________________________________________________
_ 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 putup 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 off-hand 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, Senor 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, Senor 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 senor 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, Senor 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, senor
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! senor 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 Tome 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 Senores 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 Corbelan'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 Corbelan had left
him. Indeed, Father Corbelan, 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 Corbelan, 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
Corbelan 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 Corbelan with a pencil by the
camp-fire of Hernandez, was addressed to Don Jose, 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
reconquest of the town.
"Heaven itself wills it. Providence is on our side," wrote Father
Corbelan; 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 Corbelan was
unexpectedly offering them a refuge from Pedrito Montero with his
llaneros allied to Senores 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 Senor
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 Jose 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 Corbelan'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 nina," 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 sereno in your service in the San Tome 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, senor," 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, Dona 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 Corbelan, 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, senor! 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 Jose 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!" _
Read next: PART THIRD - THE LIGHTHOUSE: CHAPTER IV
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