Section 15

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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 bar- barous 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 exe- cuted. 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 educa- tion, of wealth, who had learned to fight amongst them- selves 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
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parting with the last spark of life. Sometimes interroga: tories, 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 un- shaven, 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 finish- ing 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 in- land 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 sus- picions, had sudden accesses of unreasonable self- confidence when he perceived himself elevated on a
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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 thanks- _ giving, 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 presi- dential piety. Having thus acknowledged the only power he was at all disposed to recognize as above him- self, 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 harmless- ness 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 ac- cident 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 op- position. 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
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enough to present a truly gratifying spectacle to the supreme chief of democratic institutions. He retired to Sulaco. His wife had an estate in that province, and she nursed him back to life out of the house of death and captivity. When she died, their daughter, an only child, was old enough to devote herself to “poor papa.”
Miss Avellanos, born in Europe and educated partly in England, was a tall, grave girl, with a self-possessed manner, a wide, white forehead, a wealth of rich brown hair, and blue eyes. .
The other young ladies of Sulaco stood in awe.of her character and accomplishments. She was reputed to be terribly learned and serious. As to pride, it was well known that all the Corbelans were proud, and her ‘mother was a Corbelan. Don 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 pas- sion 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 Mis- rule” 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 ad- vice at every step. He himself thought that he could be most useful at a distance, in Sulaco. His name, his
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connections, his former position, his experience com- manded the respect of his class. The discovery that this man, living in dignified poverty in the Corbelan town residence (opposite the Casa Gould), could dis- pose 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 over-
_whelming 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 em- brace 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.
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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, per- haps, 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 fore- shadowing 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. Spring- ing 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 exist-
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ing circumstances of corruption so naively brazen as to disarm the hate of a man courageous enough not to be afraid of its irresponsible potency to ruin everything it touched. It seemed to him too contemptible for hot anger even. He made use of it with a cold, fearless scorn, manifested rather than concealed by the forms of stony courtesy which did away with much of the ignominy of the situation. At bottom, perhaps, he suffered from it, for he was not a man of cowardly illusions, but he refused to discuss the ethical view with his wife. He trusted that, though a little disenchanted, she would be intelligent enough to understand that his character safeguarded the enterprise of their lives as much or more than his policy. The extraordinary development of the mine had put a great power into his hands. ‘To feel that prosperity always at the mercy of unintelligent greed had grown irksome to him. To Mrs. Gould it was humiliating. At any rate, it was dangerous. In the confidential communications pass- ing between Charles Gould, the King of Sulaco, and the head of the silver and steel interests far away in Cali- - fornia, 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 administra- tor of the San Tomé mine. And Don José, the heredi- tary friend of the Gould family, could say: “Perhaps, ty dear Carlos, I shall not have believed in vain.”
r ah er Pyrenees
CHAPTER TWO
Arter 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 re- generation, 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 unexpect- —
edly—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 imagina- tion. 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 ingrati- tude. 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 144
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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 ot 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 out-. standing 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 ener- | etic 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
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“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 Re- public, not only by natural obstacles, but also by the vicissitudes of the war. The Monteristos were be- sieging Cayta, an important postal link. The over- land 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. Mon- terist 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 authori- ties 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 per- mission to enlist, with all his followers, in the forces being then raised in Sulaco for the defence of the Five-