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.”