At about that time, in the Intendencia of Sulaco, Charles Gould was
assuring Pedrito Montero, who had sent a request for his presence there,
that he would never let the mine pass out of his hands for the profit of
a Government who had robbed him of it. The Gould Concession could not
be resumed. His father had not desired it. The son would never surrender
it. He would never surrender it alive. And once dead, where was the
power capable of resuscitating such an enterprise in all its vigour and
wealth out of the ashes and ruin of destruction? There was no such power
in the country. And where was the skill and capital abroad that would
condescend to touch such an ill-omened corpse? Charles Gould talked in
the impassive tone which had for many years served to conceal his anger
and contempt. He suffered. He was disgusted with what he had to say. It
was too much like heroics. In him the strictly practical instinct was in
profound discord with the almost mystic view he took of his right. The
Gould Concession was symbolic of abstract justice. Let the heavens
fall. But since the San Tome mine had developed into world-wide fame
his threat had enough force and effectiveness to reach the rudimentary
intelligence of Pedro Montero, wrapped up as it was in the futilities
of historical anecdotes. The Gould Concession was a serious asset in the
country’s finance, and, what was more, in the private budgets of many
officials as well. It was traditional. It was known. It was said. It
was credible. Every Minister of Interior drew a salary from the San
Tome mine. It was natural. And Pedrito intended to be Minister of the
Interior and President of the Council in his brother’s Government. The
Duc de Morny had occupied those high posts during the Second French
Empire with conspicuous advantage to himself.
A table, a chair, a wooden bedstead had been procured for His
Excellency, who, after a short siesta, rendered absolutely necessary
by the labours and the pomps of his entry into Sulaco, had been getting
hold of the administrative machine by making appointments, giving
orders, and signing proclamations. Alone with Charles Gould in the
audience room, His Excellency managed with his well-known skill to
conceal his annoyance and consternation. He had begun at first to talk
loftily of confiscation, but the want of all proper feeling and mobility
in the Senor Administrador’s features ended by affecting adversely
his power of masterful expression. Charles Gould had repeated: “The
Government can certainly bring about the destruction of the San Tome
mine if it likes; but without me it can do nothing else.” It was an
alarming pronouncement, and well calculated to hurt the sensibilities of
a politician whose mind is bent upon the spoils of victory. And Charles
Gould said also that the destruction of the San Tome mine would cause
the ruin of other undertakings, the withdrawal of European capital, the
withholding, most probably, of the last instalment of the foreign loan.
That stony fiend of a man said all these things (which were accessible
to His Excellency’s intelligence) in a coldblooded manner which made one
shudder.
A long course of reading historical works, light and gossipy in tone,
carried out in garrets of Parisian hotels, sprawling on an untidy bed,
to the neglect of his duties, menial or otherwise, had affected the
manners of Pedro Montero. Had he seen around him the splendour of the
old Intendencia, the magnificent hangings, the gilt furniture ranged
along the walls; had he stood upon a dais on a noble square of red
carpet, he would have probably been very dangerous from a sense of
success and elevation. But in this sacked and devastated residence, with
the three pieces of common furniture huddled up in the middle of the
vast apartment, Pedrito’s imagination was subdued by a feeling of
insecurity and impermanence. That feeling and the firm attitude
of Charles Gould who had not once, so far, pronounced the word
“Excellency,” diminished him in his own eyes. He assumed the tone of an
enlightened man of the world, and begged Charles Gould to dismiss from
his mind every cause for alarm. He was now conversing, he reminded
him, with the brother of the master of the country, charged with a
reorganizing mission. The trusted brother of the master of the country,
he repeated. Nothing was further from the thoughts of that wise and
patriotic hero than ideas of destruction. “I entreat you, Don Carlos,
not to give way to your anti-democratic prejudices,” he cried, in a
burst of condescending effusion.
Pedrito Montero surprised one at first sight by the vast development of
his bald forehead, a shiny yellow expanse between the crinkly coal-black
tufts of hair without any lustre, the engaging form of his mouth, and
an unexpectedly cultivated voice. But his eyes, very glistening as if
freshly painted on each side of his hooked nose, had a round, hopeless,
birdlike stare when opened fully. Now, however, he narrowed them
agreeably, throwing his square chin up and speaking with closed teeth
slightly through the nose, with what he imagined to be the manner of a
grand seigneur.
In that attitude, he declared suddenly that the highest expression of
democracy was Caesarism: the imperial rule based upon the direct popular
vote. Caesarism was conservative. It was strong. It recognized the
legitimate needs of democracy which requires orders, titles, and
distinctions. They would be showered upon deserving men. Caesarism
was peace. It was progressive. It secured the prosperity of a country.
Pedrito Montero was carried away. Look at what the Second Empire had
done for France. It was a regime which delighted to honour men of Don
Carlos’s stamp. The Second Empire fell, but that was because its chief
was devoid of that military genius which had raised General Montero to
the pinnacle of fame and glory. Pedrito elevated his hand jerkily to
help the idea of pinnacle, of fame. “We shall have many talks yet. We
shall understand each other thoroughly, Don Carlos!” he cried in a tone
of fellowship. Republicanism had done its work. Imperial democracy was
the power of the future. Pedrito, the guerrillero, showing his hand,
lowered his voice forcibly. A man singled out by his fellow-citizens for
the honourable nickname of El Rey de Sulaco could not but receive a full
recognition from an imperial democracy as a great captain of industry
and a person of weighty counsel, whose popular designation would be soon
replaced by a more solid title. “Eh, Don Carlos? No! What do you say?
Conde de Sulaco--Eh?--or marquis . . .”
He ceased. The air was cool on the Plaza, where a patrol of cavalry rode
round and round without penetrating into the streets, which resounded
with shouts and the strumming of guitars issuing from the open doors of
pulperias. The orders were not to interfere with the enjoyments of the
people. And above the roofs, next to the perpendicular lines of the
cathedral towers the snowy curve of Higuerota blocked a large space of
darkening blue sky before the windows of the Intendencia. After a time
Pedrito Montero, thrusting his hand in the bosom of his coat, bowed his
head with slow dignity. The audience was over.
Charles Gould on going out passed his hand over his forehead as if to
disperse the mists of an oppressive dream, whose grotesque extravagance
leaves behind a subtle sense of bodily danger and intellectual decay. In
the passages and on the staircases of the old palace Montero’s troopers
lounged about insolently, smoking and making way for no one; the
clanking of sabres and spurs resounded all over the building. Three
silent groups of civilians in severe black waited in the main gallery,
formal and helpless, a little huddled up, each keeping apart from the
others, as if in the exercise of a public duty they had been overcome
by a desire to shun the notice of every eye. These were the deputations
waiting for their audience. The one from the Provincial Assembly, more
restless and uneasy in its corporate expression, was overtopped by the
big face of Don Juste Lopez, soft and white, with prominent eyelids and
wreathed in impenetrable solemnity as if in a dense cloud. The President
of the Provincial Assembly, coming bravely to save the last shred of
parliamentary institutions (on the English model), averted his eyes
from the Administrador of the San Tome mine as a dignified rebuke of his
little faith in that only saving principle.
The mournful severity of that reproof did not affect Charles Gould, but
he was sensible to the glances of the others directed upon him without
reproach, as if only to read their own fate upon his face. All of them
had talked, shouted, and declaimed in the great sala of the Casa Gould.
The feeling of compassion for those men, struck with a strange impotence
in the toils of moral degradation, did not induce him to make a sign. He
suffered from his fellowship in evil with them too much. He crossed the
Plaza unmolested. The Amarilla Club was full of festive ragamuffins.
Their frowsy heads protruded from every window, and from within came
drunken shouts, the thumping of feet, and the twanging of harps. Broken
bottles strewed the pavement below. Charles Gould found the doctor still
in his house.
Dr. Monygham came away from the crack in the shutter through which he
had been watching the street.
“Ah! You are back at last!” he said in a tone of relief. “I have been
telling Mrs. Gould that you were perfectly safe, but I was not by any
means certain that the fellow would have let you go.”
“Neither was I,” confessed Charles Gould, laying his hat on the table.
“You will have to take action.”
The silence of Charles Gould seemed to admit that this was the only
course. This was as far as Charles Gould was accustomed to go towards
expressing his intentions.
“I hope you did not warn Montero of what you mean to do,” the doctor
said, anxiously.
“I tried to make him see that the existence of the mine was bound up
with my personal safety,” continued Charles Gould, looking away from the
doctor, and fixing his eyes upon the water-colour sketch upon the wall.
“He believed you?” the doctor asked, eagerly.
“God knows!” said Charles Gould. “I owed it to my wife to say that much.
He is well enough informed. He knows that I have Don Pepe there. Fuentes
must have told him. They know that the old major is perfectly capable of
blowing up the San Tome mine without hesitation or compunction. Had it
not been for that I don’t think I’d have left the Intendencia a free
man. He would blow everything up from loyalty and from hate--from hate
of these Liberals, as they call themselves. Liberals! The words one
knows so well have a nightmarish meaning in this country. Liberty,
democracy, patriotism, government--all of them have a flavour of folly
and murder. Haven’t they, doctor? . . . I alone can restrain Don Pepe.
If they were to--to do away with me, nothing could prevent him.”
“They will try to tamper with him,” the doctor suggested, thoughtfully.
“It is very possible,” Charles Gould said very low, as if speaking to
himself, and still gazing at the sketch of the San Tome gorge upon the
wall. “Yes, I expect they will try that.” Charles Gould looked for the
first time at the doctor. “It would give me time,” he added.
“Exactly,” said Dr. Monygham, suppressing his excitement. “Especially if
Don Pepe behaves diplomatically. Why shouldn’t he give them some hope
of success? Eh? Otherwise you wouldn’t gain so much time. Couldn’t he be
instructed to--”
Charles Gould, looking at the doctor steadily, shook his head, but the
doctor continued with a certain amount of fire--
“Yes, to enter into negotiations for the surrender of the mine. It is a
good notion. You would mature your plan. Of course, I don’t ask what it
is. I don’t want to know. I would refuse to listen to you if you tried
to tell me. I am not fit for confidences.”
“What nonsense!” muttered Charles Gould, with displeasure.
He disapproved of the doctor’s sensitiveness about that far-off
episode of his life. So much memory shocked Charles Gould. It was like
morbidness. And again he shook his head. He refused to tamper with the
open rectitude of Don Pepe’s conduct, both from taste and from policy.
Instructions would have to be either verbal or in writing. In either
case they ran the risk of being intercepted. It was by no means certain
that a messenger could reach the mine; and, besides, there was no one
to send. It was on the tip of Charles’s tongue to say that only the
late Capataz de Cargadores could have been employed with some chance
of success and the certitude of discretion. But he did not say that. He
pointed out to the doctor that it would have been bad policy.
Directly Don Pepe let it be supposed that he could be bought over, the
Administrador’s personal safety and the safety of his friends would
become endangered. For there would be then no reason for moderation. The
incorruptibility of Don Pepe was the essential and restraining fact. The
doctor hung his head and admitted that in a way it was so.
He couldn’t deny to himself that the reasoning was sound enough. Don
Pepe’s usefulness consisted in his unstained character. As to his own
usefulness, he reflected bitterly it was also his own character. He
declared to Charles Gould that he had the means of keeping Sotillo from
joining his forces with Montero, at least for the present.
“If you had had all this silver here,” the doctor said, “or even if it
had been known to be at the mine, you could have bribed Sotillo to throw
off his recent Monterism. You could have induced him either to go away
in his steamer or even to join you.”
“Certainly not that last,” Charles Gould declared, firmly. “What could
one do with a man like that, afterwards--tell me, doctor? The silver is
gone, and I am glad of it. It would have been an immediate and
strong temptation. The scramble for that visible plunder would have
precipitated a disastrous ending. I would have had to defend it, too.
I am glad we’ve removed it--even if it is lost. It would have been a
danger and a curse.”
“Perhaps he is right,” the doctor, an hour later, said hurriedly to Mrs.
Gould, whom he met in the corridor. “The thing is done, and the shadow
of the treasure may do just as well as the substance. Let me try to
serve you to the whole extent of my evil reputation. I am off now to
play my game of betrayal with Sotillo, and keep him off the town.”
She put out both her hands impulsively. “Dr. Monygham, you are running a
terrible risk,” she whispered, averting from his face her eyes, full of
tears, for a short glance at the door of her husband’s room. She pressed
both his hands, and the doctor stood as if rooted to the spot, looking
down at her, and trying to twist his lips into a smile.
“Oh, I know you will defend my memory,” he uttered at last, and ran
tottering down the stairs across the patio, and out of the house. In the
street he kept up a great pace with his smart hobbling walk, a case
of instruments under his arm. He was known for being loco. Nobody
interfered with him. From under the seaward gate, across the dusty, arid
plain, interspersed with low bushes, he saw, more than a mile away, the
ugly enormity of the Custom House, and the two or three other buildings
which at that time constituted the seaport of Sulaco. Far away to the
south groves of palm trees edged the curve of the harbour shore. The
distant peaks of the Cordillera had lost their identity of clearcut
shapes in the steadily deepening blue of the eastern sky. The doctor
walked briskly. A darkling shadow seemed to fall upon him from the
zenith. The sun had set. For a time the snows of Higuerota continued
to glow with the reflected glory of the west. The doctor, holding a
straight course for the Custom House, appeared lonely, hopping amongst
the dark bushes like a tall bird with a broken wing.
Tints of purple, gold, and crimson were mirrored in the clear water
of the harbour. A long tongue of land, straight as a wall, with the
grass-grown ruins of the fort making a sort of rounded green mound,
plainly visible from the inner shore, closed its circuit; while beyond
the Placid Gulf repeated those splendours of colouring on a greater
scale and with a more sombre magnificence. The great mass of cloud
filling the head of the gulf had long red smears amongst its convoluted
folds of grey and black, as of a floating mantle stained with blood.
The three Isabels, overshadowed and clear cut in a great smoothness
confounding the sea and sky, appeared suspended, purple-black, in the
air. The little wavelets seemed to be tossing tiny red sparks upon the
sandy beaches. The glassy bands of water along the horizon gave out a
fiery red glow, as if fire and water had been mingled together in the
vast bed of the ocean.
At last the conflagration of sea and sky, lying embraced and still in a
flaming contact upon the edge of the world, went out. The red sparks in
the water vanished together with the stains of blood in the black mantle
draping the sombre head of the Placid Gulf; a sudden breeze sprang up
and died out after rustling heavily the growth of bushes on the ruined
earthwork of the fort. Nostromo woke up from a fourteen hours’ sleep,
and arose full length from his lair in the long grass. He stood knee
deep amongst the whispering undulations of the green blades with the
lost air of a man just born into the world. Handsome, robust, and
supple, he threw back his head, flung his arms open, and stretched
himself with a slow twist of the waist and a leisurely growling yawn of
white teeth, as natural and free from evil in the moment of waking as a
magnificent and unconscious wild beast. Then, in the suddenly steadied
glance fixed upon nothing from under a thoughtful frown, appeared the
man.