During the night the expectant populace had taken possession of all the
belfries in the town in order to welcome Pedrito Montero, who was
making his entry after having slept the night in Rincon. And first
came straggling in through the land gate the armed mob of all colours,
complexions, types, and states of raggedness, calling themselves the
Sulaco National Guard, and commanded by Senor Gamacho. Through the
middle of the street streamed, like a torrent of rubbish, a mass of
straw hats, ponchos, gun-barrels, with an enormous green and yellow flag
flapping in their midst, in a cloud of dust, to the furious beating of
drums. The spectators recoiled against the walls of the houses shouting
their Vivas! Behind the rabble could be seen the lances of the cavalry,
the “army” of Pedro Montero. He advanced between Senores Fuentes and
Gamacho at the head of his llaneros, who had accomplished the feat of
crossing the Paramos of the Higuerota in a snow-storm. They rode four
abreast, mounted on confiscated Campo horses, clad in the heterogeneous
stock of roadside stores they had looted hurriedly in their rapid ride
through the northern part of the province; for Pedro Montero had been in
a great hurry to occupy Sulaco. The handkerchiefs knotted loosely around
their bare throats were glaringly new, and all the right sleeves of
their cotton shirts had been cut off close to the shoulder for greater
freedom in throwing the lazo. Emaciated greybeards rode by the side
of lean dark youths, marked by all the hardships of campaigning, with
strips of raw beef twined round the crowns of their hats, and huge iron
spurs fastened to their naked heels. Those that in the passes of the
mountain had lost their lances had provided themselves with the goads
used by the Campo cattlemen: slender shafts of palm fully ten feet long,
with a lot of loose rings jingling under the ironshod point. They were
armed with knives and revolvers. A haggard fearlessness characterized
the expression of all these sun-blacked countenances; they glared down
haughtily with their scorched eyes at the crowd, or, blinking upwards
insolently, pointed out to each other some particular head amongst the
women at the windows. When they had ridden into the Plaza and caught
sight of the equestrian statue of the King dazzlingly white in the
sunshine, towering enormous and motionless above the surges of the
crowd, with its eternal gesture of saluting, a murmur of surprise ran
through their ranks. “What is that saint in the big hat?” they asked
each other.
They were a good sample of the cavalry of the plains with which Pedro
Montero had helped so much the victorious career of his brother the
general. The influence which that man, brought up in coast towns,
acquired in a short time over the plainsmen of the Republic can be
ascribed only to a genius for treachery of so effective a kind that it
must have appeared to those violent men but little removed from a state
of utter savagery, as the perfection of sagacity and virtue. The popular
lore of all nations testifies that duplicity and cunning, together with
bodily strength, were looked upon, even more than courage, as heroic
virtues by primitive mankind. To overcome your adversary was the
great affair of life. Courage was taken for granted. But the use of
intelligence awakened wonder and respect. Stratagems, providing they did
not fail, were honourable; the easy massacre of an unsuspecting enemy
evoked no feelings but those of gladness, pride, and admiration. Not
perhaps that primitive men were more faithless than their descendants
of to-day, but that they went straighter to their aim, and were
more artless in their recognition of success as the only standard of
morality.
We have changed since. The use of intelligence awakens little wonder and
less respect. But the ignorant and barbarous plainsmen engaging in civil
strife followed willingly a leader who often managed to deliver their
enemies bound, as it were, into their hands. Pedro Montero had a talent
for lulling his adversaries into a sense of security. And as men learn
wisdom with extreme slowness, and are always ready to believe promises
that flatter their secret hopes, Pedro Montero was successful time after
time. Whether only a servant or some inferior official in the Costaguana
Legation in Paris, he had rushed back to his country directly he
heard that his brother had emerged from the obscurity of his frontier
commandancia. He had managed to deceive by his gift of plausibility
the chiefs of the Ribierist movement in the capital, and even the acute
agent of the San Tome mine had failed to understand him thoroughly. At
once he had obtained an enormous influence over his brother. They were
very much alike in appearance, both bald, with bunches of crisp hair
above their ears, arguing the presence of some negro blood. Only Pedro
was smaller than the general, more delicate altogether, with an
ape-like faculty for imitating all the outward signs of refinement and
distinction, and with a parrot-like talent for languages. Both brothers
had received some elementary instruction by the munificence of a great
European traveller, to whom their father had been a body-servant during
his journeys in the interior of the country. In General Montero’s
case it enabled him to rise from the ranks. Pedrito, the younger,
incorrigibly lazy and slovenly, had drifted aimlessly from one coast
town to another, hanging about counting-houses, attaching himself
to strangers as a sort of valet-de-place, picking up an easy and
disreputable living. His ability to read did nothing for him but fill
his head with absurd visions. His actions were usually determined by
motives so improbable in themselves as to escape the penetration of a
rational person.
Thus at first sight the agent of the Gould Concession in Sta. Marta
had credited him with the possession of sane views, and even with a
restraining power over the general’s everlastingly discontented vanity.
It could never have entered his head that Pedrito Montero, lackey or
inferior scribe, lodged in the garrets of the various Parisian hotels
where the Costaguana Legation used to shelter its diplomatic dignity,
had been devouring the lighter sort of historical works in the French
language, such, for instance as the books of Imbert de Saint Amand upon
the Second Empire. But Pedrito had been struck by the splendour of a
brilliant court, and had conceived the idea of an existence for himself
where, like the Duc de Morny, he would associate the command of every
pleasure with the conduct of political affairs and enjoy power supremely
in every way. Nobody could have guessed that. And yet this was one of
the immediate causes of the Monterist Revolution. This will appear less
incredible by the reflection that the fundamental causes were the
same as ever, rooted in the political immaturity of the people, in the
indolence of the upper classes and the mental darkness of the lower.
Pedrito Montero saw in the elevation of his brother the road wide
open to his wildest imaginings. This was what made the Monterist
pronunciamiento so unpreventable. The general himself probably could
have been bought off, pacified with flatteries, despatched on a
diplomatic mission to Europe. It was his brother who had egged him on
from first to last. He wanted to become the most brilliant statesman
of South America. He did not desire supreme power. He would have been
afraid of its labour and risk, in fact. Before all, Pedrito Montero,
taught by his European experience, meant to acquire a serious fortune
for himself. With this object in view he obtained from his brother, on
the very morrow of the successful battle, the permission to push on
over the mountains and take possession of Sulaco. Sulaco was the land
of future prosperity, the chosen land of material progress, the only
province in the Republic of interest to European capitalists. Pedrito
Montero, following the example of the Duc de Morny, meant to have his
share of this prosperity. This is what he meant literally. Now his
brother was master of the country, whether as President, Dictator, or
even as Emperor--why not as an Emperor?--he meant to demand a share in
every enterprise--in railways, in mines, in sugar estates, in cotton
mills, in land companies, in each and every undertaking--as the price of
his protection. The desire to be on the spot early was the real cause of
the celebrated ride over the mountains with some two hundred llaneros,
an enterprise of which the dangers had not appeared at first clearly to
his impatience. Coming from a series of victories, it seemed to him
that a Montero had only to appear to be master of the situation. This
illusion had betrayed him into a rashness of which he was becoming
aware. As he rode at the head of his llaneros he regretted that there
were so few of them. The enthusiasm of the populace reassured him. They
yelled “Viva Montero! Viva Pedrito!” In order to make them still more
enthusiastic, and from the natural pleasure he had in dissembling, he
dropped the reins on his horse’s neck, and with a tremendous effect of
familiarity and confidence slipped his hands under the arms of Senores
Fuentes and Gamacho. In that posture, with a ragged town mozo holding
his horse by the bridle, he rode triumphantly across the Plaza to the
door of the Intendencia. Its old gloomy walls seemed to shake in the
acclamations that rent the air and covered the crashing peals of the
cathedral bells.
Pedro Montero, the brother of the general, dismounted into a shouting
and perspiring throng of enthusiasts whom the ragged Nationals were
pushing back fiercely. Ascending a few steps he surveyed the large crowd
gaping at him and the bullet-speckled walls of the houses opposite
lightly veiled by a sunny haze of dust. The word “_Pourvenir_” in
immense black capitals, alternating with broken windows, stared at
him across the vast space; and he thought with delight of the hour of
vengeance, because he was very sure of laying his hands upon Decoud.
On his left hand, Gamacho, big and hot, wiping his hairy wet face,
uncovered a set of yellow fangs in a grin of stupid hilarity. On his
right, Senor Fuentes, small and lean, looked on with compressed lips.
The crowd stared literally open-mouthed, lost in eager stillness, as
though they had expected the great guerrillero, the famous Pedrito, to
begin scattering at once some sort of visible largesse. What he began
was a speech. He began it with the shouted word “Citizens!” which
reached even those in the middle of the Plaza. Afterwards the greater
part of the citizens remained fascinated by the orator’s action alone,
his tip-toeing, the arms flung above his head with the fists clenched,
a hand laid flat upon the heart, the silver gleam of rolling eyes,
the sweeping, pointing, embracing gestures, a hand laid familiarly
on Gamacho’s shoulder; a hand waved formally towards the little
black-coated person of Senor Fuentes, advocate and politician and a true
friend of the people. The vivas of those nearest to the orator bursting
out suddenly propagated themselves irregularly to the confines of the
crowd, like flames running over dry grass, and expired in the opening of
the streets. In the intervals, over the swarming Plaza brooded a heavy
silence, in which the mouth of the orator went on opening and shutting,
and detached phrases--“The happiness of the people,” “Sons of the
country,” “The entire world, el mundo entiero”--reached even the packed
steps of the cathedral with a feeble clear ring, thin as the buzzing
of a mosquito. But the orator struck his breast; he seemed to prance
between his two supporters. It was the supreme effort of his peroration.
Then the two smaller figures disappeared from the public gaze and the
enormous Gamacho, left alone, advanced, raising his hat high above his
head. Then he covered himself proudly and yelled out, “Ciudadanos!” A
dull roar greeted Senor Gamacho, ex-pedlar of the Campo, Commandante of
the National Guards.
Upstairs Pedrito Montero walked about rapidly from one wrecked room of
the Intendencia to another, snarling incessantly--
“What stupidity! What destruction!”
Senor Fuentes, following, would relax his taciturn disposition to
murmur--
“It is all the work of Gamacho and his Nationals;” and then, inclining
his head on his left shoulder, would press together his lips so firmly
that a little hollow would appear at each corner. He had his nomination
for Political Chief of the town in his pocket, and was all impatience to
enter upon his functions.
In the long audience room, with its tall mirrors all starred by stones,
the hangings torn down and the canopy over the platform at the upper end
pulled to pieces, the vast, deep muttering of the crowd and the howling
voice of Gamacho speaking just below reached them through the shutters
as they stood idly in dimness and desolation.
“The brute!” observed his Excellency Don Pedro Montero through clenched
teeth. “We must contrive as quickly as possible to send him and his
Nationals out there to fight Hernandez.”
The new Gefe Politico only jerked his head sideways, and took a puff at
his cigarette in sign of his agreement with this method for ridding the
town of Gamacho and his inconvenient rabble.
Pedrito Montero looked with disgust at the absolutely bare floor, and
at the belt of heavy gilt picture-frames running round the room, out
of which the remnants of torn and slashed canvases fluttered like dingy
rags.
“We are not barbarians,” he said.
This was what said his Excellency, the popular Pedrito, the guerrillero
skilled in the art of laying ambushes, charged by his brother at his
own demand with the organization of Sulaco on democratic principles. The
night before, during the consultation with his partisans, who had
come out to meet him in Rincon, he had opened his intentions to Senor
Fuentes--
“We shall organize a popular vote, by yes or no, confiding the destinies
of our beloved country to the wisdom and valiance of my heroic brother,
the invincible general. A plebiscite. Do you understand?”
And Senor Fuentes, puffing out his leathery cheeks, had inclined his
head slightly to the left, letting a thin, bluish jet of smoke escape
through his pursed lips. He had understood.
His Excellency was exasperated at the devastation. Not a single chair,
table, sofa, etagere or console had been left in the state rooms of the
Intendencia. His Excellency, though twitching all over with rage, was
restrained from bursting into violence by a sense of his remoteness and
isolation. His heroic brother was very far away. Meantime, how was he
going to take his siesta? He had expected to find comfort and luxury
in the Intendencia after a year of hard camp life, ending with the
hardships and privations of the daring dash upon Sulaco--upon the
province which was worth more in wealth and influence than all the rest
of the Republic’s territory. He would get even with Gamacho by-and-by.
And Senor Gamacho’s oration, delectable to popular ears, went on in the
heat and glare of the Plaza like the uncouth howlings of an inferior
sort of devil cast into a white-hot furnace. Every moment he had to wipe
his streaming face with his bare fore-arm; he had flung off his coat,
and had turned up the sleeves of his shirt high above the elbows; but
he kept on his head the large cocked hat with white plumes. His
ingenuousness cherished this sign of his rank as Commandante of the
National Guards. Approving and grave murmurs greeted his periods. His
opinion was that war should be declared at once against France, England,
Germany, and the United States, who, by introducing railways, mining
enterprises, colonization, and under such other shallow pretences, aimed
at robbing poor people of their lands, and with the help of these Goths
and paralytics, the aristocrats would convert them into toiling and
miserable slaves. And the leperos, flinging about the corners of their
dirty white mantas, yelled their approbation. General Montero, Gamacho
howled with conviction, was the only man equal to the patriotic task.
They assented to that, too.
The morning was wearing on; there were already signs of disruption,
currents and eddies in the crowd. Some were seeking the shade of the
walls and under the trees of the Alameda. Horsemen spurred through,
shouting; groups of sombreros set level on heads against the vertical
sun were drifting away into the streets, where the open doors of
pulperias revealed an enticing gloom resounding with the gentle tinkling
of guitars. The National Guards were thinking of siesta, and the
eloquence of Gamacho, their chief, was exhausted. Later on, when, in the
cooler hours of the afternoon, they tried to assemble again for further
consideration of public affairs, detachments of Montero’s cavalry camped
on the Alameda charged them without parley, at speed, with long lances
levelled at their flying backs as far as the ends of the streets. The
National Guards of Sulaco were surprised by this proceeding. But they
were not indignant. No Costaguanero had ever learned to question the
eccentricities of a military force. They were part of the natural order
of things. This must be, they concluded, some kind of administrative
measure, no doubt. But the motive of it escaped their unaided
intelligence, and their chief and orator, Gamacho, Commandante of the
National Guard, was lying drunk and asleep in the bosom of his family.
His bare feet were upturned in the shadows repulsively, in the manner
of a corpse. His eloquent mouth had dropped open. His youngest daughter,
scratching her head with one hand, with the other waved a green bough
over his scorched and peeling face.