbing?" asked Decoud, lowering his voice, too. "If he is
weeping, whoever he is he cannot be very dangerous."
Clambering over the
precious pile in the middle, they crouched low on the foreside of the mast and
groped under the half-deck. Right forward, in the narrowest part, their hands
came upon the limbs of a man, who remained as silent as death. Too startled
themselves to make a sound, they dragged him aft by one arm and the collar of
his coat. He was limp -- lifeless.
The light of the bit of
candle fell upon a round, hook-nosed face with black moustaches and little
side- whiskers. He was extremely dirty. A greasy growth of beard was sprouting
on the shaven parts of the cheeks. The thick lips were slightly parted, but the
eyes remained closed. Decoud, to his immense astonishment, recognized Señor
Hirsch, the hide merchant from Esmeralda. Nostromo, too, had recognized him. And
they gazed at each other across the body, lying with its naked feet higher than
its head, in an absurd pretence of sleep, faintness, or death.
FOR a moment, before
this extraordinary find, they forgot their own concerns and sensations. Señor
Hirsch's sensations as he lay there must have been those of extreme terror. For
a long time he refused to give a sign of life, till at last Decoud's
objurgations, and, perhaps more, Nostromo's impatient suggestion that he should
be thrown overboard, as he seemed to be dead, induced him to raise one eyelid
first, and then the other.
It appeared that he had
never found a safe opportunity to leave Sulaco. He lodged with Anzani, the
universal storekeeper, on the Plaza Mayor. But when the riot broke out he had
made his escape from his host's house before daylight, and in such a hurry that
he had forgotten to put on his shoes. He had run out impulsively in his socks,
and with his hat in his hand, into the garden of Anzani's house. Fear gave him
the necessary agility to climb over several low walls, and afterwards he
blundered into the overgrown cloisters of the ruined Franciscan convent in one
of the by-streets. He forced himself into the midst of matted bushes with the
recklessness of desperation, and this accounted for his scratched body and his
torn clothing. He lay hidden there all day, his tongue cleaving to the roof of
his mouth with all the intensity of thirst engendered by heat and fear. Three
times different bands of men invaded the place with shouts and imprecations,
looking for Father Corbelàn; but towards the evening, still lying on his face
in the bushes, he thought he would die from the fear of silence. He was not
very clear as to what had induced him to leave the place, but evidently he had
got out and slunk successfully out of town along the deserted back lanes. He
wandered in the darkness near the railway, so maddened by apprehension that he
dared not even approach the fires of the pickets of Italian workmen guarding
the line. He had a vague idea evidently of finding refuge in the railway yards,
but the dogs rushed upon him, barking; men began to shout; a shot was fired at
random. He fled away from the gates. By the merest accident, as it happened, he
took the direction of the O.S.N. Company's offices. Twice he stumbled upon the
bodies of men killed during the day. But everything living frightened him much
more. He crouched, crept, crawled, made dashes, guided by a sort of animal
instinct, keeping away from every light and from every sound of voices. His
idea was to throw himself at the feet of Captain Mitchell and beg for shelter
in the Company's offices. It was all dark there as he approached on his hands
and knees, but suddenly someone on guard challenged loudly, "Quien
vive?" There were more dead men lying about, and he flattened himself down
at once by the side of a cold corpse. He heard a voice saying, "Here is
one of those wounded rascals crawling about. Shall I go and finish him?"
And another voice objected that it was not safe to go out without a lantern
upon such an errand; perhaps it was only some negro Liberal looking for a
chance to stick a knife into the stomach of an honest man. Hirsch didn't stay
to hear any more, but crawling away to the end of the wharf, hid himself
amongst a lot of empty casks. After a while some people came along, talking,
and with glowing cigarettes. He did not stop to ask himself whether they would
be likely to do him any harm, but bolted incontinently along the jetty, saw a
lighter lying moored at the end, and threw himself into it. In his desire to
find cover he crept right forward under the half-deck, and he had remained
there more dead than alive, suffering agonies of hunger and thirst, and almost
fainting with terror, when he heard numerous footsteps and the voices of the
Europeans who came in a body escorting the wagon- load of treasure, pushed
along the rails by a squad of Cargadores. He understood perfectly what was
being done from the talk, but did not disclose his presence from the fear that
he would not be allowed to remain. His only idea at the time, overpowering and
masterful, was to get away from this terrible Sulaco. And now he regretted it
very much. He had heard Nostromo talk to Decoud, and wished himself back on
shore. He did not desire to be involved in any desperate affair -- in a
situation where one could not run away. The involuntary groans of his anguished
spirit had betrayed him to the sharp ears of the Capataz.
They had propped him up
in a sitting posture against the side of the lighter, and he went on with the
moaning account of his adventures till his voice broke, his head fell forward.
"Water," he whispered, with difficulty. Decoud held one of the cans
to his lips. He revived after an extraordinarily short time, and scrambled up
to his feet wildly. Nostromo, in an angry and threatening voice, ordered him
forward. Hirsch was one of those men whom fear lashes like a whip, and he must
have had an appalling idea of the Capataz's ferocity. He displayed an
extraordinary agility in disappearing forward into the darkness. They heard him
getting over the tarpaulin; then there was the sound of a heavy fall, followed
by a weary sigh. Afterwards all was still in the fore-part of the lighter, as
though he had killed himself in his headlong tumble. Nostromo shouted in a
menacing voice --
"Lie still there!
Do not move a limb. If I hear as much as a loud breath from you I shall come
over there and put a bullet through your head."
The mere presence of a
coward, however passive, brings an element of treachery into a dangerous
situation. Nostromo's nervous impatience passed into gloomy thoughtfulness.
Decoud, in an undertone, as if speaking to himself, remarked that, after all,
this bizarre event made no great difference. He could not conceive what harm the
man could do. At most he would be in the way, like an inanimate and useless
object -- like a block of wood, for instance.
"I would think
twice before getting rid of a piece of wood," said Nostromo, calmly.
"Something may happen unexpectedly where you could make use of it. But in
an affair like ours a man like this ought to be thrown overboard. Even if he
were as brave as a lion we would not want him here. We are not running away for
our lives. Señor, there is no harm in a brave man trying to save himself with
ingenuity and courage; but you have heard his tale, Don Martin. His being here
is a miracle of fear --" Nostromo paused. "There is no room for fear
in this lighter," he added through his teeth.
Decoud had no answer to
make. It was not a position for argument, for a display of scruples or
feelings. There were a thousand ways in which a panic-stricken man could make
himself dangerous. It was evident that Hirsch could not be spoken to, reasoned
with, or persuaded into a rational line of conduct. The story of his own escape
demonstrated that clearly enough. Decoud thought that it was a thousand pities
the wretch had not died of fright. Nature, who had made him what he was, seemed
to have calculated cruelly how much he could bear in the way of atrocious
anguish without actually expiring. Some compassion was due to so much terror.
Decoud, though imaginative enough for sympathy, resolved not to interfere with
any action that Nostromo would take. But Nostromo did nothing. And the fate of
Señor Hirsch remained suspended in the darkness of the gulf at the mercy of
events which could not be foreseen.
The Capataz, extending
his hand, put out the candle suddenly. It was to Decoud as if his companion had
destroyed, by a single touch, the world of affairs, of loves, of revolution,
where his complacent superiority analyzed fearlessly all motives and all
passions, including his own.
He gasped a little.
Decoud was affected by the novelty of his position. Intellectually
self-confident, he suffered from being deprived of the only weapon he could use
with effect. No intelligence could penetrate the darkness of the Placid Gulf.
There remained only one thing he was certain of, and that was the overweening
vanity of his companion. It was direct, uncomplicated, naïve, and effectual.
Decoud, who had been making use of him, had tried to understand his man
thoroughly. He had discovered a complete singleness of motive behind the varied
manifestations of a consistent character. This was why the man remained so
astonishingly simple in the jealous greatness of his conceit. And now there was
a complication. It was evident that he resented having been given a task in
which there were so many chances of failure. "I wonder," thought
Decoud, "how he would behave if I were not here."
He heard Nostromo
mutter again, "No! there is no room for fear on this lighter. Courage
itself does not seem good enough. I have a good eye and a steady hand; no man
can say he ever saw me tired or uncertain what to do; but por Dios, Don Martin,
I have been sent out into this black calm on a business where neither a good
eye, nor a steady hand, nor judgment are any use. . . ." He swore a string
of oaths in Spanish and Italian under his breath. "Nothing but sheer
desperation will do for this affair."
These words were in
strange contrast to the prevailing peace -- to this almost solid stillness of
the gulf. A shower fell with an abrupt whispering sound all round the boat, and
Decoud took off his hat, and, letting his head get wet, felt greatly refreshed.
Presently a steady little draught of air caressed his cheek. The lighter began
to move, but the shower distanced it. The drops ceased to fall upon his head
and hands, the whispering died out in the distance. Nostromo emitted a grunt of
satisfaction, and grasping the tiller, chirruped softly, as sailors do, to
encourage the wind. Never for the last three days had Decoud felt less the need
for what the Capataz would call desperation.
"I fancy I hear
another shower on the water," he observed in a tone of quiet content.
"I hope it will catch us up."
Nostromo ceased
chirruping at once. "You hear another shower?" he said, doubtfully. A
sort of thinning of the darkness seemed to have taken place, and Decoud could
see now the outline of his companion's figure, and even the sail came out of
the night like a square block of dense snow.
The sound which Decoud
had detected came along the water harshly. Nostromo recognized that noise
partaking of a hiss and a rustle which spreads out on all sides of a steamer
making her way through a smooth water on a quiet night. It could be nothing
else but the captured transport with troops from Esmeralda. She carried no
lights. The noise of her steaming, growing louder every minute, would stop at
times altogether, and then begin again abruptly, and sound startlingly nearer;
as if that invisible vessel, whose position could not be precisely guessed,
were making straight for the lighter. Meantime, that last kept on sailing
slowly and noiselessly before a breeze so faint that it was only by leaning
over the side and feeling the water slip through his fingers that Decoud
convinced himself they were moving at all. His drowsy feeling had departed. He
was glad to know that the lighter was moving. After so much stillness the noise
of the steamer seemed uproarious and distracting. There was a weirdness in not
being able to see her. Suddenly all was still. She had stopped, but so close to
them that the steam, blowing off, sent its rumbling vibration right over their
heads.
"They are trying
to make out where they are," said Decoud in a whisper. Again he leaned
over and put his fingers into the water. "We are moving quite
smartly," he informed Nostromo.
"We seem to be
crossing her bows," said the Capataz in a cautious tone. "But this is
a blind game with death. Moving on is of no use. We mustn't be seen or
heard."
His whisper was hoarse
with excitement. Of all his face there was nothing visible but a gleam of white
eye- balls. His fingers gripped Decoud's shoulder. "That is the only way
to save this treasure from this steamer full of soldiers. Any other would have
carried lights. But you observe there is not a gleam to show us where she
is."
Decoud stood as if
paralyzed; only his thoughts were wildly active. In the space of a second he
remembered the desolate glance of Antonia as he left her at the bedside of her
father in the gloomy house of Avellanos, with shuttered windows, but all the doors
standing open, and deserted by all the servants except an old negro at the
gate. He remembered the Casa Gould on his last visit, the arguments, the tones
of his voice, the impenetrable attitude of Charles, Mrs. Gould's face so
blanched with anxiety and fatigue that her eyes seemed to have changed colour,
appearing nearly black by contrast. Even whole sentences of the proclamation
which he meant to make Barrios issue from his headquarters at Cayta as soon as
he got there passed through his mind; the very germ of the new State, the
Separationist proclamation which he had tried before he left to read hurriedly
to Don José, stretched out on his bed under the fixed gaze of his daughter. God
knows whether the old statesman had understood it; he was unable to speak, but
he had certainly lifted his arm off the coverlet; his hand had moved as if to
make the sign of the cross in the air, a gesture of blessing, of consent.
Decoud had that very draft in his pocket, written in pencil on several loose
sheets of paper, with the heavily-printed heading, "Administration of the
San Tomé Silver Mine. Sulaco. Republic of Costaguana." He had written it
furiously, snatching page after page on Charles Gould's table. Mrs. Gould had
looked several times over his shoulder as he wrote; but the Señor
Administrador, standing straddle-legged, would not even glance at it when it
was finished. He had waved it away firmly. It must have been scorn, and not
caution, since he never made a remark about the use of the Administration's
paper for such a compromising document. And that showed his disdain, the true
English disdain of common prudence, as if everything outside the range of their
own thoughts and feelings were unworthy of serious recognition. Decoud had the
time in a second or two to become furiously angry with Charles Gould, and even
resentful against Mrs. Gould, in whose care, tacitly it is true, he had left
the safety of Antonia. Better perish a thousand times than owe your
preservation to such people, he exclaimed mentally. The grip of Nostromo's
fingers never removed from his shoulder, tightening fiercely, recalled him to
himself.
"The darkness is
our friend," the Capataz murmured into his ear. "I am going to lower
the sail, and trust our escape to this black gulf. No eyes could make us out
lying silent with a naked mast. I will do it now, before this steamer closes
still more upon us. The faint creak of a block would betray us and the San Tomé
treasure into the hands of those thieves."
He moved about as
warily as a cat. Decoud heard no sound; and it was only by the disappearance of
the square blotch of darkness that he knew the yard had come down, lowered as
carefully as if it had been made of glass. Next moment he heard Nostromo's
quiet breathing by his side.
"You had better
not move at all from where you are, Don Martin," advised the Capataz,
earnestly. "You might stumble or displace something which would make a
noise. The sweeps and the punting poles are lying about. Move not for your
life. Por Dios, Don Martin," he went on in a keen but friendly whisper,
"I am so desperate that if I didn't know your worship to be a man of
courage, capable of standing stock still whatever happens, I would drive my
knife into your heart."
A deathlike stillness
surrounded the lighter. It was difficult to believe that there was near a
steamer full of men with many pairs of eyes peering from her bridge for some
hint of land in the night. Her steam had ceased blowing off, and she remained
stopped too far off apparently for any other sound to reach the lighter.
"Perhaps you
would, Capataz," Decoud began in a whisper. "However, you need not
trouble. There are other things than the fear of your knife to keep my heart
steady. It shall not betray you. Only, have you forgotten --"
"I spoke to you
openly as to a man as desperate as myself," explained the Capataz.
"The silver must be saved from the Monterists. I told Captain Mitchell
three times that I preferred to go alone. I told Don Carlos Gould, too. It was
in the Casa Gould. They had sent for me. The ladies were there; and when I
tried to explain why I did not wish to have you with me, they promised me, both
of them, great rewards for your safety. A strange way to talk to a man you are
sending out to an almost certain death. Those gentlefolk do not seem to have
sense enough to understand what they are giving one to do. I told them I could
do nothing for you. You would have been safer with the bandit Hernandez. It
would have been possible to ride out of the town with no greater risk than a
chance shot sent after you in the dark. But it was as if they had been deaf. I
had to promise I would wait for you under the harbour gate. I did wait. And now
because you are a brave man you are as safe as the silver. Neither more nor
less."
At that moment, as if
by way of comment upon Nostromo's words, the invisible steamer went ahead at
half speed only, as could be judged by the leisurely beat of her propeller. The
sound shifted its place markedly, but without coming nearer. It even grew a
little more distant right abeam of the lighter, and then ceased again.
"They are trying
for a sight of the Isabels," muttered Nostromo, "in order to make for
the harbour in a straight line and seize the Custom House with the treasure in
it. Have you ever seen the Commandant of Esmeralda, Sotillo? A handsome fellow,
with a soft voice. When I first came here I used to see him in the Calle
talking to the señoritas at the windows of the houses, and showing his white
teeth all the time. But one of my Cargadores, who had been a soldier, told me
that he had once ordered a man to be flayed alive in the remote Campo, where he
was sent recruiting amongst the people of the Estancias. It has never entered
his head that the Compania had a man capable of baffling his game."
The murmuring loquacity
of the Capataz disturbed Decoud like a hint of weakness. And yet, talkative
resolution may be as genuine as grim silence.
"Sotillo is not
baffled so far," he said. "Have you forgotten that crazy man
forward?"
Nostromo had not
forgotten Señor Hirsch. He reproached himself bitterly for not having visited
the lighter carefully before leaving the wharf. He reproached himself for not
having stabbed and flung Hirsch overboard at the very moment of discovery
without even looking at his face. That would have been consistent with the
desperate character of the affair. Whatever happened, Sotillo was already
baffled. Even if that wretch, now as silent as death, did anything to betray
the nearness of the lighter, Sotillo -- if Sotillo it was in command of the troops
on board -- would be still baffled of his plunder.
"I have an axe in
my hand," Nostromo whispered, wrathfully, "that in three strokes
would cut through the side down to the water's edge. Moreover, each lighter has
a plug in the stern, and I know exactly where it is. I feel it under the sole
of my foot."
Decoud recognized the
ring of genuine determination in the nervous murmurs, the vindictive excitement
of the famous Capataz. Before the steamer, guided by a shriek or two (for there
could be no more than that, Nostromo said, gnashing his teeth audibly), could
find the lighter there would be plenty of time to sink this treasure tied up
round his neck.
The last words he
hissed into Decoud's ear. Decoud said nothing. He was perfectly convinced. The
usual characteristic quietness of the man was gone. It was not equal to the
situation as he conceived it. Something deeper, something unsuspected by
everyone, had come to the surface. Decoud, with careful movements, slipped off
his overcoat and divested himself of his boots; he did not consider himself
bound in honour to sink with the treasure. His object was to get down to
Barrios, in Cayta, as the Capataz knew very well; and he, too, meant, in his
own way, to put into that attempt all the desperation of which he was capable.
Nostromo muttered, "True, true! You are a politician, señor. Rejoin the
army, and start another revolution." He pointed out, however, that there
was a little boat belonging to every lighter fit to carry two men, if not more.
Theirs was towing behind.
Of that Decoud had not
been aware. Of course, it was too dark to see, and it was only when Nostromo
put his hand upon its painter fastened to a cleat in the stern that he
experienced a full measure of relief. The prospect of finding himself in the
water and swimming, overwhelmed by ignorance and darkness, probably in a
circle, till he sank from exhaustion, was revolting. The barren and cruel
futility of such an end intimidated his affectation of careless pessimism. In
comparison to it, the chance of being left floating in a boat, exposed to
thirst, hunger, discovery, imprisonment, execution, presented itself with an
aspect of amenity worth securing even at the cost of some self-contempt. He did
not accept Nostromo's proposal that he should get into the boat at once.
"Something sudden may overwhelm us, señor," the Capataz remarked
promising faithfully, at the same time, to let go the painter at the moment
when the necessity became manifest.
But Decoud assured him
lightly that he did not mean to take to the boat till the very last moment, and
that then he meant the Capataz to come along, too. The darkness of the gulf was
no longer for him the end of all things. It was part of a living world since,
pervading it, failure and death could be felt at your elbow. And at the same
time it was a shelter. He exulted in its impenetrable obscurity. "Like a
wall, like a wall," he muttered to himself.
The only thing which
checked his confidence was the thought of Señor Hirsch. Not to have bound and
gagged him seemed to Decoud now the height of improvident folly. As long as the
miserable creature had the power to raise a yell he was a constant danger. His
abject terror was mute now, but there was no saying from what cause it might
suddenly find vent in shrieks.
This very madness of
fear which both Decoud and Nostromo had seen in the wild and irrational
glances, and in the continuous twitchings of his mouth, protected Señor Hirsch
from the cruel necessities of this desperate affair. The moment of silencing him
for ever had passed. As Nostromo remarked, in answer to Decoud's regrets, it
was too late! It could not be done without noise, especially in the ignorance
of the man's exact position. Wherever he had elected to crouch and tremble, it
was too hazardous to go near him. He would begin probably to yell for mercy. It
was much better to leave him quite alone since he was keeping so still. But to
trust to his silence became every moment a greater strain upon Decoud's
composure.
"I wish, Capataz,
you had not let the right moment pass," he murmured.
"What! To silence
him for ever? I thought it good to hear first how he came to be here. It was
too strange. Who could imagine that it was all an accident? Afterwards, señor,
when I saw you giving him water to drink, I could not do it. Not after I had
seen you holding up the can to his lips as though he were your brother. Señor,
that sort of necessity must not be thought of too long. And yet it would have
been no cruelty to take away from him his wretched life. It is nothing but
fear. Your compassion saved him then, Don Martin, and now it is too late. It
couldn't be done without noise."
In the steamer they
were keeping a perfect silence, and the stillness was so profound that Decoud
felt as if the slightest sound conceivable must travel unchecked and audible to
the end of the world. What if Hirsch coughed or sneezed? To feel himself at the
mercy of such an idiotic contingency was too exasperating to be looked upon
with irony. Nostromo, too, seemed to be getting restless. Was it possible, he
asked himself, that the steamer, finding the night too dark altogether,
intended to remain stopped where she was till daylight? He began to think that
this, after all, was the real danger. He was afraid that the darkness, which was
his protection, would, in the end, cause his undoing.
Sotillo, as Nostromo
had surmised, was in command on board the transport. The events of the last
forty- eight hours in Sulaco were not known to him; neither was he aware that
the telegraphist in Esmeralda had managed to warn his colleague in Sulaco. Like
a good many officers of the troops garrisoning the province, Sotillo had been
influenced in his adoption of the Ribierist cause by the belief that it had the
enormous wealth of the Gould Concession on its side. He had been one of the
frequenters of the Casa Gould, where he had aired his Blanco convictions and
his ardour for reform before Don José Avellanos, casting frank, honest glances
towards Mrs. Gould and Antonia the while. He was known to belong to a good
family persecuted and impoverished during the tyranny of Guzman Bento. The
opinions he expressed appeared eminently natural and proper in a man of his
parentage and antecedents. And he was not a deceiver; it was perfectly natural
for him to express elevated sentiments while his whole faculties were taken up
with what seemed then a solid and practical notion -- the notion that the
husband of Antonia Avellanos would be, naturally, the intimate friend of the
Gould Concession. He even pointed this out to Anzani once, when negotiating the
sixth or seventh small loan in the gloomy, damp apartment with enormous iron
bars, behind the principal shop in the whole row under the Arcades. He hinted
to the universal shopkeeper at the excellent terms he was on with the
emancipated señorita, who was like a sister to the Englishwoman. He would
advance one leg and put his arms akimbo, posing for Anzani's inspection, and
fixing him with a haughty stare.
"Look, miserable
shopkeeper! How can a man like me fail with any woman, let alone an emancipated
girl living in scandalous freedom?" he seemed to say.
His manner in the Casa
Gould was, of course, very different -- devoid of all truculence, and even
slightly mournful. Like most of his countrymen, he was carried away by the
sound of fine words, especially if uttered by himself. He had no convictions of
any sort upon anything except as to the irresistible power of his personal
advantages. But that was so firm that even Decoud's appearance in Sulaco, and
his intimacy with the Goulds and the Avellanos, did not disquiet him. On the
contrary, he tried to make friends with that rich Costaguanero from Europe in
the hope of borrowing a large sum by-and-by. The only guiding motive of his
life was to get money for the satisfaction of his expensive tastes, which he
indulged recklessly, having no self-control. He imagined himself a master of
intrigue, but his corruption was as simple as an animal instinct. At times, in
solitude, he had his moments of ferocity, and also on such occasions as, for
instance, when alone in a room with Anzani trying to get a loan.
He had talked himself
into the command of the Esmeralda garrison. That small seaport had its
importance as the station of the main submarine cable connecting the Occidental
Provinces with the outer world, and the junction with it of the Sulaco branch.
Don José Avellanos proposed him, and Barrios, with a rude and jeering guffaw,
had said, "Oh, let Sotillo go. He is a very good man to keep guard over
the cable, and the ladies of Esmeralda ought to have their turn." Barrios,
an indubitably brave man, had no great opinion of Sotillo.
It was through the
Esmeralda cable alone that the San Tomé mine could be kept in constant touch
with the great financier, whose tacit approval made the strength of the
Ribierist movement. This movement had its adversaries even there. Sotillo
governed Esmeralda with repressive severity till the adverse course of events
upon the distant theatre of civil war forced upon him the reflection that,
after all, the great silver mine was fated to become the spoil of the victors.
But caution was necessary. He began by assuming a dark and mysterious attitude
towards the faithful Ribierist municipality of Esmeralda. Later on, the
information that the commandant was holding assemblies of officers in the dead
of night (which had leaked out somehow) caused those gentlemen to neglect their
civil duties altogether, and remain shut up in their houses. Suddenly one day
all the letters from Sulaco by the overland courier were carried off by a file
of soldiers from the post office to the Commandancia, without disguise,
concealment, or apology. Sotillo had heard through Cayta of the final defeat of
Ribiera.
This was the first open
sign of the change in his convictions. Presently notorious democrats, who had
been living till then in constant fear of arrest, leg irons, and even
floggings, could be observed going in and out at the great door of the
Commandancia, where the horses of the orderlies doze under their heavy saddles,
while the men, in ragged uniforms and pointed straw hats, lounge on a bench,
with their naked feet stuck out beyond the strip of shade; and a sentry, in a
red baize coat with holes at the elbows, stands at the top of the steps glaring
haughtily at the common people, who uncover their heads to him as they pass.
Sotillo's ideas did not
soar above the care for his personal safety and the chance of plundering the
town in his charge, but he feared that such a late adhesion would earn but
scant gratitude from the victors. He had believed just a little too long in the
power of the San Tomé mine. The seized correspondence had confirmed his
previous information of a large amount of silver ingots lying in the Sulaco
Custom House. To gain possession of it would be a clear Monterist move; a sort
of service that would have to be rewarded. With the silver in his hands he
could make terms for himself and his soldiers. He was aware neither of the
riots, nor of the President's escape to Sulaco and the close pursuit led by Montero's
brother, the guerrillero. The game seemed in his own hands. The initial moves
were the seizure of the cable telegraph office and the securing of the
Government steamer lying in the narrow creek which is the harbour of Esmeralda.
The last was effected without difficulty by a company of soldiers swarming with
a rush over the gangways as she lay alongside the quay; but the lieutenant
charged with the duty of arresting the telegraphist halted on the way before
the only café in Esmeralda, where he distributed some brandy to his men, and
refreshed himself at the expense of the owner, a known Ribierist. The whole
party became intoxicated, and proceeded on their mission up the street yelling
and firing random shots at the windows. This little festivity, which might have
turned out dangerous to the telegraphist's life, enabled him in the end to send
his warning to Sulaco. The lieutenant, staggering upstairs with a drawn sabre,
was before long kissing him on both cheeks in one of those swift changes of
mood peculiar to a state of drunkenness. He clasped the telegraphist close
round the neck, assuring him that all the officers of the Esmeralda garrison
were going to be made colonels, while tears of happiness streamed down his
sodden face. Thus it came about that the town major, coming along later, found
the whole party sleeping on the stairs and in passages, and the telegraphist
(who scorned this chance of escape) very busy clicking the key of the
transmitter. The major led him away bareheaded, with his hands tied behind his
back, but concealed the truth from Sotillo, who remained in ignorance of the
warning despatched to Sulaco.
The colonel was not the
man to let any sort of darkness stand in the way of the planned surprise. It
appeared to him a dead certainty; his heart was set upon his object with an
ungovernable, childlike impatience. Ever since the steamer had rounded Punta Mala,
to enter the deeper shadow of the gulf, he had remained on the bridge in a
group of officers as excited as himself. Distracted between the coaxings and
menaces of Sotillo and his Staff, the miserable commander of the steamer kept
her moving with as much prudence as they would let him exercise. Some of them
had been drinking heavily, no doubt; but the prospect of laying hands on so
much wealth made them absurdly foolhardy, and, at the same time, extremely
anxious. The old major of the battalion, a stupid, suspicious man, who had
never been afloat in his life, distinguished himself by putting out suddenly
the binnacle light, the only one allowed on board for the necessities of
navigation. He could not understand of what use it could be for finding the way.
To the vehement protestations of the ship's captain, he stamped his foot and
tapped the handle of his sword. "Aha! I have unmasked you," he cried,
triumphantly. "You are tearing your hair from despair at my acuteness. Am
I a child to believe that a light in that brass box can show you where the
harbour is? I am an old soldier, I am. I can smell a traitor a league off. You
wanted that gleam to betray our approach to your friend the Englishman. A thing
like that show you the way! What a miserable lie! Que picardia! You Sulaco
people are all in the pay of those foreigners. You deserve to be run through
the body with my sword." Other officers, crowding round, tried to calm his
indignation, repeating persuasively, "No, no! This is an appliance of the
mariners, major. This is no treachery." The captain of the transport flung
himself face downwards on the bridge, and refused to rise. "Put an end to
me at once," he repeated in a stifled voice. Sotillo had to interfere.
The uproar and
confusion on the bridge became so great that the helmsman fled from the wheel.
He took refuge in the engine-room, and alarmed the engineers, who, disregarding
the threats of the soldiers set on guard over them, stopped the engines,
protesting that they would rather be shot than run the risk of being drowned
down below.
This was the first time
Nostromo and Decoud heard the steamer stop. After order had been restored, and
the binnacle lamp relighted, she went ahead again, passing wide of the lighter
in her search for the Isabels. The group could not be made out, and, at the
pitiful entreaties of the captain, Sotillo allowed the engines to be stopped
again to wait for one of those periodical lightenings of darkness caused by the
shifting of the cloud canopy spread above the waters of the gulf.
Sotillo, on the bridge,
muttered from time to time angrily to the captain. The other, in an apologetic
and cringing tone, begged su merced the colonel to take into consideration the
limitations put upon human faculties by the darkness of the night. Sotillo
swelled with rage and impatience. It was the chance of a lifetime.
"If your eyes are
of no more use to you than this, I shall have them put out," he yelled.
The captain of the
steamer made no answer, for just then the mass of the Great Isabel loomed up
darkly after a passing shower, then vanished, as if swept away by a wave of
greater obscurity preceding another downpour. This was enough for him. In the
voice of a man come back to life again, he informed Sotillo that in an hour he
would be alongside the Sulaco wharf. The ship was put then full speed on the
course, and a great bustle of preparation for landing arose among the soldiers
on her deck.
It was heard distinctly
by Decoud and Nostromo. The Capataz understood its meaning. They had made out
the Isabels, and were going on now in a straight line for Sulaco. He judged
that they would pass close; but believed that lying still like this, with the
sail lowered, the lighter could not be seen. "No, not even if they rubbed
sides with us," he muttered.
The rain began to fall
again; first like a wet mist, then with a heavier touch, thickening into a
smart, perpendicular downpour; and the hiss and thump of the approaching
steamer was coming extremely near. Decoud, with his eyes full of water, and lowered
head, asked himself how long it would be before she drew past, when
unexpectedly he felt a lurch. An inrush of foam broke swishing over the stern,
simultaneously with a crack of timbers and a staggering shock. He had the
impression of an angry hand laying hold of the lighter and dragging it along to
destruction. The shock, of course, had knocked him down, and he found himself
rolling in a lot of water at the bottom of the lighter. A violent churning went
on alongside; a strange and amazed voice cried out something above him in the
night. He heard a piercing shriek for help from Señor Hirsch. He kept his teeth
hard set all the time. It was a collision!
The steamer had struck
the lighter obliquely, heeling her over till she was half swamped, starting some
of her timbers, and swinging her head parallel to her own course with the force
of the blow. The shock of it on board of her was hardly perceptible. All the
violence of that collision was, as usual, felt only on board the smaller craft.
Even Nostromo himself thought that this was perhaps the end of his desperate
adventure. He, too, had been flung away from the long tiller, which took charge
in the lurch. Next moment the steamer would have passed on, leaving the lighter
to sink or swim after having shouldered her thus out of her way, and without
even getting a glimpse of her form, had it not been that, being deeply laden
with stores and the great number of people on board, her anchor was low enough
to hook itself into one of the wire shrouds of the lighter's mast. For the
space of two or three gasping breaths that new rope held against the sudden
strain. It was this that gave Decoud the sensation of the snatching pull,
dragging the lighter away to destruction. The cause of it, of course, was
inexplicable to him. The whole thing was so sudden that he had no time to
think. But all his sensations were perfectly clear; he had kept complete
possession of himself; in fact, he was even pleasantly aware of that calmness
at the very moment of being pitched head first over the transom, to struggle on
his back in a lot of water. Señor Hirsch's shriek he had heard and recognized
while he was regaining his feet, always with that mysterious sensation of being
dragged headlong through the darkness. Not a word, not a cry escaped him; he
had no time to see anything; and following upon the despairing screams for
help, the dragging motion ceased so suddenly that he staggered forward with
open arms and fell against the pile of the treasure boxes. He clung to them
instinctively, in the vague apprehension of being flung about again; and
immediately he heard another lot of shrieks for help, prolonged and despairing,
not near him at all, but unaccountably in the distance, away from the lighter
altogether, as if some spirit in the night were mocking at Señor Hirsch's
terror and despair.
Then all was still --
as still as when you wake up in your bed in a dark room from a bizarre and
agitated dream. The lighter rocked slightly; the rain was still falling. Two
groping hands took hold of his bruised sides from behind, and the Capataz's
voice whispered, in his ear, "Silence, for your life! Silence! The steamer
has stopped."
Decoud listened. The
gulf was dumb. He felt the water nearly up to his knees. "Are we
sinking?" he asked in a faint breath.
"I don't
know," Nostromo breathed back to him. "Señor, make not the slightest
sound."
Hirsch, when ordered
forward by Nostromo, had not returned into his first hiding-place. He had
fallen near the mast, and had no strength to rise; moreover, he feared to move.
He had given himself up for dead, but not on any rational grounds. It was
simply a cruel and terrifying feeling. Whenever he tried to think what would
become of him his teeth would start chattering violently. He was too absorbed
in the utter misery of his fear to take notice of anything.
Though he was stifling
under the lighter's sail which Nostromo had unwittingly lowered on top of him,
he did not even dare to put out his head till the very moment of the steamer
striking. Then, indeed, he leaped right out, spurred on to new miracles of
bodily vigour by this new shape of danger. The inrush of water when the lighter
heeled over unsealed his lips. His shriek, "Save me!" was the first
distinct warning of the collision for the people on board the steamer. Next
moment the wire shroud parted, and the released anchor swept over the lighter's
forecastle. It came against the breast of Señor Hirsch, who simply seized hold
of it, without in the least knowing what it was, but curling his arms and legs
upon the part above the fluke with an invincible, unreasonable tenacity. The
lighter yawed off wide, and the steamer, moving on, carried him away, clinging
hard, and shouting for help. It was some time, however, after the steamer had
stopped that his position was discovered. His sustained yelping for help seemed
to come from somebody swimming in the water. At last a couple of men went over
the bows and hauled him on board. He was carried straight off to Sotillo on the
bridge. His examination confirmed the impression that some craft had been run
over and sunk, but it was impracticable on such a dark night to look for the
positive proof of floating wreckage. Sotillo was more anxious than ever now to
enter the harbour without loss of time; the idea that he had destroyed the
principal object of his expedition was too intolerable to be accepted. This
feeling made the story he had heard appear the more incredible. Señor Hirsch,
after being beaten a little for telling lies, was thrust into the chart- room.
But he was beaten only a little. His tale had taken the heart out of Sotillo's
Staff, though they all repeated round their chief, "Impossible!
impossible!" with the exception of the old major, who triumphed gloomily.
"I told you; I
told you," he mumbled. "I could smell some treachery, some diableria
a league off."
Meantime, the steamer
had kept on her way towards Sulaco, where only the truth of that matter could
be ascertained. Decoud and Nostromo heard the loud churning of her propeller
diminish and die out; and then, with no useless words, busied themselves in
making for the Isabels. The last shower had brought with it a gentle but steady
breeze. The danger was not over yet, and there was no time for talk. The
lighter was leaking like a sieve. They splashed in the water at every step. The
Capataz put into Decoud's hands the handle of the pump which was fitted at the
side aft, and at once, without question or remark, Decoud began to pump in
utter forgetfulness of every desire but that of keeping the treasure afloat.
Nostromo hoisted the sail, flew back to the tiller, pulled at the sheet like
mad. The short flare of a match (they had been kept dry in a tight tin box,
though the man himself was completely wet), disclosed to the toiling Decoud the
eagerness of his face, bent low over the box of the compass, and the attentive
stare of his eyes. He knew now where he was, and he hoped to run the sinking
lighter ashore in the shallow cove where the high, cliff-like end of the Great
Isabel is divided in two equal parts by a deep and overgrown ravine.
Decoud pumped without
intermission. Nostromo steered without relaxing for a second the intense,
peering effort of his stare. Each of them was as if utterly alone with his
task. It did not occur to them to speak. There was nothing in common between
them but the knowledge that the damaged lighter must be slowly but surely
sinking. In that knowledge, which was like the crucial test of their desires,
they seemed to have become completely estranged, as if they had discovered in the
very shock of the collision that the loss of the lighter would not mean the
same thing to them both. This common danger brought their differences in aim,
in view, in character, and in position, into absolute prominence in the private
vision of each. There was no bond of conviction, of common idea; they were
merely two adventurers pursuing each his own adventure, involved in the same
imminence of deadly peril. Therefore they had nothing to say to each other. But
this peril, this only incontrovertible truth in which they shared, seemed to
act as an inspiration to their mental and bodily powers.
There was certainly
something almost miraculous in the way the Capataz made the cove with nothing
but the shadowy hint of the island's shape and the vague gleam of a small sandy
strip for a guide. Where the ravine opens between the cliffs, and a slender,
shallow rivulet meanders out of the bushes to lose itself in the sea, the
lighter was run ashore; and the two men, with a taciturn, undaunted energy,
began to discharge her precious freight, carrying each ox-hide box up the bed
of the rivulet beyond the bushes to a hollow place which the caving in of the
soil had made below the roots of a large tree. Its big smooth trunk leaned like
a falling column far over the trickle of water running amongst the loose
stones.
A couple of years
before Nostromo had spent a whole Sunday, all alone, exploring the island. He
explained this to Decoud after their task was done, and they sat, weary in
every limb, with their legs hanging down the low bank, and their backs against
the tree, like a pair of blind men aware of each other and their surroundings
by some indefinable sixth sense.
"Yes,"
Nostromo repeated, "I never forget a place I have carefully looked at
once." He spoke slowly, almost lazily, as if there had been a whole
leisurely life before him, instead of the scanty two hours before daylight. The
existence of the treasure, barely concealed in this improbable spot, laid a
burden of secrecy upon every contemplated step, upon every intention and plan
of future conduct. He felt the partial failure of this desperate affair
entrusted to the great reputation he had known how to make for himself.
However, it was also a partial success. His vanity was half appeased. His
nervous irritation had subsided.
"You never know
what may be of use," he pursued with his usual quietness of tone and
manner. "I spent a whole miserable Sunday in exploring this crumb of
land."
"A misanthropic
sort of occupation," muttered Decoud, viciously. "You had no money, I
suppose, to gamble with, and to fling about amongst the girls in your usual
haunts, Capataz."
"È vero!"
exclaimed the Capataz, surprised into the use of his native tongue by so much
perspicacity. "I had not! Therefore I did not want to go amongst those
beggarly people accustomed to my generosity. It is looked for from the Capataz
of the Cargadores, who are the rich men, and, as it were, the Caballeros
amongst the common people. I don't care for cards but as a pastime; and as to
those girls that boast of having opened their doors to my knock, you know I
wouldn't look at any one of them twice except for what the people would say.
They are queer, the good people of Sulaco, and I have got much useful
information simply by listening patiently to the talk of the women that
everybody believed I was in love with. Poor Teresa could never understand that.
On that particular Sunday, señor, she scolded so that I went out of the house
swearing that I would never darken their door again unless to fetch away my
hammock and my chest of clothes. Señor, there is nothing more exasperating than
to hear a woman you respect rail against your good reputation when you have not
a single brass coin in your pocket. I untied one of the small boats and pulled
myself out of the harbour with nothing but three cigars in my pocket to help me
spend the day on this island. But the water of this rivulet you hear under your
feet is cool and sweet and good, señor, both before and after a smoke." He
was silent for a while, then added reflectively, "That was the first
Sunday after I brought down the white-whiskered English rico all the way down
the mountains from the Paramo on the top of the Entrada Pass -- and in the
coach, too! No coach had gone up or down that mountain road within the memory
of man, señor, till I brought this one down in charge of fifty peons working
like one man with ropes, pickaxes, and poles under my direction. That was the
rich Englishman who, as people say, pays for the making of this railway. He was
very pleased with me. But my wages were not due till the end of the
month."
He slid down the bank
suddenly. Decoud heard the splash of his feet in the brook and followed his
footsteps down the ravine. His form was lost among the bushes till he had
reached the strip of sand under the cliff. As often happens in the gulf when
the showers during the first part of the night had been frequent and heavy, the
darkness had thinned considerably towards the morning though there were no
signs of daylight as yet.
The cargo-lighter,
relieved of its precious burden, rocked feebly, half-afloat, with her fore-foot
on the sand. A long rope stretched away like a black cotton thread across the
strip of white beach to the grapnel Nostromo had carried ashore and hooked to
the stem of a tree-like shrub in the very opening of the ravine.
There was nothing for
Decoud but to remain on the island. He received from Nostromo's hands whatever
food the foresight of Captain Mitchell had put on board the lighter and
deposited it temporarily in the little dinghy which on their arrival they had
hauled up out of sight amongst the bushes. It was to be left with him. The
island was to be a hiding-place, not a prison; he could pull out to a passing
ship. The O.S.N. Company's mail boats passed close to the islands when going
into Sulaco from the north. But the Minerva, carrying off the ex-president, had
taken the news up north of the disturbances in Sulaco. It was possible that the
next steamer down would get instructions to miss the port altogether since the
town, as far as the Minerva's officers knew, was for the time being in the
hands of the rabble. This would mean that there would be no steamer for a
month, as far as the mail service went; but Decoud had to take his chance of
that. The island was his only shelter from the proscription hanging over his
head. The Capataz was, of course, going back. The unloaded lighter leaked much
less, and he thought that she would keep afloat as far as the harbour.
He passed to Decoud,
standing knee-deep alongside, one of the two spades which belonged to the
equipment of each lighter for use when ballasting ships. By working with it
carefully as soon as there was daylight enough to see, Decoud could loosen a
mass of earth and stones overhanging the cavity in which they had deposited the
treasure, so that it would look as if it had fallen naturally. It would cover
up not only the cavity, but even all traces of their work, the footsteps, the
displaced stones, and even the broken bushes.
"Besides, who
would think of looking either for you or the treasure here?" Nostromo
continued, as if he could not tear himself away from the spot. "Nobody is
ever likely to come here. What could any man want with this piece of earth as
long as there is room for his feet on the mainland! The people in this country
are not curious. There are even no fishermen here to intrude upon your worship.
All the fishing that is done in the gulf goes on near Zapiga, over there. Señor,
if you are forced to leave this island before anything can be arranged for you,
do not try to make for Zapiga. It is a settlement of thieves and matreros,
where they would cut your throat promptly for the sake of your gold watch and
chain. And, señor, think twice before confiding in any one whatever; even in
the officers of the Company's steamers, if you ever get on board one. Honesty
alone is not enough for security. You must look to discretion and prudence in a
man. And always remember, señor, before you open your lips for a confidence,
that this treasure may be left safely here for hundreds of years. Time is on
its side, señor. And silver is an incorruptible metal that can be trusted to
keep its value for ever. . . . An incorruptible metal," he repeated, as if
the idea had given him a profound pleasure.
"As some men are said
to be," Decoud pronounced, inscrutably, while the Capataz, who busied
himself in baling out the lighter with a wooden bucket, went on throwing the
water over the side with a regular splash. Decoud, incorrigible in his
scepticism, reflected, not cynically, but with general satisfaction, that this
man was made incorruptible by his enormous vanity, that finest form of egoism
which can take on the aspect of every virtue.
Nostromo ceased baling,
and, as if struck with a sudden thought, dropped the bucket with a clatter into
the lighter.
"Have you any
message?" he asked in a lowered voice. "Remember, I shall be asked
questions."
"You must find the
hopeful words that ought to be spoken to the people in town. I trust for that
your intelligence and your experience, Capataz. You understand?"
"Si, señor. . . .
For the ladies."
"Yes, yes,"
said Decoud, hastily. "Your wonderful reputation will make them attach
great value to your words; therefore be careful what you say. I am looking
forward," he continued, feeling the fatal touch of contempt for himself to
which his complex nature was subject, "I am looking forward to a glorious
and successful ending to my mission. Do you hear, Capataz? Use the words
glorious and successful when you speak to the señorita. Your own mission is
accomplished gloriously and successfully. You have indubitably saved the silver
of the mine. Not only this silver, but probably all the silver that shall ever
come out of it."
Nostromo detected the
ironic tone. "I dare say, Señor Don Martin," he said, moodily.
"There are very few things that I am not equal to. Ask the foreign
signori. I, a man of the people, who cannot always understand what you mean. But
as to this lot which I must leave here, let me tell you that I would believe it
in greater safety if you had not been with me at all."
An exclamation escaped
Decoud, and a short pause followed. "Shall I go back with you to
Sulaco?" he asked in an angry tone.
"Shall I strike
you dead with my knife where you stand?" retorted Nostromo,
contemptuously. "It would be the same thing as taking you to Sulaco. Come,
señor. Your reputation is in your politics, and mine is bound up with the fate
of this silver. Do you wonder I wish there had been no other man to share my
knowledge? I wanted no one with me, señor."
"You could not
have kept the lighter afloat without me," Decoud almost shouted. "You
would have gone to the bottom with her."
"Yes,"
uttered Nostromo, slowly; "alone."
Here was a man, Decoud
reflected, that seemed as though he would have preferred to die rather than
deface the perfect form of his egoism. Such a man was safe. In silence he
helped the Capataz to get the grapnel on board. Nostromo cleared the shelving
shore with one push of the heavy oar, and Decoud found himself solitary on the
beach like a man in a dream. A sudden desire to hear a human voice once more
seized upon his heart. The lighter was hardly distinguishable from the black
water upon which she floated.
"What do you think
has become of Hirsch?" he shouted.
"Knocked overboard
and drowned," cried Nostromo's voice confidently out of the black wastes
of sky and sea around the islet. "Keep close in the ravine, señor. I shall
try to come out to you in a night or two."
A slight swishing
rustle showed that Nostromo was setting the sail. It filled all at once with a
sound as of a single loud drum-tap. Decoud went back to the ravine. Nostromo,
at the tiller, looked back from time to time at the vanishing mass of the Great
Isabel, which, little by little, merged into the uniform texture of the night.
At last, when he turned his head again, he saw nothing but a smooth darkness,
like a solid wall.
Then he, too,
experienced that feeling of solitude which had weighed heavily on Decoud after
the lighter had slipped off the shore. But while the man on the island was
oppressed by a bizarre sense of unreality affecting the very ground upon which
he walked, the mind of the Capataz of the Cargadores turned alertly to the
problem of future conduct. Nostromo's faculties, working on parallel lines,
enabled him to steer straight, to keep a look-out for Hermosa, near which he
had to pass, and to try to imagine what would happen tomorrow in Sulaco. To-morrow,
or, as a matter of fact, to-day, since the dawn was not very far, Sotillo would
find out in what way the treasure had gone. A gang of Cargadores had been
employed in loading it into a rail- way truck from the Custom House
store-rooms, and running the truck on to the wharf. There would be arrests
made, and certainly before noon Sotillo would know in what manner the silver
had left Sulaco, and who it was that took it out.
Nostromo's intention
had been to sail right into the harbour; but at this thought by a sudden touch
of the tiller he threw the lighter into the wind and checked her rapid way. His
re-appearance with the very boat would raise suspicions, would cause surmises,
would absolutely put Sotillo on the track. He himself would be arrested; and once
in the Calabozo there was no saying what they would do to him to make him
speak. He trusted himself, but he stood up to look round. Near by, Hermosa
showed low its white surface as flat as a table, with the slight run of the sea
raised by the breeze washing over its edges noisily. The lighter must be sunk
at once.
He allowed her to drift
with her sail aback. There was already a good deal of water in her. He allowed
her to drift towards the harbour entrance, and, letting the tiller swing about,
squatted down and busied himself in loosening the plug. With that out she would
fill very quickly, and every lighter carried a little iron ballast -- enough to
make her go down when full of water. When he stood up again the noisy wash
about the Hermosa sounded far away, almost inaudible; and already he could make
out the shape of land about the harbour entrance. This was a desperate affair,
and he was a good swimmer. A mile was nothing to him, and he knew of an easy
place for landing just below the earthworks of the old abandoned fort. It
occurred to him with a peculiar fascination that this fort was a good place in
which to sleep the day through after so many sleepless nights.
With one blow of the
tiller he unshipped for the purpose, he knocked the plug out, but did not take
the trouble to lower the sail. He felt the water welling up heavily about his
legs before he leaped on to the taffrail. There, upright and motionless, in his
shirt and trousers only, he stood waiting. When he had felt her settle he
sprang far away with a mighty splash.
At once he turned his
head. The gloomy, clouded dawn from behind the mountains showed him on the
smooth waters the upper corner of the sail, a dark wet triangle of canvas
waving slightly to and fro. He saw it vanish, as if jerked under, and then
struck out for the shore.
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 régime,
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 rail- way 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 rail-
way. 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 Señor 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 Doña 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 Tomé 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 José 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 Tomé 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 Tomé 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 Tomé
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, Isleños."
"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 rail- way 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 Isleño. 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! Vivala 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?"
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 Señor 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, bare- headed, 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 Señor 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 Tomé 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 Señor 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! 'Señor 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
Tomé 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 José 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.
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 put- up 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 offhand civility was slightly irresolute, as though he
were in doubt if civility were the proper course in this case. He observed
Captain Mitchell attentively before he spoke from the big armchair behind the
table in a condescending voice --
"I have concluded
not to detain you, Señor 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, Señor
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 señor 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, Señor
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, señor 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! señor
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 Tomé 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 Señores 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 Corbelàn'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 Corbelàn had left him. Indeed, Father Corbelàn,
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 Corbelàn,
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 Corbelàn 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 Corbelàn with a pencil by the camp-fire of
Hernandez, was addressed to Don José, 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 re-
conquest of the town.
"Heaven itself
wills it. Providence is on our side," wrote Father Corbelàn; 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 Corbelàn was unexpectedly offering them a refuge from Pedrito
Montero with his llaneros allied to Señores 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 Señor 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 José 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 Corbelàn'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
niña," 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 sereño in your service in
the San Tomé 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, señor,"
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, Doña
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 Corbelàn, 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, señor! 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 José 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!"
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
José'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 Tomé 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 Tomé 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 Señor Administrador of the San Tomé 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 Tomé mine a party to any formal proceedings.
"My advice, señores,
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, señores, 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 Tomé 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.
Leonardo told him that
the señora had not risen yet. The señora 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 señora, she must be asleep. Ever since she had
gone into her room after seeing the departure of Doña 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 Tomé 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 Tomé 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, self- respect, 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 Tomé 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 Tomé 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 dining- room
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 safe- guarding 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 Tomé 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 thunder- cloud 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 Tomé 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 Corbelàn 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.
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 Señor 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 Señores 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
Tomé 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 Señores
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
"PORVENIR" in immense black capitals, alternating with broken
windows, stared at him across the vast space; and he thought with delight of
the hour of vengeance, because he was very sure of laying his hands upon
Decoud. On his left hand, Gamacho, big and hot, wiping his hairy wet face,
uncovered a set of yellow fangs in a grin of stupid hilarity. On his right, Señor
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 Señor 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 Señor 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!"
Señor 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 Géfé Político
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 Señor 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 Señor 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, étagère 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 Señor
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.
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 Tomé 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 sereños 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 Pépé, 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 Pépé'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
sereños strolled back and forth before the bridge, on which they had stopped a
horseman holding a large white envelope in his hand. Then Don Pépé, 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 Señor Gobernador with his boots off, as
the saying is.
At a slight nod from
one of the sereños, the man, a messenger from the town, dismounted, and crossed
the bridge, leading his horse by the bridle.
Don Pépé 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 silver- mounted 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 Pépé, striding slowly in the direction of a little wooden belfry, looked
over a hedge into a little garden, and saw Father Romàn 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 Pépé 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 Pépé, in a mild and
humorous voice, informed Father Romàn that Pedrito Montero, by the hand of Señor
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 Pépé continued, the mozo who brought the letter said that Don
Carlos Gould was alive, and so far unmolested.
Father Romàn expressed
in a few words his thankfulness at hearing of the Señor 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 Tomé 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 maté. 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 Romàn 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 Pépé, 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 Pépé exposed these contingencies with
serenity to Father Romàn, who, as an old campaigner, was able to understand the
reasoning of a military man. They talked with simplicity and directness. Father
Romàn 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 Romàn'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 Tomé 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 Romàn was incapable of fanaticism to an almost
reprehensible degree. The English señora 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 señora presently,
he became gradually overcome with dismay. He voiced it in an agitated murmur.
Even Don Pépé 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 Señor 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 Pépé
the most natural thing in the world. His measures had been taken with judgment.
Everything was prepared with a careful completeness. And Don Pépé folded his
hands pacifically on his sword hilt, and nodded at the priest. In his
excitement, Father Romàn 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 Pépé 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.
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 Tomé
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 Tomé 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 Señor
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 Tomé 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 Tomé 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 cold- blooded 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 daïs 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 Cæsarism: the
imperial rule based upon the direct popular vote. Cæsarism 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. Cæsarism
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 régime 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 Tomé 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 Pépé there. Fuentes must have told
him. They know that the old major is perfectly capable of blowing up the San
Tomé 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 Pépé. 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 Tomé 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 Pépé
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 Pépé'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 Pépé 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 Pépé 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 Pépé'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.
He was known for being loco. Nobody interfered with him. From under the seaward
gate, across the dusty, arid plain, interspersed with low bushes, he saw, more
than a mile away, the ugly enormity of the Custom House, and the two or three
other buildings which at that time constituted the seaport of Sulaco. Far away
to the south groves of palm trees edged the curve of the harbour shore. The
distant peaks of the Cordillera had lost their identity of clear- cut shapes in
the steadily deepening blue of the eastern sky. The doctor walked briskly. A
darkling shadow seemed to fall upon him from the zenith. The sun had set. For a
time the snows of Higuerota continued to glow with the reflected glory of the
west. The doctor, holding a straight course for the Custom House, appeared
lonely, hopping amongst the dark bushes like a tall bird with a broken wing.
Tints of purple, gold,
and crimson were mirrored in the clear water of the harbour. A long tongue of
land, straight as a wall, with the grass-grown ruins of the fort making a sort
of rounded green mound, plainly visible from the inner shore, closed its
circuit; while beyond the Placid Gulf repeated those splendours of colouring on
a greater scale and with a more sombre magnificence. The great mass of cloud
filling the head of the gulf had long red smears amongst its convoluted folds
of grey and black, as of a floating mantle stained with blood. The three
Isabels, overshadowed and clear cut in a great smoothness confounding the sea
and sky, appeared suspended, purple-black, in the air. The little wavelets
seemed to be tossing tiny red sparks upon the sandy beaches. The glassy bands
of water along the horizon gave out a fiery red glow, as if fire and water had
been mingled together in the vast bed of the ocean.
At last the
conflagration of sea and sky, lying embraced and still in a flaming contact
upon the edge of the world, went out. The red sparks in the water vanished
together with the stains of blood in the black mantle draping the sombre head
of the Placid Gulf; a sudden breeze sprang up and died out after rustling
heavily the growth of bushes on the ruined earthwork of the fort. Nostromo woke
up from a fourteen hours' sleep, and arose full length from his lair in the
long grass. He stood knee deep amongst the whispering undulations of the green
blades with the lost air of a man just born into the world. Handsome, robust,
and supple, he threw back his head, flung his arms open, and stretched himself
with a slow twist of the waist and a leisurely growling yawn of white teeth, as
natural and free from evil in the moment of waking as a magnificent and
unconscious wild beast. Then, in the suddenly steadied glance fixed upon
nothing from under a thoughtful frown, appeared the man.
AFTER landing from his
swim Nostromo had scrambled up, all dripping, into the main quadrangle of the
old fort; and there, amongst ruined bits of walls and rotting remnants of roofs
and sheds, he had slept the day through. He had slept in the shadow of the
mountains, in the white blaze of noon, in the stillness and solitude of that
overgrown piece of land between the oval of the harbour and the spacious
semi-circle of the gulf. He lay as if dead. A rey-zamuro, appearing like a tiny
black speck in the blue, stooped, circling prudently with a stealthiness of
flight startling in a bird of that great size. The shadow of his pearly-white
body, of his black-tipped wings, fell on the grass no more silently than he
alighted himself on a hillock of rubbish within three yards of that man, lying
as still as a corpse. The bird stretched his bare neck, craned his bald head,
loathsome in the brilliance of varied colouring, with an air of voracious
anxiety towards the promising stillness of that prostrate body. Then, sinking
his head deeply into his soft plumage, he settled himself to wait. The first
thing upon which Nostromo's eyes fell on waking was this patient watcher for
the signs of death and corruption. When the man got up the vulture hopped away
in great, side-long, fluttering jumps. He lingered for a while, morose and
reluctant, before he rose, circling noiselessly with a sinister droop of beak
and claws.
Long after he had
vanished, Nostromo, lifting his eyes up to the sky, muttered, "I am not
dead yet."
The Capataz of the
Sulaco Cargadores had lived in splendour and publicity up to the very moment,
as it were, when he took charge of the lighter containing the treasure of
silver ingots.
The last act he had
performed in Sulaco was in complete harmony with his vanity, and as such
perfectly genuine. He had given his last dollar to an old woman moaning with
the grief and fatigue of a dismal search under the arch of the ancient gate.
Performed in obscurity and without witnesses, it had still the characteristics
of splendour and publicity, and was in strict keeping with his reputation. But
this awakening in solitude, except for the watchful vulture, amongst the ruins
of the fort, had no such characteristics. His first confused feeling was
exactly this -- that it was not in keeping. It was more like the end of things.
The necessity of living concealed somehow, for God knows how long, which
assailed him on his return to consciousness, made everything that had gone
before for years appear vain and foolish, like a flattering dream come suddenly
to an end.
He climbed the
crumbling slope of the rampart, and, putting aside the bushes, looked upon the
harbour. He saw a couple of ships at anchor upon the sheet of water reflecting
the last gleams of light, and Sotillo's steamer moored to the jetty. And behind
the pale long front of the Custom House, there appeared the extent of the town
like a grove of thick timber on the plain with a gateway in front, and the
cupolas, towers, and miradors rising above the trees, all dark, as if
surrendered already to the night. The thought that it was no longer open to him
to ride through the streets, recognized by everyone, great and little, as he
used to do every evening on his way to play monte in the posada of the Mexican
Domingo; or to sit in the place of honour, listening to songs and looking at
dances, made it appear to him as a town that had no existence.
For a long time he
gazed on, then let the parted bushes spring back, and, crossing over to the
other side of the fort, surveyed the vaster emptiness of the great gulf. The
Isabels stood out heavily upon the narrowing long band of red in the west,
which gleamed low between their black shapes, and the Capataz thought of Decoud
alone there with the treasure. That man was the only one who cared whether he
fell into the hands of the Monterists or not, the Capataz reflected bitterly.
And that merely would be an anxiety for his own sake. As to the rest, they
neither knew nor cared. What he had heard Giorgio Viola say once was very true.
Kings, ministers, aristocrats, the rich in general, kept the people in poverty
and subjection; they kept them as they kept dogs, to fight and hunt for their
service.
The darkness of the sky
had descended to the line of the horizon, enveloping the whole gulf, the
islets, and the lover of Antonia alone with the treasure on the Great Isabel.
The Capataz, turning his back on these things invisible and existing, sat down
and took his face between his fists. He felt the pinch of poverty for the first
time in his life. To find himself without money after a run of bad luck at
monte in the low, smoky room of Domingo's posada, where the fraternity of
Cargadores gambled, sang, and danced of an evening; to remain with empty
pockets after a burst of public generosity to some peyne d'oro girl or other
(for whom he did not care), had none of the humiliation of destitution. He
remained rich in glory and reputation. But since it was no longer possible for
him to parade the streets of the town, and be hailed with respect in the usual
haunts of his leisure, this sailor felt himself destitute indeed.
His mouth was dry. It
was dry with heavy sleep and extremely anxious thinking, as it had never been
dry before. It may be said that Nostromo tasted the dust and ashes of the fruit
of life into which he had bitten deeply in his hunger for praise. Without
removing his head from between his fists, he tried to spit before him --
"Tfui" -- and muttered a curse upon the selfishness of all the rich
people.
Since everything seemed
lost in Sulaco (and that was the feeling of his waking), the idea of leaving
the country altogether had presented itself to Nostromo. At that thought he had
seen, like the beginning of another dream, a vision of steep and tideless
shores, with dark pines on the heights and white houses low down near a very
blue sea. He saw the quays of a big port, where the coasting feluccas, with
their lateen sails outspread like motionless wings, enter gliding silently
between the end of long moles of squared blocks that project angularly towards
each other, hugging a cluster of shipping to the superb bosom of a hill covered
with palaces. He remembered these sights not without some filial emotion,
though he had been habitually and severely beaten as a boy on one of these
feluccas by a short-necked, shaven Genoese, with a deliberate and distrustful
manner, who (he firmly believed) had cheated him out of his orphan's
inheritance. But it is mercifully decreed that the evils of the past should
appear but faintly in retrospect. Under the sense of loneliness, abandonment,
and failure, the idea of return to these things appeared tolerable. But, what?
Return? With bare feet and head, with one check shirt and a pair of cotton
calzoneros for all worldly possessions?
The renowned Capataz, his
elbows on his knees and a fist dug into each cheek, laughed with self-derision,
as he had spat with disgust, straight out before him into the night. The
confused and intimate impressions of universal dissolution which beset a
subjective nature at any strong check to its ruling passion had a bitterness
approaching that of death itself. He was simple. He was as ready to become the
prey of any belief, superstition, or desire as a child.
The facts of his
situation he could appreciate like a man with a distinct experience of the
country. He saw them clearly. He was as if sobered after a long bout of
intoxication. His fidelity had been taken advantage of. He had persuaded the
body of Cargadores to side with the Blancos against the rest of the people; he
had had interviews with Don José; he had been made use of by Father Corbelàn
for negotiating with Hernandez; it was known that Don Martin Decoud had
admitted him to a sort of intimacy, so that he had been free of the offices of
the Porvenir. All these things had flattered him in the usual way. What did he
care about their politics? Nothing at all. And at the end of it all -- Nostromo
here and Nostromo there -- where is Nostromo? Nostromo can do this and that --
work all day and ride all night -- behold! he found himself a marked Ribierist
for any sort of vengeance Gamacho, for instance, would choose to take, now the
Montero party, had, after all, mastered the town. The Europeans had given up;
the Caballeros had given up. Don Martin had indeed explained it was only
temporary -- that he was going to bring Barrios to the rescue. Where was that
now -- with Don Martin (whose ironic manner of talk had always made the Capataz
feel vaguely uneasy) stranded on the Great Isabel? Everybody had given up. Even
Don Carlos had given up. The hurried removal of the treasure out to sea meant
nothing else than that. The Capataz de Cargadores, on a revulsion of
subjectiveness, exasperated almost to insanity, beheld all his world without
faith and courage. He had been betrayed!
With the boundless
shadows of the sea behind him, out of his silence and immobility, facing the
lofty shapes of the lower peaks crowded around the white, misty sheen of
Higuerota, Nostromo laughed aloud again, sprang abruptly to his feet, and stood
still. He must go. But where?
"There is no
mistake. They keep us and encourage us as if we were dogs born to fight and
hunt for them. The vecchio is right," he said, slowly and scathingly. He
remembered old Giorgio taking his pipe out of his mouth to throw these words
over his shoulder at the café, full of engine-drivers and fitters from the
railway workshops. This image fixed his wavering purpose. He would try to find
old Giorgio if he could. God knows what might have happened to him! He made a
few steps, then stopped again and shook his head. To the left and right, in
front and behind him, the scrubby bush rustled mysteriously in the darkness.
"Teresa was right,
too," he added in a low tone touched with awe. He wondered whether she was
dead in her anger with him or still alive. As if in answer to this thought,
half of remorse and half of hope, with a soft flutter and oblique flight, a big
owl, whose appalling cry: "Ya-acabo! Ya-acabo! -- it is finished; it is
finished" -- announces calamity and death in the popular belief, drifted
vaguely like a large dark ball across his path. In the downfall of all the
realities that made his force, he was affected by the superstition, and
shuddered slightly. Signora Teresa must have died, then. It could mean nothing
else. The cry of the ill-omened bird, the first sound he was to hear on his
return, was a fitting welcome for his betrayed individuality. The unseen powers
which he had offended by refusing to bring a priest to a dying woman were
lifting up their voice against him. She was dead. With admirable and human
consistency he referred everything to himself. She had been a woman of good
counsel always. And the bereaved old Giorgio remained stunned by his loss just
as he was likely to require the advice of his sagacity. The blow would render
the dreamy old man quite stupid for a time.
As to Captain Mitchell,
Nostromo, after the manner of trusted subordinates, considered him as a person
fitted by education perhaps to sign papers in an office and to give orders, but
otherwise of no use whatever, and something of a fool. The necessity of winding
round his little finger, almost daily, the pompous and testy self-importance of
the old seaman had grown irksome with use to Nostromo. At first it had given
him an inward satisfaction. But the necessity of overcoming small obstacles
becomes wearisome to a self-confident personality as much by the certitude of
success as by the monotony of effort. He mistrusted his superior's proneness to
fussy action. That old Englishman had no judgment, he said to himself. It was
useless to suppose that, acquainted with the true state of the case, he would
keep it to himself. He would talk of doing impracticable things. Nostromo
feared him as one would fear saddling one's self with some persistent worry. He
had no discretion. He would betray the treasure. And Nostromo had made up his
mind that the treasure should not be betrayed.
The word had fixed
itself tenaciously in his intelligence. His imagination had seized upon the
clear and simple notion of betrayal to account for the dazed feeling of
enlightenment as to being done for, of having inadvertently gone out of his
existence on an issue in which his personality had not been taken into account.
A man betrayed is a man destroyed. Signora Teresa (may God have her soul!) had
been right. He had never been taken into account. Destroyed! Her white form
sitting up bowed in bed, the falling black hair, the wide-browed suffering face
raised to him, the anger of her denunciations appeared to him now majestic with
the awfulness of inspiration and of death. For it was not for nothing that the
evil bird had uttered its lamentable shriek over his head. She was dead -- may
God have her soul!
Sharing in the
anti-priestly freethought of the masses, his mind used the pious formula from
the superficial force of habit, but with a deep-seated sincerity. The popular
mind is incapable of scepticism; and that incapacity delivers their helpless
strength to the wiles of swindlers and to the pitiless enthusiasms of leaders
inspired by visions of a high destiny. She was dead. But would God consent to
receive her soul? She had died without confession or absolution, because he had
not been willing to spare her another moment of his time. His scorn of priests
as priests remained; but after all, it was impossible to know whether what they
affirmed was not true. Power, punishment, pardon, are simple and credible
notions. The magnificent Capataz de Cargadores, deprived of certain simple
realities, such as the admiration of women, the adulation of men, the admired
publicity of his life, was ready to feel the burden of sacrilegious guilt
descend upon his shoulders.
Bareheaded, in a thin
shirt and drawers, he felt the lingering warmth of the fine sand under the
soles of his feet. The narrow strand gleamed far ahead in a long curve,
defining the outline of this wild side of the harbour. He flitted along the
shore like a pursued shadow between the sombre palm-groves and the sheet of
water lying as still as death on his right hand. He strode with headlong haste
in the silence and solitude as though he had forgotten all prudence and
caution. But he knew that on this side of the water he ran no risk of
discovery. The only inhabitant was a lonely, silent, apathetic Indian in charge
of the palmarias, who brought sometimes a load of cocoanuts to the town for
sale. He lived without a woman in an open shed, with a perpetual fire of dry
sticks smouldering near an old canoe lying bottom up on the beach. He could be
easily avoided.
The barking of the dogs
about that man's ranche was the first thing that checked his speed. He had
forgotten the dogs. He swerved sharply, and plunged into the palm-grove, as
into a wilderness of columns in an immense hall, whose dense obscurity seemed
to whisper and rustle faintly high above his head. He traversed it, entered a
ravine, and climbed to the top of a steep ridge free of trees and bushes.
From there, open and
vague in the starlight, he saw the plain between the town and the harbour. In
the woods above some night-bird made a strange drumming noise. Below beyond the
palmaria on the beach, the Indian's dogs continued to bark uproariously. He
wondered what had upset them so much, and, peering down from his elevation, was
surprised to detect unaccountable movements of the ground below, as if several
oblong pieces of the plain had been in motion. Those dark, shifting patches,
alternately catching and eluding the eye, altered their place always away from
the harbour, with a suggestion of consecutive order and purpose. A light dawned
upon him. It was a column of infantry on a night march towards the higher
broken country at the foot of the hills. But he was too much in the dark about
everything for wonder and speculation.
The plain had resumed
its shadowy immobility. He descended the ridge and found himself in the open
solitude, between the harbour and the town. Its spaciousness, extended
indefinitely by an effect of obscurity, rendered more sensible his profound
isolation. His pace became slower. No one waited for him; no one thought of
him; no one expected or wished his return. "Betrayed! Betrayed!" he
muttered to himself. No one cared. He might have been drowned by this time. No
one would have cared -- unless, perhaps, the children, he thought to himself.
But they were with the English signora, and not thinking of him at all.
He wavered in his
purpose of making straight for the Casa Viola. To what end? What could he
expect there? His life seemed to fail him in all its details, even to the
scornful reproaches of Teresa. He was aware painfully of his reluctance. Was it
that remorse which she had prophesied with, what he saw now, was her last
breath?
Meantime, he had
deviated from the straight course, inclining by a sort of instinct to the
right, towards the jetty and the harbour, the scene of his daily labours. The
great length of the Custom House loomed up all at once like the wall of a
factory. Not a soul challenged his approach, and his curiosity became excited
as he passed cautiously towards the front by the unexpected sight of two
lighted windows.
They had the
fascination of a lonely vigil kept by some mysterious watcher up there, those
two windows shining dimly upon the harbour in the whole vast extent of the
abandoned building. The solitude could almost be felt. A strong smell of wood
smoke hung about in a thin haze, which was faintly perceptible to his raised
eyes against the glitter of the stars. As he advanced in the profound silence,
the shrilling of innumerable cicalas in the dry grass seemed positively
deafening to his strained ears. Slowly, step by step, he found himself in the
great hall, sombre and full of acrid smoke.
A fire built against
the staircase had burnt down impotently to a low heap of embers. The hard wood
had failed to catch; only a few steps at the bottom smouldered, with a creeping
glow of sparks defining their charred edges. At the top he saw a streak of
light from an open door. It fell upon the vast landing, all foggy with a slow
drift of smoke. That was the room. He climbed the stairs, then checked himself,
because he had seen within the shadow of a man cast upon one of the walls. It
was a shapeless, high- shouldered shadow of somebody standing still, with
lowered head, out of his line of sight. The Capataz, remembering that he was
totally unarmed, stepped aside, and, effacing himself upright in a dark corner,
waited with his eyes fixed on the door.
The whole enormous
ruined barrack of a place, unfinished, without ceilings under its lofty roof,
was pervaded by the smoke swaying to and fro in the faint cross draughts
playing in the obscurity of many lofty rooms and barnlike passages. Once one of
the swinging shutters came against the wall with a single sharp crack, as if
pushed by an impatient hand. A piece of paper scurried out from somewhere, rustling
along the landing. The man, whoever he was, did not darken the lighted doorway.
Twice the Capataz, advancing a couple of steps out of his corner, craned his
neck in the hope of catching sight of what he could be at, so quietly, in
there. But every time he saw only the distorted shadow of broad shoulders and
bowed head. He was doing apparently nothing, and stirred not from the spot, as
though he were meditating -- or, perhaps, reading a paper. And not a sound
issued from the room.
Once more the Capataz
stepped back. He wondered who it was -- some Monterist? But he dreaded to show
himself. To discover his presence on shore, unless after many days, would, he
believed, endanger the treasure. With his own knowledge possessing his whole
soul, it seemed impossible that anybody in Sulaco should fail to jump at the
right surmise. After a couple of weeks or so it would be different. Who could
tell he had not returned overland from some port beyond the limits of the
Republic? The existence of the treasure confused his thoughts with a peculiar
sort of anxiety, as though his life had become bound up with it. It rendered
him timorous for a moment before that enigmatic, lighted door. Devil take the
fellow! He did not want to see him. There would be nothing to learn from his
face, known or unknown. He was a fool to waste his time there in waiting.
Less than five minutes
after entering the place the Capataz began his retreat. He got away down the
stairs with perfect success, gave one upward look over his shoulder at the
light on the landing, and ran stealthily across the hall. But at the very
moment he was turning out of the great door, with his mind fixed upon escaping
the notice of the man upstairs, somebody he had not heard coming briskly along
the front ran full into him. Both muttered a stifled exclamation of surprise,
and leaped back and stood still, each indistinct to the other. Nostromo was
silent. The other man spoke first, in an amazed and deadened tone.
"Who are
you?"
Already Nostromo had
seemed to recognize Dr. Monygham. He had no doubt now. He hesitated the space
of a second. The idea of bolting without a word presented itself to his mind.
No use! An inexplicable repugnance to pronounce the name by which he was known
kept him silent a little longer. At last he said in a low voice --
"A Cargador."
He walked up to the
other. Dr. Monygham had received a shock. He flung his arms up and cried out
his wonder aloud, forgetting himself before the marvel of this meeting.
Nostromo angrily warned him to moderate his voice. The Custom House was not so
deserted as it looked. There was somebody in the lighted room above.
There is no more
evanescent quality in an accomplished fact than its wonderfulness. Solicited
incessantly by the considerations affecting its fears and desires, the human
mind turns naturally away from the marvellous side of events. And it was in the
most natural way possible that the doctor asked this man whom only two minutes
before he believed to have been drowned in the gulf --
"You have seen
somebody up there? Have you?"
"No, I have not
seen him."
"Then how do you
know?"
"I was running
away from his shadow when we met."
"His shadow?"
"Yes. His shadow
in the lighted room," said Nostromo, in a contemptuous tone. Leaning back
with folded arms at the foot of the immense building, he dropped his head,
biting his lips slightly, and not looking at the doctor. "Now," he
thought to himself, "he will begin asking me about the treasure."
But the doctor's
thoughts were concerned with an event not as marvellous as Nostromo's
appearance, but in itself much less clear. Why had Sotillo taken himself off
with his whole command with this suddenness and secrecy? What did this move
portend? However, it dawned upon the doctor that the man upstairs was one of
the officers left behind by the disappointed colonel to communicate with him.
"I believe he is
waiting for me," he said.
"It is
possible."
"I must see. Do
not go away yet, Capataz."
"Go away
where?" muttered Nostromo.
Already the doctor had
left him. He remained leaning against the wall, staring at the dark water of
the harbour; the shrilling of cicalas filled his ears. An invincible vagueness
coming over his thoughts took from them all power to determine his will.
"Capataz!
Capataz!" the doctor's voice called urgently from above.
The sense of betrayal
and ruin floated upon his sombre indifference as upon a sluggish sea of pitch.
But he stepped out from under the wall, and, looking up, saw Dr. Monygham
leaning out of a lighted window.
"Come up and see
what Sotillo has done. You need not fear the man up here."
He answered by a
slight, bitter laugh. Fear a man! The Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores fear a
man! It angered him that anybody should suggest such a thing. It angered him to
be disarmed and skulking and in danger because of the accursed treasure, which
was of so little account to the people who had tied it round his neck. He could
not shake off the worry of it. To Nostromo the doctor represented all these
people. . . . And he had never even asked after it. Not a word of inquiry about
the most desperate undertaking of his life.
Thinking these
thoughts, Nostromo passed again through the cavernous hall, where the smoke was
considerably thinned, and went up the stairs, not so warm to his feet now,
towards the streak of light at the top. The doctor appeared in it for a moment,
agitated and impatient.
"Come up! Come
up!"
At the moment of
crossing the doorway the Capataz experienced a shock of surprise. The man had
not moved. He saw his shadow in the same place. He started, then stepped in
with a feeling of being about to solve a mystery.
It was very simple. For
an infinitesimal fraction of a second, against the light of two flaring and
guttering candles, through a blue, pungent, thin haze which made his eyes
smart, he saw the man standing, as he had imagined him, with his back to the
door, casting an enormous and distorted shadow upon the wall. Swifter than a
flash of lightning followed the impression of his constrained, toppling
attitude -- the shoulders projecting forward, the head sunk low upon the
breast. Then he distinguished the arms behind his back, and wrenched so
terribly that the two clenched fists, lashed together, had been forced up
higher than the shoulder-blades. From there his eyes traced in one
instantaneous glance the hide rope going upwards from the tied wrists over a
heavy beam and down to a staple in the wall. He did not want to look at the
rigid legs, at the feet hanging down nervelessly, with their bare toes some six
inches above the floor, to know that the man had been given the estrapade till
he had swooned. His first impulse was to dash forward and sever the rope at one
blow. He felt for his knife. He had no knife -- not even a knife. He stood
quivering, and the doctor, perched on the edge of the table, facing
thoughtfully the cruel and lamentable sight, his chin in his hand, uttered,
without stirring --
"Tortured -- and
shot dead through the breast -- getting cold."
This information calmed
the Capataz. One of the candles flickering in the socket went out. "Who
did this?" he asked.
"Sotillo, I tell
you. Who else? Tortured -- of course. But why shot?" The doctor looked
fixedly at Nostromo, who shrugged his shoulders slightly. "And mark, shot
suddenly, on impulse. It is evident. I wish I had his secret."
Nostromo had advanced,
and stooped slightly to look. "I seem to have seen that face
somewhere," he muttered. "Who is he?"
The doctor turned his eyes
upon him again. "I may yet come to envying his fate. What do you think of
that, Capataz, eh?"
But Nostromo did not
even hear these words. Seizing the remaining light, he thrust it under the
drooping head. The doctor sat oblivious, with a lost gaze. Then the heavy iron
candlestick, as if struck out of Nostromo's hand, clattered on the floor.
"Hullo!"
exclaimed the doctor, looking up with a start. He could hear the Capataz
stagger against the table and gasp. In the sudden extinction of the light within,
the dead blackness sealing the window- frames became alive with stars to his
sight.
"Of course, of
course," the doctor muttered to himself in English. "Enough to make
him jump out of his skin."
Nostromo's heart seemed
to force itself into his throat. His head swam. Hirsch! The man was Hirsch! He
held on tight to the edge of the table.
"But he was hiding
in the lighter," he almost shouted His voice fell. "In the lighter,
and -- and --"
"And Sotillo
brought him in," said the doctor. "He is no more startling to you
than you were to me. What I want to know is how he induced some compassionate
soul to shoot him."
"So Sotillo knows
--" began Nostromo, in a more equable voice.
"Everything!"
interrupted the doctor.
The Capataz was heard
striking the table with his fist. "Everything? What are you saying, there?
Everything? Know everything? It is impossible! Everything?"
"Of course. What
do you mean by impossible? I tell you I have heard this Hirsch questioned last
night, here, in this very room. He knew your name, Decoud's name, and all about
the loading of the silver. . . . The lighter was cut in two. He was grovelling
in abject terror before Sotillo, but he remembered that much. What do you want
more? He knew least about himself. They found him clinging to their anchor. He
must have caught at it just as the lighter went to the bottom."
"Went to the
bottom?" repeated Nostromo, slowly. "Sotillo believes that?
Bueno!"
The doctor, a little
impatiently, was unable to imagine what else could anybody believe. Yes,
Sotillo believed that the lighter was sunk, and the Capataz de Cargadores,
together with Martin Decoud and perhaps one or two other political fugitives,
had been drowned.
"I told you well,
señor doctor," remarked Nostromo at that point, "that Sotillo did not
know everything."
"Eh? What do you
mean?"
"He did not know I
was not dead."
"Neither did
we."
"And you did not
care -- none of you caballeros on the wharf -- once you got off a man of flesh
and blood like yourselves on a fool's business that could not end well."
"You forget,
Capataz, I was not on the wharf. And I did not think well of the business. So
you need not taunt me. I tell you what, man, we had but little leisure to think
of the dead. Death stands near behind us all. You were gone."
"I went,
indeed!" broke in Nostromo. "And for the sake of what -- tell
me?"
"Ah! that is your
own affair," the doctor said, roughly. "Do not ask me."
Their flowing murmurs
paused in the dark. Perched on the edge of the table with slightly averted
faces, they felt their shoulders touch, and their eyes remained directed
towards an upright shape nearly lost in the obscurity of the inner part of the
room, that with projecting head and shoulders, in ghastly immobility, seemed
intent on catching every word.
"Muy bien!"
Nostromo muttered at last. "So be it. Teresa was right. It is my own
affair."
"Teresa is
dead," remarked the doctor, absently, while his mind followed a new line
of thought suggested by what might have been called Nostromo's return to life.
"She died, the poor woman."
"Without a
priest?" the Capataz asked, anxiously.
"What a question!
Who could have got a priest for her last night?"
"May God keep her
soul!" ejaculated Nostromo, with a gloomy and hopeless fervour which had
no time to surprise Dr. Monygham, before, reverting to their previous
conversation, he continued in a sinister tone, "Si, señor doctor. As you
were saying, it is my own affair. A very desperate affair."
"There are no two
men in this part of the world that could have saved themselves by swimming as
you have done," the doctor said, admiringly.
And again there was
silence between those two men. They were both reflecting, and the diversity of
their natures made their thoughts born from their meeting swing afar from each
other. The doctor, impelled to risky action by his loyalty to the Goulds,
wondered with thankfulness at the chain of accident which had brought that man
back where he would be of the greatest use in the work of saving the San Tomé
mine. The doctor was loyal to the mine. It presented itself to his fifty-years'
old eyes in the shape of a little woman in a soft dress with a long train, with
a head attractively overweighted by a great mass of fair hair and the delicate
preciousness of her inner worth, partaking of a gem and a flower, revealed in
every attitude of her person. As the dangers thickened round the San Tomé mine
this illusion acquired force, permanency, and authority. It claimed him at
last! This claim, exalted by a spiritual detachment from the usual sanctions of
hope and reward, made Dr. Monygham's thinking, acting, individuality extremely
dangerous to himself and to others, all his scruples vanishing in the proud
feeling that his devotion was the only thing that stood between an admirable
woman and a frightful disaster.
It was a sort of
intoxication which made him utterly indifferent to Decoud's fate, but left his
wits perfectly clear for the appreciation of Decoud's political idea. It was a
good idea -- and Barrios was the only instrument of its realization. The
doctor's soul, withered and shrunk by the shame of a moral disgrace, became
implacable in the expansion of its tenderness. Nostromo's return was
providential. He did not think of him humanely, as of a fellow-creature just
escaped from the jaws of death. The Capataz for him was the only possible
messenger to Cayta. The very man. The doctor's misanthropic mistrust of mankind
(the bitterer because based on personal failure) did not lift him sufficiently
above common weaknesses. He was under the spell of an established reputation.
Trumpeted by Captain Mitchell, grown in repetition, and fixed in general
assent, Nostromo's faithfulness had never been questioned by Dr. Monygham as a
fact. It was not likely to be questioned now he stood in desperate need of it
himself. Dr. Monygham was human; he accepted the popular conception of the
Capataz's incorruptibility simply because no word or fact had ever contradicted
a mere affirmation. It seemed to be a part of the man, like his whiskers or his
teeth. It was impossible to conceive him otherwise. The question was whether he
would consent to go on such a dangerous and desperate errand. The doctor was
observant enough to have become aware from the first of something peculiar in
the man's temper. He was no doubt sore about the loss of the silver.
"It will be
necessary to take him into my fullest confidence," he said to himself,
with a certain acuteness of insight into the nature he had to deal with.
On Nostromo's side the
silence had been full of black irresolution, anger, and mistrust. He was the
first to break it, however.
"The swimming was
no great matter," he said. "It is what went before -- and what comes
after that --"
He did not quite finish
what he meant to say, breaking off short, as though his thought had butted
against a solid obstacle. The doctor's mind pursued its own schemes with
Machiavellian subtlety. He said as sympathetically as he was able --
"It is unfortunate,
Capataz. But no one would think of blaming you. Very unfortunate. To begin
with, the treasure ought never to have left the mountain. But it was Decoud who
-- however, he is dead. There is no need to talk of him."
"No,"
assented Nostromo, as the doctor paused, "there is no need to talk of dead
men. But I am not dead yet."
"You are all
right. Only a man of your intrepidity could have saved himself."
In this Dr. Monygham
was sincere. He esteemed highly the intrepidity of that man, whom he valued but
little, being disillusioned as to mankind in general, because of the particular
instance in which his own manhood had failed. Having had to encounter single-
handed during his period of eclipse many physical dangers, he was well aware of
the most dangerous element common to them all: of the crushing, paralyzing
sense of human littleness, which is what really defeats a man struggling with
natural forces, alone, far from the eyes of his fellows. He was eminently fit
to appreciate the mental image he made for himself of the Capataz, after hours
of tension and anxiety, precipitated suddenly into an abyss of waters and
darkness, without earth or sky, and confronting it not only with an undismayed
mind, but with sensible success. Of course, the man was an incomparable
swimmer, that was known, but the doctor judged that this instance testified to
a still greater intrepidity of spirit. It was pleasing to him; he augured well
from it for the success of the arduous mission with which he meant to entrust
the Capataz so marvellously restored to usefulness. And in a tone vaguely
gratified, he observed --
"It must have been
terribly dark!"
"It was the worst
darkness of the Golfo," the Capataz assented, briefly. He was mollified by
what seemed a sign of some faint interest in such things as had befallen him,
and dropped a few descriptive phrases with an affected and curt nonchalance. At
that moment he felt communicative. He expected the continuance of that interest
which, whether accepted or rejected, would have restored to him his personality
-- the only thing lost in that desperate affair. But the doctor, engrossed by a
desperate adventure of his own, was terrible in the pursuit of his idea. He let
an exclamation of regret escape him.
"I could almost
wish you had shouted and shown a light."
This unexpected
utterance astounded the Capataz by its character of cold-blooded atrocity. It
was as much as to say, "I wish you had shown yourself a coward; I wish you
had had your throat cut for your pains." Naturally he referred it to
himself, whereas it related only to the silver, being uttered simply and with
many mental reservations. Surprise and rage rendered him speechless, and the
doctor pursued, practically unheard by Nostromo, whose stirred blood was
beating violently in his ears.
"For I am
convinced Sotillo in possession of the silver would have turned short round and
made for some small port abroad. Economically it would have been wasteful, but
still less wasteful than having it sunk. It was the next best thing to having
it at hand in some safe place, and using part of it to buy up Sotillo. But I
doubt whether Don Carlos would have ever made up his mind to it. He is not fit
for Costaguana, and that is a fact, Capataz."
The Capataz had
mastered the fury that was like a tempest in his ears in time to hear the name
of Don Carlos. He seemed to have come out of it a changed man -- a man who
spoke thoughtfully in a soft and even voice.
"And would Don
Carlos have been content if I had surrendered this treasure?"
"I should not
wonder if they were all of that way of thinking now," the doctor said,
grimly. "I was never consulted. Decoud had it his own way. Their eyes are
opened by this time, I should think. I for one know that if that silver turned
up this moment miraculously ashore I would give it to Sotillo. And, as things
stand, I would be approved."
"Turned up
miraculously," repeated the Capataz very low; then raised his voice.
"That, señor, would be a greater miracle than any saint could
perform."
"I believe you, Capataz,"
said the doctor, drily.
He went on to develop
his view of Sotillo's dangerous influence upon the situation. And the Capataz,
listening as if in a dream, felt himself of as little account as the
indistinct, motionless shape of the dead man whom he saw upright under the
beam, with his air of listening also, disregarded, forgotten, like a terrible
example of neglect.
"Was it for an
unconsidered and foolish whim that they came to me, then?" he interrupted
suddenly. "Had I not done enough for them to be of some account, por Dios?
Is it that the hombres finos -- the gentlemen -- need not think as long as
there is a man of the people ready to risk his body and soul? Or, perhaps, we
have no souls -- like dogs?"
"There was Decoud,
too, with his plan," the doctor reminded him again.
"Si! And the rich
man in San Francisco who had something to do with that treasure, too -- what do
I know? No! I have heard too many things. It seems to me that everything is
permitted to the rich."
"I understand,
Capataz," the doctor began.
"What
Capataz?" broke in Nostromo, in a forcible but even voice. "The
Capataz is undone, destroyed. There is no Capataz. Oh, no! You will find the
Capataz no more."
"Come, this is
childish!" remonstrated the doctor; and the other calmed down suddenly.
"I have been
indeed like a little child," he muttered.
And as his eyes met
again the shape of the murdered man suspended in his awful immobility, which
seemed the uncomplaining immobility of attention, he asked, wondering gently --
"Why did Sotillo
give the estrapade to this pitiful wretch? Do you know? No torture could have
been worse than his fear. Killing I can understand. His anguish was intolerable
to behold. But why should he torment him like this? He could tell no more."
"No; he could tell
nothing more. Any sane man would have seen that. He had told him everything.
But I tell you what it is, Capataz. Sotillo would not believe what he was told.
Not everything."
"What is it he
would not believe? I cannot understand."
"I can, because I
have seen the man. He refuses to believe that the treasure is lost."
"What?" the
Capataz cried out in a discomposed tone.
"That startles you
-- eh?"
"Am I to
understand, señor," Nostromo went on in a deliberate and, as it were,
watchful tone, "that Sotillo thinks the treasure has been saved by some
means?"
"No! no! That
would be impossible," said the doctor, with conviction; and Nostromo
emitted a grunt in the dark. "That would be impossible. He thinks that the
silver was no longer in the lighter when she was sunk. He has convinced himself
that the whole show of getting it away to sea is a mere sham got up to deceive
Gamacho and his Nationals, Pedrito Montero, Señor Fuentes, our new Géfé Político,
and himself, too. Only, he says, he is no such fool."
"But he is devoid
of sense. He is the greatest imbecile that ever called himself a colonel in
this country of evil," growled Nostromo.
"He is no more
unreasonable than many sensible men," said the doctor. "He has
convinced himself that the treasure can be found because he desires
passionately to possess himself of it. And he is also afraid of his officers
turning upon him and going over to Pedrito, whom he has not the courage either
to fight or trust. Do you see that, Capataz? He need fear no desertion as long
as some hope remains of that enormous plunder turning up. I have made it my
business to keep this very hope up."
"You have?"
the Capataz de Cargadores repeated cautiously. "Well, that is wonderful.
And how long do you think you are going to keep it up?"
"As long as I
can."
"What does that
mean?"
"I can tell you
exactly. As long as I live," the doctor retorted in a stubborn voice.
Then, in a few words, he described the story of his arrest and the
circumstances of his release. "I was going back to that silly scoundrel
when we met," he concluded.
Nostromo had listened
with profound attention. "You have made up your mind, then, to a speedy
death," he muttered through his clenched teeth.
"Perhaps, my
illustrious Capataz," the doctor said, testily. "You are not the only
one here who can look an ugly death in the face."
"No doubt,"
mumbled Nostromo, loud enough to be overheard. "There may be even more
than two fools in this place. Who knows?"
"And that is my
affair," said the doctor, curtly.
"As taking out the
accursed silver to sea was my affair," retorted Nostromo. "I see.
Bueno! Each of us has his reasons. But you were the last man I conversed with
before I started, and you talked to me as if I were a fool."
Nostromo had a great
distaste for the doctor's sardonic treatment of his great reputation. Decoud's
faintly ironic recognition used to make him uneasy; but the familiarity of a
man like Don Martin was flattering, whereas the doctor was a nobody. He could
remember him a penniless outcast, slinking about the streets of Sulaco, without
a single friend or acquaintance, till Don Carlos Gould took him into the
service of the mine.
"You may be very
wise," he went on, thoughtfully, staring into the obscurity of the room,
pervaded by the gruesome enigma of the tortured and murdered Hirsch. "But
I am not such a fool as when I started. I have learned one thing since, and
that is that you are a dangerous man."
Dr. Monygham was too
startled to do more than exclaim --
"What is it you
say?"
"If he could speak
he would say the same thing," pursued Nostromo, with a nod of his shadowy
head silhouetted against the starlit window.
"I do not
understand you," said Dr. Monygham, faintly.
"No? Perhaps, if
you had not confirmed Sotillo in his madness, he would have been in no haste to
give the estrapade to that miserable Hirsch."
The doctor started at
the suggestion. But his devotion, absorbing all his sensibilities, had left his
heart steeled against remorse and pity. Still, for complete relief, he felt the
necessity of repelling it loudly and contemptuously.
"Bah! You dare to
tell me that, with a man like Sotillo. I confess I did not give a thought to
Hirsch. If I had it would have been useless. Anybody can see that the luckless
wretch was doomed from the moment he caught hold of the anchor. He was doomed,
I tell you! Just as I myself am doomed -- most probably."
This is what Dr.
Monygham said in answer to Nostromo's remark, which was plausible enough to
prick his conscience. He was not a callous man. But the necessity, the
magnitude, the importance of the task he had taken upon himself dwarfed all
merely humane considerations. He had undertaken it in a fanatical spirit. He
did not like it. To lie, to deceive, to circumvent even the basest of mankind
was odious to him. It was odious to him by training, instinct, and tradition.
To do these things in the character of a traitor was abhorrent to his nature
and terrible to his feelings. He had made that sacrifice in a spirit of
abasement. He had said to himself bitterly, "I am the only one fit for
that dirty work." And he believed this. He was not subtle. His simplicity
was such that, though he had no sort of heroic idea of seeking death, the risk,
deadly enough, to which he exposed himself, had a sustaining and comforting
effect. To that spiritual state the fate of Hirsch presented itself as part of
the general atrocity of things. He considered that episode practically. What did
it mean? Was it a sign of some dangerous change in Sotillo's delusion? That the
man should have been killed like this was what the doctor could not understand.
"Yes. But why
shot?" he murmured to himself.
Nostromo kept very
still.
DISTRACTED between
doubts and hopes, dismayed by the sound of bells pealing out the arrival of
Pedrito Montero, Sotillo had spent the morning in battling with his thoughts; a
contest to which he was unequal, from the vacuity of his mind and the violence of
his passions. Disappointment, greed, anger, and fear made a tumult, in the
colonel's breast louder than the din of bells in the town. Nothing he had
planned had come to pass. Neither Sulaco nor the silver of the mine had fallen
into his hands. He had performed no military exploit to secure his position,
and had obtained no enormous booty to make off with. Pedrito Montero, either as
friend or foe, filled him with dread. The sound of bells maddened him.
Imagining at first that
he might be attacked at once, he had made his battalion stand to arms on the
shore. He walked to and fro all the length of the room, stopping sometimes to
gnaw the finger-tips of his right hand with a lurid sideways glare fixed on the
floor; then, with a sullen, repelling glance all round, he would resume his
tramping in savage aloofness. His hat, horsewhip, sword, and revolver were
lying on the table. His officers, crowding the window giving the view of the
town gate, disputed amongst themselves the use of his field-glass bought last year
on long credit from Anzani. It passed from hand to hand, and the possessor for
the time being was besieged by anxious inquiries.
"There is nothing;
there is nothing to see!" he would repeat impatiently.
There was nothing. And
when the picket in the bushes near the Casa Viola had been ordered to fall back
upon the main body, no stir of life appeared on the stretch of dusty and arid
land between the town and the waters of the port. But late in the afternoon a
horseman issuing from the gate was made out riding up fearlessly. It was an
emissary from Señor Fuentes. Being all alone he was allowed to come on.
Dismounting at the great door he greeted the silent bystanders with cheery
impudence, and begged to be taken up at once to the "muy valliente"
colonel.
Señor Fuentes, on
entering upon his functions of Géfé Político, had turned his diplomatic
abilities to getting hold of the harbour as well as of the mine. The man he
pitched upon to negotiate with Sotillo was a Notary Public, whom the revolution
had found languishing in the common jail on a charge of forging documents.
Liberated by the mob along with the other "victims of Blanco
tyranny," he had hastened to offer his services to the new Government.
He set out determined
to display much zeal and eloquence in trying to induce Sotillo to come into
town alone for a conference with Pedrito Montero. Nothing was further from the
colonel's intentions. The mere fleeting idea of trusting himself into the
famous Pedrito's hands had made him feel unwell several times. It was out of
the question -- it was madness. And to put himself in open hostility was
madness, too. It would render impossible a systematic search for that treasure,
for that wealth of silver which he seemed to feel somewhere about, to scent
somewhere near.
But where? Where?
Heavens! Where? Oh! why had he allowed that doctor to go! Imbecile that he was.
But no! It was the only right course, he reflected distractedly, while the
messenger waited downstairs chatting agreeably to the officers. It was in that
scoundrelly doctor's true interest to return with positive information. But
what if anything stopped him? A general prohibition to leave the town, for
instance! There would be patrols!
The colonel, seizing
his head in his hands, turned in his tracks as if struck with vertigo. A flash
of craven inspiration suggested to him an expedient not unknown to European
statesmen when they wish to delay a difficult negotiation. Booted and spurred,
he scrambled into the hammock with undignified haste. His handsome face had
turned yellow with the strain of weighty cares. The ridge of his shapely nose
had grown sharp; the audacious nostrils appeared mean and pinched. The velvety,
caressing glance of his fine eyes seemed dead, and even decomposed; for these
almond-shaped, languishing orbs had become inappropriately bloodshot with much
sinister sleeplessness. He addressed the surprised envoy of Señor Fuentes in a
deadened, exhausted voice. It came pathetically feeble from under a pile of
ponchos, which buried his elegant person right up to the black moustaches,
uncurled, pendant, in sign of bodily prostration and mental incapacity. Fever,
fever -- a heavy fever had overtaken the "muy valliente" colonel. A
wavering wildness of expression, caused by the passing spasms of a slight colic
which had declared itself suddenly, and the rattling teeth of repressed panic,
had a genuineness which impressed the envoy. It was a cold fit. The colonel
explained that he was unable to think, to listen, to speak. With an appearance
of superhuman effort the colonel gasped out that he was not in a state to
return a suitable reply or to execute any of his Excellency's orders. But
to-morrow! To-morrow! Ah! to-morrow! Let his Excellency Don Pedro be without
uneasiness. The brave Esmeralda Regiment held the harbour, held -- And closing
his eyes, he rolled his aching head like a half-delirious invalid under the
inquisitive stare of the envoy, who was obliged to bend down over the hammock
in order to catch the painful and broken accents. Meantime, Colonel Sotillo
trusted that his Excellency's humanity would permit the doctor, the English
doctor, to come out of town with his case of foreign remedies to attend upon
him. He begged anxiously his worship the caballero now present for the grace of
looking in as he passed the Casa Gould, and informing the English doctor, who
was probably there, that his services were immediately required by Colonel
Sotillo, lying ill of fever in the Custom House. Immediately. Most urgently
required. Awaited with extreme impatience. A thousand thanks. He closed his
eyes wearily and would not open them again, lying perfectly still, deaf, dumb,
insensible, overcome, vanquished, crushed, annihilated by the fell disease.
But as soon as the
other had shut after him the door of the landing, the colonel leaped out with a
fling of both feet in an avalanche of woollen coverings. His spurs having
become entangled in a perfect welter of ponchos he nearly pitched on his head,
and did not recover his balance till the middle of the room. Concealed behind
the half-closed jalousies he listened to what went on below.
The envoy had already
mounted, and turning to the morose officers occupying the great doorway, took
off his hat formally.
"Caballeros,"
he said, in a very loud tone, "allow me to recommend you to take great
care of your colonel. It has done me much honour and gratification to have seen
you all, a fine body of men exercising the soldierly virtue of patience in this
exposed situation, where there is much sun, and no water to speak of, while a
town full of wine and feminine charms is ready to embrace you for the brave men
you are. Caballeros, I have the honour to salute you. There will be much
dancing to-night in Sulaco. Good-bye!"
But he reined in his
horse and inclined his head sideways on seeing the old major step out, very
tall and meagre, in a straight narrow coat coming down to his ankles as it were
the casing of the regimental colours rolled round their staff.
The intelligent old
warrior, after enunciating in a dogmatic tone the general proposition that the
"world was full of traitors," went on pronouncing deliberately a
panegyric upon Sotillo. He ascribed to him with leisurely emphasis every virtue
under heaven, summing it all up in an absurd colloquialism current amongst the
lower class of Occidentals (especially about Esmeralda). "And," he
concluded, with a sudden rise in the voice, "a man of many teeth --
'hombre de muchos dientes.' Si, señor. As to us," he pursued, portentous
and impressive, "your worship is beholding the finest body of officers in
the Republic, men unequalled for valour and sagacity, 'y hombres de muchos
dientes.'"
"What? All of
them?" inquired the disreputable envoy of Señor Fuentes, with a faint,
derisive smile.
"Todos. Si, señor,"
the major affirmed, gravely, with conviction. "Men of many teeth."
The other wheeled his
horse to face the portal resembling the high gate of a dismal barn. He raised
himself in his stirrups, extended one arm. He was a facetious scoundrel,
entertaining for these stupid Occidentals a feeling of great scorn natural in a
native from the central provinces. The folly of Esmeraldians especially aroused
his amused contempt. He began an oration upon Pedro Montero, keeping a solemn
countenance. He flourished his hand as if introducing him to their notice. And
when he saw every face set, all the eyes fixed upon his lips, he began to shout
a sort of catalogue of perfections: "Generous, valorous, affable,
profound" -- (he snatched off his hat enthusiastically) -- "a
statesman, an invincible chief of partisans --" He dropped his voice
startlingly to a deep, hollow note -- "and a dentist."
He was off instantly at
a smart walk; the rigid straddle of his legs, the turned-out feet, the stiff
back, the rakish slant of the sombrero above the square, motionless set of the
shoulders expressing an infinite, awe- inspiring impudence.
Upstairs, behind the
jalousies, Sotillo did not move for a long time. The audacity of the fellow
appalled him. What were his officers saying below? They were saying nothing.
Complete silence. He quaked. It was not thus that he had imagined himself at
that stage of the expedition. He had seen himself triumphant, appeased, the
idol of the soldiers, weighing in secret complacency the agreeable alternatives
of power and wealth open to his choice. Alas! How different! Distracted,
restless, supine, burning with fury, or frozen with terror, he felt a dread as
fathomless as the sea creep upon him from every side. That rogue of a doctor
had to come out with his information. That was clear. It would be of no use to
him -- alone. He could do nothing with it. Malediction! The doctor would never
come out. He was probably under arrest already, shut up together with Don
Carlos. He laughed aloud insanely. Ha! ha! ha! ha! It was Pedrito Montero who
would get the information. Ha! ha! ha! ha! -- and the silver. Ha!
All at once, in the
midst of the laugh, he became motionless and silent as if turned into stone. He
too, had a prisoner. A prisoner who must, must know the real truth. He would
have to be made to speak. And Sotillo, who all that time had not quite
forgotten Hirsch, felt an inexplicable reluctance at the notion of proceeding
to extremities.
He felt a reluctance --
part of that unfathomable dread that crept on all sides upon him. He remembered
reluctantly, too, the dilated eyes of the hide merchant, his contortions, his
loud sobs and protestations. It was not compassion or even mere nervous
sensibility. The fact was that though Sotillo did never for a moment believe his
story -- he could not believe it; nobody could believe such nonsense -- yet
those accents of despairing truth impressed him disagreeably. They made him
feel sick. And he suspected also that the man might have gone mad with fear. A
lunatic is a hopeless subject. Bah! A pretence. Nothing but a pretence. He
would know how to deal with that.
He was working himself
up to the right pitch of ferocity. His fine eyes squinted slightly; he clapped
his hands; a bare-footed orderly appeared noiselessly, a corporal, with his
bayonet hanging on his thigh and a stick in his hand.
The colonel gave his
orders, and presently the miserable Hirsch, pushed in by several soldiers,
found him frowning awfully in a broad armchair, hat on head, knees wide apart,
arms akimbo, masterful, imposing, irresistible, haughty, sublime, terrible.
Hirsch, with his arms
tied behind his back, had been bundled violently into one of the smaller rooms.
For many hours he remained apparently forgotten, stretched lifelessly on the
floor. From that solitude, full of despair and terror, he was torn out
brutally, with kicks and blows, passive, sunk in hebetude. He listened to
threats and admonitions, and afterwards made his usual answers to questions,
with his chin sunk on his breast, his hands tied behind his back, swaying a
little in front of Sotillo, and never looking up. When he was forced to hold up
his head, by means of a bayonet-point prodding him under the chin, his eyes had
a vacant, trance- like stare, and drops of perspiration as big as peas were
seen hailing down the dirt, bruises, and scratches of his white face. Then they
stopped suddenly.
Sotillo looked at him
in silence. "Will you depart from your obstinacy, you rogue?" he
asked. Already a rope, whose one end was fastened to Señor Hirsch's wrists, had
been thrown over a beam, and three soldiers held the other end, waiting. He
made no answer. His heavy lower lip hung stupidly. Sotillo made a sign. Hirsch
was jerked up off his feet, and a yell of despair and agony burst out in the
room, filled the passage of the great buildings, rent the air outside, caused
every soldier of the camp along the shore to look up at the windows, started
some of the officers in the hall babbling excitedly, with shining eyes; others,
setting their lips, looked gloomily at the floor.
Sotillo, followed by
the soldiers, had left the room. The sentry on the landing presented arms.
Hirsch went on screaming all alone behind the half-closed jalousies while the
sunshine, reflected from the water of the harbour, made an ever-running ripple
of light high up on the wall. He screamed with uplifted eyebrows and a
wide-open mouth -- incredibly wide, black, enormous, full of teeth -- comical.
In the still burning
air of the windless afternoon he made the waves of his agony travel as far as
the O. S. N. Company's offices. Captain Mitchell on the balcony, trying to make
out what went on generally, had heard him faintly but distinctly, and the
feeble and appalling sound lingered in his ears after he had retreated indoors
with blanched cheeks. He had been driven off the balcony several times during
that afternoon.
Sotillo, irritable,
moody, walked restlessly about, held consultations with his officers, gave
contradictory orders in this shrill clamour pervading the whole empty edifice.
Sometimes there would be long and awful silences. Several times he had entered
the torture-chamber where his sword, horsewhip, revolver, and field-glass were
lying on the table, to ask with forced calmness, "Will you speak the truth
now? No? I can wait." But he could not afford to wait much longer. That
was just it. Every time he went in and came out with a slam of the door, the
sentry on the landing presented arms, and got in return a black, venomous,
unsteady glance, which, in reality, saw nothing at all, being merely the
reflection of the soul within -- a soul of gloomy hatred, irresolution,
avarice, and fury.
The sun had set when he
went in once more. A soldier carried in two lighted candles and slunk out,
shutting the door without noise.
"Speak, thou
Jewish child of the devil! The silver! The silver, I say! Where is it? Where
have you foreign rogues hidden it? Confess or --"
A slight quiver passed
up the taut rope from the racked limbs, but the body of Señor Hirsch,
enterprising business man from Esmeralda, hung under the heavy beam
perpendicular and silent, facing the colonel awfully. The inflow of the night
air, cooled by the snows of the Sierra, spread gradually a delicious freshness
through the close heat of the room.
"Speak -- thief --
scoundrel -- picaro -- or --"
Sotillo had seized the
riding-whip, and stood with his arm lifted up. For a word, for one little word,
he felt he would have knelt, cringed, grovelled on the floor before the drowsy,
conscious stare of those fixed eye- balls starting out of the grimy,
dishevelled head that drooped very still with its mouth closed askew. The
colonel ground his teeth with rage and struck. The rope vibrated leisurely to
the blow, like the long string of a pendulum starting from a rest. But no
swinging motion was imparted to the body of Señor Hirsch, the well-known hide
merchant on the coast. With a convulsive effort of the twisted arms it leaped
up a few inches, curling upon itself like a fish on the end of a line. Señor
Hirsch's head was flung back on his straining throat; his chin trembled. For a
moment the rattle of his chattering teeth pervaded the vast, shadowy room,
where the candles made a patch of light round the two flames burning side by
side. And as Sotillo, staying his raised hand, waited for him to speak, with
the sudden flash of a grin and a straining forward of the wrenched shoulders,
he spat violently into his face.
The uplifted whip fell,
and the colonel sprang back with a low cry of dismay, as if aspersed by a jet
of deadly venom. Quick as thought he snatched up his revolver, and fired twice.
The report and the concussion of the shots seemed to throw him at once from
ungovernable rage into idiotic stupor. He stood with drooping jaw and stony
eyes. What had he done, Sangre de Dios! What had he done? He was basely
appalled at his impulsive act, sealing for ever these lips from which so much
was to be extorted. What could he say? How could he explain? Ideas of headlong
flight somewhere, anywhere, passed through his mind; even the craven and absurd
notion of hiding under the table occurred to his cowardice. It was too late;
his officers had rushed in tumultuously, in a great clatter of scabbards,
clamouring, with astonishment and wonder. But since they did not immediately
proceed to plunge their swords into his breast, the brazen side of his
character asserted itself. Passing the sleeve of his uniform over his face he
pulled himself together, His truculent glance turned slowly here and there,
checked the noise where it fell; and the stiff body of the late Señor Hirsch,
merchant, after swaying imperceptibly, made a half turn, and came to a rest in
the midst of awed murmurs and uneasy shuffling.
A voice remarked
loudly, "Behold a man who will never speak again." And another, from
the back row of faces, timid and pressing, cried out --
"Why did you kill
him, mi colonel?"
"Because he has
confessed everything," answered Sotillo, with the hardihood of
desperation. He felt himself cornered. He brazened it out on the strength of
his reputation with very fair success. His hearers thought him very capable of
such an act. They were disposed to believe his flattering tale. There is no
credulity so eager and blind as the credulity of covetousness, which, in its
universal extent, measures the moral misery and the intellectual destitution of
mankind. Ah! he had confessed everything, this fractious Jew, this bribon.
Good! Then he was no longer wanted. A sudden dense guffaw was heard from the
senior captain -- a big-headed man, with little round eyes and monstrously fat
cheeks which never moved. The old major, tall and fantastically ragged like a
scarecrow, walked round the body of the late Señor Hirsch, muttering to himself
with ineffable complacency that like this there was no need to guard against
any future treacheries of that scoundrel. The others stared, shifting from foot
to foot, and whispering short remarks to each other.
Sotillo buckled on his
sword and gave curt, peremptory orders to hasten the retirement decided upon in
the afternoon. Sinister, impressive, his sombrero pulled right down upon his
eyebrows, he marched first through the door in such disorder of mind that he
forgot utterly to provide for Dr. Monygham's possible return. As the officers
trooped out after him, one or two looked back hastily at the late Señor Hirsch,
merchant from Esmeralda, left swinging rigidly at rest, alone with the two
burning candles. In the emptiness of the room the burly shadow of head and
shoulders on the wall had an air of life.
Below, the troops fell
in silently and moved off by companies without drum or trumpet. The old
scarecrow major commanded the rearguard; but the party he left behind with
orders to fire the Custom House (and "burn the carcass of the treacherous
Jew where it hung") failed somehow in their haste to set the staircase
properly alight. The body of the late Señor Hirsch dwelt alone for a time in
the dismal solitude of the unfinished building, resounding weirdly with sudden
slams and clicks of doors and latches, with rustling scurries of torn papers,
and the tremulous sighs that at each gust of wind passed under the high roof.
The light of the two candles burning before the perpendicular and breathless
immobility of the late Señor Hirsch threw a gleam afar over land and water,
like a signal in the night. He remained to startle Nostromo by his presence,
and to puzzle Dr. Monygham by the mystery of his atrocious end.
"But why
shot?" the doctor again asked himself, audibly. This time he was answered
by a dry laugh from Nostromo.
"You seem much
concerned at a very natural thing, señor doctor. I wonder why? It is very
likely that before long we shall all get shot one after another, if not by
Sotillo, then by Pedrito, or Fuentes, or Gamacho. And we may even get the
estrapade, too, or worse -- quiensabe? -- with your pretty tale of the silver
you put into Sotillo's head."
"It was in his
head already," the doctor protested. "I only --"
"Yes. And you only
nailed it there so that the devil himself --"
"That is precisely
what I meant to do," caught up the doctor.
"That is what you
meant to do. Bueno. It is as I say. You are a dangerous man."
Their voices, which
without rising had been growing quarrelsome, ceased suddenly. The late Señor
Hirsch, erect and shadowy against the stars, seemed to be waiting attentive, in
impartial silence.
But Dr. Monygham had no
mind to quarrel with Nostromo. At this supremely critical point of Sulaco's
fortunes it was borne upon him at last that this man was really indispensable,
more indispensable than ever the infatuation of Captain Mitchell, his proud
discoverer, could conceive; far beyond what Decoud's best dry raillery about
"my illustrious friend, the unique Capataz de Cargadores," had ever
intended. The fellow was unique. He was not "one in a thousand." He
was absolutely the only one. The doctor surrendered. There was something in the
genius of that Genoese seaman which dominated the destinies of great
enterprises and of many people, the fortunes of Charles Gould, the fate of an
admirable woman. At this last thought the doctor had to clear his throat before
he could speak.
In a completely changed
tone he pointed out to the Capataz that, to begin with, he personally ran no
great risk. As far as everybody knew he was dead. It was an enormous advantage.
He had only to keep out of sight in the Casa Viola, where the old Garibaldino
was known to be alone -- with his dead wife. The servants had all run away. No
one would think of searching for him there, or anywhere else on earth, for that
matter.
"That would be
very true," Nostromo spoke up, bitterly, "if I had not met you."
For a time the doctor
kept silent. "Do you mean to say that you think I may give you away?"
he asked in an unsteady voice. "Why? Why should I do that?"
"What do I know?
Why not? To gain a day perhaps. It would take Sotillo a day to give me the
estrapade, and try some other things perhaps, before he puts a bullet through
my heart -- as he did to that poor wretch here. Why not?"
The doctor swallowed
with difficulty. His throat had gone dry in a moment. It was not from
indignation. The doctor, pathetically enough, believed that he had forfeited
the right to be indignant with any one -- for anything. It was simple dread.
Had the fellow heard his story by some chance? If so, there was an end of his
usefulness in that direction. The indispensable man escaped his influence,
because of that indelible blot which made him fit for dirty work. A feeling as
of sickness came upon the doctor. He would have given anything to know, but he
dared not clear up the point. The fanaticism of his devotion, fed on the sense
of his abasement, hardened his heart in sadness and scorn.
"Why not,
indeed?" he reëchoed, sardonically. "Then the safe thing for you is
to kill me on the spot. I would defend myself. But you may just as well know I
am going about unarmed."
"Por Dios!"
said the Capataz, passionately. "You fine people are all alike. All
dangerous. All betrayers of the poor who are your dogs."
"You do not
understand," began the doctor, slowly.
"I understand you
all!" cried the other with a violent movement, as shadowy to the doctor's
eyes as the persistent immobility of the late Señor Hirsch. "A poor man
amongst you has got to look after himself. I say that you do not care for those
that serve you. Look at me! After all these years, suddenly, here I find myself
like one of these curs that bark outside the walls -- without a kennel or a dry
bone for my teeth. (Caramba!" But he relented with a contemptuous
fairness. "Of course," he went on, quietly, "I do not suppose
that you would hasten to give me up to Sotillo, for example. It is not that. It
is that I am nothing! Suddenly --" He swung his arm downwards.
"Nothing to any one," he repeated.
The doctor breathed
freely. "Listen, Capataz," he said, stretching out his arm almost
affectionately towards Nostromo's shoulder. "I am going to tell you a very
simple thing. You are safe because you are needed. I would not give you away
for any conceivable reason, because I want you."
In the dark Nostromo
bit his lip. He had heard enough of that. He knew what that meant. No more of
that for him. But he had to look after himself now, he thought. And he thought,
too, that it would not be prudent to part in anger from his companion. The doctor,
admitted to be a great healer, had, amongst the populace of Sulaco, the
reputation of being an evil sort of man. It was based solidly on his personal
appearance, which was strange, and on his rough ironic manner -- proofs
visible, sensible, and incontrovertible of the doctor's malevolent disposition.
And Nostromo was of the people. So he only grunted incredulously.
"You, to speak
plainly, are the only man," the doctor pursued. "It is in your power
to save this town and . . . everybody from the destructive rapacity of men who
--"
"No, señor,"
said Nostromo, sullenly. "It is not in my power to get the treasure back
for you to give up to Sotillo, or Pedrito, or Gamacho. What do I know?"
"Nobody expects
the impossible," was the answer.
"You have said it
yourself -- nobody," muttered Nostromo, in a gloomy, threatening tone.
But Dr. Monygham, full
of hope, disregarded the enigmatic words and the threatening tone. To their
eyes, accustomed to obscurity, the late Señor Hirsch, growing more distinct, seemed
to have come nearer. And the doctor lowered his voice in exposing his scheme as
though afraid of being overheard.
He was taking the
indispensable man into his fullest confidence. Its implied flattery and
suggestion of great risks came with a familiar sound to the Capataz. His mind,
floating in irresolution and discontent, recognized it with bitterness. He
understood well that the doctor was anxious to save the San Tomé mine from
annihilation. He would be nothing without it. It was his interest. Just as it
had been the interest of Señor Decoud, of the Blancos, and of the Europeans to
get his Cargadores on their side. His thought became arrested upon Decoud. What
would happen to him?
Nostromo's prolonged
silence made the doctor uneasy. He pointed out, quite unnecessarily, that
though for the present he was safe, he could not live concealed for ever. The
choice was between accepting the mission to Barrios, with all its dangers and
difficulties, and leaving Sulaco by stealth, ingloriously, in poverty.
"None of your
friends could reward you and protect you just now, Capataz. Not even Don Carlos
himself."
"I would have none
of your protection and none of your rewards. I only wish I could trust your
courage and your sense. When I return in triumph, as you say, with Barrios, I
may find you all destroyed. You have the knife at your throat now."
It was the doctor's
turn to remain silent in the contemplation of horrible contingencies.
"Well, we would
trust your courage and your sense. And you, too, have a knife at your
throat."
"Ah! And whom am I
to thank for that? What are your politics and your mines to me -- your silver
and your constitutions -- your Don Carlos this, and Don José that --"
"I don't
know," burst out the exasperated doctor. "There are innocent people
in danger whose little finger is worth more than you or I and all the
Ribierists together. I don't know. You should have asked yourself before you
allowed Decoud to lead you into all this. It was your place to think like a
man; but if you did not think then, try to act like a man now. Did you imagine
Decoud cared very much for what would happen to you?"
"No more than you
care for what will happen to me," muttered the other.
"No; I care for
what will happen to you as little as I care for what will happen to
myself."
"And all this
because you are such a devoted Ribierist?" Nostromo said in an incredulous
tone.
"All this because
I am such a devoted Ribierist," repeated Dr. Monygham, grimly.
Again Nostromo, gazing
abstractedly at the body of the late Señor Hirsch, remained silent, thinking
that the doctor was a dangerous person in more than one sense. It was
impossible to trust him.
"Do you speak in
the name of Don Carlos?" he asked at last.
"Yes. I do,"
the doctor said, loudly, without hesitation. "He must come forward now. He
must," he added in a mutter, which Nostromo did not catch.
"What did you say,
señor?"
The doctor started.
"I say that you must be true to yourself, Capataz. It would be worse than
folly to fail now."
"True to
myself," repeated Nostromo. "How do you know that I would not be true
to myself if I told you to go to the devil with your propositions?"
"I do not know.
Maybe you would," the doctor said, with a roughness of tone intended to
hide the sinking of his heart and the faltering of his voice. "All I know
is, that you had better get away from here. Some of Sotillo's men may turn up
here looking for me."
He slipped off the
table, listening intently. The Capataz, too, stood up.
"Suppose I went to
Cayta, what would you do meantime?" he asked.
"I would go to
Sotillo directly you had left -- in the way I am thinking of."
"A very good way
-- if only that engineer-in-chief consents. Remind him, señor, that I looked
after the old rich Englishman who pays for the railway, and that I saved the
lives of some of his people that time when a gang of thieves came from the
south to wreck one of his pay-trains. It was I who discovered it all at the
risk of my life, by pretending to enter into their plans. Just as you are doing
with Sotillo."
"Yes. Yes, of
course. But I can offer him better arguments," the doctor said, hastily.
" Leave it to me."
"Ah, yes! True. I
am nothing."
"Not at all. You
are everything."
They moved a few paces
towards the door. Behind them the late Señor Hirsch preserved the immobility of
a disregarded man.
"That will be all
right. I know what to say to the engineer," pursued the doctor, in a low
tone. "My difficulty will be with Sotillo."
And Dr. Monygham
stopped short in the doorway as if intimidated by the difficulty. He had made
the sacrifice of his life. He considered this a fitting opportunity. But he did
not want to throw his life away too soon. In his quality of betrayer of Don
Carlos' confidence, he would have ultimately to indicate the hiding-place of
the treasure. That would be the end of his deception, and the end of himself as
well, at the hands of the infuriated colonel. He wanted to delay him to the
very last moment; and he had been racking his brains to invent some place of
concealment at once plausible and difficult of access.
He imparted his trouble
to Nostromo, and concluded --
"Do you know what,
Capataz? I think that when the time comes and some information must be given, I
shall indicate the Great Isabel. That is the best place I can think of. What is
the matter?"
A low exclamation had
escaped Nostromo. The doctor waited, surprised, and after a moment of profound
silence, heard a thick voice stammer out, "Utter folly," and stop
with a gasp.
"Why folly?"
"Ah! You do not
see it," began Nostromo, scathingly, gathering scorn as he went on.
"Three men in half an hour would see that no ground had been disturbed
anywhere on that island. Do you think that such a treasure can be buried without
leaving traces of the work -- eh! señor doctor? Why! you would not gain half a
day more before having your throat cut by Sotillo. The Isabel! What stupidity!
What miserable invention! Ah! you are all alike, you fine men of intelligence.
All you are fit for is to betray men of the people into undertaking deadly
risks for objects that you are not even sure about. If it comes off you get the
benefit. If not, then it does not matter. He is only a dog. Ah! Madre de Dios,
I would --" He shook his fists above his head.
The doctor was
overwhelmed at first by this fierce, hissing vehemence.
"Well! It seems to
me on your own showing that the men of the people are no mean fools, too,"
he said, sullenly. "No, but come. You are so clever. Have you a better
place?"
Nostromo had calmed
down as quickly as he had flared up.
"I am clever
enough for that," he said, quietly, almost with indifference. "You
want to tell him of a hiding-place big enough to take days in ransacking -- a
place where a treasure of silver ingots can be buried without leaving a sign on
the surface."
"And close at
hand," the doctor put in.
"Just so, señor.
Tell him it is sunk."
"This has the
merit of being the truth," the doctor said, contemptuously. "He will
not believe it."
"You tell him that
it is sunk where he may hope to lay his hands on it, and he will believe you
quick enough. Tell him it has been sunk in the harbour in order to be recovered
afterwards by divers. Tell him you found out that I had orders from Don Carlos
Gould to lower the cases quietly overboard somewhere in a line between the end
of the jetty and the entrance. The depth is not too great there. He has no
divers, but he has a ship, boats, ropes, chains, sailors -- of a sort. Let him
fish for the silver. Let him set his fools to drag backwards and forwards and
crossways while he sits and watches till his eyes drop out of his head."
"Really, this is
an admirable idea," muttered the doctor.
"Si. You tell him
that, and see whether he will not believe you! He will spend days in rage and
torment -- and still he will believe. He will have no thought for anything
else. He will not give up till he is driven off -- why, he may even forget to
kill you. He will neither eat nor sleep. He --"
"The very thing!
The very thing!" the doctor repeated in an excited whisper. "Capataz,
I begin to believe that you are a great genius in your way."
Nostromo had paused;
then began again in a changed tone, sombre, speaking to himself as though he
had forgotten the doctor's existence.
"There is
something in a treasure that fastens upon a man's mind. He will pray and
blaspheme and still persevere, and will curse the day he ever heard of it, and
will let his last hour come upon him unawares, still believing that he missed
it only by a foot. He will see it every time he closes his eyes. He will never
forget it till he is dead -- and even then ---- Doctor, did you ever hear of
the miserable gringos on Azuera, that cannot die? Ha! ha! Sailors like myself.
There is no getting away from a treasure that once fastens upon your
mind."
"You are a devil
of a man, Capataz. It is the most plausible thing."
Nostromo pressed his
arm.
"It will be worse
for him than thirst at sea or hunger in a town full of people. Do you know what
that is? He shall suffer greater torments than he inflicted upon that terrified
wretch who had no invention. None! none! Not like me. I could have told Sotillo
a deadly tale for very little pain."
He laughed wildly and
turned in the doorway towards the body of the late Señor Hirsch, an opaque long
blotch in the semi-transparent obscurity of the room between the two tall
parallelograms of the windows full of stars.
"You man of
fear!" he cried. "You shall be avenged by me -- Nostromo. Out of my
way, doctor! Stand aside -- or, by the suffering soul of a woman dead without
confession, I will strangle you with my two hands."
He bounded downwards
into the black, smoky hall. With a grunt of astonishment, Dr. Monygham threw
himself recklessly into the pursuit. At the bottom of the charred stairs he had
a fall, pitching forward on his face with a force that would have stunned a spirit
less intent upon a task of love and devotion. He was up in a moment, jarred,
shaken, with a queer impression of the terrestrial globe having been flung at
his head in the dark. But it wanted more than that to stop Dr. Monygham's body,
possessed by the exaltation of self- sacrifice; a reasonable exaltation,
determined not to lose whatever advantage chance put into its way. He ran with
headlong, tottering swiftness, his arms going like a windmill in his effort to
keep his balance on his crippled feet. He lost his hat; the tails of his open
gaberdine flew behind him. He had no mind to lose sight of the indispensable
man. But it was a long time, and a long way from the Custom House, before he
managed to seize his arm from behind, roughly, out of breath.
"Stop! Are you
mad?"
Already Nostromo was
walking slowly, his head dropping, as if checked in his pace by the weariness
of irresolution.
"What is that to
you? Ah! I forgot you want me for something. Always. Siempre Nostromo."
"What do you mean
by talking of strangling me?" panted the doctor.
"What do I mean? I
mean that the king of the devils himself has sent you out of this town of
cowards and talkers to meet me to-night of all the nights of my life."
Under the starry sky
the Albergo d'ltalia Una emerged, black and low, breaking the dark level of the
plain. Nostromo stopped altogether.
"The priests say
he is a tempter, do they not?" he added, through his clenched teeth.
"My good man, you
drivel. The devil has nothing to do with this. Neither has the town, which you
may call by what name you please. But Don Carlos Gould is neither a coward nor
an empty talker. You will admit that?" He waited. "Well?"
"Could I see Don
Carlos?"
"Great heavens!
No! Why? What for?" exclaimed the doctor in agitation. "I tell you it
is madness. I will not let you go into the town for anything."
"I must."
"You must
not!" hissed the doctor, fiercely, almost beside himself with the fear of
the man doing away with his usefulness for an imbecile whim of some sort.
"I tell you you shall not. I would rather ----"
He stopped at loss for
words, feeling fagged out, powerless, holding on to Nostromo's sleeve,
absolutely for support after his run.
"I am
betrayed!" muttered the Capataz to himself; and the doctor, who overheard
the last word, made an effort to speak calmly.
"That is exactly
what would happen to you. You would be betrayed."
He thought with a
sickening dread that the man was so well known that he could not escape
recognition. The house of the Señor Administrador was beset by spies, no doubt.
And even the very servants of the casa were not to be trusted. "Reflect,
Capataz," he said, impressively. . . . "What are you laughing
at?"
"I am laughing to
think that if somebody that did not approve of my presence in town, for
instance -- you understand, señor doctor -- if somebody were to give me up to
Pedrito, it would not be beyond my power to make friends even with him. It is
true. What do you think of that?"
"You are a man of
infinite resource, Capataz," said Dr. Monygham, dismally. "I
recognize that. But the town is full of talk about you; and those few
Cargadores that are not in hiding with the railway people have been shouting
'Viva Montero' on the Plaza all day."
"My poor
Cargadores!" muttered Nostromo. "Betrayed! Betrayed!"
"I understand that
on the wharf you were pretty free in laying about you with a stick amongst your
poor Cargadores," the doctor said in a grim tone, which showed that he was
recovering from his exertions. "Make no mistake. Pedrito is furious at Señor
Ribiera's rescue, and at having lost the pleasure of shooting Decoud. Already
there are rumours in the town of the treasure having been spirited away. To
have missed that does not please Pedrito either; but let me tell you that if
you had all that silver in your hand for ransom it would not save you."
Turning swiftly, and
catching the doctor by the shoulders, Nostromo thrust his face close to his.
"Maladetta! You
follow me speaking of the treasure. You have sworn my ruin. You were the last
man who looked upon me before I went out with it. And Sidoni the engine-driver
says you have an evil eye."
"He ought to know.
I saved his broken leg for him last year," the doctor said, stoically. He
felt on his shoulders the weight of these hands famed amongst the populace for
snapping thick ropes and bending horse- shoes. "And to you I offer the
best means of saving yourself -- let me go -- and of retrieving your great
reputation. You boasted of making the Capataz de Cargadores famous from one end
of America to the other about this wretched silver. But I bring you a better
opportunity -- let me go, hombre!"
Nostromo released him
abruptly, and the doctor feared that the indispensable man would run off again.
But he did not. He walked on slowly. The doctor hobbled by his side till,
within a stone's throw from the Casa Viola, Nostromo stopped again.
Silent in inhospitable
darkness, the Casa Viola seemed to have changed its nature; his home appeared
to repel him with an air of hopeless and inimical mystery. The doctor said --
"You will be safe
there. Go in, Capataz."
"How can I go
in?" Nostromo seemed to ask himself in a low, inward tone. "She
cannot unsay what she said, and I cannot undo what I have done."
"I tell you it is
all right. Viola is all alone in there. I looked in as I came out of the town.
You will be perfectly safe in that house till you leave it to make your name
famous on the Campo. I am going now to arrange for your departure with the
engineer-in-chief, and I shall bring you news here long before daybreak."
Dr. Monygham,
disregarding, or perhaps fearing to penetrate the meaning of Nostromo's
silence, clapped him lightly on the shoulder, and starting off with his smart,
lame walk, vanished utterly at the third or fourth hop in the direction of the
railway track. Arrested between the two wooden posts for people to fasten their
horses to, Nostromo did not move, as if he, too, had been planted solidly in
the ground. At the end of half an hour he lifted his head to the deep baying of
the dogs at the railway yards, which had burst out suddenly, tumultuous and
deadened as if coming from under the plain. That lame doctor with the evil eye
had got there pretty fast.
Step by step Nostromo
approached the Albergo d'Italia Una, which he had never known so lightless, so
silent, before. The door, all black in the pale wall, stood open as he had left
it twenty-four hours before, when he had nothing to hide from the world. He
remained before it, irresolute, like a fugitive, like a man betrayed. Poverty,
misery, starvation! Where had he heard these words? The anger of a dying woman
had prophesied that fate for his folly. It looked as if it would come true very
quickly. And the leperos would laugh -- she had said. Yes, they would laugh if
they knew that the Capataz de Cargadores was at the mercy of the mad doctor
whom they could remember, only a few years ago, buying cooked food from a stall
on the Plaza for a copper coin -- like one of themselves.
At that moment the
notion of seeking Captain Mitchell passed through his mind. He glanced in the
direction of the jetty and saw a small gleam of light in the O.S.N. Company's
building. The thought of lighted windows was not attractive. Two lighted
windows had decoyed him into the empty Custom House, only to fall into the
clutches of that doctor. No! He would not go near lighted windows again on that
night. Captain Mitchell was there. And what could he be told? That doctor would
worm it all out of him as if he were a child.
On the threshold he
called out "Giorgio!" in an undertone. Nobody answered. He stepped
in. "Olà!viejo! Are you there? . . ." In the impenetrable darkness
his head swam with the illusion that the obscurity of the kitchen was as vast
as the Placid Gulf, and that the floor dipped forward like a sinking lighter.
"Olà! viejo!" he repeated, falteringly, swaying where he stood. His
hand, extended to steady himself, fell upon the table. Moving a step forward,
he shifted it, and felt a box of matches under his fingers. He fancied he had
heard a quiet sigh. He listened for a moment, holding his breath; then, with
trembling hands, tried to strike a light.
The tiny piece of wood
flamed up quite blindingly at the end of his fingers, raised above his blinking
eyes. A concentrated glare fell upon the leonine white head of old Giorgio
against the black fire-place -- showed him leaning forward in a chair in
staring immobility, surrounded, overhung, by great masses of shadow, his legs
crossed, his cheek in his hand, an empty pipe in the corner of his mouth. It
seemed hours before he attempted to turn his face; at the very moment the match
went out, and he disappeared, overwhelmed by the shadows, as if the walls and
roof of the desolate house had collapsed upon his white head in ghostly
silence.
Nostromo heard him stir
and utter dispassionately the words --
"It may have been
a vision."
"No," he
said, softly. "It is no vision, old man."
A strong chest voice
asked in the dark --
"Is that you I
hear, Giovann' Battista?"
"Si, viejo.
Steady. Not so loud."
After his release by
Sotillo, Giorgio Viola, attended to the very door by the good-natured
engineer-in-chief, had reëntered his house, which he had been made to leave
almost at the very moment of his wife's death. All was still. The lamp above
was burning. He nearly called out to her by name; and the thought that no call
from him would ever again evoke the answer of her voice, made him drop heavily
into the chair with a loud groan, wrung out by the pain as of a keen blade
piercing his breast.
The rest of the night
he made no sound. The darkness turned to grey, and on the colourless, clear,
glassy dawn the jagged sierra stood out flat and opaque, as if cut out of
paper.
The enthusiastic and
severe soul of Giorgio Viola, sailor, champion of oppressed humanity, enemy of
kings, and, by the grace of Mrs. Gould, hotel-keeper of the Sulaco harbour, had
descended into the open abyss of desolation amongst the shattered vestiges of
his past. He remembered his wooing between two campaigns, a single short week
in the season of gathering olives. Nothing approached the grave passion of that
time but the deep, passionate sense of his bereavement. He discovered all the
extent of his dependence upon the silenced voice of that woman. It was her
voice that he missed. Abstracted, busy, lost in inward contemplation, he seldom
looked at his wife in those later years. The thought of his girls was a matter
of concern, not of consolation. It was her voice that he would miss. And he
remembered the other child -- the little boy who died at sea. Ah! a man would
have been something to lean upon. And, alas! even Gian' Battista -- he of whom,
and of Linda, his wife had spoken to him so anxiously before she dropped off
into her last sleep on earth, he on whom she had called aloud to save the
children, just before she died -- even he was dead!
And the old man, bent
forward, his head in his hand, sat through the day in immobility and solitude.
He never heard the brazen roar of the bells in town. When it ceased the
earthenware filter in the corner of the kitchen kept on its swift musical drip,
drip into the great porous jar below.
Towards sunset he got
up, and with slow movements disappeared up the narrow staircase. His bulk
filled it; and the rubbing of his shoulders made a small noise as of a mouse
running behind the plaster of a wall. While he remained up there the house was
as dumb as a grave. Then, with the same faint rubbing noise, he descended. He
had to catch at the chairs and tables to regain his seat. He seized his pipe
off the high mantel of the fire-place -- but made no attempt to reach the
tobacco -- thrust it empty into the corner of his mouth, and sat down again in
the same staring pose. The sun of Pedrito's entry into Sulaco, the last sun of
Señor Hirsch's life, the first of Decoud's solitude on the Great Isabel, passed
over the Albergo d'ltalia Una on its way to the west. The tinkling drip, drip
of the filter had ceased, the lamp upstairs had burnt itself out, and the night
beset Giorgio Viola and his dead wife with its obscurity and silence that seemed
invincible till the Capataz de Cargadores, returning from the dead, put them to
flight with the splutter and flare of a match.
"Si, viejo. It is
me. Wait."
Nostromo, after
barricading the door and closing the shutters carefully, groped upon a shelf
for a candle, and lit it.
Old Viola had risen. He
followed with his eyes in the dark the sounds made by Nostromo. The light
disclosed him standing without support, as if the mere presence of that man who
was loyal, brave, incorruptible, who was all his son would have been, were
enough for the support of his decaying strength.
He extended his hand
grasping the briar-wood pipe, whose bowl was charred on the edge, and knitted
his bushy eyebrows heavily at the light.
"You have
returned," he said, with shaky dignity. "Ah! Very well! I ----"
He broke off. Nostromo,
leaning back against the table, his arms folded on his breast, nodded at him
slightly.
"You thought I was
drowned! No! The best dog of the rich, of the aristocrats, of these fine men
who can only talk and betray the people, is not dead yet."
The Garibaldino,
motionless, seemed to drink in the sound of the well-known voice. His head
moved slightly once as if in sign of approval; but Nostromo saw clearly that
the old man understood nothing of the words. There was no one to understand; no
one he could take into the confidence of Decoud's fate, of his own, into the
secret of the silver. That doctor was an enemy of the people -- a tempter. . .
.
Old Giorgio's heavy
frame shook from head to foot with the effort to overcome his emotion at the
sight of that man, who had shared the intimacies of his domestic life as though
he had been a grown-up son.
"She believed yon
would return," he said, solemnly.
Nostromo raised his
head.
"She was a wise woman.
How could I fail to come back ----?"
He finished the thought
mentally: "Since she has prophesied for me an end of poverty, misery, and
starvation." These words of Teresa's anger, from the circumstances in
which they had been uttered, like the cry of a soul prevented from making its
peace with God, stirred the obscure superstition of personal fortune from which
even the greatest genius amongst men of adventure and action is seldom free.
They reigned over Nostromo's mind with the force of a potent malediction. And
what a curse it was that which her words had laid upon him! He had been
orphaned so young that he could remember no other woman whom he called mother.
Henceforth there would be no enterprise in which he would not fail. The spell
was working already. Death itself would elude him now. . . . He said violently
--
"Come, viejo! Get
me something to eat. I am hungry! Sangre de Dios! The emptiness of my belly
makes me lightheaded."
With his chin dropped
again upon his bare breast above his folded arms, barefooted, watching from
under a gloomy brow the movements of old Viola foraging amongst the cupboards,
he seemed as if indeed fallen under a curse -- a ruined and sinister Capataz.
Old Viola walked out of
a dark corner, and, without a word, emptied upon the table out of his hollowed
palms a few dry crusts of bread and half a raw onion.
While the Capataz began
to devour this beggar's fare, taking up with stony-eyed voracity piece after
piece lying by his side, the Garibaldino went off, and squatting down in
another corner filled an earthenware mug with red wine out of a wicker-covered
demijohn. With a familiar gesture, as when serving customers in the café, he
had thrust his pipe between his teeth to have his hands free.
The Capataz drank
greedily. A slight flush deepened the bronze of his cheek. Before him, Viola,
with a turn of his white and massive head towards the staircase, took his empty
pipe out of his mouth, and pronounced slowly --
"After the shot
was fired down here, which killed her as surely as if the bullet had struck her
oppressed heart, she called upon you to save the children. Upon you, Gian'
Battista."
The Capataz looked up.
"Did she do that,
Padrone? To save the children! They are with the English señora, their rich
benefactress. Hey! old man of the people. Thy benefactress. . . ."
"I am old,"
muttered Giorgio Viola. "An English- woman was allowed to give a bed to
Garibaldi lying wounded in prison. The greatest man that ever lived. A man of
the people, too -- a sailor. I may let another keep a roof over my head. Si . .
. I am old. I may let her. Life lasts too long sometimes."
"And she herself
may not have a roof over her head before many days are out, unless I . . . What
do you say? Am I to keep a roof over her head? Am I to try -- and save all the
Blancos together with her?"
"You shall do
it," said old Viola in a strong voice. "You shall do it as my son
would have. . . ."
"Thy son, viejo!
.. .. There never has been a man like thy son. Ha, I must try. . . . But what
if it were only a part of the curse to lure me on? . . . And so she called upon
me to save -- and then ----?"
"She spoke no
more." The heroic follower of Gari-@@@ baldi, at the thought of the
eternal stillness and silence fallen upon the shrouded form stretched out on
the bed upstairs, averted his face and raised his hand to his furrowed brow.
"She was dead before I could seize her hands," he stammered out,
pitifully.
Before the wide eyes of
the Capataz, staring at the doorway of the dark staircase, floated the shape of
the Great Isabel, like a strange ship in distress, freighted with enormous
wealth and the solitary life of a man. It was impossible for him to do
anything. He could only hold his tongue, since there was no one to trust. The treasure
would be lost, probably -- unless Decoud. . . . And his thought came abruptly
to an end. He perceived that he could not imagine in the least what Decoud was
likely to do.
Old Viola had not
stirred. And the motionless Capataz dropped his long, soft eyelashes, which
gave to the upper part of his fierce, black-whiskered face a touch of feminine
ingenuousness. The silence had lasted for a long time.
"God rest her
soul!" he murmured, gloomily.
THE next day was quiet
in the morning, except for the faint sound of firing to the northward, in the
direction of Los Hatos. Captain Mitchell had listened to it from his balcony
anxiously. The phrase, "In my delicate position as the only consular agent
then in the port, everything, sir, everything was a just cause for
anxiety," had its place in the more or less stereotyped relation of the
"historical events" which for the next few years was at the service
of distinguished strangers visiting Sulaco. The mention of the dignity and neutrality
of the flag, so difficult to preserve in his position, "right in the thick
of these events between the lawlessness of that piratical villain Sotillo and
the more regularly established but scarcely less atrocious tyranny of his
Excellency Don Pedro Montero," came next in order. Captain Mitchell was
not the man to enlarge upon mere dangers much. But he insisted that it was a
memorable day. On that day, towards dusk, he had seen "that poor fellow of
mine -- Nostromo. The sailor whom I discovered, and, I may say, made, sir. The
man of the famous ride to Cayta, sir. An historical event, sir!"
Regarded by the O. S.
N. Company as an old and faithful servant, Captain Mitchell was allowed to
attain the term of his usefulness in ease and dignity at the head of the
enormously extended service. The augmentation of the establishment, with its
crowds of clerks, an office in town, the old office in the harbour, the
division into departments -- passenger, cargo, lighterage, and so on -- secured
a greater leisure for his last years in the regenerated Sulaco, the capital of
the Occidental Republic. Liked by the natives for his good nature and the
formality of his manner, self-important and simple, known for years as a
"friend of our country," he felt himself a personality of mark in the
town. Getting up early for a turn in the market-place while the gigantic shadow
of Higuerota was still lying upon the fruit and flower stalls piled up with
masses of gorgeous colouring, attending easily to current affairs, welcomed in
houses, greeted by ladies on the Alameda, with his entry into all the clubs and
a footing in the Casa Gould, he led his privileged old bachelor, man-about-town
existence with great comfort and solemnity. But on mail-boat days he was down
at the Harbour Office at an early hour, with his own gig, manned by a smart
crew in white and blue, ready to dash off and board the ship directly she
showed her bows between the harbour heads.
It would be into the
Harbour Office that he would lead some privileged passenger he had brought off
in his own boat, and invite him to take a seat for a moment while he signed a
few papers. And Captain Mitchell, seating himself at his desk, would keep on
talking hospitably --
"There isn't much
time if you are to see everything in a day. We shall be off in a moment. We'll
have lunch at the Amarilla Club -- though I belong also to the Anglo-American
-- mining engineers and business men, don't you know -- and to the Mirliflores
as well, a new club -- English, French, Italians, all sorts -- lively young fellows
mostly, who wanted to pay a compliment to an old resident, sir. But we'll lunch
at the Amarilla. Interest you, I fancy. Real thing of the country. Men of the
first families. The President of the Occidental Republic himself belongs to it,
sir. Fine old bishop with a broken nose in the patio. Remarkable piece of
statuary, I believe. Cavaliere Parrochetti -- you know Parrochetti, the famous
Italian sculptor -- was working here for two years -- thought very highly of
our old bishop. . . . There! I am very much at your service now."
Proud of his
experience, penetrated by the sense of historical importance of men, events,
and buildings, he talked pompously in jerky periods, with slight sweeps of his
short, thick arm, letting nothing "escape the attention" of his
privileged captive.
"Lot of building
going on, as you observe. Before the Separation it was a plain of burnt grass
smothered in clouds of dust, with an ox-cart track to our Jetty. Nothing more.
This is the Harbour Gate. Picturesque, is it not? Formerly the town stopped
short there. We enter now the Calle de la Constitucion. Observe the old Spanish
houses. Great dignity. Eh? I suppose it's just as it was in the time of the
Viceroys, except for the pavement. Wood blocks now. Sulaco National Bank there,
with the sentry boxes each side of the gate. Casa Avellanos this side, with all
the ground-floor windows shuttered. A wonderful woman lives there -- Miss
Avellanos -- the beautiful Antonia. A character, sir! A historical woman!
Opposite -- Casa Gould. Noble gateway. Yes, the Goulds of the original Gould
Concession, that all the world knows of now. I hold seventeen of the
thousand-dollar shares in the Consolidated San Tomé mines. All the poor savings
of my lifetime, sir, and it will be enough to keep me in comfort to the end of
my days at home when I retire. I got in on the ground-floor, you see. Don
Carlos, great friend of mine. Seventeen shares -- quite a little fortune to
leave behind one, too. I have a niece -- married a parson -- most worthy man, incumbent
of a small parish in Sussex; no end of children. I was never married myself. A
sailor should exercise self-denial. Standing under that very gateway, sir, with
some young engineer-fellows, ready to defend that house where we had received
so much kindness and hospitality, I saw the first and last charge of Pedrito's
horsemen upon Barrios's troops, who had just taken the Harbour Gate. They could
not stand the new rifles brought out by that poor Decoud. It was a murderous
fire. In a moment the street became blocked with a mass of dead men and horses.
They never came on again."
And all day Captain
Mitchell would talk like this to his more or less willing victim --
"The Plaza. I call
it magnificent. Twice the area of Trafalgar Square."
From the very centre,
in the blazing sunshine, he pointed out the buildings --
"The Intendencia,
now President's Palace -- Cabildo, where the Lower Chamber of Parliament sits.
You notice the new houses on that side of the Plaza? Compañia Anzani, a great
general store, like those coöperative things at home. Old Anzani was murdered
by the National Guards in front of his safe. It was even for that specific
crime that the deputy Gamacho, commanding the Nationals, a bloodthirsty and
savage brute, was executed publicly by garrotte upon the sentence of a
court-martial ordered by Barrios. Anzani's nephews converted the business into
a company. All that side of the Plaza had been burnt; used to be colonnaded
before. A terrible fire, by the light of which I saw the last of the fighting,
the llaneros flying, the Nationals throwing their arms down, and the miners of
San Tomé, all Indians from the Sierra, rolling by like a torrent to the sound
of pipes and cymbals, green flags flying, a wild mass of men in white ponchos
and green hats, on foot, on mules, on donkeys. Such a sight, sir, will never be
seen again. The miners, sir, had marched upon the town, Don Pépé leading on his
black horse, and their very wives in the rear on burros, screaming
encouragement, sir, and beating tambourines. I remember one of these women had
a green parrot seated on her shoulder, as calm as a bird of stone. They had
just saved their Señor Administrador; for Barrios, though he ordered the
assault at once, at night, too, would have been too late. Pedrito Montero had
Don Carlos led out to be shot -- like his uncle many years ago -- and then, as
Barrios said afterwards, 'Sulaco would not have been worth fighting for.'
Sulaco without the Concession was nothing; and there were tons and tons of
dynamite distributed all over the mountain with detonators arranged, and an old
priest, Father Romàn, standing by to annihilate the San Tomé mine at the first
news of failure. Don Carlos had made up his mind not to leave it behind, and he
had the right men to see to it, too."
Thus Captain Mitchell
would talk in the middle of the Plaza, holding over his head a white umbrella
with a green lining; but inside the cathedral, in the dim light, with a faint
scent of incense floating in the cool atmosphere, and here and there a kneeling
female figure, black or all white, with a veiled head, his lowered voice became
solemn and impressive.
"Here," he
would say, pointing to a niche in the wall of the dusky aisle, "you see
the bust of Don José Avellanos, 'Patriot and Statesman,' as the inscription
says, 'Minister to Courts of England and Spain, etc., etc., died in the woods
of Los Hatos worn out with his life- long struggle for Right and Justice at the
dawn of the New Era.' A fair likeness. Parrochetti's work from some old
photographs and a pencil sketch by Mrs. Gould. I was well acquainted with that
distinguished Spanish-American of the old school, a true Hidalgo, beloved by
everybody who knew him. The marble medallion in the wall, in the antique style,
representing a veiled woman seated with her hands clasped loosely over her
knees, commemorates that unfortunate young gentleman who sailed out with
Nostromo on that fatal night, sir. See, 'To the memory of Martin Decoud, his
betrothed Antonia Avellanos.' Frank, simple, noble. There you have that lady,
sir, as she is. An exceptional woman. Those who thought she would give way to
despair were mistaken, sir. She has been blamed in many quarters for not having
taken the veil. It was expected of her. But Doña Antonia is not the stuff they
make nuns of. Bishop Corbelàn, her uncle, lives with her in the Corbelàn town
house. He is a fierce sort of priest, everlastingly worrying the Government
about the old Church lands and convents. I believe they think a lot of him in
Rome. Now let us go to the Amarilla Club, just across the Plaza, to get some
lunch."
Directly outside the
cathedral on the very top of the noble flight of steps, his voice rose
pompously, his arm found again its sweeping gesture.
"Porvenir, over
there on that first floor, above those French plate-glass shop-fronts; our
biggest daily. Conservative, or, rather, I should say, Parliamentary. We have
the Parliamentary party here of which the actual Chief of the State, Don Juste
Lopez, is the head; a very sagacious man, I think. A first-rate intellect, sir.
The Democratic party in opposition rests mostly, I am sorry to say, on these
socialistic Italians, sir, with their secret societies, camorras, and
such-like. There are lots of Italians settled here on the railway lands,
dismissed navvies, mechanics, and so on, all along the trunk line. There are
whole villages of Italians on the Campo. And the natives, too, are being drawn
into these ways . . . American bar? Yes. And over there you can see another.
New Yorkers mostly frequent that one ---- Here we are at the Amarilla. Observe
the bishop at the foot of the stairs to the right as we go in."
And the lunch would
begin and terminate its lavish and leisurely course at a little table in the
gallery, Captain Mitchell nodding, bowing, getting up to speak for a moment to
different officials in black clothes, merchants in jackets, officers in
uniform, middle-aged caballeros from the Campo -- sallow, little, nervous men,
and fat, placid, swarthy men, and Europeans or North Americans of superior standing,
whose faces looked very white amongst the majority of dark complexions and
black, glistening eyes.
Captain Mitchell would
lie back in the chair, casting around looks of satisfaction, and tender over
the table a case full of thick cigars.
"Try a weed with
your coffee. Local tobacco. The black coffee you get at the Amarilla, sir, you
don't meet anywhere in the world. We get the bean from a famous cafeteria in
the foot-hills, whose owner sends three sacks every year as a present to his
fellow members in remembrance of the fight against Gamacho's Nationals, carried
on from these very windows by the caballeros. He was in town at the time, and
took part, sir, to the bitter end. It arrives on three mules -- not in the
common way, by rail; no fear! -- right into the patio, escorted by mounted
peons, in charge of the Mayoral of his estate, who walks upstairs, booted and
spurred, and delivers it to our committee formally with the words, 'For the
sake of those fallen on the third of May.' We call it Tres de Mayo coffee.
Taste it."
Captain Mitchell, with
an expression as though making ready to hear a sermon in a church, would lift
the tiny cup to his lips. And the nectar would be sipped to the bottom during a
restful silence in a cloud of cigar smoke.
"Look at this man
in black just going out," he would begin, leaning forward hastily.
"This is the famous Hernandez, Minister of War. The Times' special
correspondent, who wrote that striking series of letters calling the Occidental
Republic the 'Treasure House of the World,' gave a whole article to him and the
force he has organized -- the renowned Carabineers of the Campo."
Captain Mitchell's
guest, staring curiously, would see a figure in a long-tailed black coat
walking gravely, with downcast eyelids in a long, composed face, a brow
furrowed horizontally, a pointed head, whose grey hair, thin at the top, combed
down carefully on all sides and rolled at the ends, fell low on the neck and
shoulders. This, then, was the famous bandit of whom Europe had heard with interest.
He put on a high-crowned sombrero with a wide flat brim; a rosary of wooden
beads was twisted about his right wrist. And Captain Mitchell would proceed --
"The protector of
the Sulaco refugees from the rage of Pedrito. As general of cavalry with
Barrios he distinguished himself at the storming of Tonoro, where Señor Fuentes
was killed with the last remnant of the Monterists. He is the friend and humble
servant of Bishop Corbelàn. Hears three Masses every day. I bet you he will
step into the cathedral to say a prayer or two on his way home to his
siesta."
He took several puffs
at his cigar in silence; then, in his most important manner, pronounced:
"The Spanish race,
sir, is prolific of remarkable characters in every rank of life. . . . I propose
we go now into the billiard-room, which is cool, for a quiet chat. There's
never anybody there till after five. I could tell you episodes of the
Separationist revolution that would astonish you. When the great heat's over,
we'll take a turn on the Alameda."
The programme went on
relentless, like a law of Nature. The turn on the Alameda was taken with slow
steps and stately remarks.
"All the great
world of Sulaco here, sir." Captain Mitchell bowed right and left with no
end of formality; then with animation, "Doña Emilia, Mrs. Gould's
carriage. Look. Always white mules. The kindest, most gracious woman the sun
ever shone upon. A great position, sir. A great position. First lady in Sulaco
-- far before the President's wife. And worthy of it." He took off his
hat; then, with a studied change of tone, added, negligently, that the man in
black by her side, with a high white collar and a scarred, snarly face, was Dr.
Monygham, Inspector of State Hospitals, chief medical officer of the
Consolidated San Tomé mines. "A familiar of the house. Everlastingly
there. No wonder. The Goulds made him. Very clever man and all that, but I
never liked him. Nobody does. I can recollect him limping about the streets in
a check shirt and native sandals with a water- melon under his arm -- all he
would get to eat for the day. A big-wig now, sir, and as nasty as ever. However
. . . There's no doubt he played his part fairly well at the time. He saved us
all from the deadly incubus of Sotillo, where a more particular man might have
failed ----"
His arm went up.
"The equestrian
statue that used to stand on the pedestal over there has been removed. It was
an anachronism," Captain Mitchell commented, obscurely. "There is
some talk of replacing it by a marble shaft commemorative of Separation, with
angels of peace at the four corners, and bronze Justice holding an even
balance, all gilt, on the top. Cavaliere Parrochetti was asked to make a
design, which you can see framed under glass in the Municipal Sala. Names are
to be engraved all round the base. Well! They could do no better than begin
with the name of Nostromo. He has done for Separation as much as anybody else,
and," added Captain Mitchell, "has got less than many others by it --
when it comes to that." He dropped on to a stone seat under a tree, and
tapped invitingly at the place by his side. "He carried to Barrios the
letters from Sulaco which decided the General to abandon Cayta for a time, and
come back to our help here by sea. The transports were still in harbour fortunately.
Sir, I did not even know that my Capataz de Cargadores was alive. I had no
idea. It was Dr. Monygham who came upon him, by chance, in the Custom House,
evacuated an hour or two before by the wretched Sotillo. I was never told;
never given a hint, nothing -- as if I were unworthy of confidence. Monygham
arranged it all. He went to the railway yards, and got admission to the
engineer-in-chief, who, for the sake of the Goulds as much as for anything
else, consented to let an engine make a dash down the line, one hundred and
eighty miles, with Nostromo aboard. It was the only way to get him off. In the
Construction Camp at the railhead, he obtained a horse, arms, some clothing,
and started alone on that marvellous ride -- four hundred miles in six days, through
a disturbed country, ending by the feat of passing through the Monterist lines
outside Cayta. The history of that ride, sir, would make a most exciting book.
He carried all our lives in his pocket. Devotion, courage, fidelity,
intelligence were not enough. Of course, he was perfectly fearless and
incorruptible. But a man was wanted that would know how to succeed. He was that
man, sir. On the fifth of May, being practically a prisoner in the Harbour
Office of my Company, I suddenly heard the whistle of an engine in the railway
yards, a quarter of a mile away. I could not believe my ears. I made one jump
on to the balcony, and beheld a locomotive under a great head of steam run out
of the yard gates, screeching like mad, enveloped in a white cloud, and then,
just abreast of old Viola's inn, check almost to a standstill. I made out, sir,
a man -- I couldn't tell who -- dash out of the Albergo d'ltalia Una, climb
into the cab, and then, sir, that engine seemed positively to leap clear of the
house, and was gone in the twinkling of an eye. As you blow a candle out, sir!
There was a first-rate driver on the foot-plate, sir, I can tell you. They were
fired heavily upon by the National Guards in Rincon and one other place.
Fortunately the line had not been torn up. In four hours they reached the
Construction Camp. Nostromo had his start. . . . The rest you know. You've got
only to look round you. There are people on this Alameda that ride in their
carriages, or even are alive at all to-day, because years ago I engaged a
runaway Italian sailor for a foreman of our wharf simply on the strength of his
looks. And that's a fact. You can't get over it, sir. On the seventeenth of
May, just twelve days after I saw the man from the Casa Viola get on the
engine, and wondered what it meant, Barrios's transports were entering this
harbour, and the 'Treasure House of the World,' as The Times man calls Sulaco
in his book, was saved intact for civilization -- for a great future, sir.
Pedrito, with Hernandez on the west, and the San Tomé miners pressing on the
land gate, was not able to oppose the landing. He had been sending messages to
Sotillo for a week to join him. Had Sotillo done so there would have been
massacres and proscription that would have left no man or woman of position
alive. But that's where Dr. Monygham comes in. Sotillo, blind and deaf to
everything, stuck on board his steamer watching the dragging for silver, which
he believed to be sunk at the bottom of the harbour. They say that for the last
three days he was out of his mind raving and foaming with disappointment at
getting nothing, flying about the deck, and yelling curses at the boats with
the drags, ordering them in, and then suddenly stamping his foot and crying
out, 'And yet it is there! I see it! I feel it!'
"He was preparing
to hang Dr. Monygham (whom he had on board) at the end of the after-derrick,
when the first of Barrios's transports, one of our own ships at that, steamed
right in, and ranging close alongside opened a small-arm fire without as much
preliminaries as a hail. It was the completest surprise in the world, sir. They
were too astounded at first to bolt below. Men were falling right and left like
ninepins. It's a miracle that Monygham, standing on the after-hatch with the
rope already round his neck, escaped being riddled through and through like a
sieve. He told me since that he had given himself up for lost, and kept on
yelling with all the strength of his lungs: 'Hoist a white flag! Hoist a white
flag!' Suddenly an old major of the Esmeralda regiment, standing by, unsheathed
his sword with a shriek: 'Die, perjured traitor!' and ran Sotillo clean through
the body, just before he fell himself shot through the head."
Captain Mitchell
stopped for a while.
"Begad, sir! I
could spin you a yarn for hours. But it's time we started off to Rincon. It
would not do for you to pass through Sulaco and not see the lights of the San
Tomé mine, a whole mountain ablaze like a lighted palace above the dark Campo.
It's a fashionable drive. . . . But let me tell you one little anecdote, sir;
just to show you. A fortnight or more later, when Barrios, declared
Generalissimo, was gone in pursuit of Pedrito away south, when the Provisional
Junta, with Don Juste Lopez at its head, had promulgated the new Constitution,
and our Don Carlos Gould was packing up his trunks bound on a mission to San
Francisco and Washington (the United States, sir, were the first great power to
recognize the Occidental Republic) -- a fortnight later, I say, when we were
beginning to feel that our heads were safe on our shoulders, if I may express
myself so, a prominent man, a large shipper by our line, came to see me on
business, and, says he, the first thing: 'I say, Captain Mitchell, is that
fellow' (meaning Nostromo) 'still the Capataz of your Cargadores or not?'
'What's the matter?' says I. 'Because, if he is, then I don't mind; I send and
receive a good lot of cargo by your ships; but I have observed him several days
loafing about the wharf, and just now he stopped me as cool as you please, with
a request for a cigar. Now, you know, my cigars are rather special, and I can't
get them so easily as all that.' 'I hope you stretched a point,' I said, very
gently. 'Why, yes. But it's a confounded nuisance. The fellow's everlastingly
cadging for smokes.' Sir, I turned my eyes away, and then asked, 'Weren't you
one of the prisoners in the Cabildo?' 'You know very well I was, and in chains,
too,' says he. 'And under a fine of fifteen thousand dollars?' He coloured,
sir, because it got about that he fainted from fright when they came to arrest
him, and then behaved before Fuentes in a manner to make the very policianos,
who had dragged him there by the hair of his head, smile at his cringing.
'Yes,' he says, in a sort of shy way. 'Why?' 'Oh, nothing. You stood to lose a
tidy bit,' says I, 'even if you saved your life. . . . But what can I do for
you?' He never even saw the point. Not he. And that's how the world wags,
sir."
He rose a little
stiffly, and the drive to Rincon would be taken with only one philosophical
remark, uttered by the merciless cicerone, with his eyes fixed upon the lights
of San Tomé, that seemed suspended in the dark night between earth and heaven.
"A great power,
this, for good and evil, sir. A great power."
And the dinner of the
Mirliflores would be eaten, excellent as to cooking, and leaving upon the
traveller's mind an impression that there were in Sulaco many pleasant, able
young men with salaries apparently too large for their discretion, and amongst
them a few, mostly Anglo-Saxon, skilled in the art of, as the saying is,
"taking a rise" out of his kind host.
With a rapid, jingling
drive to the harbour in a two- wheeled machine (which Captain Mitchell called a
curricle) behind a fleet and scraggy mule beaten all the time by an obviously
Neapolitan driver, the cycle would be nearly closed before the lighted-up
offices of the O. S. N. Company, remaining open so late because of the steamer.
Nearly -- but not quite.
"Ten o'clock. Your
ship won't be ready to leave till half-past twelve, if by then. Come in for a
brandy- and-soda and one more cigar."
And in the
superintendent's private room the privileged passenger by the Ceres, or Juno,
or Pallas, stunned and as it were annihilated mentally by a sudden surfeit of
sights, sounds, names, facts, and complicated information imperfectly
apprehended, would listen like a tired child to a fairy tale; would hear a
voice, familiar and surprising in its pompousness, tell him, as if from another
world, how there was "in this very harbour" an international naval
demonstration, which put an end to the Costaguana-Sulaco War. How the United
States cruiser, Powhattan, was the first to salute the Occidental flag --
white, with a wreath of green laurel in the middle encircling a yellow amarilla
flower. Would hear how General Montero, in less than a month after proclaiming
himself Emperor of Costaguana, was shot dead (during a solemn and public
distribution of orders and crosses) by a young artillery officer, the brother
of his then mistress.
"The abominable
Pedrito, sir, fled the country," the voice would say. And it would
continue: "A captain of one of our ships told me lately that he recognized
Pedrito the Guerrillero, arrayed in purple slippers and a velvet smoking-cap
with a gold tassel, keeping a disorderly house in one of the southern
ports."
"Abominable
Pedrito! Who the devil was he?" would wonder the distinguished bird of
passage hovering on the confines of waking and sleep with resolutely open eyes
and a faint but amiable curl upon his lips, from between which stuck out the
eighteenth or twentieth cigar of that memorable day.
"He appeared to me
in this very room like a haunting ghost, sir" -- Captain Mitchell was
talking of his Nostromo with true warmth of feeling and a touch of wistful
pride. "You may imagine, sir, what an effect it produced on me. He had
come round by sea with Barrios, of course. And the first thing he told me after
I became fit to hear him was that he had picked up the lighter's boat floating
in the gulf! He seemed quite overcome by the circumstance. And a remarkable
enough circumstance it was, when you remember that it was then sixteen days
since the sinking of the silver. At once I could see he was another man. He
stared at the wall, sir, as if there had been a spider or something running
about there. The loss of the silver preyed on his mind. The first thing he
asked me about was whether Doña Antonia had heard yet of Decoud's death. His
voice trembled. I had to tell him that Doña Antonia, as a matter of fact, was
not back in town yet. Poor girl! And just as I was making ready to ask him a
thousand questions, with a sudden, 'Pardon me, señor,' he cleared out of the
office altogether. I did not see him again for three days. I was terribly busy,
you know. It seems that he wandered about in and out of the town, and on two
nights turned up to sleep in the baracoons of the railway people. He seemed
absolutely indifferent to what went on. I asked him on the wharf, 'When are you
going to take hold again, Nostromo? There will be plenty of work for the
Cargadores presently.'
"'Señor,' says he,
looking at me in a slow, inquisitive manner, 'would it surprise you to hear
that I am too tired to work just yet? And what work could I do now? How can I
look my Cargadores in the face after losing a lighter?'
"I begged him not
to think any more about the silver, and he smiled. A smile that went to my
heart, sir. 'It was no mistake,' I told him. 'It was a fatality. A thing that
could not be helped.' 'Si, si!" he said, and turned away. I thought it
best to leave him alone for a bit to get over it. Sir, it took him years
really, to get over it. I was present at his interview with Don Carlos. I must
say that Gould is rather a cold man. He had to keep a tight hand on his feelings,
dealing with thieves and rascals, in constant danger of ruin for himself and
wife for so many years, that it had become a second nature. They looked at each
other for a long time. Don Carlos asked what he could do for him, in his quiet,
reserved way.
"'My name is known
from one end of Sulaco to the other,' he said, as quiet as the other. 'What
more can you do for me?' That was all that passed on that occasion. Later,
however, there was a very fine coasting schooner for sale, and Mrs. Gould and I
put our heads together to get her bought and presented to him. It was done, but
he paid all the price back within the next three years. Business was booming
all along this seaboard, sir. Moreover, that man always succeeded in everything
except in saving the silver. Poor Doña Antonia, fresh from her terrible
experiences in the woods of Los Hatos, had an interview with him, too. Wanted
to hear about Decoud: what they said, what they did, what they thought up to
the last on that fatal night. Mrs. Gould told me his manner was perfect for
quietness and sympathy. Miss Avellanos burst into tears only when he told her
how Decoud had happened to say that his plan would be a glorious success. . . .
And there's no doubt, sir, that it is. It is a success."
The cycle was about to
close at last. And while the privileged passenger, shivering with the pleasant
anticipations of his berth, forgot to ask himself, "What on earth Decoud's
plan could be?" Captain Mitchell was saying, "Sorry we must part so
soon. Your intelligent interest made this a pleasant day to me. I shall see you
now on board. You had a glimpse of the 'Treasure House of the World.' A very
good name that." And the coxswain's voice at the door, announcing that the
gig was ready, closed the cycle.
Nostromo had, indeed,
found the lighter's boat, which he had left on the Great Isabel with Decoud,
floating empty far out in the gulf. He was then on the bridge of the first of
Barrios's transports, and within an hour's steaming from Sulaco. Barrios,
always delighted with a feat of daring and a good judge of courage, had taken a
great liking to the Capataz. During the passage round the coast the General
kept Nostromo near his person, addressing him frequently in that abrupt and
boisterous manner which was the sign of his high favour.
Nostromo's eyes were
the first to catch, broad on the bow, the tiny, elusive dark speck, which,
alone with the forms of the Three Isabels right ahead, appeared on the flat,
shimmering emptiness of the gulf. There are times when no fact should be
neglected as insignificant; a small boat so far from the land might have had
some meaning worth finding out. At a nod of consent from Barrios the transport
swept out of her course, passing near enough to ascertain that no one manned
the little cockle-shell. It was merely a common small boat gone adrift with her
oars in her. But Nostromo, to whose mind Decoud had been insistently present
for days, had long before recognized with excitement the dinghy of the lighter.
There could be no
question of stopping to pick up that thing. Every minute of time was momentous
with the lives and futures of a whole town. The head of the leading ship, with
the General on board, fell off to her course. Behind her, the fleet of
transports, scattered haphazard over a mile or so in the offing, like the
finish of an ocean race, pressed on, all black and smoking on the western sky.
"Mi General,"
Nostromo's voice rang out loud, but quiet, from behind a group of officers,
"I should like to save that little boat. Por Dios, I know her. She belongs
to my Company."
"And, por
Dios," guffawed Barrios, in a noisy, good- humoured voice, "you
belong to me. I am going to make you a captain of cavalry directly we get
within sight of a horse again."
"I can swim far
better than I can ride, mi General,"
cried Nostromo, pushing
through to the rail with a set
stare in his eyes.
"Let me ----"
"Let you? What a
conceited fellow that is," bantered the General, jovially, without even
looking at him. "Let him go! Ha! ha! ha! He wants me to admit that we
cannot take Sulaco without him! Ha! ha! ha! Would you like to swim off to her,
my son?"
A tremendous shout from
one end of the ship to the other stopped his guffaw. Nostromo had leaped
overboard; and his black head bobbed up far away already from the ship. The
General muttered an appalled "Cielo! Sinner that I am!" in a
thunderstruck tone. One anxious glance was enough to show him that Nostromo was
swimming with perfect ease; and then he thundered terribly, "No! no! We
shall not stop to pick up this impertinent fellow. Let him drown -- that mad
Capataz."
Nothing short of main
force would have kept Nostromo from leaping overboard. That empty boat, coming
out to meet him mysteriously, as if rowed by an invisible spectre, exercised
the fascination of some sign, of some warning, seemed to answer in a startling
and enigmatic way the persistent thought of a treasure and of a man's fate. He
would have leaped if there had been death in that half-mile of water. It was as
smooth as a pond, and for some reason sharks are unknown in the Placid Gulf,
though on the other side of the Punta Mala the coastline swarms with them.
The Capataz seized hold
of the stern and blew with force. A queer, faint feeling had come over him
while he swam. He had got rid of his boots and coat in the water. He hung on
for a time, regaining his breath. In the distance the transports, more in a
bunch now, held on straight for Sulaco, with their air of friendly contest, of
nautical sport, of a regatta; and the united smoke of their funnels drove like
a thin, sulphurous fogbank right over his head. It was his daring, his courage,
his act that had set these ships in motion upon the sea, hurrying on to save
the lives and fortunes of the Blancos, the taskmasters of the people; to save
the San Tomé mine; to save the children.
With a vigorous and
skilful effort he clambered over the stern. The very boat! No doubt of it; no
doubt whatever. It was the dinghy of the lighter No. 3 -- the dinghy left with
Martin Decoud on the Great Isabel so that he should have some means to help
himself if nothing could be done for him from the shore. And here she had come
out to meet him empty and inexplicable. What had become of Decoud? The Capataz
made a minute examination. He looked for some scratch, for some mark, for some
sign. All he discovered was a brown stain on the gunwale abreast of the thwart.
He bent his face over it and rubbed hard with his finger. Then he sat down in
the stern sheets, passive, with his knees close together and legs aslant.
Streaming from head to
foot, with his hair and whiskers hanging lank and dripping and a lustreless
stare fixed upon the bottom boards, the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores
resembled a drowned corpse come up from the bottom to idle away the sunset hour
in a small boat. The excitement of his adventurous ride, the excitement of the
return in time, of achievement, of success, all this excitement centred round
the associated ideas of the great treasure and of the only other man who knew
of its existence, had departed from him. To the very last moment he had been
cudgelling his brains as to how he could manage to visit the Great Isabel
without loss of time and undetected. For the idea of secrecy had come to be
connected with the treasure so closely that even to Barrios himself he had
refrained from mentioning the existence of Decoud and of the silver on the
island. The letters he carried to the General, however, made brief mention of
the loss of the lighter, as having its bearing upon the situation in Sulaco. In
the circumstances, the one- eyed tiger-slayer, scenting battle from afar, had
not wasted his time in making inquiries from the messenger. In fact, Barrios,
talking with Nostromo, assumed that both Don Martin Decoud and the ingots of
San Tomé were lost together, and Nostromo, not questioned directly, had kept
silent, under the influence of some indefinable form of resentment and
distrust. Let Don Martin speak of everything with his own lips -- was what he
told himself mentally.
And now, with the means
of gaining the Great Isabel thrown thus in his way at the earliest possible
moment, his excitement had departed, as when the soul takes flight leaving the
body inert upon an earth it knows no more. Nostromo did not seem to know the
gulf. For a long time even his eyelids did not flutter once upon the glazed
emptiness of his stare. Then slowly, without a limb having stirred, without a
twitch of muscle or quiver of an eyelash, an expression, a living expression
came upon the still features, deep thought crept into the empty stare -- as if
an outcast soul, a quiet, brooding soul, finding that untenanted body in its
way, had come in stealthily to take possession.
The Capataz frowned:
and in the immense stillness of sea, islands, and coast, of cloud forms on the
sky and trails of light upon the water, the knitting of that brow had the
emphasis of a powerful gesture. Nothing else budged for a long time; then the
Capataz shook his head and again surrendered himself to the universal repose of
all visible things. Suddenly he seized the oars, and with one movement made the
dinghy spin round, head-on to the Great Isabel. But before he began to pull he
bent once more over the brown stain on the gunwale.
"I know that
thing," he muttered to himself, with a sagacious jerk of the head.
"That's blood."
His stroke was long,
vigorous, and steady. Now and then he looked over his shoulder at the Great
Isabel, presenting its low cliff to his anxious gaze like an impenetrable face.
At last the stem touched the strand. He flung rather than dragged the boat up
the little beach. At once, turning his back upon the sunset, he plunged with
long strides into the ravine, making the water of the stream spurt and fly
upwards at every step, as if spurning its shallow, clear, murmuring spirit with
his feet. He wanted to save every moment of daylight.
A mass of earth, grass,
and smashed bushes had fallen down very naturally from above upon the cavity
under the leaning tree. Decoud had attended to the concealment of the silver as
instructed, using the spade with some intelligence. But Nostromo's half-smile
of approval changed into a scornful curl of the lip by the sight of the spade
itself flung there in full view, as if in utter carelessness or sudden panic,
giving away the whole thing. Ah! They were all alike in their folly, these
hombres finos that invented laws and governments and barren tasks for the
people.
The Capataz picked up
the spade, and with the feel of the handle in his palm the desire of having a
look at the horse-hide boxes of treasure came upon him suddenly. In a very few
strokes he uncovered the edges and corners of several; then, clearing away more
earth, became aware that one of them had been slashed with a knife.
He exclaimed at that
discovery in a stifled voice, and dropped on his knees with a look of
irrational apprehension over one shoulder, then over the other. The stiff hide
had closed, and he hesitated before he pushed his hand through the long slit
and felt the ingots inside. There they were. One, two, three. Yes, four gone.
Taken away. Four ingots. But who? Decoud? Nobody else. And why? For what
purpose? For what cursed fancy? Let him explain. Four ingots carried off in a
boat, and -- blood!
In the face of the open
gulf, the sun, clear, unclouded, unaltered, plunged into the waters in a grave
and untroubled mystery of self-immolation consummated far from all mortal eyes,
with an infinite majesty of silence and peace. Four ingots short! -- and blood!
The Capataz got up
slowly.
"He might simply
have cut his hand," he muttered. "But, then ----"
He sat down on the soft
earth, unresisting, as if he had been chained to the treasure, his drawn-up
legs clasped in his hands with an air of hopeless submission, like a slave set
on guard. Once only he lifted his head smartly: the rattle of hot musketry fire
had reached his ears, like pouring from on high a stream of dry peas upon a
drum. After listening for a while, he said, half aloud --
"He will never
come back to explain."
And he lowered his head
again.
"Impossible!"
he muttered, gloomily.
The sounds of firing
died out. The loom of a great conflagration in Sulaco flashed up red above the
coast, played on the clouds at the head of the gulf, seemed to touch with a
ruddy and sinister reflection the forms of the Three Isabels. He never saw it,
though he raised his head.
"But, then, I
cannot know," he pronounced, distinctly, and remained silent and staring
for hours.
He could not know.
Nobody was to know. As might have been supposed, the end of Don Martin Decoud
never became a subject of speculation for any one except Nostromo. Had the
truth of the facts been known, there would always have remained the question.
Why? Whereas the version of his death at the sinking of the lighter had no
uncertainty of motive. The young apostle of Separation had died striving for
his idea by an ever-lamented accident. But the truth was that he died from
solitude, the enemy known but to few on this earth, and whom only the simplest
of us are fit to withstand. The brilliant Costaguanero of the boulevards had
died from solitude and want of faith in himself and others.
For some good and valid
reasons beyond mere human comprehension, the sea-birds of the gulf shun the
Isabels. The rocky head of Azuera is their haunt, whose stony levels and chasms
resound with their wild and tumultuous clamour as if they were for ever
quarrelling over the legendary treasure.
At the end of his first
day on the Great Isabel, Decoud, turning in his lair of coarse grass, under the
shade of a tree, said to himself --
"I have not seen
as much as one single bird all day."
And he had not heard a
sound, either, all day but that one now of his own muttering voice. It had been
a day of absolute silence -- the first he had known in his life. And he had not
slept a wink. Not for all these wakeful nights and the days of fighting,
planning, talking; not for all that last night of danger and hard physical toil
upon the gulf, had he been able to close his eyes for a moment. And yet from
sunrise to sunset he had been lying prone on the ground, either on his back or
on his face.
He stretched himself,
and with slow steps descended into the gully to spend the night by the side of
the silver. If Nostromo returned -- as he might have done at any moment -- it
was there that he would look first; and night would, of course, be the proper
time for an attempt to communicate. He remembered with profound indifference
that he had not eaten anything yet since he had been left alone on the island.
He spent the night
open-eyed, and when the day broke he ate something with the same indifference.
The brilliant "Son Decoud," the spoiled darling of the family, the
lover of Antonia and journalist of Sulaco, was not fit to grapple with himself
single-handed. Solitude from mere outward condition of existence becomes very
swiftly a state of soul in which the affectations of irony and scepticism have
no place. It takes possession of the mind, and drives forth the thought into
the exile of utter unbelief. After three days of waiting for the sight of some
human face, Decoud caught himself entertaining a doubt of his own
individuality. It had merged into the world of cloud and water, of natural
forces and forms of nature. In our activity alone do we find the sustaining
illusion of an independent existence as against the whole scheme of things of
which we form a helpless part. Decoud lost all belief in the reality of his
action past and to come. On the fifth day an immense melancholy descended upon
him palpably. He resolved not to give himself up to these people in Sulaco, who
had beset him, unreal and terrible, like jibbering and obscene spectres. He saw
himself struggling feebly in their midst, and Antonia, gigantic and lovely like
an allegorical statue, looking on with scornful eyes at his weakness.
Not a living being, not
a speck of distant sail, appeared within the range of his vision; and, as if to
escape from this solitude, he absorbed himself in his melancholy. The vague
consciousness of a misdirected life given up to impulses whose memory left a
bitter taste in his mouth was the first moral sentiment of his manhood. But at
the same time he felt no remorse. What should he regret? He had recognized no
other virtue than intelligence, and had erected passions into duties. Both his
intelligence and his passion were swallowed up easily in this great unbroken
solitude of waiting without faith. Sleeplessness had robbed his will of all
energy, for he had not slept seven hours in the seven days. His sadness was the
sadness of a sceptical mind. He beheld the universe as a succession of
incomprehensible images. Nostromo was dead. Everything had failed
ignominiously. He no longer dared to think of Antonia. She had not survived.
But if she survived he could not face her. And all exertion seemed senseless.
On the tenth day, after
a night spent without even dozing off once (it had occurred to him that Antonia
could not possibly have ever loved a being so impalpable as himself), the
solitude appeared like a great void, and the silence of the gulf like a tense,
thin cord to which he hung suspended by both hands, without fear, without
surprise, without any sort of emotion whatever. Only towards the evening, in
the comparative relief of coolness, he began to wish that this cord would snap.
He imagined it snapping with a report as of a pistol -- a sharp, full crack.
And that would be the end of him. He contemplated that eventuality with
pleasure, because he dreaded the sleepless nights in which the silence,
remaining unbroken in the shape of a cord to which he hung with both hands,
vibrated with senseless phrases, always the same but utterly incomprehensible,
about Nostromo, Antonia, Barrios, and proclamations mingled into an ironical
and senseless buzzing. In the daytime he could look at the silence like a still
cord stretched to breaking- point, with his life, his vain life, suspended to
it like a weight.
"I wonder whether
I would hear it snap before I fell," he asked himself.
The sun was two hours
above the horizon when he got up, gaunt, dirty, white-faced, and looked at it
with his red-rimmed eyes. His limbs obeyed him slowly, as if full of lead, yet
without tremor; and the effect of that physical condition gave to his movements
an unhesitating, deliberate dignity. He acted as if accomplishing some sort of
rite. He descended into the gully; for the fascination of all that silver, with
its potential power, survived alone outside of himself. He picked up the belt
with the revolver, that was lying there, and buckled it round his waist. The
cord of silence could never snap on the island. It must let him fall and sink
into the sea, he thought. And sink! He was looking at the loose earth covering
the treasure. In the sea! His aspect was that of a somnambulist. He lowered
himself down on his knees slowly and went on grubbing with his fingers with
industrious patience till he uncovered one of the boxes. Without a pause, as if
doing some work done many times before, he slit it open and took four ingots,
which he put in his pockets. He covered up the exposed box again and step by
step came out of the gully. The bushes closed after him with a swish.
It was on the third day
of his solitude that he had dragged the dinghy near the water with an idea of
rowing away somewhere, but had desisted partly at the whisper of lingering hope
that Nostromo would return, partly from conviction of utter uselessness of all
effort. Now she wanted only a slight shove to be set afloat. He had eaten a
little every day after the first, and had some muscular strength left yet.
Taking up the oars slowly, he pulled away from the cliff of the Great Isabel,
that stood behind him warm with sunshine, as if with the heat of life, bathed
in a rich light from head to foot as if in a radiance of hope and joy. He
pulled straight towards the setting sun. When the gulf had grown dark, he
ceased rowing and flung the sculls in. The hollow clatter they made in falling
was the loudest noise he had ever heard in his life. It was a revelation. It
seemed to recall him from far away, Actually the thought, "Perhaps I may
sleep to-night," passed through his mind. But he did not believe it. He
believed in nothing; and he remained sitting on the thwart.
The dawn from behind
the mountains put a gleam into his unwinking eyes. After a clear daybreak the
sun appeared splendidly above the peaks of the range. The great gulf burst into
a glitter all around the boat; and in this glory of merciless solitude the
silence appeared again before him, stretched taut like a dark, thin string.
His eyes looked at it
while, without haste, he shifted his seat from the thwart to the gunwale. They
looked at it fixedly, while his hand, feeling about his waist, unbuttoned the
flap of the leather case, drew the revolver, cocked it, brought it forward
pointing at his breast, pulled the trigger, and, with convulsive force, sent
the still-smoking weapon hurtling through the air. His eyes looked at it while
he fell forward and hung with his breast on the gunwale and the fingers of his
right hand hooked under the thwart. They looked ----
"It is done,"
he stammered out, in a sudden flow of blood. His last thought was: "I
wonder how that Capataz died." The stiffness of the fingers relaxed, and
the lover of Antonia Avellanos rolled overboard without having heard the cord
of silence snap in the solitude of the Placid Gulf, whose glittering surface
remained untroubled by the fall of his body.
A victim of the
disillusioned weariness which is the retribution meted out to intellectual
audacity, the brilliant Don Martin Decoud, weighted by the bars of San Tomé
silver, disappeared without a trace, swallowed up in the immense indifference
of things. His sleepless, crouching figure was gone from the side of the San
Tomé silver; and for a time the spirits of good and evil that hover near every
concealed treasure of the earth might have thought that this one had been
forgotten by all mankind. Then, after a few days, another form appeared
striding away from the setting sun to sit motionless and awake in the narrow
black gully all through the night, in nearly the same pose, in the same place
in which had sat that other sleepless man who had gone away for ever so quietly
in a small boat, about the time of sunset. And the spirits of good and evil
that hover about a forbidden treasure understood well that the silver of San
Tomé was provided now with a faithful and lifelong slave.
The magnificent Capataz
de Cargadores, victim of the disenchanted vanity which is the reward of
audacious action, sat in the weary pose of a hunted outcast through a night of
sleeplessness as tormenting as any known to Decoud, his companion in the most
desperate affair of his life. And he wondered how Decoud had died. But he knew
the part he had played himself. First a woman, then a man, abandoned both in
their last extremity, for the sake of this accursed treasure. It was paid for
by a soul lost and by a vanished life. The blank stillness of awe was succeeded
by a gust of immense pride. There was no one in the world but Gian' Battista
Fidanza, Capataz de Cargadores, the incorruptible and faithful Nostromo, to pay
such a price.
He had made up his mind
that nothing should be allowed now to rob him of his bargain. Nothing. Decoud
had died. But how? That he was dead he had not a shadow of a doubt. But four
ingots? . . . What for? Did he mean to come for more -- some other time?
The treasure was
putting forth its latent power. It troubled the clear mind of the man who had
paid the price. He was sure that Decoud was dead. The island seemed full of
that whisper. Dead! Gone! And he caught himself listening for the swish of
bushes and the splash of the footfalls in the bed of the brook. Dead! The
talker, the novio of Doña Antonia!
"Ha!" he
murmured, with his head on his knees, under the livid clouded dawn breaking
over the liberated Sulaco and upon the gulf as gray as ashes. "It is to
her that he will fly. To her that he will fly!"
And four ingots! Did he
take them in revenge, to cast a spell, like the angry woman who had prophesied
remorse and failure, and yet had laid upon him the task of saving the children?
Well, he had saved the children. He had defeated the spell of poverty and
starvation. He had done it all alone -- or perhaps helped by the devil. Who
cared? He had done it, betrayed as he was, and saving by the same stroke the
San Tomé mine, which appeared to him hateful and immense, lording it by its
vast wealth over the valour, the toil, the fidelity of the poor, over war and
peace, over the labours of the town, the sea, and the Campo.
The sun lit up the sky
behind the peaks of the Cordillera. The Capataz looked down for a time upon the
fall of loose earth, stones, and smashed bushes, concealing the hiding-place of
the silver.
"I must grow rich
very slowly," he meditated, aloud.
SULACO outstripped
Nostromo's prudence, growing rich swiftly on the hidden treasures of the earth,
hovered over by the anxious spirits of good and evil, torn out by the labouring
hands of the people. It was like a second youth, like a new life, full of promise,
of unrest, of toil, scattering lavishly its wealth to the four corners of an
excited world. Material changes swept along in the train of material interests.
And other changes more subtle, outwardly unmarked, affected the minds and
hearts of the workers. Captain Mitchell had gone home to live on his savings
invested in the San Tomé mine; and Dr. Monygham had grown older, with his head
steel-grey and the unchanged expression of his face, living on the
inexhaustible treasure of his devotion drawn upon in the secret of his heart
like a store of unlawful wealth.
The Inspector-General
of State Hospitals (whose maintenance is a charge upon the Gould Concession),
Official Adviser on Sanitation to the Municipality, Chief Medical Officer of
the San Tomé Consolidated Mines (whose territory, containing gold, silver,
copper, lead, cobalt, extends for miles along the foot-hills of the
Cordillera), had felt poverty-stricken, miserable, and starved during the
prolonged, second visit the Goulds paid to Europe and the United States of
America. Intimate of the casa, proved friend, a bachelor without ties and
without establishment (except of the professional sort), he had been asked to
take up his quarters in the Gould house. In the eleven months of their absence
the familiar rooms, recalling at every glance the woman to whom he had given
all his loyalty, had grown intolerable. As the day approached for the arrival
of the mail boat Hermes (the latest addition to the O. S. N. Co.'s splendid
fleet), the doctor hobbled about more vivaciously, snapped more sardonically at
simple and gentle out of sheer nervousness.
He packed up his modest
trunk with speed, with fury, with enthusiasm, and saw it carried out past the
old porter at the gate of the Casa Gould with delight, with intoxication; then,
as the hour approached, sitting alone in the great landau behind the white
mules, a little sideways, his drawn-in face positively venomous with the effort
of self-control, and holding a pair of new gloves in his left hand, he drove to
the harbour.
His heart dilated
within him so, when he saw the Goulds on the deck of the Hermes, that his
greetings were reduced to a casual mutter. Driving back to town, all three were
silent. And in the patio the doctor, in a more natural manner, said --
"I'll leave you
now to yourselves. I'll call to-morrow if I may?"
"Come to lunch,
dear Dr. Monygham, and come early," said Mrs. Gould, in her travelling
dress and her veil down, turning to look at him at the foot of the stairs;
while at the top of the flight the Madonna, in blue robes and the Child on her
arm, seemed to welcome her with an aspect of pitying tenderness.
"Don't expect to
find me at home," Charles Gould warned him. "I'll be off early to the
mine."
After lunch, Doña
Emilia and the señor doctor came slowly through the inner gateway of the patio.
The large gardens of the Casa Gould, surrounded by high walls, and the red-tile
slopes of neighbouring roofs, lay open before them, with masses of shade under
the trees and level surfaces of sunlight upon the lawns. A triple row of old
orange trees surrounded the whole. Barefooted, brown gardeners, in snowy white
shirts and wide calzoneras, dotted the grounds, squatting over flower- beds,
passing between the trees, dragging slender India- rubber tubes across the
gravel of the paths; and the fine jets of water crossed each other in graceful
curves, sparkling in the sunshine with a slight pattering noise upon the
bushes, and an effect of showered diamonds upon the grass.
Doña Emilia, holding up
the train of a clear dress, walked by the side of Dr. Monygham, in a longish
black coat and severe black bow on an immaculate shirt- front. Under a shady
clump of trees, where stood scattered little tables and wicker easy-chairs,
Mrs. Gould sat down in a low and ample seat.
"Don't go
yet," she said to Dr. Monygham, who was unable to tear himself away from
the spot. His chin nestling within the points of his collar, he devoured her
stealthily with his eyes, which, luckily, were round and hard like clouded marbles,
and incapable of disclosing his sentiments. His pitying emotion at the marks of
time upon the face of that woman, the air of frailty and weary fatigue that had
settled upon the eyes and temples of the "Never-tired Señora" (as Don
Pépé years ago used to call her with admiration), touched him almost to tears.
"Don't go yet. To-day is all my own," Mrs. Gould urged, gently.
"We are not back yet officially. No one will come. It's only to-morrow
that the windows of the Casa Gould are to be lit up for a reception."
The doctor dropped into
a chair.
"Giving a
tertulia?" he said, with a detached air.
"A simple greeting
for all the kind friends who care to come."
"And only
to-morrow?"
"Yes. Charles
would be tired out after a day at the mine, and so I ---- It would be good to
have him to myself for one evening on our return to this house I love. It has
seen all my life."
"Ah, yes!"
snarled the doctor, suddenly. "Women count time from the marriage feast.
Didn't you live a little before?"
"Yes; but what is
there to remember? There were no cares."
Mrs. Gould sighed. And
as two friends, after a long separation, will revert to the most agitated
period of their lives, they began to talk of the Sulaco Revolution. It seemed
strange to Mrs. Gould that people who had taken part in it seemed to forget its
memory and its lesson.
"And yet,"
struck in the doctor, "we who played our part in it had our reward. Don Pépé,
though superannuated, still can sit a horse. Barrios is drinking himself to
death in jovial company away somewhere on his fundacion beyond the Bolson de
Tonoro. And the heroic Father Romàn -- I imagine the old padre blowing up
systematically the San Tomé mine, uttering a pious exclamation at every bang,
and taking handfuls of snuff between the explosions -- the heroic Padre Romàn
says that he is not afraid of the harm Holroyd's missionaries can do to his
flock, as long as he is alive."
Mrs. Gould shuddered a
little at the allusion to the destruction that had come so near to the San Tomé
mine.
"Ah, but you, dear
friend?"
"I did the work I
was fit for."
"You faced the
most cruel dangers of all. Something more than death."
"No, Mrs. Gould!
Only death -- by hanging. And I am rewarded beyond my deserts."
Noticing Mrs. Gould's
gaze fixed upon him, he dropped his eyes.
"I've made my
career -- as you see," said the Inspector-General of State Hospitals,
taking up lightly the lapels of his superfine black coat. The doctor's
self-respect marked inwardly by the almost complete disappearance from his dreams
of Father Beron appeared visibly in what, by contrast with former carelessness,
seemed an immoderate cult of personal appearance. Carried out within severe
limits of form and colour, and in perpetual freshness, this change of apparel
gave to Dr. Monygham an air at the same time professional and festive; while
his gait and the unchanged crabbed character of his face acquired from it a
startling force of incongruity.
"Yes," he
went on. "We all had our rewards -- the engineer-in-chief, Captain
Mitchell ----"
"We saw him,"
interrupted Mrs. Gould, in her charming voice. "The poor dear man came up
from the country on purpose to call on us in our hotel in London. He comported
himself with great dignity, but I fancy he regrets Sulaco. He rambled feebly
about 'historical events' till I felt I could have a cry."
"H'm,"
grunted the doctor; "getting old, I suppose. Even Nostromo is getting
older -- though he is not changed. And, speaking of that fellow, I wanted to
tell you something ----"
For some time the house
had been full of murmurs, of agitation. Suddenly the two gardeners, busy with
rose trees at the side of the garden arch, fell upon their knees with bowed
heads on the passage of Antonia Avellanos, who appeared walking beside her
uncle.
Invested with the red
hat after a short visit to Rome, where he had been invited by the Propaganda,
Father Corbelàn, missionary to the wild Indians, conspirator, friend and patron
of Hernandez the robber, advanced with big, slow strides, gaunt and leaning
forward, with his powerful hands clasped behind his back. The first
Cardinal-Archbishop of Sulaco had preserved his fanatical and morose air; the
aspect of a chaplain of bandits. It was believed that his unexpected elevation
to the purple was a counter-move to the Protestant invasion of Sulaco organized
by the Holroyd Missionary Fund. Antonia, the beauty of her face as if a little
blurred, her figure slightly fuller, advanced with her light walk and her high
serenity, smiling from a distance at Mrs. Gould. She had brought her uncle over
to see dear Emilia, without ceremony, just for a moment before the siesta.
When all were seated
again, Dr. Monygham, who had come to dislike heartily everybody who approached
Mrs. Gould with any intimacy, kept aside, pretending to be lost in profound
meditation. A louder phrase of Antonia made him lift his head.
"How can we
abandon, groaning under oppression, those who have been our countrymen only a
few years ago, who are our countrymen now?" Miss Avellanos was saying.
"How can we remain blind, and deaf without pity to the cruel wrongs
suffered by our brothers? There is a remedy."
"Annex the rest of
Costaguana to the order and prosperity of Sulaco," snapped the doctor.
"There is no other remedy."
"I am convinced,
señor doctor," Antonia said, with the earnest calm of invincible
resolution, "that this was from the first poor Martin's intention."
"Yes, but the
material interests will not let you jeopardize their development for a mere
idea of pity and justice," the doctor muttered grumpily. "And it is
just as well perhaps."
The Cardinal-Archbishop
straightened up his gaunt, bony frame.
"We have worked
for them; we have made them, these material interests of the foreigners,"
the last of the Corbelàns uttered in a deep, denunciatory tone.
"And without them
you are nothing," cried the doctor from the distance. "They will not
let you."
"Let them beware,
then, lest the people, prevented from their aspirations, should rise and claim
their share of the wealth and their share of the power," the popular
Cardinal-Archbishop of Sulaco declared, significantly, menacingly.
A silence ensued,
during which his Eminence stared, frowning at the ground, and Antonia, graceful
and rigid in her chair, breathed calmly in the strength of her convictions. Then
the conversation took a social turn, touching on the visit of the Goulds to
Europe. The Cardinal-Archbishop, when in Rome, had suffered from neuralgia in
the head all the time. It was the climate -- the bad air.
When uncle and niece
had gone away, with the servants again falling on their knees, and the old
porter, who had known Henry Gould, almost totally blind and impotent now,
creeping up to kiss his Eminence's extended hand, Dr. Monygham, looking after
them, pronounced the one word --
"Incorrigible!"
Mrs. Gould, with a look
upwards, dropped wearily on her lap her white hands flashing with the gold and
stones of many rings.
"Conspiring.
Yes!" said the doctor. "The last of the Avellanos and the last of the
Corbelàns are conspiring with the refugees from Sta. Marta that flock here
after every revolution. The Café Lambroso at the corner of the Plaza is full of
them; you can hear their chatter across the street like the noise of a parrot-
house. They are conspiring for the invasion of Costaguana. And do you know
where they go for strength, for the necessary force? To the secret societies
amongst immigrants and natives, where Nostromo -- I should say Captain Fidanza
-- is the great man. What gives him that position? Who can say? Genius? He has
genius. He is greater with the populace than ever he was before. It is as if he
had some secret power; some mysterious means to keep up his influence. He holds
conferences with the Archbishop, as in those old days which you and I remember.
Barrios is useless. But for a military head they have the pious Hernandez. And
they may raise the country with the new cry of the wealth for the people."
"Will there be
never any peace? Will there be no rest?" Mrs. Gould whispered. "I
thought that we ----"
"No!"
interrupted the doctor. "There is no peace and no rest in the development
of material interests. They have their law, and their justice. But it is
founded on expediency, and is inhuman; it is without rectitude, without the
continuity and the force that can be found only in a moral principle. Mrs.
Gould, the time approaches when all that the Gould Concession stands for shall
weigh as heavily upon the people as the barbarism, cruelty, and misrule of a
few years back."
"How can you say
that, Dr. Monygham?" she cried out, as if hurt in the most sensitive place
of her soul.
"I can say what is
true," the doctor insisted, obstinately. "It'll weigh as heavily, and
provoke resentment, bloodshed, and vengeance, because the men have grown
different. Do you think that now the mine would march upon the town to save
their Señor Administrador? Do you think that?"
She pressed the backs
of her entwined hands on her eyes and murmured hopelessly --
"Is it this we
have worked for, then?"
The doctor lowered his
head. He could follow her silent thought. Was it for this that her life had
been robbed of all the intimate felicities of daily affection which her
tenderness needed as the human body needs air to breathe? And the doctor,
indignant with Charles Gould's blindness, hastened to change the conversation.
"It is about
Nostromo that I wanted to talk to you. Ah! that fellow has some continuity and
force. Nothing will put an end to him. But never mind that. There's something
inexplicable going on -- or perhaps only too easy to explain. You know, Linda
is practically the lighthouse keeper of the Great Isabel light. The Garibaldino
is too old now. His part is to clean the lamps and to cook in the house; but he
can't get up the stairs any longer. The black-eyed Linda sleeps all day and watches
the light all night. Not all day, though. She is up towards five in the
afternoon, when our Nostromo, whenever he is in harbour with his schooner,
comes out on his courting visit, pulling in a small boat."
"Aren't they
married yet?" Mrs. Gould asked. "The mother wished it, as far as I
can understand, while Linda was yet quite a child. When I had the girls with me
for a year or so during the War of Separation, that extraordinary Linda used to
declare quite simply that she was going to be Gian' Battista's wife."
"They are not
married yet," said the doctor, curtly. "I have looked after them a
little."
"Thank you, dear
Dr. Monygham," said Mrs. Gould; and under the shade of the big trees her
little, even teeth gleamed in a youthful smile of gentle malice. "People
don't know how really good you are. You will not let them know, as if on
purpose to annoy me, who have put my faith in your good heart long ago."
The doctor, with a
lifting up of his upper lip, as though he were longing to bite, bowed stiffly
in his chair. With the utter absorption of a man to whom love comes late, not
as the most splendid of illusions, but like an enlightening and priceless misfortune,
the sight of that woman (of whom he had been deprived for nearly a year)
suggested ideas of adoration, of kissing the hem of her robe. And this excess
of feeling translated itself naturally into an augmented grimness of speech.
"I am afraid of
being overwhelmed by too much gratitude. However, these people interest me. I
went out several times to the Great Isabel light to look after old
Giorgio."
He did not tell Mrs.
Gould that it was because he found there, in her absence, the relief of an
atmosphere of congenial sentiment in old Giorgio's austere admiration for the
"English signora -- the benefactress"; in black-eyed Linda's voluble,
torrential, passionate affection for "our Doña Emilia -- that angel";
in the white-throated, fair Giselle's adoring upward turn of the eyes, which
then glided towards him with a sidelong, half-arch, half-candid glance, which
made the doctor exclaim to himself mentally, "If I weren't what I am, old
and ugly, I would think the minx is making eyes at me. And perhaps she is. I
dare say she would make eyes at anybody." Dr. Monygham said nothing of
this to Mrs. Gould, the providence of the Viola family, but reverted to what he
called "our great Nostromo."
"What I wanted to
tell you is this: Our great Nostromo did not take much notice of the old man
and the children for some years. It's true, too, that he was away on his
coasting voyages certainly ten months out of the twelve. He was making his
fortune, as he told Captain Mitchell once. He seems to have done uncommonly
well. It was only to be expected. He is a man full of resource, full of
confidence in himself, ready to take chances and risks of every sort. I
remember being in Mitchell's office one day, when he came in with that calm,
grave air he always carries everywhere. He had been away trading in the Gulf of
California, he said, looking straight past us at the wall, as his manner is,
and was glad to see on his return that a lighthouse was being built on the
cliff of the Great Isabel. Very glad, he repeated. Mitchell explained that it
was the O. S. N. Co. who was building it, for the convenience of the mail
service, on his own advice. Captain Fidanza was good enough to say that it was
excellent advice. I remember him twisting up his moustaches and looking all
round the cornice of the room before he proposed that old Giorgio should be
made the keeper of that light."
"I heard of this.
I was consulted at the time," Mrs. Gould said. "I doubted whether it
would be good for these girls to be shut up on that island as if in a prison."
"The proposal fell
in with the old Garibaldino's humour. As to Linda, any place was lovely and
delightful enough for her as long as it was Nostromo's suggestion. She could
wait for her Gian' Battista's good pleasure there as well as anywhere else. My
opinion is that she was always in love with that incorruptible Capataz.
Moreover, both father and sister were anxious to get Giselle away from the
attentions of a certain Ramirez."
"Ah!" said
Mrs. Gould, interested. "Ramirez? What sort of man is that?"
"Just a mozo of
the town. His father was a Cargador. As a lanky boy he ran about the wharf in
rags, till Nostromo took him up and made a man of him. When he got a little
older, he put him into a lighter and very soon gave him charge of the No. 3 boat
-- the boat which took the silver away, Mrs. Gould. Nostromo selected that
lighter for the work because she was the best sailing and the strongest boat of
all the Company's fleet. Young Ramirez was one of the five Cargadores entrusted
with the removal of the treasure from the Custom House on that famous night. As
the boat he had charge of was sunk, Nostromo, on leaving the Company's service,
recommended him to Captain Mitchell for his successor. He had trained him in
the routine of work perfectly, and thus Mr. Ramirez, from a starving waif,
becomes a man and the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores."
"Thanks to
Nostromo," said Mrs. Gould, with warm approval.
"Thanks to
Nostromo," repeated Dr. Monygham. "Upon my word, the fellow's power
frightens me when I think of it. That our poor old Mitchell was only too glad
to appoint somebody trained to the work, who saved him trouble, is not
surprising. What is wonderful is the fact that the Sulaco Cargadores accepted
Ramirez for their chief, simply because such was Nostromo's good pleasure. Of
course, he is not a second Nostromo, as he fondly imagined he would be; but
still, the position was brilliant enough. It emboldened him to make up to
Giselle Viola, who, you know, is the recognized beauty of the town. The old Garibaldino,
however, took a violent dislike to him. I don't know why. Perhaps because he
was not a model of perfection like his Gian' Battista, the incarnation of the
courage, the fidelity, the honour of 'the people.' Signor Viola does not think
much of Sulaco natives. Both of them, the old Spartan and that white-faced
Linda, with her red mouth and coal-black eyes, were looking rather fiercely
after the fair one. Ramirez was warned off. Father Viola, I am told, threatened
him with his gun once."
"But what of Giselle
herself?" asked Mrs. Gould.
"She's a bit of a
flirt, I believe," said the doctor. "I don't think she cared much one
way or another. Of course she likes men's attentions. Ramirez was not the only
one, let me tell you, Mrs. Gould. There was one engineer, at least, on the
railway staff who got warned off with a gun, too. Old Viola does not allow any
trifling with his honour. He has grown uneasy and suspicious since his wife
died. He was very pleased to remove his youngest girl away from the town. But
look what happens, Mrs. Gould. Ramirez, the honest, lovelorn swain, is
forbidden the island. Very well. He respects the prohibition, but naturally
turns his eyes frequently towards the Great Isabel. It seems as though he had
been in the habit of gazing late at night upon the light. And during these
sentimental vigils he discovers that Nostromo, Captain Fidanza that is, returns
very late from his visits to the Violas. As late as midnight at times."
The doctor paused and
stared meaningly at Mrs. Gould.
"Yes. But I don't
understand," she began, looking puzzled.
"Now comes the
strange part," went on Dr. Monygham. "Viola, who is king on his
island, will allow no visitor on it after dark. Even Captain Fidanza has got to
leave after sunset, when Linda has gone up to tend the light. And Nostromo goes
away obediently. But what happens afterwards? What does he do in the gulf
between half-past six and midnight? He has been seen more than once at that
late hour pulling quietly into the harbour. Ramirez is devoured by jealousy. He
dared not approach old Viola; but he plucked up courage to rail at Linda about
it on Sunday morning as she came on the mainland to hear mass and visit her
mother's grave. There was a scene on the wharf, which, as a matter of fact, I
witnessed. It was early morning. He must have been waiting for her on purpose.
I was there by the merest chance, having been called to an urgent consultation
by the doctor of the German gunboat in the harbour. She poured wrath, scorn,
and flame upon Ramirez, who seemed out of his mind. It was a strange sight,
Mrs. Gould: the long jetty, with this raving Cargador in his crimson sash and
the girl all in black, at the end; the early Sunday morning quiet of the
harbour in the shade of the mountains; nothing but a canoe or two moving
between the ships at anchor, and the German gunboat's gig coming to take me
off. Linda passed me within a foot. I noticed her wild eyes. I called out to
her. She never heard me. She never saw me. But I looked at her face. It was
awful in its anger and wretchedness."
Mrs. Gould sat up,
opening her eyes very wide.
"What do you mean,
Dr. Monygham? Do you mean to say that you suspect the younger sister?"
"Quien sabe! Who
can tell?" said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders like a born Costaguanero.
"Ramirez came up to me on the wharf. He reeled -- he looked insane. He
took his head into his hands. He had to talk to someone -- simply had to. Of
course for all his mad state he recognized me. People know me well here. I have
lived too long amongst them to be anything else but the evil-eyed doctor, who
can cure all the ills of the flesh, and bring bad luck by a glance. He came up
to me. He tried to be calm. He tried to make it out that he wanted merely to
warn me against Nostromo. It seems that Captain Fidanza at some secret meeting
or other had mentioned me as the worst despiser of all the poor -- of the
people. It's very possible. He honours me with his undying dislike. And a word
from the great Fidanza may be quite enough to send some fool's knife into my
back. The Sanitary Commission I preside over is not in favour with the
populace. 'Beware of him, señor doctor. Destroy him, señor doctor,' Ramirez
hissed right into my face. And then he broke out. 'That man,' he spluttered,
'has cast a spell upon both these girls.' As to himself, he had said too much.
He must run away now -- run away and hide somewhere. He moaned tenderly about
Giselle, and then called her names that cannot be re-@@@ peated. If he thought
she could be made to love him by any means, he would carry her off from the
island. Off into the woods. But it was no good. . . . He strode away,
flourishing his arms above his head. Then I noticed an old negro, who had been
sitting behind a pile of cases, fishing from the wharf. He wound up his lines
and slunk away at once. But he must have heard something, and must have talked,
too, because some of the old Garibaldino's railway friends, I suppose, warned
him against Ramirez. At any rate, the father has been warned. But Ramirez has
disappeared from the town."
"I feel I have a
duty towards these girls," said Mrs. Gould, uneasily. "Is Nostromo in
Sulaco now?"
"He is, since last
Sunday."
"He ought to be
spoken to -- at once."
"Who will dare
speak to him? Even the love-mad Ramirez runs away from the mere shadow of
Captain Fidanza."
"I can. I
will," Mrs. Gould declared. "A word will be enough for a man like
Nostromo."
The doctor smiled
sourly.
"He must end this
situation which lends itself to ---- I can't believe it of that child,"
pursued Mrs. Gould.
"He's very
attractive," muttered the doctor, gloomily.
"He'll see it, I
am sure. He must put an end to all this by marrying Linda at once,"
pronounced the first lady of Sulaco with immense decision.
Through the garden gate
emerged Basilio, grown fat and sleek, with an elderly hairless face, wrinkles
at the corners of his eyes, and his jet-black, coarse hair plastered down
smoothly. Stooping carefully behind an ornamental clump of bushes, he put down
with precaution a small child he had been carrying on his shoulder -- his own
and Leonarda's last born. The pouting, spoiled Camerista and the head mozo of
the Casa Gould had been married for some years now.
He remained squatting
on his heels for a time, gazing fondly at his offspring, which returned his
stare with imperturbable gravity; then, solemn and respectable, walked down the
path.
"What is it,
Basilio?" asked Mrs. Gould.
"A telephone came
through from the office of the mine. The master remains to sleep at the
mountain to-night."
Dr. Monygham had got up
and stood looking away. A profound silence reigned for a time under the shade
of the biggest trees in the lovely gardens of the Casa Gould.
"Very well,
Basilio," said Mrs. Gould. She watched him walk away along the path, step
aside behind the flowering bush, and reappear with the child seated on his
shoulder. He passed through the gateway between the garden and the patio with
measured steps, careful of his light burden.
The doctor, with his
back to Mrs. Gould, contemplated a flower-bed away in the sunshine. People
believed him scornful and soured. The truth of his nature consisted in his
capacity for passion and in the sensitiveness of his temperament. What he
lacked was the polished callousness of men of the world, the callousness from
which springs an easy tolerance for oneself and others; the tolerance wide as
poles asunder from true sympathy and human compassion. This want of callousness
accounted for his sardonic turn of mind and his biting speeches.
In profound silence, and
glaring viciously at the brilliant flower-bed, Dr. Monygham poured mental
imprecations on Charles Gould's head. Behind him the immobility of Mrs. Gould
added to the grace of her seated figure the charm of art, of an attitude caught
and interpreted for ever. Turning abruptly, the doctor took his leave.
Mrs. Gould leaned back
in the shade of the big trees planted in a circle. She leaned back with her
eyes closed and her white hands lying idle on the arms of her seat. The
half-light under the thick mass of leaves brought out the youthful prettiness
of her face; made the clear, light fabrics and white lace of her dress appear
luminous. Small and dainty, as if radiating a light of her own in the deep
shade of the interlaced boughs, she resembled a good fairy, weary with a long
career of well-doing, touched by the withering suspicion of the uselessness of
her labours, the powerlessness of her magic.
Had anybody asked her
of what she was thinking, alone in the garden of the Casa, with her husband at
the mine and the house closed to the street like an empty dwelling, her
frankness would have had to evade the question. It had come into her mind that
for life to be large and full, it must contain the care of the past and of the
future in every passing moment of the present. Our daily work must be done to
the glory of the dead, and for the good of those who come after. She thought
that, and sighed without opening her eyes -- without moving at all. Mrs.
Gould's face became set and rigid for a second, as if to receive, without
flinching, a great wave of loneliness that swept over her head. And it came
into her mind, too, that no one would ever ask her with solicitude what she was
thinking of. No one. No one, but perhaps the man who had just gone away. No; no
one who could be answered with careless sincerity in the ideal perfection of
confidence.
The word
"incorrigible" -- a word lately pronounced by Dr. Monygham -- floated
into her still and sad immobility. Incorrigible in his devotion to the great
silver mine was the Señor Administrador! Incorrigible in his hard, determined
service of the material interests to which he had pinned his faith in the
triumph of order and justice. Poor boy! She had a clear vision of the grey
hairs on his temples. He was perfect -- perfect. What more could she have
expected? It was a colossal and lasting success; and love was only a short
moment of forgetfulness, a short intoxication, whose delight one remembered
with a sense of sadness, as if it had been a deep grief lived through. There was
something inherent in the necessities of successful action which carried with
it the moral degradation of the idea. She saw the San Tomé mountain hanging
over the Campo, over the whole land, feared, hated, wealthy; more soulless than
any tyrant, more pitiless and autocratic than the worst Government; ready to
crush innumerable lives in the expansion of its greatness. He did not see it.
He could not see it. It was not his fault. He was perfect, perfect; but she
would never have him to herself. Never; not for one short hour altogether to
herself in this old Spanish house she loved so well! Incorrigible, the last of
the Corbelàns, the last of the Avellanos, the doctor had said; but she saw
clearly the San Tomé mine possessing, consuming, burning up the life of the
last of the Costaguana Goulds; mastering the energetic spirit of the son as it
had mastered the lamentable weakness of the father. A terrible success for the
last of the Goulds. The last! She had hoped for a long, long time, that perhaps
---- But no! There were to be no more. An immense desolation, the dread of her
own continued life, descended upon the first lady of Sulaco. With a prophetic
vision she saw herself surviving alone the degradation of her young ideal of
life, of love, of work -- all alone in the Treasure House of the World. The
profound, blind, suffering expression of a painful dream settled on her face
with its closed eyes. In the indistinct voice of an unlucky sleeper. lying
passive in the grip of a merciless nightmare, she stammered out aimlessly the
words --
"Material
interest."
NOSTROMO had been
growing rich very slowly. It was an effect of his prudence. He could command
himself even when thrown off his balance. And to become the slave of a treasure
with full self-knowledge is an occurrence rare and mentally disturbing. But it
was also in a great part because of the difficulty of converting it into a form
in which it could become available. The mere act of getting it away from the
island piecemeal, little by little, was surrounded by difficulties, by the
dangers of imminent detection. He had to visit the Great Isabel in secret,
between his voyages along the coast, which were the ostensible source of his
fortune. The crew of his own schooner were to be feared as if they had been
spies upon their dreaded captain. He did not dare stay too long in port. When
his coaster was unloaded, he hurried away on another trip, for he feared
arousing suspicion even by a day's delay. Sometimes during a week's stay, or
more, he could only manage one visit to the treasure. And that was all. A
couple of ingots. He suffered through his fears as much as through his prudence.
To do things by stealth humiliated him. And he suffered most from the
concentration of his thought upon the treasure.
A transgression, a
crime, entering a man's existence, eats it up like a malignant growth, consumes
it like a fever. Nostromo had lost his peace; the genuineness of all his
qualities was destroyed. He felt it himself, and often cursed the silver of San
Tomé. His courage, his magnificence, his leisure, his work, everything was as
before, only everything was a sham. But the treasure was real. He clung to it
with a more tenacious, mental grip. But he hated the feel of the ingots.
Sometimes, after putting away a couple of them in his cabin -- the fruit of a
secret night expedition to the Great Isabel -- he would look fixedly at his
fingers, as if surprised they had left no stain on his skin.
He had found means of
disposing of the silver bars in distant ports. The necessity to go far afield
made his coasting voyages long, and caused his visits to the Viola household to
be rare and far between. He was fated to have his wife from there. He had said
so once to Giorgio himself. But the Garibaldino had put the subject aside with
a majestic wave of his hand, clutching a smouldering black briar-root pipe.
There was plenty of time; he was not the man to force his girls upon anybody.
As time went on,
Nostromo discovered his preference for the younger of the two. They had some
profound similarities of nature, which must exist for complete confidence and
understanding, no matter what outward differences of temperament there may be
to exercise their own fascination of contrast. His wife would have to know his
secret or else life would be impossible. He was attracted by Giselle, with her
candid gaze and white throat, pliable, silent, fond of excitement under her
quiet indolence; whereas Linda, with her intense, passionately pale face,
energetic, all fire and words, touched with gloom and scorn, a chip of the old
block, true daughter of the austere republican, but with Teresa's voice,
inspired him with a deep-seated mistrust. Moreover, the poor girl could not
conceal her love for Gian' Battista. He could see it would be violent,
exacting, suspicious, uncompromising -- like her soul. Giselle, by her fair but
warm beauty, by the surface placidity of her nature holding a promise of
submissiveness, by the charm of her girlish mysteriousness, excited his passion
and allayed his fears as to the future.
His absences from
Sulaco were long. On returning from the longest of them, he made out lighters
loaded with blocks of stone lying under the cliff of the Great Isabel; cranes
and scaffolding above; workmen's figures moving about, and a small lighthouse
already rising from its foundations on the edge of the cliff.
At this unexpected,
undreamt-of, startling sight, he thought himself lost irretrievably. What could
save him from detection now? Nothing! He was struck with amazed dread at this
turn of chance, that would kindle a far-reaching light upon the only secret
spot of his life; that life whose very essence, value, reality, consisted in
its reflection from the admiring eyes of men. All of it but that thing which
was beyond common comprehension; which stood between him and the power that
hears and gives effect to the evil intention of curses. It was dark. Not every
man had such a darkness. And they were going to put a light there. A light! He
saw it shining upon disgrace, poverty, contempt. Somebody was sure to. . . .
Perhaps somebody had already. . . .
The incomparable
Nostromo, the Capataz, the respected and feared Captain Fidanza, the
unquestioned patron of secret societies, a republican like old Giorgio, and a
revolutionist at heart (but in another manner), was on the point of jumping
overboard from the deck of his own schooner. That man, subjective almost to insanity,
looked suicide deliberately in the face. But he never lost his head. He was
checked by the thought that this was no escape. He imagined himself dead, and
the disgrace, the shame going on. Or, rather, properly speaking, he could not
imagine himself dead. He was possessed too strongly by the sense of his own
existence, a thing of infinite duration in its changes, to grasp the notion of
finality. The earth goes on for ever.
And he was courageous.
It was a corrupt courage, but it was as good for his purposes as the other
kind. He sailed close to the cliff of the Great Isabel, throwing a penetrating
glance from the deck at the mouth of the ravine, tangled in an undisturbed
growth of bushes. He sailed close enough to exchange hails with the workmen,
shading their eyes on the edge of the sheer drop of the cliff overhung by the
jib-head of a powerful crane. He perceived that none of them had any occasion
even to approach the ravine where the silver lay hidden; let alone to enter it.
In the harbour he learned that no one slept on the island. The labouring gangs
returned to port every evening, singing chorus songs in the empty lighters
towed by a harbour tug. For the moment he had nothing to fear.
But afterwards? he
asked himself. Later, when a keeper came to live in the cottage that was being
built some hundred and fifty yards back from the low light- tower, and four
hundred or so from the dark, shaded, jungly ravine, containing the secret of
his safety, of his influence, of his magnificence, of his power over the
future, of his defiance of ill-luck, of every possible betrayal from rich and
poor alike -- what then? He could never shake off the treasure. His audacity,
greater than that of other men, had welded that vein of silver into his life.
And the feeling of fearful and ardent subjection, the feeling of his slavery --
so irremediable and profound that often, in his thoughts, he compared himself
to the legendary Gringos, neither dead nor alive, bound down to their conquest
of unlawful wealth on Azuera -- weighed heavily on the independent Captain
Fidanza, owner and master of a coasting schooner, whose smart appearance (and
fabulous good-luck in trading) were so well known along the western seaboard of
a vast continent.
Fiercely whiskered and
grave, a shade less supple in his walk, the vigour and symmetry of his powerful
limbs lost in the vulgarity of a brown tweed suit, made by Jews in the slums of
London, and sold by the clothing department of the Compañia Anzani, Captain
Fidanza was seen in the streets of Sulaco attending to his business, as usual,
that trip. And, as usual, he allowed it to get about that he had made a great
profit on his cargo. It was a cargo of salt fish, and Lent was approaching. He
was seen in tramcars going to and fro between the town and the harbour; he
talked with people in a café or two in his measured, steady voice. Captain
Fidanza was seen. The generation that would know nothing of the famous ride to
Cayta was not born yet.
Nostromo, the miscalled
Capataz de Cargadores, had made for himself, under his rightful name, another
public existence, but modified by the new conditions, less picturesque, more
difficult to keep up in the increased size and varied population of Sulaco, the
progressive capital of the Occidental Republic.
Captain Fidanza,
unpicturesque, but always a little mysterious, was recognized quite
sufficiently under the lofty glass and iron roof of the Sulaco railway station.
He took a local train, and got out in Rincon, where he visited the widow of the
Cargador who had died of his wounds (at the dawn of the New Era, like Don José
Avellanos) in the patio of the Casa Gould. He consented to sit down and drink a
glass of cool lemonade in the hut, while the woman, standing up, poured a
perfect torrent of words to which he did not listen. He left some money with
her, as usual. The orphaned children, growing up and well schooled, calling him
uncle, clamoured for his blessing. He gave that, too; and in the doorway paused
for a moment to look at the flat face of the San Tomé mountain with a faint
frown. This slight contraction of his bronzed brow casting a marked tinge of
severity upon his usual unbending expression, was observed at the Lodge which
he attended -- but went away before the banquet. He wore it at the meeting of some
good comrades, Italians and Occidentals, assembled in his honour under the
presidency of an indigent, sickly, somewhat hunchbacked little photographer,
with a white face and a magnanimous soul dyed crimson by a bloodthirsty hate of
all capitalists, oppressors of the two hemispheres. The heroic Giorgio Viola,
old revolutionist, would have understood nothing of his opening speech; and
Captain Fidanza, lavishly generous as usual to some poor comrades, made no
speech at all. He had listened, frowning, with his mind far away, and walked
off unapproachable, silent, like a man full of cares.
His frown deepened as,
in the early morning, he watched the stone-masons go off to the Great Isabel,
in lighters loaded with squared blocks of stone, enough to add another course
to the squat light-tower. That was the rate of the work. One course per day.
And Captain Fidanza
meditated. The presence of strangers on the island would cut him completely off
the treasure. It had been difficult and dangerous enough before. He was afraid,
and he was angry. He thought with the resolution of a master and the cunning of
a cowed slave. Then he went ashore.
He was a man of
resource and ingenuity; and, as usual, the expedient he found at a critical
moment was effective enough to alter the situation radically. He had the gift
of evolving safety out of the very danger, this incomparable Nostromo, this
"fellow in a thousand." With Giorgio established on the Great Isabel,
there would be no need for concealment. He would be able to go openly, in
daylight, to see his daughters -- one of his daughters -- and stay late talking
to the old Garibaldino. Then in the dark . . . Night after night . . . He would
dare to grow rich quicker now. He yearned to clasp, embrace, absorb, subjugate
in unquestioned possession this treasure, whose tyranny had weighed upon his
mind, his actions, his very sleep.
He went to see his
friend Captain Mitchell -- and the thing was done as Dr. Monygham had related
to Mrs. Gould. When the project was mooted to the Garibaldino, something like
the faint reflection, the dim ghost of a very ancient smile, stole under the
white and enormous moustaches of the old hater of kings and ministers. His
daughters were the object of his anxious care. The younger, especially. Linda,
with her mother's voice, had taken more her mother's place. Her deep, vibrating
"Eh, Padre?" seemed, but for the change of the word, the very echo of
the impassioned, remonstrating "Eh, Giorgio?" of poor Signora Teresa.
It was his fixed opinion that the town was no proper place for his girls. The
infatuated but guileless Ramirez was the object of his profound aversion, as
resuming the sins of the country whose people were blind, vile esclavos.
On his return from his
next voyage, Captain Fidanza found the Violas settled in the light-keeper's
cottage. His knowledge of Giorgio's idiosyncrasies had not played him false.
The Garibaldino had refused to entertain the idea of any companion whatever, except
his girls. And Captain Mitchell, anxious to please his poor Nostromo, with that
felicity of inspiration which only true affection can give, had formally
appointed Linda Viola as under-keeper of the Isabel's Light.
"The light is
private property," he used to explain. "It belongs to my Company.
I've the power to nominate whom I like, and Viola it shall be. It's about the
only thing Nostromo -- a man worth his weight in gold, mind you -- has ever
asked me to do for him."
Directly his schooner
was anchored opposite the New Custom House, with its sham air of a Greek
temple, flat- roofed, with a colonnade, Captain Fidanza went pulling his small
boat out of the harbour, bound for the Great Isabel, openly in the light of a
declining day, before all men's eyes, with a sense of having mastered the
fates. He must establish a regular position. He would ask him for his daughter
now. He thought of Giselle as he pulled. Linda loved him, perhaps, but the old
man would be glad to keep the elder, who had his wife's voice.
He did not pull for the
narrow strand where he had landed with Decoud, and afterwards alone on his
first visit to the treasure. He made for the beach at the other end, and walked
up the regular and gentle slope of the wedge-shaped island. Giorgio Viola, whom
he saw from afar, sitting on a bench under the front wall of the cottage,
lifted his arm slightly to his loud hail. He walked up. Neither of the girls
appeared.
"It is good
here," said the old man, in his austere, far-away manner.
Nostromo nodded; then,
after a short silence --
"You saw my
schooner pass in not two hours ago? Do you know why I am here before, so to
speak, my anchor has fairly bitten into the ground of this port of
Sulaco?"
"You are welcome
like a son," the old man declared, quietly, staring away upon the sea.
"Ah! thy son. I
know. I am what thy son would have been. It is well, viejo. It is a very good
welcome. Listen, I have come to ask you for ----"
A sudden dread came
upon the fearless and incorruptible Nostromo. He dared not utter the name in
his mind. The slight pause only imparted a marked weight and solemnity to the
changed end of the phrase.
"For my
wife!" . . . His heart was beating fast." It is time you ----"
The Garibaldino
arrested him with an extended arm. "That was left for you to judge."
He got up slowly. His
beard, unclipped since Teresa's death, thick, snow-white, covered his powerful
chest. He turned his head to the door, and called out in his strong voice --
"Linda."
Her answer came sharp
and faint from within; and the appalled Nostromo stood up, too, but remained
mute, gazing at the door. He was afraid. He was not afraid of being refused the
girl he loved -- no mere refusal could stand between him and a woman he desired
-- but the shining spectre of the treasure rose before him, claiming his
allegiance in a silence that could not be gainsaid. He was afraid, because,
neither dead nor alive, like the Gringos on Azuera, he belonged body and soul
to the unlawfulness of his audacity. He was afraid of being forbidden the
island. He was afraid, and said nothing.
Seeing the two men
standing up side by side to await her, Linda stopped in the doorway. Nothing
could alter the passionate dead whiteness of her face; but her black eyes
seemed to catch and concentrate all the light of the low sun in a flaming spark
within the black depths, covered at once by the slow descent of heavy eyelids.
"Behold thy
husband, master, and benefactor." Old Viola's voice resounded with a force
that seemed to fill the whole gulf.
She stepped forward
with her eyes nearly closed, like a sleep-walker in a beatific dream.
Nostromo made a
superhuman effort. "It is time, Linda, we two were betrothed," he
said, steadily, in his level, careless, unbending tone.
She put her hand into
his offered palm, lowering her head, dark with bronze glints, upon which her
father's hand rested for a moment.
"And so the soul
of the dead is satisfied."
This came from Giorgio
Viola, who went on talking for a while of his dead wife; while the two, sitting
side by side, never looked at each other. Then the old man ceased; and Linda,
motionless, began to speak.
"Ever since I felt
I lived in the world, I have lived for you alone, Gian' Battista. And that you
knew! You knew it . . . Battistino."
She pronounced the name
exactly with her mother's intonation. A gloom as of the grave covered
Nostromo's heart.
"Yes. I
knew," he said.
The heroic Garibaldino
sat on the same bench bowing his hoary head, his old soul dwelling alone with
its memories, tender and violent, terrible and dreary -- solitary on the earth
full of men.
And Linda, his
best-loved daughter, was saying, "I was yours ever since I can remember. I
had only to think of you for the earth to become empty to my eyes. When you
were there, I could see no one else. I was yours. Nothing is changed. The world
belongs to you, and you let me live in it." . . . She dropped her low,
vibrating voice to a still lower note, and found other things to say --
torturing for the man at her side. Her murmur ran on ardent and voluble. She
did not seem to see her sister, who came out with an altar-cloth she was
embroidering in her hands, and passed in front of them, silent, fresh, fair,
with a quick glance and a faint smile, to sit a little away on the other side
of Nostromo.
The evening was still.
The sun sank almost to the edge of a purple ocean; and the white lighthouse,
livid against the background of clouds filling the head of the gulf, bore the
lantern red and glowing, like a live ember kindled by the fire of the sky.
Giselle, indolent and demure, raised the altar-cloth from time to time to hide
nervous yawns, as of a young panther.
Suddenly Linda rushed
at her sister, and seizing her head, covered her face with kisses. Nostromo's
brain reeled. When she left her, as if stunned by the violent caresses, with
her hands lying in her lap, the slave of the treasure felt as if he could shoot
that woman. Old Giorgio lifted his leonine head.
"Where are you
going, Linda?"
"To the light,
padre mio."
"Si, si -- to your
duty."
He got up, too, looked
after his eldest daughter; then, in a tone whose festive note seemed the echo
of a mood lost in the night of ages --
"I am going in to
cook something. Aha! Son! The old man knows where to find a bottle of wine,
too."
He turned to Giselle,
with a change to austere tenderness.
"And you, little
one, pray not to the God of priests and slaves, but to the God of orphans, of
the oppressed, of the poor, of little children, to give thee a man like this
one for a husband."
His hand rested heavily
for a moment on Nostromo's shoulder; then he went in. The hopeless slave of the
San Tomé silver felt at these words the venomous fangs of jealousy biting deep
into his heart. He was appalled by the novelty of the experience, by its force,
by its physical intimacy. A husband! A husband for her! And yet it was natural
that Giselle should have a husband at some time or other. He had never realized
that before. In discovering that her beauty could belong to another he felt as
though he could kill this one of old Giorgio's daughters also. He muttered
moodily --
"They say you love
Ramirez."
She shook her head
without looking at him. Coppery glints rippled to and fro on the wealth of her
gold hair. Her smooth forehead had the soft, pure sheen of a priceless pearl in
the splendour of the sunset, mingling the gloom of starry spaces, the purple of
the sea, and the crimson of the sky in a magnificent stillness.
"No," she
said, slowly. "I never loved him. I think I never . . . He loves me --
perhaps."
The seduction of her
slow voice died out of the air, and her raised eyes remained fixed on nothing,
as if indifferent and without thought.
"Ramirez told you
he loved you?" asked Nostromo, restraining himself.
"Ah! once -- one
evening . . ."
"The miserable . .
. Ha!"
He had jumped up as if
stung by a gad-fly, and stood before her mute with anger.
"Misericordia
Divina! You, too, Gian' Battista! Poor wretch that I am!" she lamented in
ingenuous tones. "I told Linda, and she scolded -- she scolded. Am I to
live blind, dumb, and deaf in this world? And she told father, who took down
his gun and cleaned it. Poor Ramirez! Then you came, and she told you."
He looked at her. He
fastened his eyes upon the hollow of her white throat, which had the invincible
charm of things young, palpitating, delicate, and alive. Was this the child he
had known? Was it possible? It dawned upon him that in these last years he had
really seen very little -- nothing -- of her. Nothing. She had come into the
world like a thing unknown. She had come upon him unawares. She was a danger. A
frightful danger. The instinctive mood of fierce determination that had never
failed him before the perils of this life added its steady force to the
violence of his passion. She, in a voice that recalled to him the song of
running water, the tinkling of a silver bell, continued -- "And between
you three you have brought me here into this captivity to the sky and water.
Nothing else. Sky and water. Oh, Sanctissima Madre. My hair shall turn grey on
this tedious island. I could hate you, Gian' Battista!"
He laughed loudly. Her
voice enveloped him like a caress. She bemoaned her fate, spreading
unconsciously, like a flower its perfume in the coolness of the evening, the indefinable
seduction of her person. Was it her fault that nobody ever had admired Linda?
Even when they were little, going out with their mother to Mass, she remembered
that people took no notice of Linda, who was fearless, and chose instead to
frighten her, who was timid, with their attention. It was her hair like gold,
she supposed.
He broke out --
"Your hair like
gold, and your eyes like violets, and your lips like the rose; your round arms,
your white throat." . . .
Imperturbable in the
indolence of her pose, she blushed deeply all over to the roots of her hair.
She was not conceited. She was no more self-conscious than a flower. But she
was pleased. And perhaps even a flower loves to hear itself praised. He glanced
down, and added, impetuously --
"Your little
feet!"
Leaning back against
the rough stone wall of the cottage, she seemed to bask languidly in the warmth
of the rosy flush. Only her lowered eyes glanced at her little feet.
"And so you are
going at last to marry our Linda. She is terrible. Ah! now she will understand
better since you have told her you love her. She will not be so fierce."
"Chica!" said
Nostromo, "I have not told her anything."
"Then make haste.
Come to-morrow. Come and tell her, so that I may have some peace from her
scolding and -- perhaps -- who knows . . ."
"Be allowed to
listen to your Ramirez, eh? Is that it? You . . ."
"Mercy of God! How
violent you are, Giovanni," she said, unmoved. "Who is Ramirez . . .
Ramirez . . . Who is he?" she repeated, dreamily, in the dusk and gloom of
the clouded gulf, with a low red streak in the west like a hot bar of glowing
iron laid across the entrance of a world sombre as a cavern, where the
magnificent Capataz de Cargadores had hidden his conquests of love and wealth.
"Listen,
Giselle," he said, in measured tones; "I will tell no word of love to
your sister. Do you want to know why?"
"Alas! I could not
understand perhaps, Giovanni. Father says you are not like other men; that no
one had ever understood you properly; that the rich will be surprised yet. . .
. Oh! saints in heaven! I am weary."
She raised her
embroidery to conceal the lower part of her face, then let it fall on her lap.
The lantern was shaded on the land side, but slanting away from the dark column
of the lighthouse they could see the long shaft of light, kindled by Linda, go
out to strike the expiring glow in a horizon of purple and red.
Giselle Viola, with her
head resting against the wall of the house, her eyes half closed, and her
little feet, in white stockings and black slippers, crossed over each other,
seemed to surrender herself, tranquil and fatal, to the gathering dusk. The
charm of her body, the promising mysteriousness of her indolence, went out into
the night of the Placid Gulf like a fresh and intoxicating fragrance spreading
out in the shadows, impregnating the air. The incorruptible Nostromo breathed
her ambient seduction in the tumultuous heaving of his breast. Before leaving
the harbour he had thrown off the store clothing of Captain Fidanza, for
greater ease in the long pull out to the islands. He stood before her in the
red sash and check shirt as he used to appear on the Company's wharf -- a
Mediterranean sailor come ashore to try his luck in Costaguana. The dusk of
purple and red enveloped him, too -- close, soft, profound, as no more than
fifty yards from that spot it had gathered evening after evening about the
self-destructive passion of Don Martin Decoud's utter scepticism, flaming up to
death in solitude.
"You have got to
hear," he began at last, with perfect self-control. "I shall say no
word of love to your sister, to whom I am betrothed from this evening, because
it is you that I love. It is you!" . . .
The dusk let him see
yet the tender and voluptuous smile that came instinctively upon her lips
shaped for love and kisses, freeze hard in the drawn, haggard lines of terror.
He could not restrain himself any longer. While she shrank from his approach,
her arms went out to him, abandoned and regal in the dignity of her languid
surrender. He held her head in his two hands, and showered rapid kisses upon
the upturned face that gleamed in the purple dusk. Masterful and tender, he was
entering slowly upon the fulness of his possession. And he perceived that she
was crying. Then the incomparable Capataz, the man of careless loves, became
gentle and caressing, like a woman to the grief of a child. He murmured to her
fondly. He sat down by her and nursed her fair head on his breast. He called
her his star and his little flower.
It had grown dark. From
the living-room of the light-keeper's cottage, where Giorgio, one of the
Immortal Thousand, was bending his leonine and heroic head over a charcoal
fire, there came the sound of sizzling and the aroma of an artistic frittura.
In the obscure disarray
of that thing, happening like a cataclysm, it was in her feminine head that
some gleam of reason survived. He was lost to the world in their embraced
stillness. But she said, whispering into his ear --
"God of mercy!
What will become of me -- here -- now -- between this sky and this water I
hate? Linda, Linda -- I see her!" . . . She tried to get out of his arms,
suddenly relaxed at the sound of that name. But there was no one approaching
their black shapes, enlaced and struggling on the white background of the wall.
"Linda! Poor Linda! I tremble! I shall die of fear before my poor sister
Linda, betrothed to-day to Giovanni -- my lover! Giovanni, you must have been
mad! I cannot understand you! You are not like other men! I will not give you
up -- never -- only to God himself! But why have you done this blind, mad,
cruel, frightful thing?"
Released, she hung her
head, let fall her hands. The altar-cloth, as if tossed by a great wind, lay
far away from them, gleaming white on the black ground.
"From fear of
losing my hope of you," said Nostromo.
"You knew that you
had my soul! You know everything! It was made for you! But what could stand
between you and me? What? Tell me!" she repeated, without impatience, in
superb assurance.
"Your dead
mother," he said, very low.
"Ah! . . . Poor
mother! She has always . . . She is a saint in heaven now, and I cannot give
you up to her. No, Giovanni. Only to God alone. You were mad -- but it is done.
Oh! what have you done? Giovanni, my beloved, my life, my master, do not leave
me here in this grave of clouds. You cannot leave me now. You must take me away
-- at once -- this instant -- in the little boat. Giovanni, carry me off
to-night, from my fear of Linda's eyes, before I have to look at her again."
She nestled close to
him. The slave of the San Tomé silver felt the weight as of chains upon his
limbs, a pressure as of a cold hand upon his lips. He struggled against the
spell.
"I cannot,"
he said. "Not yet. There is something that stands between us two and the
freedom of the world."
She pressed her form
closer to his side with a subtle and naïve instinct of seduction.
"You rave,
Giovanni -- my lover!" she whispered, engagingly. "What can there be?
Carry me off -- in thy very hands -- to Doña Emilia -- away from here. I am not
very heavy."
It seemed as though she
expected him to lift her up at once in his two palms. She had lost the notion
of all impossibility. Anything could happen on this night of wonder. As he made
no movement, she almost cried aloud --
"I tell you I am
afraid of Linda!" And still he did not move. She became quiet and wily.
"What can there be?" she asked, coaxingly.
He felt her warm,
breathing, alive, quivering in the hollow of his arm. In the exulting
consciousness of his strength, and the triumphant excitement of his mind, he
struck out for his freedom.
"A treasure,"
he said. All was still. She did not understand. "A treasure. A treasure of
silver to buy a gold crown for thy brow."
"A treasure?"
she repeated in a faint voice, as if from the depths of a dream. "What is
it you say?"
She disengaged herself
gently. He got up and looked down at her, aware of her face, of her hair, her
lips, the dimples on her cheeks -- seeing the fascination of her person in the
night of the gulf as if in the blaze of noonday. Her nonchalant and seductive
voice trembled with the excitement of admiring awe and ungovernable curiosity.
"A treasure of
silver!" she stammered out. Then pressed on faster: "What? Where? How
did you get it, Giovanni?"
He wrestled with the
spell of captivity. It was as if striking a heroic blow that he burst out --
"Like a
thief!"
The densest blackness
of the Placid Gulf seemed to fall upon his head. He could not see her now. She
had vanished into a long, obscure abysmal silence, whence her voice came back
to him after a time with a faint glimmer, which was her face.
"I love you! I
love you!"
These words gave him an
unwonted sense of freedom; they cast a spell stronger than the accursed spell
of the treasure; they changed his weary subjection to that dead thing into an
exulting conviction of his power. He would cherish her, he said, in a splendour
as great as Doña Emilia's. The rich lived on wealth stolen from the people, but
he had taken from the rich nothing -- nothing that was not lost to them already
by their folly and their betrayal. For he had been betrayed -- he said --
deceived, tempted. She believed him. . . . He had kept the treasure for
purposes of revenge; but now he cared nothing for it. He cared only for her. He
would put her beauty in a palace on a hill crowned with olive trees -- a white
palace above a blue sea. He would keep her there like a jewel in a casket. He
would get land for her -- her own land fertile with vines and corn -- to set
her little feet upon. He kissed them. . . . He had already paid for it all with
the soul of a woman and the life of a man. . . . The Capataz de Cargadores
tasted the supreme intoxication of his generosity. He flung the mastered
treasure superbly at her feet in the impenetrable darkness of the gulf, in the
darkness defying -- as men said -- the knowledge of God and the wit of the
devil. But she must let him grow rich first -- he warned her.
She listened as if in a
trance. Her fingers stirred in his hair. He got up from his knees reeling,
weak, empty, as though he had flung his soul away.
"Make haste,
then," she said. "Make haste, Giovanni, my lover, my master, for I
will give thee up to no one but God. And I am afraid of Linda."
He guessed at her
shudder, and swore to do his best. He trusted the courage of her love. She
promised to be brave in order to be loved always -- far away in a white palace
upon a hill above a blue sea. Then with a timid, tentative eagerness she
murmured --
"Where is it?
Where? Tell me that, Giovanni."
He opened his mouth and
remained silent -- thunder- struck.
"Not that! Not
that!" he gasped out, appalled at the spell of secrecy that had kept him
dumb before so many people falling upon his lips again with unimpaired force.
Not even to her. Not even to her. It was too dangerous. "I forbid thee to
ask," he cried at her, deadening cautiously the anger of his voice.
He had not regained his
freedom. The spectre of the unlawful treasure arose, standing by her side like
a figure of silver, pitiless and secret, with a finger on its pale lips. His
soul died within him at the vision of himself creeping in presently along the
ravine, with the smell of earth, of damp foliage in his nostrils -- creeping
in, determined in a purpose that numbed his breast, and creeping out again
loaded with silver, with his ears alert to every sound. It must be done on this
very night -- that work of a craven slave!
He stooped low, pressed
the hem of her skirt to his lips, with a muttered command --
"Tell him I would
not stay," and was gone suddenly from her, silent, without as much as a
footfall in the dark night.
She sat still, her head
resting indolently against the wall, and her little feet in white stockings and
black slippers crossed over each other. Old Giorgio, coming out, did not seem
to be surprised at the intelligence as much as she had vaguely feared. For she
was full of inexplicable fear now -- fear of everything and everybody except of
her Giovanni and his treasure. But that was incredible.
The heroic Garibaldino
accepted Nostromo's abrupt departure with a sagacious indulgence. He remembered
his own feelings, and exhibited a masculine penetration of the true state of
the case.
"Va bene. Let him
go. Ha! ha! No matter how fair the woman, it galls a little. Liberty, liberty.
There's more than one kind! He has said the great word, and son Gian' Battista
is not tame." He seemed to be instructing the motionless and scared
Giselle. . . . "A man should not be tame," he added, dogmatically out
of the doorway. Her stillness and silence seemed to displease him. "Do not
give way to the enviousness of your sister's lot," he admonished her, very
grave, in his deep voice.
Presently he had to
come to the door again to call in his younger daughter. It was late. He shouted
her name three times before she even moved her head. Left alone, she had become
the helpless prey of astonishment. She walked into the bedroom she shared with
Linda like a person profoundly asleep. That aspect was so marked that even old
Giorgio, spectacled, raising his eyes from the Bible, shook his head as she
shut the door behind her.
She walked right across
the room without looking at anything, and sat down at once by the open window.
Linda, stealing down from the tower in the exuberance of her happiness, found
her with a lighted candle at her back, facing the black night full of sighing
gusts of wind and the sound of distant showers -- a true night of the gulf, too
dense for the eye of God and the wiles of the devil. She did not turn her head
at the opening of the door.
There was something in
that immobility which reached Linda in the depths of her paradise. The elder sister
guessed angrily: the child is thinking of that wretched Ramirez. Linda longed
to talk. She said in her arbitrary voice, "Giselle!" and was not
answered by the slightest movement.
The girl that was going
to live in a palace and walk on ground of her own was ready to die with terror.
Not for anything in the world would she have turned her head to face her
sister. Her heart was beating madly. She said with subdued haste --
"Do not speak to
me. I am praying."
Linda, disappointed,
went out quietly; and Giselle sat on unbelieving, lost, dazed, patient, as if
waiting for the confirmation of the incredible. The hopeless blackness of the
clouds seemed part of a dream, too. She waited.
She did not wait in
vain. The man whose soul was dead within him, creeping out of the ravine,
weighted with silver, had seen the gleam of the lighted window, and could not
help retracing his steps from the beach.
On that impenetrable
background, obliterating the lofty mountains by the seaboard, she saw the slave
of the San Tomé silver, as if by an extraordinary power of a miracle. She
accepted his return as if henceforth the world could hold no surprise for all
eternity.
She rose, compelled and
rigid, and began to speak long before the light from within fell upon the face
of the approaching man.
"You have come
back to carry me off. It is well! Open thy arms, Giovanni, my lover. I am
coming."
His prudent footsteps
stopped, and with his eyes glistening wildly, he spoke in a harsh voice:
"Not yet. I must
grow rich slowly." . . . A threatening note came into his tone. "Do
not forget that you have a thief for your lover."
"Yes! Yes!"
she whispered, hastily. "Come nearer! Listen! Do not give me up, Giovanni!
Never, never! . . . I will be patient! . . ."
Her form drooped
consolingly over the low casement towards the slave of the unlawful treasure.
The light in the room went out, and weighted with silver, the magnificent
Capataz clasped her round her white neck in the darkness of the gulf as a
drowning man clutches at a straw.
ON THE day Mrs. Gould
was going, in Dr. Monygham's words, to "give a tertulia," Captain
Fidanza went down the side of his schooner lying in Sulaco harbour, calm,
unbending, deliberate in the way he sat down in his dinghy and took up his
sculls. He was later than usual. The afternoon was well advanced before he
landed on the beach of the Great Isabel, and with a steady pace climbed the
slope of the island.
From a distance he made
out Giselle sitting in a chair tilted back against the end of the house, under
the window of the girl's room. She had her embroidery in her hands, and held it
well up to her eyes. The tranquillity of that girlish figure exasperated the
feeling of perpetual struggle and strife he carried in his breast. He became
angry. It seemed to him that she ought to hear the clanking of his fetters --
his silver fetters, from afar. And while ashore that day, he had met the doctor
with the evil eye, who had looked at him very hard.
The raising of her eyes
mollified him. They smiled in their flower-like freshness straight upon his
heart. Then she frowned. It was a warning to be cautious. He stopped some
distance away, and in a loud, indifferent tone, said --
"Good day,
Giselle. Is Linda up yet?"
"Yes. She is in
the big room with father."
He approached then,
and, looking through the window into the bedroom for fear of being detected by
Linda returning there for some reason, he said, moving only his lips --
"You love
me?"
"More than my
life." She went on with her embroidery under his contemplating gaze and
continued to speak, looking at her work, "Or I could not live. I could
not, Giovanni. For this life is like death. Oh, Giovanni, I shall perish if you
do not take me away."
He smiled carelessly.
"I will come to the window when it's dark," he said.
"No, don't,
Giovanni. Not-to-night. Linda and father have been talking together for a long
time today."
"What about?"
"Ramirez, I fancy
I heard. I do not know. I am afraid. I am always afraid. It is like dying a
thousand times a day. Your love is to me like your treasure to you. It is
there, but I can never get enough of it."
He looked at her very
still. She was beautiful. His desire had grown within him. He had two masters
now. But she was incapable of sustained emotion. She was sincere in what she
said, but she slept placidly at night. When she saw him she flamed up always.
Then only an increased taciturnity marked the change in her. She was afraid of
betraying herself. She was afraid of pain, of bodily harm, of sharp words, of
facing anger, and witnessing violence. For her soul was light and tender with a
pagan sincerity in its impulses. She murmured --
"Give up the
palazzo, Giovanni, and the vineyard on the hills, for which we are starving our
love."
She ceased, seeing
Linda standing silent at the corner of the house.
Nostromo turned to his
affianced wife with a greeting, and was amazed at her sunken eyes, at her
hollow cheeks, at the air of illness and anguish in her face.
"Have you been
ill?" he asked, trying to put some concern into this question.
Her black eyes blazed
at him. "Am I thinner?" she asked.
"Yes -- perhaps --
a little."
"And older?"
"Every day counts
-- for all of us."
"I shall go grey,
I fear, before the ring is on my finger," she said, slowly, keeping her
gaze fastened upon him.
She waited for what he
would say, rolling down her turned-up sleeves.
"No fear of
that," he said, absently.
She turned away as if
it had been something final, and busied herself with household cares while
Nostromo talked with her father. Conversation with the old Garibaldino was not
easy. Age had left his faculties unimpaired, only they seemed to have withdrawn
somewhere deep within him. His answers were slow in coming, with an effect of
august gravity. But that day he was more animated, quicker; there seemed to be
more life in the old lion. He was uneasy for the integrity of his honour. He
believed Sidoni's warning as to Ramirez's designs upon his younger daughter.
And he did not trust her. She was flighty. He said nothing of his cares to
"Son Gian' Battista." It was a touch of senile vanity. He wanted to
show that he was equal yet to the task of guarding alone the honour of his
house.
Nostromo went away
early. As soon as he had disappeared, walking towards the beach, Linda stepped
over the threshold and, with a haggard smile, sat down by the side of her
father.
Ever since that Sunday,
when the infatuated and desperate Ramirez had waited for her on the wharf, she
had no doubts whatever. The jealous ravings of that man were no revelation.
They had only fixed with precision, as with a nail driven into her heart, that
sense of unreality and deception which, instead of bliss and security, she had
found in her intercourse with her promised husband. She had passed on, pouring
indignation and scorn upon Ramirez; but, that Sunday, she nearly died of
wretchedness and shame, lying on the carved and lettered stone of Teresa's
grave, subscribed for by the engine-drivers and the fitters of the railway
workshops, in sign of their respect for the hero of Italian Unity. Old Viola
had not been able to carry out his desire of burying his wife in the sea; and
Linda wept upon the stone.
The gratuitous outrage
appalled her. If he wished to break her heart -- well and good. Everything was
permitted to Gian' Battista. But why trample upon the pieces; why seek to
humiliate her spirit? Aha! He could not break that. She dried her tears. And
Giselle! Giselle! The little one that, ever since she could toddle, had always
clung to her skirt for protection. What duplicity! But she could not help it
probably. When there was a man in the case the poor featherheaded wretch could
not help herself.
Linda had a good share
of the Viola stoicism. She resolved to say nothing. But woman-like she put
passion into her stoicism. Giselle's short answers, prompted by fearful
caution, drove her beside herself by their curtness that resembled disdain. One
day she flung herself upon the chair in which her indolent sister was lying and
impressed the mark of her teeth at the base of the whitest neck in Sulaco.
Giselle cried out. But she had her share of the Viola heroism. Ready to faint
with terror, she only said, in a lazy voice, "Madre de Dios! Are you going
to eat me alive, Linda?" And this outburst passed off leaving no trace
upon the situation. "She knows nothing. She cannot know any thing,"
reflected Giselle. "Perhaps it is not true. It cannot be true," Linda
tried to persuade herself.
But when she saw
Captain Fidanza for the first time after her meeting with the distracted
Ramirez, the certitude of her misfortune returned. She watched him from the
doorway go away to his boat, asking herself stoically, "Will they meet
to-night?" She made up her mind not to leave the tower for a second. When
he had disappeared she came out and sat down by her father.
The venerable
Garibaldino felt, in his own words, "a young man yet." In one way or
another a good deal of talk about Ramirez had reached him of late; and his
contempt and dislike of that man who obviously was not what his son would have
been, had made him restless. He slept very little now; but for several nights
past instead of reading -- or only sitting, with Mrs. Gould's silver spectacles
on his nose, before the open Bible, he had been prowling actively all about the
island with his old gun, on watch over his honour.
Linda, laying her thin
brown hand on his knee, tried to soothe his excitement. Ramirez was not in
Sulaco. Nobody knew where he was. He was gone. His talk of what he would do
meant nothing.
"No," the old
man interrupted. "But son Gian' Battista told me -- quite of himself --
that the cowardly esclavo was drinking and gambling with the rascals of Zapiga,
over there on the north side of the gulf. He may get some of the worst
scoundrels of that scoundrelly town of negroes to help him in his attempt upon
the little one. . . . But I am not so old. No!"
She argued earnestly
against the probability of any attempt being made; and at last the old man fell
silent, chewing his white moustache. Women had their obstinate notions which
must be humoured -- his poor wife was like that, and Linda resembled her
mother. It was not seemly for a man to argue. "May be. May be," he
mumbled.
She was by no means
easy in her mind. She loved Nostromo. She turned her eyes upon Giselle, sitting
at a distance, with something of maternal tenderness, and the jealous anguish
of a rival outraged in her defeat. Then she rose and walked over to her.
"Listen --
you," she said, roughly.
The invincible candour
of the gaze, raised up all violet and dew, excited her rage and admiration. She
had beautiful eyes -- the Chica -- this vile thing of white flesh and black
deception. She did not know whether she wanted to tear them out with shouts of
vengeance or cover up their mysterious and shameless innocence with kisses of
pity and love. And suddenly they became empty, gazing blankly at her, except
for a little fear not quite buried deep enough with all the other emotions in
Giselle's heart.
Linda said, "Ramirez
is boasting in town that he will carry you off from the island."
"What folly!"
answered the other, and in a perversity born of long restraint, she added:
"He is not the man," in a jesting tone with a trembling audacity.
"No?" said
Linda, through her clenched teeth. "Is he not? Well, then, look to it;
because father has been walking about with a loaded gun at night."
"It is not good
for him. You must tell him not to, Linda. He will not listen to me."
"I shall say
nothing -- never any more -- to anybody," cried Linda, passionately.
This could not last,
thought Giselle. Giovanni must take her away soon -- the very next time he
came. She would not suffer these terrors for ever so much silver. To speak with
her sister made her ill. But she was not uneasy at her father's watchfulness.
She had begged Nostromo not to come to the window that night. He had promised
to keep away for this once. And she did not know, could not guess or imagine,
that he had another reason for coming on the island.
Linda had gone straight
to the tower. It was time to light up. She unlocked the little door, and went
heavily up the spiral staircase, carrying her love for the magnificent Capataz
de Cargadores like an ever-increasing load of shameful fetters. No; she could not
throw it off. No; let Heaven dispose of these two. And moving about the
lantern, filled with twilight and the sheen of the moon, with careful movements
she lighted the lamp. Then her arms fell along her body.
"And with our
mother looking on," she murmured. "My own sister -- the Chica!"
The whole refracting
apparatus, with its brass fittings and rings of prisms, glittered and sparkled
like a dome- shaped shrine of diamonds, containing not a lamp, but some sacred
flame, dominating the sea. And Linda, the keeper, in black, with a pale face,
drooped low in a wooden chair, alone with her jealousy, far above the shames
and passions of the earth. A strange, dragging pain as if somebody were pulling
her about brutally by her dark hair with bronze glints, made her put her hands
up to her temples. They would meet. They would meet. And she knew where, too.
At the window. The sweat of torture fell in drops on her cheeks, while the
moonlight in the offing closed as if with a colossal bar of silver the entrance
of the Placid Gulf -- the sombre cavern of clouds and stillness in the
surf-fretted seaboard.
Linda Viola stood up
suddenly with a finger on her lip. He loved neither her nor her sister. The
whole thing seemed so objectless as to frighten her, and also give her some
hope. Why did he not carry her off? What prevented him? He was
incomprehensible. What were they waiting for? For what end were these two lying
and deceiving? Not for the ends of their love. There was no such thing. The
hope of regaining him for herself made her break her vow of not leaving the
tower that night. She must talk at once to her father, who was wise, and would
understand. She ran down the spiral stairs. At the moment of opening the door
at the bottom she heard the sound of the first shot ever fired on the Great
Isabel.
She felt a shock, as
though the bullet had struck her breast. She ran on without pausing. The
cottage was dark. She cried at the door, "Giselle! Giselle!" then
dashed round the corner and screamed her sister's name at the open window,
without getting an answer; but as she was rushing, distracted, round the house,
Giselle came out of the door, and darted past her, running silently, her hair
loose, and her eyes staring straight ahead. She seemed to skim along the grass
as if on tiptoe, and vanished.
Linda walked on slowly,
with her arms stretched out before her. All was still on the island; she did
not know where she was going. The tree under which Martin Decoud spent his last
days, beholding life like a succession of senseless images, threw a large
blotch of black shade upon the grass. Suddenly she saw her father, standing
quietly all alone in the moonlight.
The Garibaldino -- big,
erect, with his snow-white hair and beard -- had a monumental repose in his
immobility, leaning upon a rifle. She put her hand upon his arm lightly. He
never stirred.
"What have you
done?" she asked, in her ordinary voice.
"I have shot
Ramirez -- infame!" he answered, with his eyes directed to where the shade
was blackest. "Like a thief he came, and like a thief he fell. The child
had to be protected."
He did not offer to
move an inch, to advance a single step. He stood there, rugged and unstirring,
like a statue of an old man guarding the honour of his house. Linda removed her
trembling hand from his arm, firm and steady like an arm of stone, and, without
a word, entered the blackness of the shade. She saw a stir of formless shapes
on the ground, and stopped short. A murmur of despair and tears grew louder to
her strained hearing.
"I entreated you
not to come to-night. Oh, my Giovanni! And you promised. Oh! Why -- why did you
come, Giovanni?"
It was her sister's
voice. It broke on a heartrending sob. And the voice of the resourceful Capataz
de Cargadores, master and slave of the San Tomé treasure, who had been caught
unawares by old Giorgio while stealing across the open towards the ravine to
get some more silver, answered careless and cool, but sounding startlingly weak
from the ground.
"It seemed as
though I could not live through the night without seeing thee once more -- my
star, my little flower."
* * * * *
The brilliant tertulia
was just over, the last guests had departed, and the Señor Administrador had
gone to his room already, when Dr. Monygham, who had been expected in the
evening but had not turned up, arrived driving along the wood-block pavement
under the electric-lamps of the deserted Calle de la Constitucion, and found
the great gateway of the Casa still open.
He limped in, stumped
up the stairs, and found the fat and sleek Basilio on the point of turning off
the lights in the sala. The prosperous majordomo remained open-mouthed at this
late invasion.
"Don't put out the
lights," commanded the doctor. "I want to see the señora."
"The señora is in
the Señor Adminstrador's cancillaria," said Basilio, in an unctuous voice.
"The Señor Administrador starts for the mountain in an hour. There is some
trouble with the workmen to be feared, it appears. A shameless people without
reason and decency. And idle, señor. Idle."
"You are
shamelessly lazy and imbecile yourself," said the doctor, with that
faculty for exasperation which made him so generally beloved. "Don't put
the lights out."
Basilio retired with
dignity. Dr. Monygham, waiting in the brilliantly lighted sala, heard presently
a door close at the further end of the house. A jingle of spurs died out. The
Señor Administrador was off to the mountain.
With a measured swish of
her long train, flashing with jewels and the shimmer of silk, her delicate head
bowed as if under the weight of a mass of fair hair, in which the silver
threads were lost, the "first lady of Sulaco," as Captain Mitchell
used to describe her, moved along the lighted corredor, wealthy beyond great
dreams of wealth, considered, loved, respected, honoured, and as solitary as
any human being had ever been, perhaps, on this earth.
The doctor's "Mrs.
Gould! One minute!" stopped her with a start at the door of the lighted
and empty sala. From the similarity of mood and circumstance, the sight of the
doctor, standing there all alone amongst the groups of furniture, recalled to
her emotional memory her unexpected meeting with Martin Decoud; she seemed to
hear in the silence the voice of that man, dead miserably so many years ago,
pronounce the words, "Antonia left her fan here." But it was the
doctor's voice that spoke, a little altered by his excitement. She remarked his
shining eyes.
"Mrs. Gould, you
are wanted. Do you know what has happened? You remember what I told you
yesterday about Nostromo. Well, it seems that a lancha, a decked boat, coming
from Zapiga, with four negroes in her, passing close to the Great Isabel, was
hailed from the cliff by a woman's voice -- Linda's, as a matter of fact --
commanding them (it's a moonlight night) to go round to the beach and take up a
wounded man to the town. The patron (from whom I've heard all this), of course,
did so at once. He told me that when they got round to the low side of the
Great Isabel, they found Linda Viola waiting for them. They followed her: she
led them under a tree not far from the cottage. There they found Nostromo lying
on the ground with his head in the younger girl's lap, and father Viola standing
some distance off leaning on his gun. Under Linda's direction they got a table
out of the cottage for a stretcher, after breaking off the legs. They are here,
Mrs. Gould. I mean Nostromo and -- and Giselle. The negroes brought him in to
the first-aid hospital near the harbour. He made the attendant send for me. But
it was not me he wanted to see -- it was you, Mrs. Gould! It was you."
"Me?"
whispered Mrs. Gould, shrinking a little.
"Yes, you!"
the doctor burst out. "He begged me -- his enemy, as he thinks -- to bring
you to him at once. It seems he has something to say to you alone."
"Impossible!"
murmured Mrs. Gould.
"He said to me,
'Remind her that I have done something to keep a roof over her head.' . . .
Mrs. Gould," the doctor pursued, in the greatest excitement. "Do you
remember the silver? The silver in the lighter -- that was lost?"
Mrs. Gould remembered.
But she did not say she hated the mere mention of that silver. Frankness
personified, she remembered with an exaggerated horror that for the first and
last time of her life she had concealed the truth from her husband about that
very silver. She had been corrupted by her fears at that time, and she had
never forgiven herself. Moreover, that silver, which would never have come down
if her husband had been made acquainted with the news brought by Decoud, had
been in a roundabout way nearly the cause of Dr. Monygham's death. And these
things appeared to her very dreadful.
"Was it lost,
though?" the doctor exclaimed. "I've always felt that there was a
mystery about our Nostromo ever since. I do believe he wants now, at the point
of death ----"
"The point of
death?" repeated Mrs. Gould.
"Yes. Yes. . . .
He wants perhaps to tell you something concerning that silver which ----"
"Oh, no! No!"
exclaimed Mrs. Gould, in a low voice. "Isn't it lost and done with? Isn't
there enough treasure without it to make everybody in the world
miserable?"
The doctor remained
still, in a submissive, disappointed silence. At last he ventured, very low --
"And there is that
Viola girl, Giselle. What are we to do? It looks as though father and sister
had ----"
Mrs. Gould admitted
that she felt in duty bound to do her best for these girls.
"I have a volante
here," the doctor said. "If you don't mind getting into that
----"
He waited, all
impatience, till Mrs. Gould reappeared, having thrown over her dress a grey
cloak with a deep hood.
It was thus that,
cloaked and monastically hooded over her evening costume, this woman, full of
endurance and compassion, stood by the side of the bed on which the splendid
Capataz de Cargadores lay stretched out motionless on his back. The whiteness
of sheets and pillows gave a sombre and energetic relief to his bronzed. face,
to the dark, nervous hands, so good on a tiller, upon a bridle and on a
trigger, lying open and idle upon a white coverlet.
"She is
innocent," the Capataz was saying in a deep and level voice, as though
afraid that a louder word would break the slender hold his spirit still kept
upon his body. "She is innocent. It is I alone. But no matter. For these
things I would answer to no man or woman alive."
He paused. Mrs. Gould's
face, very white within the shadow of the hood, bent over him with an
invincible and dreary sadness. And the low sobs of Giselle Viola, kneeling at
the end of the bed, her gold hair with coppery gleams loose and scattered over
the Capataz's feet, hardly troubled the silence of the room.
"Ha! Old Giorgio
-- the guardian of thine honour! Fancy the Vecchio coming upon me so light of foot,
so steady of aim. I myself could have done no better. But the price of a charge
of powder might have been saved. The honour was safe. . . . Señora, she would
have followed to the end of the world Nostromo the thief. . . . I have said the
word. The spell is broken!"
A low moan from the
girl made him cast his eyes down.
"I cannot see her.
. . . No matter," he went on, with the shadow of the old magnificent
carelessness in his voice. "One kiss is enough, if there is no time for
more. An airy soul, señora! Bright and warm, like sunshine -- soon clouded, and
soon serene. They would crush it there between them. Señora, cast on her the
eye of your compassion, as famed from one end of the land to the other as the
courage and daring of the man who speaks to you. She will console herself in
time. And even Ramirez is not a bad fellow. I am not angry. No! It is not
Ramirez who overcame the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores." He paused,
made an effort, and in louder voice, a little wildly, declared --
"I die betrayed --
betrayed by ----"
But he did not say by
whom or by what he was dying betrayed.
"She would not
have betrayed me," he began again, opening his eyes very wide. "She
was faithful. We were going very far -- very soon. I could have torn myself
away from that accursed treasure for her. For that child I would have left
boxes and boxes of it -- full. And Decoud took four. Four ingots. Why?
Picardia! To betray me? How could I give back the treasure with four ingots
missing? They would have said I had purloined them. The doctor would have said
that. Alas! it holds me yet!"
Mrs. Gould bent low,
fascinated -- cold with apprehension.
"What became of
Don Martin on that night, Nostromo?"
"Who knows? I
wondered what would become of me. Now I know. Death was to come upon me
unawares. He went away! He betrayed me. And you think I have killed him! You
are all alike, you fine people. The silver has killed me. It has held me. It
holds me yet. Nobody knows where it is. But you are the wife of Don Carlos, who
put it into my hands and said, 'Save it on your life.' And when I returned, and
you all thought it was lost, what do I hear? 'It was nothing of importance. Let
it go. Up, Nostromo, the faithful, and ride away to save us, for dear
life!'"
"Nostromo!"
Mrs. Gould whispered, bending very low. "I, too, have hated the idea of
that silver from the bottom of my heart."
"Marvellous! --
that one of you should hate the wealth that you know so well how to take from
the hands of the poor. The world rests upon the poor, as old Giorgio says. You
have been always good to the poor. But there is something accursed in wealth.
Señora, shall I tell you where the treasure is? To you alone. . . . Shining!
Incorruptible!"
A pained, involuntary
reluctance lingered in his tone, in his eyes, plain to the woman with the
genius of sympathetic intuition. She averted her glance from the miserable
subjection of the dying man, appalled, wishing to hear no more of the silver.
"No,
Capataz," she said. "No one misses it now. Let it be lost for
ever."
After hearing these
words, Nostromo closed his eyes, uttered no word, made no movement. Outside the
door of the sick-room Dr. Monygham, excited to the highest pitch, his eyes
shining with eagerness, came up to the two women.
"Now, Mrs. Gould,"
he said, almost brutally in his impatience, "tell me, was I right? There
is a mystery. You have got the word of it, have you not? He told you ----"
"He told me
nothing," said Mrs. Gould, steadily.
The light of his
temperamental enmity to Nostromo went out of Dr. Monygham's eyes. He stepped
back submissively. He did not believe Mrs. Gould. But her word was law. He
accepted her denial like an inexplicable fatality affirming the victory of
Nostromo's genius over his own. Even before that woman, whom he loved with
secret devotion, he had been defeated by the magnificent Capataz de Cargadores,
the man who had lived his own life on the assumption of unbroken fidelity,
rectitude, and courage!
"Pray send at once
somebody for my carriage," spoke Mrs. Gould from within her hood. Then,
turning to Giselle Viola, "Come nearer me, child; come closer. We will
wait here."
Giselle Viola,
heartbroken and childlike, her face veiled in her falling hair, crept up to her
side. Mrs. Gould slipped her hand through the arm of the unworthy daughter of
old Viola, the immaculate republican, the hero without a stain. Slowly,
gradually, as a withered flower droops, the head of the girl, who would have
followed a thief to the end of the world, rested on the shoulder of Doña Emilia,
the first lady of Sulaco, the wife of the Señor Administrador of the San Tomé
mine. And Mrs. Gould, feeling her suppressed sobbing, nervous and excited, had
the first and only moment of bitterness in her life. It was worthy of Dr.
Monygham himself.
"Console yourself,
child. Very soon he would have forgotten you for his treasure."
"Señora, he loved
me. He loved me," Giselle whispered, despairingly. "He loved me as no
one had ever been loved before."
"I have been
loved, too," Mrs. Gould said in a severe tone.
Giselle clung to her
convulsively. "Oh, señora, but you shall live adored to the end of your
life," she sobbed out.
Mrs. Gould kept an
unbroken silence till the carriage arrived. She helped in the half-fainting
girl. After the doctor had shut the door of the landau, she leaned over to him.
"You can do
nothing?" she whispered.
"No, Mrs. Gould.
Moreover, he won't let us touch him. It does not matter. I just had one look. .
. . Useless."
But he promised to see
old Viola and the other girl that very night. He could get the police-boat to
take him off to the island. He remained in the street, looking after the landau
rolling away slowly behind the white mules.
The rumour of some
accident -- an accident to Captain Fidanza -- had been spreading along the new
quays with their rows of lamps and the dark shapes of towering cranes. A knot
of night prowlers -- the poorest of the poor -- hung about the door of the
first-aid hospital, whispering in the moonlight of the empty street.
There was no one with
the wounded man but the pale photographer, small, frail, bloodthirsty, the
hater of capitalists, perched on a high stool near the head of the bed with his
knees up and his chin in his hands. He had been fetched by a comrade who,
working late on the wharf, had heard from a negro belonging to a lancha, that
Captain Fidanza had been brought ashore mortally wounded.
"Have you any
dispositions to make, comrade?" he asked, anxiously. "Do not forget
that we want money for our work. The rich must be fought with their own
weapons."
Nostromo made no
answer. The other did not insist, remaining huddled up on the stool,
shock-headed, wildly hairy, like a hunchbacked monkey. Then, after a long
silence --
"Comrade
Fidanza," he began, solemnly, "you have refused all aid from that
doctor. Is he really a dangerous enemy of the people?"
In the dimly lit room
Nostromo rolled his head slowly on the pillow and opened his eyes, directing at
the weird figure perched by his bedside a glance of enigmatic and profound
inquiry. Then his head rolled back, his eyelids fell, and the Capataz de
Cargadores died without a word or moan after an hour of immobility, broken by
short shudders testifying to the most atrocious sufferings.
Dr. Monygham, going out
in the police-galley to the islands, beheld the glitter of the moon upon the
gulf and the high black shape of the Great Isabel sending a shaft of light
afar, from under the canopy of clouds.
"Pull easy,"
he said, wondering what he would find there. He tried to imagine Linda and her
father, and discovered a strange reluctance within himself. "Pull
easy," he repeated.
* * * * * *
From the moment he
fired at the thief of his honour, Giorgio Viola had not stirred from the spot.
He stood, his old gun grounded, his hand grasping the barrel near the muzzle.
After the lancha carrying off Nostromo for ever from her had left the shore,
Linda, coming up, stopped before him. He did not seem to be aware of her
presence, but when, losing her forced calmness, she cried out --
"Do you know whom
you have killed?" he answered --
"Ramirez the
vagabond."
White, and staring
insanely at her father, Linda laughed in his face. After a time he joined her
faintly in a deep-toned and distant echo of her peals. Then she stopped, and
the old man spoke as if startled --
"He cried out in
son Gian' Battista's voice."
The gun fell from his
opened hand, but the arm remained extended for a moment as if still supported.
Linda seized it roughly.
"You are too old
to understand. Come into the house."
He let her lead him. On
the threshold he stumbled heavily, nearly coming to the ground together with
his daughter. His excitement, his activity of the last few days, had been like
the flare of a dying lamp. He caught at the back of his chair.
"In son Gian'
Battista's voice," he repeated in a severe tone. "I heard him --
Ramirez -- the miserable ----"
Linda helped him into
the chair, and, bending low, hissed into his ear --
"You have killed
Gian' Battista."
The old man smiled
under his thick moustache. Women had strange fancies.
"Where is the
child?" he asked, surprised at the penetrating chilliness of the air and
the unwonted dimness of the lamp by which he used to sit up half the night with
the open Bible before him.
Linda hesitated a
moment, then averted her eyes.
"She is
asleep," she said. "We shall talk of her tomorrow."
She could not bear to
look at him. He filled her with terror and with an almost unbearable feeling of
pity. She had observed the change that came over him. He would never understand
what he had done; and even to her the whole thing remained incomprehensible. He
said with difficulty --
"Give me the
book."
Linda laid on the table
the closed volume in its worn leather cover, the Bible given him ages ago by an
Englishman in Palermo.
"The child had to
be protected," he said, in a strange, mournful voice.
Behind his chair Linda
wrung her hands, crying without noise. Suddenly she started for the door. He
heard her move.
"Where are you
going? "he asked.
"To the
light," she answered, turning round to look at him balefully.
"The light! Si --
duty."
Very upright,
white-haired, leonine, heroic in his absorbed quietness, he felt in the pocket
of his red shirt for the spectacles given him by Doña Emilia. He put them on.
After a long period of immobility he opened the book, and from on high looked
through the glasses at the small print in double columns. A rigid, stern
expression settled upon his features with a slight frown, as if in response to
some gloomy thought or unpleasant sensation. But he never detached his eyes
from the book while he swayed forward, gently, gradually, till his snow-white
head rested upon the open pages. A wooden clock ticked methodically on the
white-washed wall, and growing slowly cold the Garibaldino lay alone, rugged,
undecayed, like an old oak uprooted by a treacherous gust of wind.
The light of the Great
Isabel burned unfailing above the lost treasure of the San Tomé mine. Into the
bluish sheen of a night without stars the lantern sent out a yellow beam
towards the far horizon. Like a black speck upon the shining panes, Linda,
crouching in the outer gallery, rested her head on the rail. The moon, drooping
in the western board, looked at her radiantly.
Below, at the foot of
the cliff, the regular splash of oars from a passing boat ceased, and Dr.
Monygham stood up in the stern sheets.
"Linda!" he
shouted, throwing back his head. "Linda!"
Linda stood up. She had
recognized the voice.
"Is he dead?"
she cried, bending over.
"Yes, my poor
girl. I am coming round," the doctor answered from below. "Pull to
the beach," he said to the rowers.
Linda's black figure
detached itself upright on the light of the lantern with her arms raised above
her head as though she were going to throw herself over.
"It is I who loved
you," she whispered, with a face as set and white as marble in the
moonlight. "I! Only I! She will forget thee, killed miserably for her
pretty face. I cannot understand. I cannot understand. But I shall never forget
thee. Never!"
She stood silent and
still, collecting her strength to throw all her fidelity, her pain,
bewilderment, and despair into one great cry.
"Never! Gian'
Battista!"
Dr. Monygham, pulling
round in the police-galley, heard the name pass over his head. It was another
of Nostromo's triumphs, the greatest, the most enviable, the most sinister of
all. In that true cry of undying passion that seemed to ring aloud from Punta
Mala to Azuera and away to the bright line of the horizon, overhung by a big
white cloud shining like a mass of solid silver, the genius of the magnificent
Capataz de Cargadores dominated the dark gulf containing his conquests of
treasure and love.
THE END