________________________________________________
_ DIRECTLY the cargo boat had slipped away from the wharf and got
lost in the darkness of the harbour the Europeans of Sulaco
separated, to prepare for the coming of the Monterist regime,
which was approaching Sulaco from the mountains, as well as from
the sea.
This bit of manual work in loading the silver was their last
concerted action. It ended the three days of danger, during
which, according to the newspaper press of Europe, their energy
had preserved the town from the calamities of popular disorder.
At the shore end of the jetty, Captain Mitchell said good-night
and turned back. His intention was to walk the planks of the
wharf till the steamer from Esmeralda turned up. The engineers of
the railway staff, collecting their Basque and Italian workmen,
marched them away to the railway yards, leaving the Custom House,
so well defended on the first day of the riot, standing open to
the four winds of heaven. Their men had conducted themselves
bravely and faithfully during the famous "three days" of Sulaco.
In a great part this faithfulness and that courage had been
exercised in self-defence rather than in the cause of those
material interests to which Charles Gould had pinned his faith.
Amongst the cries of the mob not the least loud had been the cry
of death to foreigners. It was, indeed, a lucky circumstance for
Sulaco that the relations of those imported workmen with the
people of the country had been uniformly bad from the first.
Doctor Monygham, going to the door of Viola's kitchen, observed
this retreat marking the end of the foreign interference, this
withdrawal of the army of material progress from the field of
Costaguana revolutions.
Algarrobe torches carried on the outskirts of the moving body
sent their penetrating aroma into his nostrils. Their light,
sweeping along the front of the house, made the letters of the
inscription, "Albergo d'ltalia Una," leap out black from end to
end of the long wall. His eyes blinked in the clear blaze.
Several young men, mostly fair and tall, shepherding this mob of
dark bronzed heads, surmounted by the glint of slanting rifle
barrels, nodded to him familiarly as they went by. The doctor was
a well-known character. Some of them wondered what he was doing
there. Then, on the flank of their workmen they tramped on,
following the line of rails.
"Withdrawing your people from the harbour?" said the doctor,
addressing himself to the chief engineer of the railway, who had
accompanied Charles Gould so far on his way to the town, walking
by the side of the horse, with his hand on the saddle-bow. They
had stopped just outside the open door to let the workmen cross
the road.
"As quick as I can. We are not a political faction," answered the
engineer, meaningly. "And we are not going to give our new rulers
a handle against the railway. You approve me, Gould?"
"Absolutely," said Charles Gould's impassive voice, high up and
outside the dim parallelogram of light falling on the road
through the open door.
With Sotillo expected from one side, and Pedro Montero from the
other, the engineer-in-chief's only anxiety now was to avoid a
collision with either. Sulaco, for him, was a railway station, a
terminus, workshops, a great accumulation of stores. As against
the mob the railway defended its property, but politically the
railway was neutral. He was a brave man; and in that spirit of
neutrality he had carried proposals of truce to the
self-appointed chiefs of the popular party, the deputies Fuentes
and Gamacho. Bullets were still flying about when he had crossed
the Plaza on that mission, waving above his head a white napkin
belonging to the table linen of the Amarilla Club.
He was rather proud of this exploit; and reflecting that the
doctor, busy all day with the wounded in the patio of the Casa
Gould, had not had time to hear the news, he began a succinct
narrative. He had communicated to them the intelligence from the
Construction Camp as to Pedro Montero. The brother of the
victorious general, he had assured them, could be expected at
Sulaco at any time now. This news (as he anticipated), when
shouted out of the window by Senor Gamacho, induced a rush of the
mob along the Campo Road towards Rincon. The two deputies also,
after shaking hands with him effusively, mounted and galloped off
to meet the great man. "I have misled them a little as to the
time," the chief engineer confessed. "However hard he rides, he
can scarcely get here before the morning. But my object is
attained. I've secured several hours' peace for the losing
party. But I did not tell them anything about Sotillo, for fear
they would take it into their heads to try to get hold of the
harbour again, either to oppose him or welcome him--there's no
saying which. There was Gould's silver, on which rests the
remnant of our hopes. Decoud's retreat had to be thought of, too.
I think the railway has done pretty well by its friends without
compromising itself hopelessly. Now the parties must be left to
themselves."
"Costaguana for the Costaguaneros," interjected the doctor,
sardonically. "It is a fine country, and they have raised a fine
crop of hates, vengeance, murder, and rapine--those sons of the
country."
"Well, I am one of them," Charles Gould's voice sounded, calmly,
"and I must be going on to see to my own crop of trouble. My wife
has driven straight on, doctor?"
"Yes. All was quiet on this side. Mrs. Gould has taken the two
girls with her."
Charles Gould rode on, and the engineer-in-chief followed the
doctor indoors.
"That man is calmness personified," he said, appreciatively,
dropping on a bench, and stretching his well-shaped legs in
cycling stockings nearly across the doorway. "He must be
extremely sure of himself."
"If that's all he is sure of, then he is sure of nothing," said
the doctor. He had perched himself again on the end of the table.
He nursed his cheek in the palm of one hand, while the other
sustained the elbow. "It is the last thing a man ought to be sure
of." The candle, half-consumed and burning dimly with a long
wick, lighted up from below his inclined face, whose expression
affected by the drawn-in cicatrices in the cheeks, had something
vaguely unnatural, an exaggerated remorseful bitterness. As he
sat there he had the air of meditating upon sinister things. The
engineer-in-chief gazed at him for a time before he protested.
"I really don't see that. For me there seems to be nothing else.
However----"
He was a wise man, but he could not quite conceal his contempt
for that sort of paradox; in fact. Dr. Monygham was not liked by
the Europeans of Sulaco. His outward aspect of an outcast, which
he preserved even in Mrs. Gould's drawing-room, provoked
unfavourable criticism. There could be no doubt of his
intelligence; and as he had lived for over twenty years in the
country, the pessimism of his outlook could not be altogether
ignored. But instinctively, in self-defence of their activities
and hopes, his hearers put it to the account of some hidden
imperfection in the man's character. It was known that many years
before, when quite young, he had been made by Guzman Bento chief
medical officer of the army. Not one of the Europeans then in the
service of Costaguana had been so much liked and trusted by the
fierce old Dictator.
Afterwards his story was not so clear. It lost itself amongst the
innumerable tales of conspiracies and plots against the tyrant as
a stream is lost in an arid belt of sandy country before it
emerges, diminished and troubled, perhaps, on the other side. The
doctor made no secret of it that he had lived for years in the
wildest parts of the Republic, wandering with almost unknown
Indian tribes in the great forests of the far interior where the
great rivers have their sources. But it was mere aimless
wandering; he had written nothing, collected nothing, brought
nothing for science out of the twilight of the forests, which
seemed to cling to his battered personality limping about Sulaco,
where it had drifted in casually, only to get stranded on the
shores of the sea.
It was also known that he had lived in a state of destitution
till the arrival of the Goulds from Europe. Don Carlos and Dona
Emilia had taken up the mad English doctor, when it became
apparent that for all his savage independence he could be tamed
by kindness. Perhaps it was only hunger that had tamed him. In
years gone by he had certainly been acquainted with Charles
Gould's father in Sta. Marta; and now, no matter what were the
dark passages of his history, as the medical officer of the San
Tome mine he became a recognized personality. He was recognized,
but not unreservedly accepted. So much defiant eccentricity and
such an outspoken scorn for mankind seemed to point to mere
recklessness of judgment, the bravado of guilt. Besides, since
he had become again of some account, vague whispers had been
heard that years ago, when fallen into disgrace and thrown into
prison by Guzman Bento at the time of the so-called Great
Conspiracy, he had betrayed some of his best friends amongst the
conspirators. Nobody pretended to believe that whisper; the whole
story of the Great Conspiracy was hopelessly involved and
obscure; it is admitted in Costaguana that there never had been a
conspiracy except in the diseased imagination of the Tyrant; and,
therefore, nothing and no one to betray; though the most
distinguished Costaguaneros had been imprisoned and executed upon
that accusation. The procedure had dragged on for years,
decimating the better class like a pestilence. The mere
expression of sorrow for the fate of executed kinsmen had been
punished with death. Don Jose Avellanos was perhaps the only one
living who knew the whole story of those unspeakable cruelties.
He had suffered from them himself, and he, with a shrug of the
shoulders and a nervous, jerky gesture of the arm, was wont to
put away from him, as it were, every allusion to it. But whatever
the reason, Dr. Monygham, a personage in the administration of
the Gould Concession, treated with reverent awe by the miners,
and indulged in his peculiarities by Mrs. Gould, remained
somehow outside the pale.
It was not from any liking for the doctor that the
engineer-in-chief had lingered in the inn upon the plain. He
liked old Viola much better. He had come to look upon the Albergo
d'ltalia Una as a dependence of the railway. Many of his
subordinates had their quarters there. Mrs. Gould's interest in
the family conferred upon it a sort of distinction. The
engineer-in-chief, with an army of workers under his orders,
appreciated the moral influence of the old Garibaldino upon his
countrymen. His austere, old-world Republicanism had a severe,
soldier-like standard of faithfulness and duty, as if the world
were a battlefield where men had to fight for the sake of
universal love and brotherhood, instead of a more or less large
share of booty.
"Poor old chap!" he said, after he had heard the doctor's account
of Teresa. "He'll never be able to keep the place going by
himself. I shall be sorry."
"He's quite alone up there," grunted Doctor Monygham, with a toss
of his heavy head towards the narrow staircase. "Every living
soul has cleared out, and Mrs. Gould took the girls away just
now. It might not be over-safe for them out here before very
long. Of course, as a doctor I can do nothing more here; but she
has asked me to stay with old Viola, and as I have no horse to
get back to the mine, where I ought to be, I made no difficulty
to stay. They can do without me in the town."
"I have a good mind to remain with you, doctor, till we see
whether anything happens to-night at the harbour," declared the
engineer-in-chief. "He must not be molested by Sotillo's
soldiery, who may push on as far as this at once. Sotillo used to
be very cordial to me at the Goulds' and at the club. How that
man'll ever dare to look any of his friends here in the face I
can't imagine."
"He'll no doubt begin by shooting some of them to get over the
first awkwardness," said the doctor. "Nothing in this country
serves better your military man who has changed sides than a few
summary executions." He spoke with a gloomy positiveness that
left no room for protest. The engineer-in-chief did not attempt
any. He simply nodded several times regretfully, then said--
"I think we shall be able to mount you in the morning, doctor.
Our peons have recovered some of our stampeded horses. By riding
hard and taking a wide circuit by Los Hatos and along the edge of
the forest, clear of Rincon altogether, you may hope to reach the
San Tome bridge without being interfered with. The mine is just
now, to my mind, the safest place for anybody at all compromised.
I only wish the railway was as difficult to touch."
"Am I compromised?" Doctor Monygham brought out slowly after a
short silence.
"The whole Gould Concession is compromised. It could not have
remained for ever outside the political life of the country--if
those convulsions may be called life. The thing is--can it be
touched? The moment was bound to come when neutrality would
become impossible, and Charles Gould understood this well. I
believe he is prepared for every extremity. A man of his sort has
never contemplated remaining indefinitely at the mercy of
ignorance and corruption. It was like being a prisoner in a
cavern of banditti with the price of your ransom in your pocket,
and buying your life from day to day. Your mere safety, not your
liberty, mind, doctor. I know what I am talking about. The image
at which you shrug your shoulders is perfectly correct,
especially if you conceive such a prisoner endowed with the power
of replenishing his pocket by means as remote from the faculties
of his captors as if they were magic. You must have understood
that as well as I do, doctor. He was in the position of the
goose with the golden eggs. I broached this matter to him as far
back as Sir John's visit here. The prisoner of stupid and greedy
banditti is always at the mercy of the first imbecile ruffian,
who may blow out his brains in a fit of temper or for some
prospect of an immediate big haul. The tale of killing the goose
with the golden eggs has not been evolved for nothing out of the
wisdom of mankind. It is a story that will never grow old. That
is why Charles Gould in his deep, dumb way has countenanced the
Ribierist Mandate, the first public act that promised him safety
on other than venal grounds. Ribierism has failed, as everything
merely rational fails in this country. But Gould remains logical
in wishing to save this big lot of silver. Decoud's plan of a
counter-revolution may be practicable or not, it may have a
chance, or it may not have a chance. With all my experience of
this revolutionary continent, I can hardly yet look at their
methods seriously. Decoud has been reading to us his draft of a
proclamation, and talking very well for two hours about his plan
of action. He had arguments which should have appeared solid
enough if we, members of old, stable political and national
organizations, were not startled by the mere idea of a new State
evolved like this out of the head of a scoffing young man fleeing
for his life, with a proclamation in his pocket, to a rough,
jeering, half-bred swashbuckler, who in this part of the world is
called a general. It sounds like a comic fairy tale--and behold,
it may come off; because it is true to the very spirit of the
country."
"Is the silver gone off, then?" asked the doctor, moodily.
The chief engineer pulled out his watch. "By Captain Mitchell's
reckoning--and he ought to know--it has been gone long enough
now to be some three or four miles outside the harbour; and, as
Mitchell says, Nostromo is the sort of seaman to make the best of
his opportunities." Here the doctor grunted so heavily that the
other changed his tone.
"You have a poor opinion of that move, doctor? But why? Charles
Gould has got to play his game out, though he is not the man to
formulate his conduct even to himself, perhaps, let alone to
others. It may be that the game has been partly suggested to him
by Holroyd; but it accords with his character, too; and that is
why it has been so successful. Haven't they come to calling him
'El Rey de Sulaco' in Sta. Marta? A nickname may be the best
record of a success. That's what I call putting the face of a
joke upon the body of a truth. My dear sir, when I first arrived
in Sta. Marta I was struck by the way all those journalists,
demagogues, members of Congress, and all those generals and
judges cringed before a sleepy-eyed advocate without practice
simply because he was the plenipotentiary of the Gould
Concession. Sir John when he came out was impressed, too."
"A new State, with that plump dandy, Decoud, for the first
President," mused Dr. Monygham, nursing his cheek and swinging
his legs all the time.
"Upon my word, and why not?" the chief engineer retorted in an
unexpectedly earnest and confidential voice. It was as if
something subtle in the air of Costaguana had inoculated him with
the local faith in "pronunciamientos." All at once he began to
talk, like an expert revolutionist, of the instrument ready to
hand in the intact army at Cayta, which could be brought back in
a few days to Sulaco if only Decoud managed to make his way at
once down the coast. For the military chief there was Barrios,
who had nothing but a bullet to expect from Montero, his former
professional rival and bitter enemy. Barrios's concurrence was
assured. As to his army, it had nothing to expect from Montero
either; not even a month's pay. From that point of view the
existence of the treasure was of enormous importance. The mere
knowledge that it had been saved from the Monterists would be a
strong inducement for the Cayta troops to embrace the cause of
the new State.
The doctor turned round and contemplated his companion for some
time.
"This Decoud, I see, is a persuasive young beggar," he remarked
at last. "And pray is it for this, then, that Charles Gould has
let the whole lot of ingots go out to sea in charge of that
Nostromo?"
"Charles Gould," said the engineer-in-chief, "has said no more
about his motive than usual. You know, he doesn't talk. But we
all here know his motive, and he has only one--the safety of the
San Tome mine with the preservation of the Gould Concession in
the spirit of his compact with Holroyd. Holroyd is another
uncommon man. They understand each other's imaginative side. One
is thirty, the other nearly sixty, and they have been made for
each other. To be a millionaire, and such a millionaire as
Holroyd, is like being eternally young. The audacity of youth
reckons upon what it fancies an unlimited time at its disposal;
but a millionaire has unlimited means in his hand--which is
better. One's time on earth is an uncertain quantity, but about
the long reach of millions there is no doubt. The introduction
of a pure form of Christianity into this continent is a dream for
a youthful enthusiast, and I have been trying to explain to you
why Holroyd at fifty-eight is like a man on the threshold of
life, and better, too. He's not a missionary, but the San Tome
mine holds just that for him. I assure you, in sober truth, that
he could not manage to keep this out of a strictly business
conference upon the finances of Costaguana he had with Sir John a
couple of years ago. Sir John mentioned it with amazement in a
letter he wrote to me here, from San Francisco, when on his way
home. Upon my word, doctor, things seem to be worth nothing by
what they are in themselves. I begin to believe that the only
solid thing about them is the spiritual value which everyone
discovers in his own form of activity----"
"Bah!" interrupted the doctor, without stopping for an instant
the idle swinging movement of his legs. "Self-flattery. Food for
that vanity which makes the world go round. Meantime, what do you
think is going to happen to the treasure floating about the gulf
with the great Capataz and the great politician?"
"Why are you uneasy about it, doctor?"
"I uneasy! And what the devil is it to me? I put no spiritual
value into my desires, or my opinions, or my actions. They have
not enough vastness to give me room for self-flattery. Look, for
instance, I should certainly have liked to ease the last moments
of that poor woman. And I can't. It's impossible. Have you met
the impossible face to face--or have you, the Napoleon of
railways, no such word in your dictionary?"
"Is she bound to have a very bad time of it?" asked the chief
engineer, with humane concern.
Slow, heavy footsteps moved across the planks above the heavy
hard wood beams of the kitchen. Then down the narrow opening of
the staircase made in the thickness of the wall, and narrow
enough to be defended by one man against twenty enemies, came the
murmur of two voices, one faint and broken, the other deep and
gentle answering it, and in its graver tone covering the weaker
sound.
The two men remained still and silent till the murmurs ceased,
then the doctor shrugged his shoulders and muttered--
"Yes, she's bound to. And I could do nothing if I went up now."
A long period of silence above and below ensued.
"I fancy," began the engineer, in a subdued voice, "that you
mistrust Captain Mitchell's Capataz."
"Mistrust him!" muttered the doctor through his teeth. "I believe
him capable of anything--even of the most absurd fidelity. I am
the last person he spoke to before he left the wharf, you know.
The poor woman up there wanted to see him, and I let him go up to
her. The dying must not be contradicted, you know. She seemed
then fairly calm and resigned, but the scoundrel in those ten
minutes or so has done or said something which seems to have
driven her into despair. You know," went on the doctor,
hesitatingly, "women are so very unaccountable in every position,
and at all times of life, that I thought sometimes she was in a
way, don't you see? in love with him--the Capataz. The rascal has
his own charm indubitably, or he would not have made the conquest
of all the populace of the town. No, no, I am not absurd. I may
have given a wrong name to some strong sentiment for him on her
part, to an unreasonable and simple attitude a woman is apt to
take up emotionally towards a man. She used to abuse him to me
frequently, which, of course, is not inconsistent with my idea.
Not at all. It looked to me as if she were always thinking of
him. He was something important in her life. You know, I have
seen a lot of those people. Whenever I came down from the mine
Mrs. Gould used to ask me to keep my eye on them. She likes
Italians; she has lived a long time in Italy, I believe, and she
took a special fancy to that old Garibaldino. A remarkable chap
enough. A rugged and dreamy character, living in the
republicanism of his young days as if in a cloud. He has
encouraged much of the Capataz's confounded nonsense--the
high-strung, exalted old beggar!"
"What sort of nonsense?" wondered the chief engineer. "I found
the Capataz always a very shrewd and sensible fellow, absolutely
fearless, and remarkably useful. A perfect handy man. Sir John
was greatly impressed by his resourcefulness and attention when
he made that overland journey from Sta. Marta. Later on, as you
might have heard, he rendered us a service by disclosing to the
then chief of police the presence in the town of some
professional thieves, who came from a distance to wreck and rob
our monthly pay train. He has certainly organized the lighterage
service of the harbour for the O.S.N. Company with great ability.
He knows how to make himself obeyed, foreigner though he is. It
is true that the Cargadores are strangers here, too, for the most
part--immigrants, Islenos."
"His prestige is his fortune," muttered the doctor, sourly.
"The man has proved his trustworthiness up to the hilt on
innumerable occasions and in all sorts of ways," argued the
engineer. "When this question of the silver arose, Captain
Mitchell naturally was very warmly of the opinion that his
Capataz was the only man fit for the trust. As a sailor, of
course, I suppose so. But as a man, don't you know, Gould,
Decoud, and myself judged that it didn't matter in the least who
went. Any boatman would have done just as well. Pray, what could
a thief do with such a lot of ingots? If he ran off with them he
would have in the end to land somewhere, and how could he conceal
his cargo from the knowledge of the people ashore? We dismissed
that consideration from our minds. Moreover, Decoud was going.
There have been occasions when the Capataz has been more
implicitly trusted."
"He took a slightly different view," the doctor said. "I heard
him declare in this very room that it would be the most desperate
affair of his life. He made a sort of verbal will here in my
hearing, appointing old Viola his executor; and, by Jove! do you
know, he--he's not grown rich by his fidelity to you good people
of the railway and the harbour. I suppose he obtains some--how
do you say that?--some spiritual value for his labours, or else I
don't know why the devil he should be faithful to you, Gould,
Mitchell, or anybody else. He knows this country well. He knows,
for instance, that Gamacho, the Deputy from Javira, has been
nothing else but a 'tramposo' of the commonest sort, a petty
pedlar of the Campo, till he managed to get enough goods on
credit from Anzani to open a little store in the wilds, and got
himself elected by the drunken mozos that hang about the
Estancias and the poorest sort of rancheros who were in his debt.
And Gamacho, who to-morrow will be probably one of our high
officials, is a stranger, too--an Isleno. He might have been a
Cargador on the O. S. N. wharf had he not (the posadero of Rincon
is ready to swear it) murdered a pedlar in the woods and stolen
his pack to begin life on. And do you think that Gamacho, then,
would have ever become a hero with the democracy of this place,
like our Capataz? Of course not. He isn't half the man. No;
decidedly, I think that Nostromo is a fool."
The doctor's talk was distasteful to the builder of railways. "It
is impossible to argue that point," he said, philosophically.
"Each man has his gifts. You should have heard Gamacho haranguing
his friends in the street. He has a howling voice, and he
shouted like mad, lifting his clenched fist right above his head,
and throwing his body half out of the window. At every pause the
rabble below yelled, 'Down with the Oligarchs! Viva la Libertad!'
Fuentes inside looked extremely miserable. You know, he is the
brother of Jorge Fuentes, who has been Minister of the Interior
for six months or so, some few years back. Of course, he has no
conscience; but he is a man of birth and education--at one time
the director of the Customs of Cayta. That idiot-brute Gamacho
fastened himself upon him with his following of the lowest
rabble. His sickly fear of that ruffian was the most rejoicing
sight imaginable."
He got up and went to the door to look out towards the harbour.
"All quiet," he said; "I wonder if Sotillo really means to turn
up here?" _
Read next: PART THIRD - THE LIGHTHOUSE: CHAPTER II
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