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_ THE declining sun had shifted the shadows from west to east
amongst the houses of the town. It had shifted them upon the
whole extent of the immense Campo, with the white walls of its
haciendas on the knolls dominating the green distances; with its
grass-thatched ranches crouching in the folds of ground by the
banks of streams; with the dark islands of clustered trees on a
clear sea of grass, and the precipitous range of the Cordillera,
immense and motionless, emerging from the billows of the lower
forests like the barren coast of a land of giants. The sunset
rays striking the snow-slope of Higuerota from afar gave it an
air of rosy youth, while the serrated mass of distant peaks
remained black, as if calcined in the fiery radiance. The
undulating surface of the forests seemed powdered with pale gold
dust; and away there, beyond Rincon, hidden from the town by two
wooded spurs, the rocks of the San Tome gorge, with the flat wall
of the mountain itself crowned by gigantic ferns, took on warm
tones of brown and yellow, with red rusty streaks, and the dark
green clumps of bushes rooted in crevices. From the plain the
stamp sheds and the houses of the mine appeared dark and small,
high up, like the nests of birds clustered on the ledges of a
cliff. The zigzag paths resembled faint tracings scratched on the
wall of a cyclopean blockhouse. To the two serenos of the mine
on patrol duty, strolling, carbine in hand, and watchful eyes, in
the shade of the trees lining the stream near the bridge, Don
Pepe, descending the path from the upper plateau, appeared no
bigger than a large beetle.
With his air of aimless, insect-like going to and fro upon the
face of the rock, Don Pepe's figure kept on descending steadily,
and, when near the bottom, sank at last behind the roofs of
store-houses, forges, and workshops. For a time the pair of
serenos strolled back and forth before the bridge, on which they
had stopped a horseman holding a large white envelope in his
hand. Then Don Pepe, emerging in the village street from amongst
the houses, not a stone's throw from the frontier bridge,
approached, striding in wide dark trousers tucked into boots, a
white linen jacket, sabre at his side, and revolver at his belt.
In this disturbed time nothing could find the Senor Gobernador
with his boots off, as the saying is.
At a slight nod from one of the serenos, the man, a messenger
from the town, dismounted, and crossed the bridge, leading his
horse by the bridle.
Don Pepe received the letter from his other hand, slapped his
left side and his hips in succession, feeling for his spectacle
case. After settling the heavy silvermounted affair astride his
nose, and adjusting it carefully behind his ears, he opened the
envelope, holding it up at about a foot in front of his eyes. The
paper he pulled out contained some three lines of writing. He
looked at them for a long time. His grey moustache moved slightly
up and down, and the wrinkles, radiating at the corners of his
eyes, ran together. He nodded serenely. "Bueno," he said. "There
is no answer."
Then, in his quiet, kindly way, he engaged in a cautious
conversation with the man, who was willing to talk cheerily, as
if something lucky had happened to him recently. He had seen from
a distance Sotillo's infantry camped along the shore of the
harbour on each side of the Custom House. They had done no damage
to the buildings. The foreigners of the railway remained shut up
within the yards. They were no longer anxious to shoot poor
people. He cursed the foreigners; then he reported Montero's
entry and the rumours of the town. The poor were going to be made
rich now. That was very good. More he did not know, and,
breaking into propitiatory smiles, he intimated that he was
hungry and thirsty. The old major directed him to go to the
alcalde of the first village. The man rode off, and Don Pepe,
striding slowly in the direction of a little wooden belfry,
looked over a hedge into a little garden, and saw Father Roman
sitting in a white hammock slung between two orange trees in
front of the presbytery.
An enormous tamarind shaded with its dark foliage the whole white
framehouse. A young Indian girl with long hair, big eyes, and
small hands and feet, carried out a wooden chair, while a thin
old woman, crabbed and vigilant, watched her all the time from
the verandah.
Don Pepe sat down in the chair and lighted a cigar; the priest
drew in an immense quantity of snuff out of the hollow of his
palm. On his reddish-brown face, worn, hollowed as if crumbled,
the eyes, fresh and candid, sparkled like two black diamonds.
Don Pepe, in a mild and humorous voice, informed Father Roman
that Pedrito Montero, by the hand of Senor Fuentes, had asked him
on what terms he would surrender the mine in proper working order
to a legally constituted commission of patriotic citizens,
escorted by a small military force. The priest cast his eyes up
to heaven. However, Don Pepe continued, the mozo who brought the
letter said that Don Carlos Gould was alive, and so far
unmolested.
Father Roman expressed in a few words his thankfulness at hearing
of the Senor Administrador's safety.
The hour of oration had gone by in the silvery ringing of a bell
in the little belfry. The belt of forest closing the entrance of
the valley stood like a screen between the low sun and the street
of the village. At the other end of the rocky gorge, between the
walls of basalt and granite, a forest-clad mountain, hiding all
the range from the San Tome dwellers, rose steeply, lighted up
and leafy to the very top. Three small rosy clouds hung
motionless overhead in the great depth of blue. Knots of people
sat in the street between the wattled huts. Before the casa of
the alcalde, the foremen of the night-shift, already assembled to
lead their men, squatted on the ground in a circle of leather
skull-caps, and, bowing their bronze backs, were passing round
the gourd of mate. The mozo from the town, having fastened his
horse to a wooden post before the door, was telling them the news
of Sulaco as the blackened gourd of the decoction passed from
hand to hand. The grave alcalde himself, in a white waistcloth
and a flowered chintz gown with sleeves, open wide upon his naked
stout person with an effect of a gaudy bathing robe, stood by,
wearing a rough beaver hat at the back of his head, and grasping
a tall staff with a silver knob in his hand. These insignia of
his dignity had been conferred upon him by the Administration of
the mine, the fountain of honour, of prosperity, and peace. He
had been one of the first immigrants into this valley; his sons
and sons-in-law worked within the mountain which seemed with its
treasures to pour down the thundering ore shoots of the upper
mesa, the gifts of well-being, security, and justice upon the
toilers. He listened to the news from the town with curiosity and
indifference, as if concerning another world than his own. And it
was true that they appeared to him so. In a very few years the
sense of belonging to a powerful organization had been developed
in these harassed, half-wild Indians. They were proud of, and
attached to, the mine. It had secured their confidence and
belief. They invested it with a protecting and invincible virtue
as though it were a fetish made by their own hands, for they were
ignorant, and in other respects did not differ appreciably from
the rest of mankind which puts infinite trust in its own
creations. It never entered the alcalde's head that the mine
could fail in its protection and force. Politics were good enough
for the people of the town and the Campo. His yellow, round face,
with wide nostrils, and motionless in expression, resembled a
fierce full moon. He listened to the excited vapourings of the
mozo without misgivings, without surprise, without any active
sentiment whatever.
Padre Roman sat dejectedly balancing himself, his feet just
touching the ground, his hands gripping the edge of the hammock.
With less confidence, but as ignorant as his flock, he asked the
major what did he think was going to happen now.
Don Pepe, bolt upright in the chair, folded his hands peacefully
on the hilt of his sword, standing perpendicular between his
thighs, and answered that he did not know. The mine could be
defended against any force likely to be sent to take possession.
On the other hand, from the arid character of the valley, when
the regular supplies from the Campo had been cut off, the
population of the three villages could be starved into
submission. Don Pepe exposed these contingencies with serenity
to Father Roman, who, as an old campaigner, was able to
understand the reasoning of a military man. They talked with
simplicity and directness. Father Roman was saddened at the idea
of his flock being scattered or else enslaved. He had no
illusions as to their fate, not from penetration, but from long
experience of political atrocities, which seemed to him fatal and
unavoidable in the life of a State. The working of the usual
public institutions presented itself to him most distinctly as a
series of calamities overtaking private individuals and flowing
logically from each other through hate, revenge, folly, and
rapacity, as though they had been part of a divine dispensation.
Father Roman's clear-sightedness was served by an uninformed
intelligence; but his heart, preserving its tenderness amongst
scenes of carnage, spoliation, and violence, abhorred these
calamities the more as his association with the victims was
closer. He entertained towards the Indians of the valley feelings
of paternal scorn. He had been marrying, baptizing, confessing,
absolving, and burying the workers of the San Tome mine with
dignity and unction for five years or more; and he believed in
the sacredness of these ministrations, which made them his own in
a spiritual sense. They were dear to his sacerdotal supremacy.
Mrs. Gould's earnest interest in the concerns of these people
enhanced their importance in the priest's eyes, because it really
augmented his own. When talking over with her the innumerable
Marias and Brigidas of the villages, he felt his own humanity
expand. Padre Roman was incapable of fanaticism to an almost
reprehensible degree. The English senora was evidently a
heretic; but at the same time she seemed to him wonderful and
angelic. Whenever that confused state of his feelings occurred
to him, while strolling, for instance, his breviary under his
arm, in the wide shade of the tamarind, he would stop short to
inhale with a strong snuffling noise a large quantity of snuff,
and shake his head profoundly. At the thought of what might
befall the illustrious senora presently, he became gradually
overcome with dismay. He voiced it in an agitated murmur. Even
Don Pepe lost his serenity for a moment. He leaned forward
stiffly.
"Listen, Padre. The very fact that those thieving macaques in
Sulaco are trying to find out the price of my honour proves that
Senor Don Carlos and all in the Casa Gould are safe. As to my
honour, that also is safe, as every man, woman, and child knows.
But the negro Liberals who have snatched the town by surprise do
not know that. Bueno. Let them sit and wait. While they wait they
can do no harm."
And he regained his composure. He regained it easily, because
whatever happened his honour of an old officer of Paez was safe.
He had promised Charles Gould that at the approach of an armed
force he would defend the gorge just long enough to give himself
time to destroy scientifically the whole plant, buildings, and
workshops of the mine with heavy charges of dynamite; block with
ruins the main tunnel, break down the pathways, blow up the dam
of the water-power, shatter the famous Gould Concession into
fragments, flying sky high out of a horrified world. The mine had
got hold of Charles Gould with a grip as deadly as ever it had
laid upon his father. But this extreme resolution had seemed to
Don Pepe the most natural thing in the world. His measures had
been taken with judgment. Everything was prepared with a careful
completeness. And Don Pepe folded his hands pacifically on his
sword hilt, and nodded at the priest. In his excitement, Father
Roman had flung snuff in handfuls at his face, and, all besmeared
with tobacco, round-eyed, and beside himself, had got out of the
hammock to walk about, uttering exclamations.
Don Pepe stroked his grey and pendant moustache, whose fine ends
hung far below the clean-cut line of his jaw, and spoke with a
conscious pride in his reputation.
"So, Padre, I don't know what will happen. But I know that as
long as I am here Don Carlos can speak to that macaque, Pedrito
Montero, and threaten the destruction of the mine with perfect
assurance that he will be taken seriously. For people know me."
He began to turn the cigar in his lips a little nervously, and
went on--
"But that is talk--good for the politicos. I am a military man. I
do not know what may happen. But I know what ought to be
done--the mine should march upon the town with guns, axes, knives
tied up to sticks--por Dios. That is what should be done.
Only--"
His folded hands twitched on the hilt. The cigar turned faster in
the corner of his lips.
"And who should lead but I? Unfortunately--observe--I have given
my word of honour to Don Carlos not to let the mine fall into the
hands of these thieves. In war--you know this, Padre--the fate
of battles is uncertain, and whom could I leave here to act for
me in case of defeat? The explosives are ready. But it would
require a man of high honour, of intelligence, of judgment, of
courage, to carry out the prepared destruction. Somebody I can
trust with my honour as I can trust myself. Another old officer
of Paez, for instance. Or--or--perhaps one of Paez's old
chaplains would do."
He got up, long, lank, upright, hard, with his martial moustache
and the bony structure of his face, from which the glance of the
sunken eyes seemed to transfix the priest, who stood still, an
empty wooden snuff-box held upside down in his hand, and glared
back, speechless, at the governor of the mine. _
Read next: PART THIRD - THE LIGHTHOUSE: CHAPTER VII
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