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that left no room for protest. The engineer-in-chief did not attempt any.. He simply nodded several times regretfully, then said—
“T think we shall be able to mount you in the morn- ing, 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 -Iine is just now, to my mind, the safest place for any- body 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. F
“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 im- possible, 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 today. 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
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Danditti 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 bighaul. 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 yeading 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 jdea of a new State evolved like this out of the head of a scoffing young man fleeing for his life, with a proclama- tion in his pocket, to a rough, jeering, half-bred swash- buckler, who in this part of the world is called a general. Tt sounds like a comic fairy tale—and behold, it may come off; because it is true to the very spirit of the country.”
“Tg 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
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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 Conces- sion. 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
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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 induce- ment for the Cayta troops to embrace the cause of the new State.
The doctor turned round and contemplated his com- panion 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 un- common man. They understand each other’s imagina- tive side. One is thirty, the other nearly sixty, and they have been made for each other. To be a million- aire, 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 Cos- taguana he had with Sir John a couple of years ago.
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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 8
“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?”
“T 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 cer- tainly have liked to ease the last moments of that poor woman. AndIcan’t. It’simpossible. 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 mur- murs ceased, then the doctor shrugged his shoulders and muttered—
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_ “Yes, she’s bound to. And I could do nothing if I went up now.” _ A long period of silence above and. below ensued. _ “TJ 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. Iam 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 senti- ment 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 fre- quently, which, of course, is not inconsistent with my idea. Not at all. It looked to me as if she were al- ways 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.
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He has encouraged much of the Capataz’s confounded: nonsense—the high-strung, exalted old beggar!”
“What sort of nonsense?” wondered the chief engi- neer. “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 heis. Itis true that the Cargadores are strangers here, too, for the most part—immigrants, Islefios.”
“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. Asa 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 some- where, 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.”
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“He took a slightly different view,” the doctor said. “T 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 noth- ing 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 Islefio. 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 thestreet. 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! Via
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la Libertad!’ Fuentes inside looked extremely miser- able. 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 con- science; but he is a man of birth and education—at one time the director of the Customs of Cayta. That idiot-brute Gamacho fastened himself upon him with his following of the lowest rabble. His sickly fear of that ruffian was the most rejoicing sight imaginable.” He got up and went to the door to look out towards the harbour. “All quiet,” he said; “I wonder if Sotillo really means to turn up here?”
CHAPTER TWO
Captain Mircuett, 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 enor- mous 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