________________________________________________
_ PERHAPS it was in the exercise of his calling that he had come to
see the troops depart. The Porvenir of the day after next would
no doubt relate the event, but its editor, leaning his side
against the landau, seemed to look at nothing. The front rank of
the company of infantry drawn up three deep across the shore end
of the jetty when pressed too close would bring their bayonets to
the charge ferociously, with an awful rattle; and then the crowd
of spectators swayed back bodily, even under the noses of the big
white mules. Notwithstanding the great multitude there was only a
low, muttering noise; the dust hung in a brown haze, in which the
horsemen, wedged in the throng here and there, towered from the
hips upwards, gazing all one way over the heads. Almost every one
of them had mounted a friend, who steadied himself with both
hands grasping his shoulders from behind; and the rims of their
hats touching, made like one disc sustaining the cones of two
pointed crowns with a double face underneath. A hoarse mozo would
bawl out something to an acquaintance in the ranks, or a woman
would shriek suddenly the word Adios! followed by the Christian
name of a man.
General Barrios, in a shabby blue tunic and white peg-top
trousers falling upon strange red boots, kept his head uncovered
and stooped slightly, propping himself up with a thick stick. No!
He had earned enough military glory to satiate any man, he
insisted to Mrs. Gould, trying at the same time to put an air of
gallantry into his attitude. A few jetty hairs hung sparsely from
his upper lip, he had a salient nose, a thin, long jaw, and a
black silk patch over one eye. His other eye, small and deep-set,
twinkled erratically in all directions, aimlessly affable. The
few European spectators, all men, who had naturally drifted into
the neighbourhood of the Gould carriage, betrayed by the
solemnity of their faces their impression that the general must
have had too much punch (Swedish punch, imported in bottles by
Anzani) at the Amarilla Club before he had started with his Staff
on a furious ride to the harbour. But Mrs. Gould bent forward,
self-possessed, and declared her conviction that still more glory
awaited the general in the near future.
"Senora!" he remonstrated, with great feeling, "in the name of
God, reflect! How can there be any glory for a man like me in
overcoming that bald-headed embustero with the dyed moustaches?"
Pablo Ignacio Barrios, son of a village alcalde, general of
division, commanding in chief the Occidental Military district,
did not frequent the higher society of the town. He preferred the
unceremonious gatherings of men where he could tell jaguar-hunt
stories, boast of his powers with the lasso, with which he could
perform extremely difficult feats of the sort "no married man
should attempt," as the saying goes amongst the llaneros; relate
tales of extraordinary night rides, encounters with wild bulls,
struggles with crocodiles, adventures in the great forests,
crossings of swollen rivers. And it was not mere boastfulness
that prompted the general's reminiscences, but a genuine love of
that wild life which he had led in his young days before he
turned his back for ever on the thatched roof of the parental
tolderia in the woods. Wandering away as far as Mexico he had
fought against the French by the side (as he said) of Juarez, and
was the only military man of Costaguana who had ever encountered
European troops in the field. That fact shed a great lustre upon
his name till it became eclipsed by the rising star of Montero.
All his life he had been an inveterate gambler. He alluded
himself quite openly to the current story how once, during some
campaign (when in command of a brigade), he had gambled away his
horses, pistols, and accoutrements, to the very epaulettes,
playing monte with his colonels the night before the battle.
Finally, he had sent under escort his sword (a presentation
sword, with a gold hilt) to the town in the rear of his position
to be immediately pledged for five hundred pesetas with a sleepy
and frightened shop-keeper. By daybreak he had lost the last of
that money, too, when his only remark, as he rose calmly, was,
"Now let us go and fight to the death." From that time he had
become aware that a general could lead his troops into battle
very well with a simple stick in his hand. "It has been my custom
ever since," he would say.
He was always overwhelmed with debts; even during the periods of
splendour in his varied fortunes of a Costaguana general, when he
held high military commands, his gold-laced uniforms were almost
always in pawn with some tradesman. And at last, to avoid the
incessant difficulties of costume caused by the anxious lenders,
he had assumed a disdain of military trappings, an eccentric
fashion of shabby old tunics, which had become like a second
nature. But the faction Barrios joined needed to fear no
political betrayal. He was too much of a real soldier for the
ignoble traffic of buying and selling victories. A member of the
foreign diplomatic body in Sta. Marta had once passed a judgment
upon him: "Barrios is a man of perfect honesty and even of some
talent for war, mais il manque de tenue." After the triumph of
the Ribierists he had obtained the reputedly lucrative Occidental
command, mainly through the exertions of his creditors (the Sta.
Marta shopkeepers, all great politicians), who moved heaven and
earth in his interest publicly, and privately besieged Senor
Moraga, the influential agent of the San Tome mine, with the
exaggerated lamentations that if the general were passed over,
"We shall all be ruined." An incidental but favourable mention of
his name in Mr. Gould senior's long correspondence with his son
had something to do with his appointment, too; but most of all
undoubtedly his established political honesty. No one questioned
the personal bravery of the Tiger-killer, as the populace called
him. He was, however, said to be unlucky in the field--but this
was to be the beginning of an era of peace. The soldiers liked
him for his humane temper, which was like a strange and precious
flower unexpectedly blooming on the hotbed of corrupt
revolutions; and when he rode slowly through the streets during
some military display, the contemptuous good humour of his
solitary eye roaming over the crowds extorted the acclamations of
the populace. The women of that class especially seemed
positively fascinated by the long drooping nose, the peaked chin,
the heavy lower lip, the black silk eyepatch and band slanting
rakishly over the forehead. His high rank always procured an
audience of Caballeros for his sporting stories, which he
detailed very well with a simple, grave enjoyment. As to the
society of ladies, it was irksome by the restraints it imposed
without any equivalent, as far as he could see. He had not,
perhaps, spoken three times on the whole to Mrs. Gould since he
had taken up his high command; but he had observed her frequently
riding with the Senor Administrador, and had pronounced that
there was more sense in her little bridle-hand than in all the
female heads in Sulaco. His impulse had been to be very civil on
parting to a woman who did not wobble in the saddle, and happened
to be the wife of a personality very important to a man always
short of money. He even pushed his attentions so far as to desire
the aide-de-camp at his side (a thick-set, short captain with a
Tartar physiognomy) to bring along a corporal with a file of men
in front of the carriage, lest the crowd in its backward surges
should "incommode the mules of the senora." Then, turning to the
small knot of silent Europeans looking on within earshot, he
raised his voice protectingly--
"Senores, have no apprehension. Go on quietly making your Ferro
Carril--your railways, your telegraphs. Your--There's enough
wealth in Costaguana to pay for everything--or else you would not
be here. Ha! ha! Don't mind this little picardia of my friend
Montero. In a little while you shall behold his dyed moustaches
through the bars of a strong wooden cage. Si, senores! Fear
nothing, develop the country, work, work!"
The little group of engineers received this exhortation without a
word, and after waving his hand at them loftily, he addressed
himself again to Mrs. Gould--
"That is what Don Jose says we must do. Be enterprising! Work!
Grow rich! To put Montero in a cage is my work; and when that
insignificant piece of business is done, then, as Don Jose wishes
us, we shall grow rich, one and all, like so many Englishmen,
because it is money that saves a country, and--"
But a young officer in a very new uniform, hurrying up from the
direction of the jetty, interrupted his interpretation of Senor
Avellanos's ideals. The general made a movement of impatience;
the other went on talking to him insistently, with an air of
respect. The horses of the Staff had been embarked, the steamer's
gig was awaiting the general at the boat steps; and Barrios,
after a fierce stare of his one eye, began to take leave. Don
Jose roused himself for an appropriate phrase pronounced
mechanically. The terrible strain of hope and fear was telling on
him, and he seemed to husband the last sparks of his fire for
those oratorical efforts of which even the distant Europe was to
hear. Antonia, her red lips firmly closed, averted her head
behind the raised fan; and young Decoud, though he felt the
girl's eyes upon him, gazed away persistently, hooked on his
elbow, with a scornful and complete detachment. Mrs. Gould
heroically concealed her dismay at the appearance of men and
events so remote from her racial conventions, dismay too deep to
be uttered in words even to her husband. She understood his
voiceless reserve better now. Their confidential intercourse
fell, not in moments of privacy, but precisely in public, when
the quick meeting of their glances would comment upon some fresh
turn of events. She had gone to his school of uncompromising
silence, the only one possible, since so much that seemed
shocking, weird, and grotesque in the working out of their
purposes had to be accepted as normal in this country.
Decidedly, the stately Antonia looked more mature and infinitely
calm; but she would never have known how to reconcile the sudden
sinkings of her heart with an amiable mobility of expression.
Mrs. Gould smiled a good-bye at Barrios, nodded round to the
Europeans (who raised their hats simultaneously) with an engaging
invitation, "I hope to see you all presently, at home"; then said
nervously to Decoud, "Get in, Don Martin," and heard him mutter
to himself in French, as he opened the carriage door, "Le sort en
est jete." She heard him with a sort of exasperation. Nobody
ought to have known better than himself that the first cast of
dice had been already thrown long ago in a most desperate game.
Distant acclamations, words of command yelled out, and a roll of
drums on the jetty greeted the departing general. Something like
a slight faintness came over her, and she looked blankly at
Antonia's still face, wondering what would happen to Charley if
that absurd man failed. "A la casa, Ignacio," she cried at the
motionless broad back of the coachman, who gathered the reins
without haste, mumbling to himself under his breath, "Si, la
casa. Si, si nina."
The carriage rolled noiselessly on the soft track, the shadows
fell long on the dusty little plain interspersed with dark
bushes, mounds of turned-up earth, low wooden buildings with iron
roofs of the Railway Company; the sparse row of telegraph poles
strode obliquely clear of the town, bearing a single, almost
invisible wire far into the great campo--like a slender,
vibrating feeler of that progress waiting outside for a moment of
peace to enter and twine itself about the weary heart of the
land.
The cafe window of the Albergo d'ltalia Una was full of sunburnt,
whiskered faces of railway men. But at the other end of the
house, the end of the Signori Inglesi, old Giorgio, at the door
with one of his girls on each side, bared his bushy head, as
white as the snows of Higuerota. Mrs. Gould stopped the carriage.
She seldom failed to speak to her protege; moreover, the
excitement, the heat, and the dust had made her thirsty. She
asked for a glass of water. Giorgio sent the children indoors for
it, and approached with pleasure expressed in his whole rugged
countenance. It was not often that he had occasion to see his
benefactress, who was also an Englishwoman--another title to his
regard. He offered some excuses for his wife. It was a bad day
with her; her oppressions--he tapped his own broad chest. She
could not move from her chair that day.
Decoud, ensconced in the corner of his seat, observed gloomily
Mrs. Gould's old revolutionist, then, offhand--
"Well, and what do you think of it all, Garibaldino?"
Old Giorgio, looking at him with some curiosity, said civilly
that the troops had marched very well. One-eyed Barrios and his
officers had done wonders with the recruits in a short time.
Those Indios, only caught the other day, had gone swinging past
in double quick time, like bersaglieri; they looked well fed,
too, and had whole uniforms. "Uniforms!" he repeated with a
half-smile of pity. A look of grim retrospect stole over his
piercing, steady eyes. It had been otherwise in his time when men
fought against tyranny, in the forests of Brazil, or on the
plains of Uruguay, starving on half-raw beef without salt, half
naked, with often only a knife tied to a stick for a weapon. "And
yet we used to prevail against the oppressor," he concluded,
proudly.
His animation fell; the slight gesture of his hand expressed
discouragement; but he added that he had asked one of the
sergeants to show him the new rifle. There was no such weapon in
his fighting days; and if Barrios could not--
"Yes, yes," broke in Don Jose, almost trembling with eagerness.
"We are safe. The good Senor Viola is a man of experience.
Extremely deadly--is it not so? You have accomplished your
mission admirably, my dear Martin."
Decoud, lolling back moodily, contemplated old Viola.
"Ah! Yes. A man of experience. But who are you for, really, in
your heart?"
Mrs. Gould leaned over to the children. Linda had brought out a
glass of water on a tray, with extreme care; Giselle presented
her with a bunch of flowers gathered hastily.
"For the people," declared old Viola, sternly.
"We are all for the people--in the end."
"Yes," muttered old Viola, savagely. "And meantime they fight for
you. Blind. Esclavos!"
At that moment young Scarfe of the railway staff emerged from the
door of the part reserved for the Signori Inglesi. He had come
down to headquarters from somewhere up the line on a light
engine, and had had just time to get a bath and change his
clothes. He was a nice boy, and Mrs. Gould welcomed him.
"It's a delightful surprise to see you, Mrs. Gould. I've just
come down. Usual luck. Missed everything, of course. This show is
just over, and I hear there has been a great dance at Don Juste
Lopez's last night. Is it true?"
"The young patricians," Decoud began suddenly in his precise
English, "have indeed been dancing before they started off to the
war with the Great Pompey."
Young Scarfe stared, astounded. "You haven't met before," Mrs.
Gould intervened. "Mr. Decoud--Mr. Scarfe."
"Ah! But we are not going to Pharsalia," protested Don Jose, with
nervous haste, also in English. "You should not jest like this,
Martin."
Antonia's breast rose and fell with a deeper breath. The young
engineer was utterly in the dark. "Great what?" he muttered,
vaguely.
"Luckily, Montero is not a Caesar," Decoud continued. "Not the
two Monteros put together would make a decent parody of a
Caesar." He crossed his arms on his breast, looking at Senor
Avellanos, who had returned to his immobility. "It is only you,
Don Jose, who are a genuine old Roman--vir Romanus--eloquent and
inflexible."
Since he had heard the name of Montero pronounced, young Scarfe
had been eager to express his simple feelings. In a loud and
youthful tone he hoped that this Montero was going to be licked
once for all and done with. There was no saying what would happen
to the railway if the revolution got the upper hand. Perhaps it
would have to be abandoned. It would not be the first railway
gone to pot in Costaguana. "You know, it's one of their so-called
national things," he ran on, wrinkling up his nose as if the word
had a suspicious flavour to his profound experience of South
American affairs. And, of course, he chatted with animation, it
had been such an immense piece of luck for him at his age to get
appointed on the staff "of a big thing like that--don't you
know." It would give him the pull over a lot of chaps all through
life, he asserted. "Therefore--down with Montero! Mrs. Gould."
His artless grin disappeared slowly before the unanimous gravity
of the faces turned upon him from the carriage; only that "old
chap," Don Jose, presenting a motionless, waxy profile, stared
straight on as if deaf. Scarfe did not know the Avellanos very
well. They did not give balls, and Antonia never appeared at a
ground-floor window, as some other young ladies used to do
attended by elder women, to chat with the caballeros on horseback
in the Calle. The stares of these creoles did not matter much;
but what on earth had come to Mrs. Gould? She said, "Go on,
Ignacio," and gave him a slow inclination of the head. He heard a
short laugh from that round-faced, Frenchified fellow. He
coloured up to the eyes, and stared at Giorgio Viola, who had
fallen back with the children, hat in hand.
"I shall want a horse presently," he said with some asperity to
the old man.
"Si, senor. There are plenty of horses," murmured the
Garibaldino, smoothing absently, with his brown hands, the two
heads, one dark with bronze glints, the other fair with a coppery
ripple, of the two girls by his side. The returning stream of
sightseers raised a great dust on the road. Horsemen noticed the
group. "Go to your mother," he said. "They are growing up as I
am growing older, and there is nobody--"
He looked at the young engineer and stopped, as if awakened from
a dream; then, folding his arms on his breast, took up his usual
position, leaning back in the doorway with an upward glance
fastened on the white shoulder of Higuerota far away.
In the carriage Martin Decoud, shifting his position as though he
could not make himself comfortable, muttered as he swayed towards
Antonia, "I suppose you hate me." Then in a loud voice he began
to congratulate Don Jose upon all the engineers being convinced
Ribierists. The interest of all those foreigners was gratifying.
"You have heard this one. He is an enlightened well-wisher. It is
pleasant to think that the prosperity of Costaguana is of some
use to the world."
"He is very young," Mrs. Gould remarked, quietly.
"And so very wise for his age," retorted Decoud. "But here we
have the naked truth from the mouth of that child. You are right,
Don Jose. The natural treasures of Costaguana are of importance
to the progressive Europe represented by this youth, just as
three hundred years ago the wealth of our Spanish fathers was a
serious object to the rest of Europe--as represented by the bold
buccaneers. There is a curse of futility upon our character: Don
Quixote and Sancho Panza, chivalry and materialism, high-sounding
sentiments and a supine morality, violent efforts for an idea and
a sullen acquiescence in every form of corruption. We convulsed
a continent for our independence only to become the passive prey
of a democratic parody, the helpless victims of scoundrels and
cut-throats, our institutions a mockery, our laws a farce--a
Guzman Bento our master! And we have sunk so low that when a man
like you has awakened our conscience, a stupid barbarian of a
Montero--Great Heavens! a Montero!--becomes a deadly danger, and
an ignorant, boastful Indio, like Barrios, is our defender."
But Don Jose, disregarding the general indictment as though he
had not heard a word of it, took up the defence of Barrios. The
man was competent enough for his special task in the plan of
campaign. It consisted in an offensive movement, with Cayta as
base, upon the flank of the Revolutionist forces advancing from
the south against Sta. Marta, which was covered by another army
with the President-Dictator in its midst. Don Jose became quite
animated with a great flow of speech, bending forward anxiously
under the steady eyes of his daughter. Decoud, as if silenced by
so much ardour, did not make a sound. The bells of the city were
striking the hour of Oracion when the carriage rolled under the
old gateway facing the harbour like a shapeless monument of
leaves and stones. The rumble of wheels under the sonorous arch
was traversed by a strange, piercing shriek, and Decoud, from his
back seat, had a view of the people behind the carriage trudging
along the road outside, all turning their heads, in sombreros and
rebozos, to look at a locomotive which rolled quickly out of
sight behind Giorgio Viola's house, under a white trail of steam
that seemed to vanish in the breathless, hysterically prolonged
scream of warlike triumph. And it was all like a fleeting vision,
the shrieking ghost of a railway engine fleeing across the frame
of the archway, behind the startled movement of the people
streaming back from a military spectacle with silent footsteps on
the dust of the road. It was a material train returning from the
Campo to the palisaded yards. The empty cars rolled lightly on
the single track; there was no rumble of wheels, no tremor of the
ground. The engine-driver, running past the Casa Viola with the
salute of an uplifted arm, checked his speed smartly before
entering the yard; and when the ear-splitting screech of the
steam-whistle for the brakes had stopped, a series of hard,
battering shocks, mingled with the clanking of chain-couplings,
made a tumult of blows and shaken fetters under the vault of the
gate. _
Read next: PART SECOND - THE ISABELS: CHAPTER V
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