2h 
 
 7 
 iz 
 
 SHAT 
 
 eu 
 
 tie 
 
 eke 
 
 brs 
 
 SPER se 
 ay Or He 84 ee ee 
 
hs | 
 
CENTRAL CIRCULATION BOOKSTACKS 
 
 The person charging this material is re- 
 sponsible for its return to the library from 
 which it was borrowed on or before the 
 Latest Date stamped below. 
 
 Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons 
 for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from 
 
 the University. 
 TO RENEW CALL TELEPHONE CENTER, 333-8400 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 
 
 When renewing by phone, write new due date below 
 previous due date. L162 
 
NOSTROMO 
 
BOOKS BY JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 ALMAYER’S FOLLY 
 AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS 
 THE NIGGER OF THE “NARCISSUS” 
 TALES OF UNREST 
 
 LORD JIM: A ROMANCE 
 
 YOUTH: A NARRATIVE 
 
 TYPHOON 
 
 FALK, AND OTHER STORIES 
 NOSTROMO: A TALE OF THE SEABOARD 
 THE MIRROR OF THE SEA 
 
 THE SECRET AGENT 
 
 A SET OF Six 
 
 UNDER WESTERN EYES 
 
 A PERSONAL RECORD 
 
 *TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 CHANCE 
 
 WITHIN THE TIDES 
 
 VICTORY 
 
 THE SHADOW-LINE 
 
 THE ARROW OF GOLD 
 
 THE RESCUE 
 
 NOTES ON LIFE AND LETTERS 
 THE ROVER 
 
 WITH FORD M. HUEFFER 
 
 ROMANCE: A NOVEL 
 
 THE INHERITORS: AN EXTRAVAGANT 
 STORY 
 
 THE NATURE OF A CRIME 
 
NOSTROMO 
 
 JA TALE OF THE SEABOARD 
 
 BY 
 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 “So foul a sky clears not without a storm.” 
 —SHAKESPEARE 
 
 GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 1924 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES 
 AT 
 THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 
 
TO 
 JOHN GALSWORTHY 
 
AUTHOR’S NOTE 
 
 *“NostrRoMo”’ is the most anxiously meditated of the 
 fonger novels which belong to the period followimg upon 
 the publication of the “Typhoon” volume of short 
 stories. 
 
 I don’t mean to say that I became then conscious of 
 any impending change in my mentality and in my atti- 
 tude towards the tasks of my writing life. And perhaps 
 there was never any change, except in that mysterious, 
 extraneous thing which has nothing to do with the 
 theories of art; a subtle change in the nature of the 
 inspiration; a phenomenon for which I can not in any 
 way be held responsible. What, however, did cause me 
 some concern was that after finishing the last story of 
 the “Typhoon” volume it seemed somehow that there 
 was nothing more in the world to write about. 
 
 This so strangely negative but disturbing mood 
 lasted some little time; and then, as with many of my 
 longer stories, the first hint for “Nostromo” came to 
 me in the shape of a vagrant anecdote completely des- 
 titute of valuable details. 
 
 As a matter of fact in 1875 or °6, when very young, in 
 the West Indies or rather in the Gulf of Mexico, for my 
 contacts with land were short, few, and fleeting, I heard 
 the story of some man who was supposed to have stolen 
 single-handed a whole lighter-full of silver, somewhere 
 
 vii 
 
viii AUTHOR’S NOTE 
 
 on the Tierra Firme seaboard during the troubles of a 
 revolution. 
 
 On the face of it this was something of a feat. But I 
 heard no details, and having no particular interest in 
 crime qua crime I was not likely to keep that one in my 
 my mind. And I forgot it till twenty-six or seven years 
 afterwards I came upon the very thing in a shabby 
 volume picked up outside a second-hand book-shop. It 
 was the life story of an American seaman written by 
 himself with the assistance of a journalist. In the 
 course of his wanderings that American sailor worked 
 for some months on board a schooner, the master and 
 owner of which was the thief of whom I had heard in 
 my very young days. I have no doubt of that because 
 there could hardly have been two exploits of that pecu- 
 liar kind in the same part of the world and both con- 
 nected with a South American revolution. 
 
 The fellow had actually managed to steal a lighter 
 with silver, and this, it seems, only because he was im- 
 plicitly trusted by his employers, who must have been 
 singularly poor judges of character. In the sailor’s 
 story he is represented as an unmitigated rascal, a small 
 cheat, stupidly ferocious, morose, of mean appearance, 
 and altogether unworthy of the greatness this oppor- 
 tunity had thrust upon him. What was interesting 
 was that he would boast of it openly. 
 
 He used to say: “People think I: make a lot of 
 money in this schooner of mine. But that is nothing. 
 I don’t care for that. Now and then I go away quietly 
 and lift a bar of silver. I must get rich slowly—you 
 understand.” 
 
 There was also another curious point about the man. 
 Once in the course of some quarrel the sailor threatened 
 him: “‘What’s to prevent me reporting ashore what 
 you have told me about that silver?”’ 
 
AUTHOR’S NOTE 1X 
 
 The cynical ruffian was not alarmed in the least. He 
 actually laughed. ‘‘ You fool, if you dare talk like that 
 on shore about me you will get a knife stuck in your 
 back. Every man, woman, and child in that port is 
 my friend. And who’s to prove the lighter wasn’t 
 sunk? I didn’t show you where the silver is hidden. 
 DidI? Soyouknownothing. AndsupposeIlied? Eh?” 
 
 Ultimately the sailor, disgusted with the sordid mean- 
 ness of that impenitent thief, deserted from the schooner. 
 The whole episode takes about three pages of his 
 autobiography. Nothing to speak of; but as I looked 
 them over, the curious confirmation of the few casual 
 words heard in my early youth evoked the memories 
 of that distant time when everything was so fresh, so 
 surprising, so venturesome, so interesting; bits of strange 
 coasts under the stars, shadows of hills in the sunshine, 
 men’s passions in the dusk, gossip half-forgotten, faces 
 grown dim. . . . Perhaps, perhaps, there still was 
 in the world something to write about. Yet I did not 
 see anything at first in the mere story. A rascal steals 
 a large parcel of a valuable commodity—so people say. 
 It’s either true or untrue; and in any case it has no 
 value in itself. To invent a circumstantial account of 
 the robbery did not appeal to me, because my talents 
 not running that way I did not think that the game was 
 worth the candle. It was only when it dawned upon 
 me that the purloimer of the treasure need not neces- 
 sarily be a confirmed rogue, that he could be even a man 
 of character, an actor and possibly a victim in the 
 changing scenes of a revolution, it was only then that 
 I had the first vision of a twilight country which was 
 to become the province of Sulaco, with its high shadowy 
 Sierra and its misty Campo for mute witnesses of events 
 flowing from the passions of men short-sighted in good 
 and evil. 
 
K AUTHOR’S NOTE 
 
 Such are in very truth the obscure origins of “‘Nos- 
 tromo’’—the book. From that moment, I suppose, 
 it had to be. Yet even then I hesitated, as if warned 
 by the instinct of self-preservation from venturing on a 
 distant and toilsome journey into a land full of intrigues 
 and revolutions. But it had to be done. 
 
 It took the best part of the years 1903-4 to do; with 
 many intervals of renewed hesitation, lest I should lose 
 myself in the ever-enlarging vistas opening before me 
 as I progressed deeper in my knowledge of the country. 
 Often, also, when I had thought myself to a standstill 
 over the tangled-up affairs of the Republic, I would, 
 figuratively speaking, pack my bag, rush away from 
 Sulaco for a change of air and write a few pages of the 
 “Mirror of the Sea.’? But generally, as I’ve said be- 
 fore, my sojourn on the Continent of Latin America, 
 famed for its hospitality, lasted for about two years. 
 On my return I found (speaking somewhat in the style 
 of Captain Gulliver) my family all well, my wife heartily 
 glad to learn that the fuss was all over, and our small 
 boy considerably grown during my absence. 
 
 My principal authority for the history of Costaguana 
 is, of Course, my venerated friend, the late Don José 
 Avellanos, Minister to the Courts of England and Spain, 
 etc., etc., in his impartial and eloquent “History of Fifty 
 Years of Misrule.”” That work was never published— 
 che reader will discover why—and I am in fact the only 
 person in the world possessed of its contents. I have 
 mastered them in not a few hours of earnest meditation, 
 and I hope that my accuracy will be trusted. In justice 
 to myself, and to allay the fears of prospective readers, 
 I beg to point out that the few historical allusions are 
 never dragged in for the sake of parading my unique 
 erudition, but that each of them is closely related to 
 actuality; either throwing a light on the nature of cur- 
 
AUTHOR’S NOTE xi 
 
 rent events or affecting directly the fortunes of the 
 people of whom I speak. 
 
 As to their own histories I have tried to set them 
 down, Aristocracy and People, men and women, Latin 
 and Anglo-Saxon, bandit and politician, with as cool a 
 hand as was possible in the heat and clash of my own 
 conflicting emotions. And after all this is also the 
 story of their conflicts. It is for the reader to say how 
 far they are deserving of interest in their actions and 
 in the secret purposes of their hearts revealed in the 
 bitter necessities of the time. I confess that, for me, 
 that time is the time of firm friendships and unforgotten 
 hospitalities. And in my gratitude I must mention 
 here Mrs. Gould, “the first lady of Sulaco,’? whom we 
 may safely leave to the secret devotion of Dr. Mony- 
 gham, and Charles Gould, the Idealist-creator of Ma- 
 terial Interests whom we must leave to his Mine— 
 from which there is no escape in this world. 
 
 About Nostromo, the second of the two racially and 
 socially contrasted men, both captured by the silver of 
 the San Tomé Mine, I feel bound to say something 
 more. 
 
 I did not hesitate to make that central figure an Ital- 
 ian. First of all the thing is perfectly credible: Italians 
 were swarming into the Occidental Province at the 
 time, as anybody who will read further can see; and 
 secondly, there was no one who could stand so well by 
 the side of Giorgio Viola the Garibaldino, the Idealist 
 of the old, humanitarian revolutions. For myself I 
 needed there a Man of the People as free as possible 
 from his class-conventions and all settled modes of 
 thinking. This is not a side snarl at conventions. My 
 reasons were not moral but artistic. Had he been an 
 Anglo-Saxon he would have tried to get into local poli- 
 tics. But Nostromo does not aspire to be a leader in a 
 
XH AUTHOR’S NOTE 
 
 personal game. He does not want to raise himself 
 above the mass. He is content to feel himself a power 
 —within the People. | 
 
 But mainly Nostromo is what he is because I! re- 
 ceived the inspiration for him in my early days from a 
 Mediterranean sailor. Those who have read certain 
 pages of mine will see at once what I mean when I say 
 that Dominic, the padrone of the Tremolino, might under 
 given circumstances have been a Nostromo. At any 
 rate Dominic would have understood the younger man 
 perfectly—if scornfully. He and I were engaged to- 
 gether in a rather absurd adventure, but the absurdity 
 does not matter. It is a real satisfaction to think that 
 in my very young days there must, after all, have been 
 something in me worthy to command that man’s half- 
 bitter fidelity, his half-ironic devotion. Many of Nos- 
 tromo’s speeches I have heard first in Dominic’s voice. 
 His hand on the tiller and his fearless eyes roaming the 
 horizon from within the monkish hood shadowing his 
 face, he would utter the usual exordium of his remorse- 
 less wisdom: ‘‘ Vous autres gentilhommes!”’ in a caus- 
 tic tone that hangs on my ear yet. Like Nostromo! - 
 “You hombres finos!”” Very much lke Nostromo. 
 But Dominic the Corsican nursed a certain pride of 
 ancestry from which my Nostromo is free; for Nos- 
 tromo’s lineage had to be more ancient still. He is a 
 man with the weight of countless generations behind 
 him and no parentage to boast of. . . . Like the 
 People. 
 
 In his firm grip on the earth he inherits, in his im- 
 providence and generosity, in his lavishness with his 
 gifts, in his manly vanity, in the obscure sense of his 
 greatness and in his faithful devotion with something 
 despairing as well as desperate in its impulses, he is a 
 Man of the People, their very own unenvious force 
 
AUTHOR’S NOTE xii 
 
 disdaining to lead but ruling from within. Years after- 
 wards, grown older as the famous Captain Fidanza, 
 with a stake in the country, going about his many affairs 
 followed by respectful glances in the modernized streets 
 of Sulaco, calling on the widow of the cargador, attend- 
 ing the Lodge, listening in unmoved silence to anarchist 
 speeches at the meeting, the enigmatical patron of the 
 new revolutionary agitation, the trusted, the wealthy 
 comrade Fidanza with the knowledge of his moral ruin 
 locked up in his breast, he remains essentially a Man 
 of the People. In his mingled love and scorn of life and 
 in the bewildered conviction of having been betrayed, 
 of dying betrayed he hardly knows by what or by whom, 
 he is still of the People, their undoubted Great Man— 
 with a private history of his own. 
 
 One more figure of those stirring times I would like to 
 mention: and that is Antonia Avellanos—the “beautiful 
 Antonia.” Whether she is a possible variation of Latin- 
 American girlhood I wouldn’t dare to affirm. But, for 
 me, she 7s. Always a little in the background by the 
 side of her father (my venerated friend) I hope she has 
 yet relief enough to make intelligible what I am going 
 to say. Of all the people who had seen with me the 
 birth of the Occidental Republic, she is the only one 
 who has kept in my memory the aspect of continued 
 life. Antonia the Aristocrat and Nostromo the Man of 
 the People are the artisans of the New Era, the true 
 creators of the New State; he by his legendary and dar- 
 ing feat, she, like a woman, simply by the force of what 
 she is: the only being capable of inspiring a sincere 
 passion in the heart of a trifler. 
 
 If anything could induce me to revisit Sulaco (I 
 should hate to see all these changes) it would be An- 
 tonia. And the true reason for that—why not be frank 
 about it?—the true reason is that I have modelled her 
 
XIV AUTHOR’S NOTE 
 
 on my iirst love. How we, a band of tallish schoolboys, 
 the chums of her two brothers, how we used to look 
 up to that girl just out of the schoolroom herself, as the 
 standard-bearer of a faith to which we all were born but 
 which she alone knew how to hold aloft with an un- 
 flinching hope! She had perhaps more glow and less 
 serenity in her soul than Antonia, but she was an un- 
 compromising Puritan of patriotism with no taint of the 
 slightest worldliness in her thoughts. I was not the 
 only one in love with her; but it was I who had to hear 
 oftenest her scathing criticism of my levities—very 
 much like poor Decoud—or stand the brunt of her aus- 
 tere, unanswerable invective. She did not quite un- 
 derstand—but never mind. That afternoon when I 
 came in, a shrinking yet defiant sinner, to say the final 
 good-bye I received a hand-squeeze that made my heart 
 leap and saw a tear that took my breath away. She was 
 softened at the last as though she had suddenly per- 
 ceived (we were such children still!) that I was really 
 going away for good, going very far away—even as far 
 as Sulaco, lying unknown, hidden from our eyes in the 
 darkness of the Placid Gulf. 
 
 That’s why I long sometimes for another glimpse of the 
 “beautiful Antonia” (or can it be the Other?) moving in 
 the dimness of the great cathedral, saying a short prayer 
 at the tomb of the first and last Cardinal-Archbishop of 
 Sulaco, standing absorbed in filial devotion before the 
 monument of Don José Avellanos, and, with a lingering, 
 tender, faithful glance at the medallion-memorial to 
 Martin Decoud, going out serenely into the sunshine of 
 the Plaza with her upright carriage and her white head; 
 a relic of the past disregarded by men awaiting im- 
 patiently the Dawns of other New Eras, the coming of 
 more Revolutions. 
 
 But this is the idlest of dreams; for I did understand 
 
AUTHOR’S NOTE XV 
 
 perfectly well at the time that the moment the breath 
 left the body of the Magnificent Capataz, the Man of 
 the People, freed at last from the toils of love and 
 wealth, there was nothing more for me to do in Sulaco. 
 
 A EN GF 
 October, 1917. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART FIRST 
 
 WA SILVER OF THE MINE’.....-. . © « 3 
 
 PART SECOND 
 
 MEEIGAR ELE Mh! om Oe hae: 135 
 
 PART THIRD 
 
 TEA IGHTHOUSH. Ffuliy se bye os | beh conde Oe 
 
PART FIRST 
 
 THE SILVER OF THE MINE 
 
NOSTROMO 
 
 CHAPTER ONE 
 
 IN THE time of Spanish rule, and for many years after- 
 wards, the town of Sulaco—the luxuriant beauty of the 
 orange gardens bears witness to its antiquity—had 
 never been commercially anything more important than 
 a coasting port with a fairly large local trade in ox-hides 
 and indigo. ‘The clumsy deep-sea galleons of the con- 
 querors that, needing a brisk gale to move at all, would 
 lie becalmed, where your modern ship built on clipper 
 lines forges ahead by the mere flapping of her sails, had 
 been barred out of Sulaco by the prevailing calms of its 
 vast gulf. Some harbours of the earth are made dif- 
 ficult of access by the treachery of sunken rocks and the 
 tempests of their shores. Sulaco had found an in- 
 violable sanctuary from the temptations of a trading 
 world in the solemn hush of the deep Golfo Placido as if 
 within an enormous semi-circular and unroofed temple 
 open to the ocean, with its walls of lofty mountains 
 hung with the mourning draperies of cloud. 
 
 On one side of this broad curve in the straight sea- 
 board of the Republic of Costaguana, the last spur of 
 the coast range forms an insignificant cape whose name 
 is Punta Mala. From the middle of the gulf the point 
 of the land itself is not visible at all; but the shoulder of 
 a steep hill at the back can be made out faintly like a 
 shadow on the sky. 
 
 On the other side, what seems to be an isolated patch 
 
 3 
 
4 NOSTROMO 
 
 of blue mist floats lightly on the glare of the horizon. 
 This is the peninsula of Azuera, a wild chaos of sharp 
 rocks and stony levels cut about by vertical ravines. It 
 lies far out to sea like a rough head of stone stretched 
 from a green-clad coast at the end of a slender neck of 
 sand covered with thickets of thorny scrub. Utterly 
 waterless, for the rainfall runs off at once on all sides 
 into the sea, it has not soil enough—it is said—to grow 
 a single blade of grass, as if it were blighted by a curse. 
 The poor, associating by an obscure instinct of con- 
 solation the ideas of evil and wealth, will tell you that 
 it is deadly because of its forbidden treasures. The 
 common folk of the neighbourhood, peons of the 
 estancias, vaqueros of the seaboard plains, tame Indians 
 coming miles to market with a bundle of sugar-cane 
 or a basket of maize worth about threepence, are well 
 aware that heaps of shining gold lie in the gloom of the 
 deep precipices cleaving the stony levels of Azuera. 
 Tradition has it that many adventurers of olden time had 
 perished in the search. The story goes also that within 
 men’s memory two wandering sailors—Americanos, 
 perhaps, but gringos of some sort for certain—talked 
 over a gambling, good-for-nothing mozo, and the three 
 stole a donkey to carry.for them a bundle of dry sticks, 
 a water-skin, and provisions enough to last a few days. 
 Thus accompanied, and with revolvers at their belts, 
 they had started to chop their way with machetes 
 through the thorny scrub_on the neck of the peninsula. 
 
 On the second evening an upright spiral of smoke (it 
 could only have been from their camp-fire) was seen for 
 the first time within memory of man standing up faintly 
 upon the sky above a razor-backed ridge on the stony 
 head. The crew of a coasting schooner, lying becalmed 
 three miles off the shore, stared at it with amazement 
 till dark. A negro fisherman, living in a lonely hut in a 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 5 
 
 little bay near by, had seen the start and was on the look- 
 out for some sign. He called to his wife just as the sun 
 was about to set. They had watched the strange por- 
 tent with envy, incredulity, and awe. 
 
 The impious adventurers gave no other sign. The 
 sailors, the Indian, and the stolen burro were never 
 seen again. As to the mozo, a Sulaco man—his wife 
 paid for some masses, and the poor four-footed beast, 
 being without sin, had been probably permitted to die; 
 but the two gringos, spectral and alive, are believed to 
 be dwelling to this day amongst the rocks, under the 
 fatal spell of their success. Their souls cannot tear 
 themselves away from their bodies mounting guard over 
 the discovered treasure. ‘They are now rich and hun- 
 gry and thirsty—a strange theory of tenacious gringo 
 ghosts suffering in their starved and parched flesh of 
 defiant heretics, where a Christian would have re- 
 nounced and been released. 
 
 These, then, are the legendary inhabitants of Azuera 
 guarding its forbidden wealth; and the shadow on the 
 sky on one side with the round patch of blue haze 
 blurring the bright skirt of the horizon on the other, 
 mark the two outermost points of the bend which bears 
 the name of Golfo Placido, because never a strong 
 wind had been known to blow upon its waters. 
 
 On crossing the imaginary line drawn from Punta 
 Mala to Azuera the ships from Europe bound to Sulaco 
 lose at once the strong breezes of the ocean. They be- 
 come the prey of capricious airs that play with them for 
 thirty hours at a stretch sometimes. Before them the 
 head of the calm gulf is filled on most days of the year 
 by a great body of motionless and opaque clouds. On 
 the rare clear mornings another shadow is cast upon the 
 sweep of the gulf. The dawn breaks high behind the 
 towering and serrated wall of the Cordillera, a clear-cut 
 
6 NOSTROMO 
 
 vision of dark peaks rearing their steep slopes on a lofty 
 pedestal of forest rising from the very edge of the shore. 
 Amongst them the white head of Higuerota rises 
 majestically upon the blue. Bare clusters of enormous 
 rocks sprinkle with tiny black dots the smooth dome of 
 snow. 
 
 Then, as the midday sun withdraws from the gulf 
 the shadow of the mountains, the clouds begin to roll 
 out of the lower valleys. They swathe in sombre 
 tatters the naked crags of precipices above the wooded 
 slopes, hide the peaks, smoke in stormy trails across the 
 snows of Higuerota. The Cordillera is gone from you 
 as if it had dissolved itself into great piles of grey and 
 black vapours that travel out slowly to seaward and 
 vanish into thin air all along the front before the blazing 
 heat of the day. The wasting edge of the cloud-bank 
 always strives for, but seldom wins, the middle of the 
 gulf. The sun—as the sailors say—is eating it up. 
 Unless perchance a sombre thunder-head breaks away 
 from the main body to career all over the gulf till it 
 escapes into the offing beyond Azuera, where it bursts 
 suddenly into flame and crashes like a sinster pirate- 
 ship of the air, hove-to above the horizon, engaging the 
 sea. 
 
 At night the body of clouds advancing higher up 
 the sky smothers the whole quiet gulf below with an 
 impenetrable darkness, in which the sound of the falling 
 showers can be heard beginning and ceasing abruptly — 
 now here, now there. Indeed, these cloudy nights are 
 proverbial with the seamen along the whole west coast 
 of a great continent. Sky, land, and sea disappear 
 together out of the world when the Placido—as the say- 
 ing is—goes to sleep under its black poncho. The few 
 stars left below the seaward frown of the vault shine 
 feebly as into the mouth of a black cavern. In its 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 7 
 
 vastness your ship floats unseen under your feet, her 
 sails flutter invisible above your head. The eye of God 
 Himself—they add with grim profanity—could not 
 find out what work a man’s hand is doing in there; and 
 you would be free to call the devil to your aid with 
 impunity if even his malice were not defeated by such a 
 blind darkness, 
 
 The shores on the gulf are steep-to all round; three un- 
 inhabited islets basking in the sunshine just outside the 
 cloud veil, and opposite the entrance to the harbour of 
 Sulaco, bear the name of “The Isabels.”’ 
 
 There is the Great Isabel; the Little Isabel, which is 
 round; and Hermosa, which is the smallest. 
 
 That last is no more than a foot high, and about seven 
 paces across, a mere flat top of a grey rock which smokes 
 like a hot cinder after a shower, and where no man 
 would care to venture a naked sole before sunset. On 
 the Little Isabel an old ragged palm, with a thick bulging 
 trunk rough with spines, a very witch amongst palm 
 trees, rustles a dismal bunch of dead leaves above the 
 coarse sand. The Great Isabel has a spring of fresh 
 water issuing from the overgrown side of a ravine. 
 Resembling an emerald green wedge of land a mile long, 
 and laid flat upon the sea, it bears two forest trees stand- 
 ing close together, with a wide spread of shade at the 
 foot of their smooth trunks. A ravine extending the 
 whole length of the island is full of bushes; and pre- 
 senting a deep tangled cleft on the high side spreads it- 
 self out on the other into a shallow depression abutting 
 on a small strip of sandy shore. 
 
 From that low end of the Great Isabel the eye plunges 
 through an opening two miles away, as abrupt as if 
 chopped with an axe out of the regular sweep of the 
 coast, right into the harbour of Sulaco. It is an oblong, 
 lake-like piece of water. On one side the short wooded 
 
8 NOSTROMO 
 
 spurs and valleys of the Cordillera come down at right 
 angles to the very strand; on the other the open view 
 of the great Sulaco plain passes into the opal mystery 
 of great distances overhung by dry haze. ‘The town of 
 Sulaco itself—tops of walls, a great cupola, gleams of 
 white miradors in a vast grove of orange trees—lies 
 between the mountains and the plain, at some little 
 distance from its harbour and out of the direct line of 
 sight from the sea. 
 
CHAPTER TWO 
 
 Tue only sign of commercial activity within the 
 harbour, visible from the beach of the Great Isabel, is 
 the square blunt end of the wooden jetty which the 
 Oceanic Steam Navigation Company (the O.S.N. of 
 familiar speech) had thrown over the shallow part of the 
 bay soon after they had resolved to make of Sulaco one 
 of their ports of call for the Republic of Costaguana. 
 The State possesses several harbours on its long sea- 
 board, but except Cayta, an important place, all are 
 either small and inconvenient inlets in an iron-bound 
 coast—like Esmeralda, for instance, sixty miles to the 
 south—or else mere open roadsteads exposed to the 
 winds and fretted by the surf. 
 
 Perhaps the very atmospheric conditions which had 
 kept away the merchant fleets of bygone ages induced 
 the O.S.N. Company to violate the sanctuary of peace 
 sheltering the calm existence of Sulaco. The variable 
 airs sporting lightly with the vast semicircle of waters 
 within the head of Azuera could not baffle the steam 
 power of their excellent fleet. Year after year the 
 black hulls of their ships had gone up and down 
 the coast, in and out, past Azuera, past the Isabels, 
 past Punta Mala—disregarding everything but the 
 tyranny of time. Their names, the names of all 
 mythology, became the household words of a coast that 
 had never been ruled by the gods of Olympus. The 
 Juno was known only for her comfortable cabins amid- 
 ships, the Saturn for the geniality of her captain and 
 the painted and gilt luxuriousness of her saloon, whereas 
 
 9 
 
10 NOSTROMO 
 
 the Ganymede was fitted out mainly for cattle transport, 
 and to be avoided by coastwise passengers. The 
 humblest Indian in the obscurest village on the coast 
 was familiar with the Cerberus, a little black puffer with- 
 out charm or living accommodation to speak of, whose 
 mission was to creep inshore along the wooded beaches 
 close to mighty ugly rocks, stopping obligingly before 
 every cluster of huts to collect produce, down to three- 
 pound parcels of indiarubber bound in a wrapper of dry 
 grass. 
 
 And as they seldom failed to account for the smaliest 
 package, rarely lost a bullock, and had never drowned 
 a single passenger, the name of the O.S.N. stood 
 very high for trustworthiness. People declared that 
 under the Company’s care their lives and property 
 were safer on the water than in their own houses on 
 shore. 
 
 The O.S.N.’s superintendent in Sulaco for the whole 
 Costaguana section of the service was very proud of his 
 Company’s standing. He resumed it in a saying which 
 was very often on his lips, ““We never make mistakes.” 
 To the Company’s officers it took the form of a severe 
 injunction, “We must make no mistakes. [ll have 
 no mistakes here, no matter what Smith may do at his 
 end.” 
 
 Smith, on whom he had never set eyes in his life, was 
 the other superintendent of the service, quartered some 
 fifteen hundred miles away from Sulaco. “Don’t talk 
 to me of your Smith.” 
 
 Then, calming down suddenly, he would dismiss the 
 subject with studied negligence. 
 
 “Smith knows no more of this continent than a 
 baby.” 
 
 “Our excellent Sefior Mitchell’ for the business and 
 official world of Sulaco; “Fussy Joe”? for the com- 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 11 
 
 sanders of the Company’s ships, Captain Joseph Mit- 
 chell prided himself on his profound knowledge of men 
 end things in the country—cosas de Costaguana. 
 Amongst these last he accounted as most unfavourable 
 to the orderly working of his Company the frequent 
 changes of government brought about by revolutions 
 of the military type. 
 
 The political atmosphere of the Republic was 
 generally stormy in these days. The fugitive patriots of 
 the defeated party had the knack of turning up again on 
 the coast with half a steamer’s load of small arms and 
 ammunition. Such resourcefulness Captain Mitchell 
 zonsidered as perfectly wonderful in view of their utter 
 destitution at the time of flight. He had observed that 
 “they never seemed to have enough change about them 
 to pay for their passage ticket out of the country.” 
 And he could speak with knowledge; for on a memo-- 
 rable occasion he had been called upon to save the life 
 of a dictator, together with the lives of a few Sulaco 
 officials—-the political chief, the director of the customs, 
 and the head of police—belonging to an overturned 
 government. Poor Sefior Ribiera (such was the dic- 
 tator’s name) had come pelting eighty miles over 
 mountain tracks after the lost battle of Socorro, in 
 the hope of out-distancing the fatal news—which, of 
 course, he could not manage todo onalame mule. The 
 animal, moreover, expired under him at the end of the 
 Alameda, where the military band plays sometimes in 
 the evenings between the revolutions. “Sir,’? Captain 
 Mitchell would pursue with portentous gravity, “the 
 ill-timed end of that mule attracted attention to the 
 unfortunate rider. His features were recognized by 
 several deserters from the Dictatorial army amongst the 
 rascally mob already engaged in smashing the windows 
 of the Intendencia.”’ 
 
¥ NOSTROMO 
 
 Early on the morning of that day the local authorities 
 of Sulaco had fled for refuge to the O.S.N. Company’s 
 offices, a strong building near the shore end of the jetty, 
 leaving the town to the mercies of a revolutionary 
 rabble; and as the Dictator was execrated by the 
 populace on account of the severe recruitment law his 
 necessities had compelled him to enforce during the 
 struggle, he stood a good chance of being torn to 
 pieces. Providentially, Nostromo—invaluable fellow 
 —with some Italian workmen, imported to work upon 
 the National Central Railway, was at hand, and 
 managed to snatch him away—for the time at least. 
 Ultimately, Captain Mitchell succeeded in taking every- 
 body off in his own gig to one of the Company’s steamers 
 —it was the Minerva—just then, as luck would have it, 
 entering the harbour. 
 
 He had to lower these gentlemen at the end of a rope 
 out of a hole in the wall at the back, while the mob 
 which, pouring out of the town, had spread itself all along 
 the shore, howled and foamed at the foot of the building 
 in front. He had to hurry them then the whole length 
 of the jetty; it had been a desperate dash, neck or 
 nothing—and again it was Nostromo, a fellow in a 
 thousand, who, at the head, this time, of the Company’s 
 body of lightermen, held the jetty against the rushes of 
 the rabble, thus giving the fugitives time to reach the 
 sig lying ready for them at the other end with the 
 Company’s flag at the stern. Sticks, stones, shots 
 flew; knives, too, were thrown. Captain Mitchell 
 exhibited willingly the long cicatrice of a cut over his 
 left ear and temple, made by a razor-blade fastened to a 
 stick—a weapon, he explained, very much in favour 
 with the “worst kind of nigger out here.” 
 
 Captain Mitchell was a thick, elderly man, wearing 
 high, pointed collars and short side-whiskers, partial to 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 13 
 
 white waistcoats, and really very communicative under 
 his air of pompous reserve. 
 
 ‘These gentlemen,” he would say, staring with great 
 solemnity, “had to run like rabbits, sir. I ran like a 
 rabbit myself. Certain forms of death are—er—dis- 
 tasteful to a—a—er—respectable man. They would 
 have pounded me to death, too. A crazy mob, sir, does 
 not discriminate. Under providence we owed our 
 preservation to my Capataz de Cargadores, as they 
 called him in the town, a man who, when I discovered 
 his value, sir, was just the bos’n of an Italian ship, a 
 big Genoese ship, one of the few European ships that 
 ever came to Sulaco with a general cargo before the 
 building of the National Central. He left her on 
 account of some very respectable friends he made here, 
 his own countrymen, but also, I suppose, to better him- 
 self. Sir, I am a pretty good judge of character. I 
 engaged him to be the foreman of our lightermen, and 
 caretaker of our jetty. That’s all that he was. But. 
 without him Sefior Ribiera would have been a dead 
 man. This Nostromo, sir, a man absolutely above 
 reproach, became the terror of all the thieves in the 
 town. We were infested, infested, overrun, sir, here at 
 that time by ladrones and matreros, thieves and 
 murderers from the whole province. On this occasion 
 they had been flocking into Sulaco for a week past. 
 They had scented the end, sir. Fifty per cent. of that 
 murdering mob were professional bandits from the 
 Campo, sir, but there wasn’t one that hadn’t heard of 
 Nostromo. As to the town leperos, sir, the sight of his 
 black whiskers and white teeth was enough for them. 
 They quailed before him, sir. That’s what the force of 
 character will do for you.” 
 
 It could very well be said that it was Nostromo alone 
 who saved the lives of these gentlemen. Captain Mit- 
 
14 NOSTROMO 
 
 chell, on his part, never left them till he had seen them 
 collapse, panting, terrified, and exasperated, but safe, on 
 the luxuriant velvet sofas in the first-class saloon of the 
 Minerva. To the very last he had been careful to ad- 
 dress the ex-Dictator as “ Your Excellency.” 
 
 “Sir, I could do no other. The man was down— 
 ghastly, livid, one mass of scratches.”’ 
 
 The Minerva never let go her anchor that call. The 
 superintendent ordered her out of the harbour at once. 
 No cargo could be landed, of course, and the passengers 
 for Sulaco naturally refused to go ashore. They could 
 hear the firing and see plainly the fight going on at the 
 edge of the water. The repulsed mob devoted its 
 energies to an attack upon the Custom House, a dreary, 
 unfinished-looking structure with many windows two 
 hundred yards away from the O.S.N. Offices, and the 
 only other building near the harbour. Captain Mit- 
 chell, after directing the commander of the Minerva 
 to land “these gentlemen”’ in the first port of call out- 
 side Costaguana, went back in his gig to see what could 
 be done for the protection of the Company’s property. 
 That and the property of the railway were preserved by 
 the European residents; that is, by Captain Mitchell 
 himself and the staff of engineers building the road, 
 aided by the Italian and Basque workmen who rallied 
 faithfully round their English chiefs. "The Company’s 
 lightermen, too, natives of the Republic, behaved very 
 well under their Capataz. An outcast lot of very mixed 
 blood, mainly negroes, everlastingly at feud with the 
 other customers of low grog shops in the town, they 
 embraced with delight this opportunity to settle their 
 personal scores under such favourable auspices. There 
 was not one of them that had not, at some time or 
 other, looked with terror at Nostromo’s revolver poked 
 very close at his face, or been otherwise daunted by 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 15 
 
 Nostromo’s resolution. He was ‘‘much of a man,” 
 their Capataz was, they said, too scornful in his temper 
 ever to utter abuse, a tireless taskmaster, and the more 
 to be feared because of his aloofness. And behold! 
 there he was that day, at their head, condescending to 
 make jocular remarks to this man or the other. 
 
 Such leadership was inspiriting, and in truth all the 
 harm the mob managed to achieve was to set fire to one 
 —only one—stack of railway-sleepers, which, being 
 creosoted, burned well. The main attack on the rail- 
 way yards, on the O.S.N. Offices, and especially on the 
 Custom House, whose strong room, it was well known, 
 contained a large treasure in silver ingots, failed com- 
 pletely. Even the little hotel kept by old Giorgio, 
 standing alone halfway between the harbour and the 
 town, escaped looting and destruction, not by a miracle, 
 but because with the safes in view they had neglected it 
 at first, and afterwards found no leisure to stop. Nos- 
 tromo, with his Cargadores, was pressing them too hard 
 
 then. 
 
CHAPTER THREE 
 
 Ir micut have been said that there he was only pro- 
 tecting his own. From the first he had been admitted . 
 to live in the intimacy of the family of the hotel-keeper 
 who was a countryman of his. Old Giorgio Viola, a 
 Genoese with a shaggy white leonine head—often called 
 simply “the Garibaldino” (as Mohammedans are 
 called after their prophet)—was, to use Captain Mit- 
 chell’s own words, the “‘respectable married friend” by 
 whose advice Nostromo had left his ship to try for a run 
 of shore luck in Costaguana. 
 
 The old man, full of scorn for the populace, as your 
 austere republican so often is, had disregarded the 
 preliminary sounds of trouble. He went on that day 
 as usual pottering about the “casa”’ in his slippers, 
 muttering angrily to himself his contempt of the non- 
 political nature of the riot, and shrugging his shoulders. 
 In the end he was taken unawares by the out-rush of 
 the rabble. It was too late then to remove his family. 
 and, indeed, where could he have run to with the portly 
 Signora Teresa and two little girls on that great plain? 
 So, barricading every opening, the old man sat down 
 sternly in the middle of the darkened café with an old 
 shot-gun on his knees. His wife sat on another chair by 
 his side, muttering pious invocations to all the saints of 
 the calendar. 
 
 The old republican did not believe im saints, or in 
 prayers, or in what he called “priest’s religion.” 
 liberty and Garibaldi were his divinities; but he 
 
 16 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 17 
 
 tolerated “superstition” in women, preserving in these 
 matters a lofty and silent attitude. 
 
 His two girls, the eldest fourteen, and the other two 
 years younger, crouched on the sanded floor, on each 
 side of the Signora Teresa, with their heads on their 
 mother’s lap, both scared, but each in her own way, the 
 dark-haired Linda indignant and angry, the fair Giselle, 
 the younger, bewildered and resigned. The Patrona 
 removed her arms, which embraced her daughters, for a 
 moment to cross herself and wring her hands hurriedly. 
 She moaned a little louder. 
 
 “Oh! Gian’ Battista, why art thou not here? Oh! 
 why art thou not here?”’ 
 
 She was not then invoking the saint himself, but 
 calling upon Nostromo, whose patron he was. And 
 Giorgio, motionless on the chair by her side, would bc: 
 provoked by these reproachful and distracted appeals. 
 
 “Peace, woman! Where’s the sense of it? There’s 
 his duty,’ he murmured in the dark; and she would 
 retort, panting— 
 
 “Eh! I have no patience. Duty! What of the 
 woman who has been like a mother to him? I bent my 
 knee to him this morning; don’t you go out, Gian’ 
 Battista—stop in the house, Battistino—look at those 
 two little innocent children!”’ 
 
 Mrs. Viola was an Italian, too, a native of Spezzia, 
 and though considerably younger than her husband, 
 already middle-aged. She had a handsome face, whose 
 complexion had turned yellow because the climate of 
 Sulaco did not suit her at all. Her voice was a rich 
 contralto. When, with her arms folded tight under her 
 ample bosom, she scolded the squat, thick-legged China 
 girls handling linen, plucking fowls, pounding corn in 
 wooden mortars amongst the mud outbuildings at the 
 back of the house, she could bring out such an im- 
 
18 NOSTROMO 
 
 passioned, vibrating, sepulchral note that the chained 
 watch-dog bolted into his kennel with a great rattle. 
 Luis, a cinnamon-coloured mulatto with a sprouting 
 moustache and thick, dark lips, would stop sweeping the 
 café with a broom of palm-leaves to let a gentle shudder 
 run down his spine. His languishing almond eyes 
 would remain clesed for a long time. 
 
 This was the staff of the Casa Viola, but all these 
 people had fled early that morning at the first sounds 
 of the riot, preferring to hide on the plain rather than 
 trust themselves in the house; a preference for which 
 they were in no way to blame, since, whether true or not, 
 it was generally believed in the town that the Garibal- 
 dino had some money buried under the clay floor of the 
 kitchen. The dog, an irritable, shaggy brute, barked 
 violently and whined plaintively in turns at the back, 
 running in and out of his kennel as rage or fear prompted 
 him. 
 
 Bursts of great shouting rose and died away, like wild 
 gusts of wind on the plain round the barricaded house; 
 the fitful popping of shots grew louder abovethe yelling. 
 Sometimes there were intervals of unaccountable still- 
 ness outside, and nothing could have been more gaily 
 peaceful than the narrow bright lines of sunlight from 
 the cracks in the shutters, ruled straight across the 
 café over the disarranged chairs and tables to the wall 
 opposite. Old Giorgio had chosen that bare, white- 
 washed room for a retreat. It had only one window, 
 and its only door swung out upon the track of thick 
 dust fenced by aloe hedges between the harbour and 
 the town, where clumsy carts used to creak along behind 
 slow yokes of oxen guided by boys on horseback. 
 
 In a pause of stillness Giorgio cocked his gun. The 
 ominous sound wrung a low moan from the rigid figure 
 of the woman sitting by his side. A sudden outbreak 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 19 
 
 of defiant yelling quite near the house sank all at once 
 to a confused murmur of growls. Somebody ran along; 
 the loud catching of his breath was heard for an instant 
 passing the door; there were hoarse mutters and foot- 
 steps near the wall; a shoulder rubbed against the 
 shutter, effacing the bright lines of sunshine pencilled 
 across the whole breadth of the room. Signora Teresa’s 
 arms thrown about the kneeling forms of her daughters 
 embraced them closer with a convulsive pressure. 
 
 The mob, driven away from the Custom House, had 
 broken up into several bands, retreating across the plain 
 in the direction of the town. The subdued crash of 
 irregular volleys fired in the distance was answered by 
 faint yells far away. In the intervals the single shots 
 rang feebly, and the low, long, white building blinded in 
 every window seemed to be the centre of a turmoil 
 widening in a great circle about its closed-up silence. 
 But the cautious movements and whispers of a routed 
 party seeking a momentary shelter behind the wall 
 made the darkness of the room, striped by threads of 
 quiet sunlight, alight with evil, stealthy sounds. The 
 Violas had them in their ears as though invisible 
 ghosts hovering about their chairs had consulted in 
 mutters as to the advisability of setting fire to this 
 foreigner’s casa. 
 
 It was trying to the nerves, Old Viola had risen 
 slowly, gun in hand, irresolute, for he did not see how he 
 could prevent them. Already voices could be heard 
 talking at the back. Signora Teresa was beside herself 
 with terror. 
 
 “Ah! the traitor! the traitor!’’? she mumbled, almost 
 inaudibly. “Now we are going to be burnt; and I 
 bent my knee to him. No! he must run at the heels of 
 his English.” 
 
 She seemed to think that Nostromo’s mere presence 
 
20 NOSTRKOMO 
 
 in the house would have made it perfectly safe. So far, 
 she, too, was under the spell of that reputation the Capa- 
 taz de Cargadores had made for himself by the water- 
 side, along the railway line, with the English and with 
 the populace of Sulaco. To his face, and even against 
 her husband, she invariably affected to laugh it to scorn, 
 sometimes good-naturedly, more often with a curious 
 bitterness. But then women are unreasonable in their 
 opinions, as Giorgio used to remark calmly on fitting 
 occasions. On this occasion, with his gun held at 
 ready before him, he stooped down to his wife’s head, 
 and, keeping his eyes steadfastly on the barricaded 
 door, he breathed out into her ear that Nostromo would 
 have been powerless to help. What could two men 
 shut up in a house do against twenty or more bent upon 
 setting fire to the roof? Gian’ Battista was thinking of 
 the casa all the time, he was sure. | 
 
 “He think of the casa! He!” gasped Signora Viola, 
 crazily. She struck her breast with her open hands. 
 “IT know him. He thinks of nobody but himself.’ 
 
 A discharge of firearms near by made her throw her 
 head back and close her eyes. Old Giorgio set his 
 teeth hard under his white moustache, and his eyes be- 
 gan to roll fiercely. Several bullets struck the end of 
 the wall together; pieces of plaster could be heard 
 falling outside; a voice screamed “Here they come!” 
 and after a moment of uneasy silence there was a rush 
 of running feet along the front. 
 
 Then the tension of old Giorgio’s attitude relaxed, 
 and a smile of contemptuous relief came upon his lips 
 of an old fighter with a leonine face. These were not a 
 people striving for justice, but thieves. Even to de- 
 fend his life against them was a sort of degradation for 
 a man who had been one of Garibaldi’s immortal 
 thousand in the conquest of Sicily. He had an im- 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 21 
 
 mense scorn for this outbreak of scoundrels and leperos, 
 who did not know the meaning of the word “liberty.” 
 
 He grounded his old gun, and, turning his head, 
 glanced at the coloured lithograph of Garibaldi in a 
 black frame on the white wall; a thread of strong sun- 
 shine cut it perpendicularly. Huis eyes, accustomed to 
 the luminous twilight, made out the high colouring of 
 the face, the red of the shirt, the outlines of the square 
 shoulders, the black patch of the Bersagliere hat with 
 cock’s feathers curling over the crown. An immortal 
 hero! ‘This was your liberty; it gave you not only life, 
 but immortality as well! 
 
 For that one man his fanaticism had suffered no 
 diminution. In the moment of relief from the ap- 
 prehension of the greatest danger, perhaps, his family 
 had been exposed to in all their wanderings, he had 
 turned to the picture of his old chief, first and only, 
 then laid his hand on his wife’s shoulder. 
 
 The children kneeling on the floor had not moved. 
 Signora Teresa opened her eyes a little, as though he 
 had awakened her from a very deep and dreamless 
 slumber. Before he had time in his deliberate way to 
 say a reassuring word she jumped up, with the children 
 clinging to her, one on each side, gasped for breath, and 
 Jet out a hoarse shriek. 
 
 It was simultaneous with the bang of a violent blow 
 struck on the outside of the shutter. They could hear 
 suddenly the snorting of a horse, the restive tramping of 
 hoofs on the narrow, hard path in front of the house; the 
 toe of a boot struck at the shutter again; a spur jingled 
 at every blow, and an excited voice shouted, “Hola! 
 hola, in there!” 
 
CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 Aut the morning Nostromo had kept his eye from afar 
 on the Casa Viola, even in the thick of the hottest scrim- 
 mage near the Custom House. “If I see smoke rising 
 over there,’ he thought to himself, “they are lost.” 
 Directly the mob had broken he pressed with a small 
 band of Italian workmen in that direction, which, in- 
 deed, was the shortest line towards the town. That 
 part of the rabble he was pursuing seemed to think of 
 making a stand under the house; a volley fired by his 
 followers from behind an aloe hedge made the rascals 
 fly. In a gap chopped out for the rails of the harbour 
 branch line Nostromo appeared, mounted on _ his 
 silver-grey mare. He shouted, sent after them one 
 shot from his revolver, and galloped up to the café 
 window. He had an idea that old Giorgio would 
 choose that part of the house for a refuge. 
 
 His voice had penetrated to them, sounding breath- 
 lessly hurried: “Hola! Vecchio! O, Vecchio! Is it all 
 well with you in there?”’ 
 
 “You see > murmured old Viola to his wife. 
 
 Signora Teresa was silent now. Outside Nostromo 
 laughed. 
 
 ‘“T can hear the padrona is not dead.” 
 
 ‘You have done your best to kill me with fear,” cried 
 Signora Teresa. She wanted to say something more, 
 but her voice failed her. 
 
 Linda raised her eyes to her face for a moment, but 
 old Giorgio shouted apologetically— 
 
 She is a little upset.” 
 
 22 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 23 
 
 Outside Nostromo shouted back with another 
 laugh— 
 
 “She cannot upset me.”’ 
 
 Signora Teresa found her voice. 
 
 “It is what I say. You have no heart—and you 
 have no conscience, Gian’ Battista u 
 
 They heard him wheel his horse away from the 
 shutters. The party he led were babbling excitedly in 
 Italian and Spanish, inciting each other to the pursuit. 
 He put himself at their head, crying, “Avanti!”’ 
 
 “He has not stopped very long with us. There is no 
 praise from strangers to be got here,” Signora Teresa 
 said, tragically. “Avanti! Yes! That is all he cares 
 for. To be first somewhere—somehow—to be first 
 with these English. They will be showing him to 
 everybody. “This is our Nostromo!” She laughed 
 ominously. “What a name! What is that? Nos- 
 tromo? He would take a name that is properly no 
 word from them.” 
 
 Meantime Giorgio, with tranquil movements, had 
 been unfastening the door; the flood of light fell on 
 Signora Teresa, with her two girls gathered to her side, 
 a picturesque woman in a pose of maternal exaltation. 
 Behind her the wall was dazzlingly white, and the 
 crude colours of the Garibaldi lithograph paled in the 
 sunshine. 
 
 Old Viola, at the door, moved his arm upwards as if 
 referring all his quick, fleeting thoughts to the picture 
 of his old chief on the wall. Even when he was cooking 
 for the “Signori Inglesi’—the engineers (he was a 
 famous cook, though the kitchen was a dark place)—he 
 was, as it were, under the eye of the great man who had 
 led him in a glorious struggle where, under the walls 
 of Gaeta, tyranny would have expired for ever had it not 
 been for that accursed Piedmontese race of kings and 
 
24 NOSTROMO 
 
 ministers. When sometimes a frying-pan caught fire 
 during a delicate operation with some shredded onions, 
 and the old man was seen backing out of the doorway, 
 swearing and coughing violently in an acrid cloud of 
 smoke, the name of Cavour—the arch intriguer sold to 
 kings and tyrants—could be heard involved in im- 
 precations against the China girls, cooking in general, 
 and the brute of a country where he was reduced to live 
 for the love of liberty that traitor had strangled. 
 
 Then Signora Teresa, all in black, issuing from 
 another door, advanced, portly and anxious, inclining 
 her fine, black-browed head, opening her arms, and 
 crying in a profound tone— 
 
 “Giorgio! thou passionate man! Misericordia 
 Divina! In the sun like this! He will make himself 
 Wn 
 
 At her feet the hens made off in all directions, with 
 immense strides; if there were any engineers from up 
 the line staying in Sulaco, a young English face or two 
 would appear at the billiard-room occupying one end of 
 the house; but at the other end, in the café, Luis, the 
 mulatto, took good care not to show himself. The 
 Indian girls, with hair like flowing black manes, and 
 dressed only in a shift and short petticoat, stared dully 
 from under the square-cut fringes on their foreheads; 
 the noisy frizzling of fat had stopped, the fumes floated 
 upwards in sunshine, a strong smell of burnt onions 
 hung in the drowsy heat, enveloping the house; and the 
 eye lost itself in a vast flat expanse of grass to the west, 
 as if the plain between the Sierra overtopping Sulaco 
 and the coast range away there towards Esmeralda had 
 been as big as half the world. 
 
 Signora Teresa, after an impressive pause, remon- 
 strated— 
 
 “Eh, Giorgio! Leave Cavour alone and take care of 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 25 
 
 yourself now we are lost in this country all alone 
 with the two children, because you cannot live under a 
 king.” 
 
 And while she looked at him she would sometimes put 
 her hand hastily to her side with a short twitch of her 
 fine lips and a knitting of her black, straight eyebrows 
 like a flicker of angry pain or an angry thought on her 
 handsome, regular features. 
 
 It was pain; she suppressed the twinge. It had come 
 to her first a few years after they had left Italy to emi- 
 grate to America and settle at last in Sulaco after 
 wandering from town to town, trying shopkeeping in a 
 small way here and there; and once an organized enter- 
 prise of fishing—in Maldonado—for Giorgio, like the 
 great Garibaldi, had been a sailor in his time. 
 
 Sometimes she had no patience with pain. For years 
 its gnawing had been part of the landscape embracing 
 the glitter of the harbour under the-wooded spurs of the 
 range; and the sunshine itself was heavy and dull— 
 heavy with pain—not like the sunshine of her girlhood, 
 in which middle-aged Giorgio had wooed her gravely 
 and passionately on the shores of the gulf of Spezzia. 
 
 “You go in at once, Giorgio,” she directed. “One 
 would think you do not wish to have any pity on me— 
 with four Signori Inglesi staying in the house.” 
 
 “Va bene, va bene,”’ Giorgio would mutter. 
 
 He obeyed. The Signori Inglesi would require their 
 midday meal presently. He had been one cf the 
 immortal and invincible band of liberators who had 
 made the mercenaries of tyranny fly like chaff before a 
 hurricane, “un uragano terribile.”” But that was before 
 he was married and had children; and before tyranny 
 had reared its head again amongst the traitors who had 
 imprisoned Garibaldi, his hero. . 
 
 There were three doors in the front of the house, and 
 
26 NOSTROMO 
 
 each afternoon the Garibaldino could be seen at one or 
 another of them with his big bush of white hair, his 
 arms folded, his legs crossed, leaning back his leonine 
 head against the side, and looking up the wooded 
 slopes of the foothills at the snowy dome of Higuerota. 
 The front of his house threw off a black long rectangle 
 of shade, broadening slowly over the soft ox-cart track. 
 Through the gaps, chopped out in the oleander hedges, 
 the harbour branch railway, laid out temporarily on the 
 tevel of the plain, curved away its shining parallel rib- 
 bons on a belt of scorched and withered grass within 
 sixty yards of the end of the house. In the evening 
 the empty material trains of flat cars circled round the 
 dark green grove of Sulaco, and ran, undulating slightly 
 with white jets of steam, over the plain towards the 
 Casa Viola, on their way to the railway yards by 
 the harbour. The Italian drivers saluted him from the 
 foot-plate with raised hand, while the negro brakesmen 
 sat carelessly on the brakes, looking straight forward, 
 with the rims of their big hats flapping in the wind. In 
 return Giorgio would give a slight sideways jerk of the 
 head, without unfolding his arms. 
 
 On this memorable day of the riot his arms were not 
 folded on his chest. His hand grasped the barrel of the 
 gun grounded on the threshold; he did not look up once 
 at the white dome of Higuerota, whose cool purity 
 seemed to hold itself aloof from a hot earth. His eyes 
 examined the plain curiously. ‘Tall trails of dust sub- 
 sided here and there. In a speckless sky the sun hung 
 clear and blinding. Knots of men ran headlong; others 
 made a stand; and the irregular rattle of firearms 
 came rippling to his ears in the fiery, still air. Single 
 figures on foot raced desperately. Horsemen galloped 
 towards each other, wheeled round together, separated 
 at speed. Giorgio saw one fall, rider and horse dis- 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 27 
 
 appearing as if they had galloped into a chasm, and the 
 movements of the animated scene were like the passages 
 of a violent game played upon the plain by dwarfs 
 mounted and on foot, yelling with tiny throats, under 
 the mountain that seemed a colossal embodiment of 
 silence. Never before had Giorgio seen this bit of plain 
 so full of active life; his gaze could not take in all its 
 details at once; he shaded his eyes with his hand, till 
 suddenly tke thundering of many hoofs near by startled 
 him. 
 
 A troop of horses had broken out of the fenced pad- 
 dock of the Railway Company. ‘They came on like a 
 whirlwind, and dashed over the line snorting, kicking, 
 squealing in a compact, piebald, tossing mob of bay, 
 brown, grey backs, eyes staring, necks extended, nos- 
 trils red, long tails streaming. As soon as they had 
 leaped upon the road the thick dust flew upwards from 
 under their hoofs, and within six yards of Giorgio only 
 a brown cloud with vague forms of necks and cruppers 
 rolled by, making the soil tremble on its passage. 
 
 Viola coughed, turning his face away from the dust, 
 and shaking his head slightly. 
 
 “There will be some horse-catching to be done before 
 to-night,’ he muttered. 
 
 In the square of sunlight falling through the door 
 Signora Teresa, kneeling before the chair, had bowed 
 her head, heavy with a twisted mass of ebony hair 
 streaked with silver, into the palm of her hands. The 
 black lace shawl she used to drape about her face had 
 dropped to the ground by her side. The two girls had 
 got up, hand-in-hand, in short skirts, their loose hair 
 falling in disorder. The younger had thrown her arm 
 across her eyes, as if afraid to face the light. Linda, 
 with her hand on the other’s shoulder, stared fearlessly. 
 Viola looked at his children. 
 
28 NOSTROMO 
 
 The sun brought out the deep lines on his face, and, 
 energetic in expression, it had the immobility of a 
 carving. It was impossible to discover what he thought. 
 Bushy grey eyebrows shaded his dark glance. 
 
 “Well! And do you not pray like your mother?” 
 
 Linda pouted, advancing her red lips, which were 
 almost too red; but she had admirable eyes, brown, with 
 a sparkle of gold in the irises, full of intelligence and 
 meaning, and so clear that they seemed to throw a glow 
 upon her thin, colourless face. There were bronze 
 glints in the sombre clusters of her hair, and the eye- 
 lashes, long and coal black, made her complexion appear 
 still more pale. 
 
 “Mother is going to offer up a lot of candles in the 
 church. She always does when Nostromo has been 
 away fighting. I shall have some to carry up to the 
 Chapel of the Madonna in the Cathedral.” 
 
 She said all this quickly, with great assurance, in an 
 animated, penetrating voice. Then, giving her sister’s 
 shoulder a slight shake, she added— 
 
 **And she will be made to carry one, too!”’ 
 
 “Why made?” inquired Giorgio, gravely. “Does 
 she not want to?”’ 
 
 “She is timid,” said Linda, with a little burst of 
 laughter. “People notice her fair hair as she goes along 
 with us. They call out after her, “Look at the Rubia! 
 Look at the Rubiacita!’ They call out in the streets. 
 She is timid.” 
 
 “And you? You are not timid—eh?” the father 
 pronounced, slowly. 
 
 She tossed back all her dark hair. 
 
 “Nobody calls out after me.” 
 
 Old Giorgio contemplated his children thoughtfully. 
 There was two years difference between them. They 
 Nad been born to him late, years after the boy had died. 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 29 
 
 Had he lived he would have been nearly as old as 
 Gian’ Battista—he whom the English called Nostromo; 
 but as to his daughters, the severity of his temper, his 
 advancing age, his absorption in his memories, had pre- 
 vented his taking much notice of them. He loved his 
 children, but girls belong more to the mother, and much 
 of his affection had been expended in the worship and 
 service of liberty. 
 
 When quite a youth he had deserted from a ship trad- 
 ing to La Plata, to enlist in the navy of Montevideo, 
 then under the command of Garibaldi. Afterwards, 
 in the Ftalian legion of the Republic struggling against 
 the encroaching tyranny of Rosas, he had taken part, 
 on great plains, on the banks of immense rivers, in the 
 fiercest fighting perhaps the world had ever known. 
 He had lived amongst men who had declaimed about 
 liberty, suffered for liberty, died for liberty, with a 
 desperate exaltation, and with their eyes turned 
 towards an oppressed Italy. His own enthusiasm had 
 been fed on scenes of carnage, on the examples of lofty 
 devotion, on the din of armed struggle, on the inflamed 
 language of proclamations. He had never parted from 
 the chief of his choice—the fiery apostle of independence 
 —keeping by his side in America and in Italy till after 
 the fatal day of Aspromonte, when the treachery of 
 kings, emperors, and ministers had been revealed to the 
 world in the wounding and imprisonment of his hero—a 
 catastrophe that had instilled into him a gloomy doubt 
 of ever being able to understand the ways of Divine 
 justice. | 
 
 He did not deny it, however. It required patience, 
 he would say. Though he disliked priests, and would 
 not put his foot inside a church for anything, he believed 
 in God. Were not the proclamations against tyrants 
 addressed to the peoples in the name of God and liberty? 
 
30 NOSTROMO 
 
 “God for men—religions for women,” he muttered 
 sometimes. In Sicily, an Englishman who had turned 
 up in Palermo after its evacuation by the army of the 
 king, had given him a Bible in Italian—the publication 
 of the British and Foreign Bible Society, bound in a 
 dark leather cover. In periods of political adversity, 
 in the pauses of silence when the revolutionists issued 
 no proclamations, Giorgio earned his living with the 
 first work that came to hand—as sailor, as dock labourer 
 on the quays of Genoa, once as a hand on a farm in 
 the hills above Spezzia—and in his spare time he 
 studied the thick volume. He carried it with him into 
 battles. Now it was his only reading, and in order not 
 to be deprived of it (the print was small) he had con- 
 sented to accept the present of a pair of silver-mounted 
 spectacles from Sefiora Emilia Gould, the wife of 
 the Englishman who managed the silver mine in 
 the mountains three leagues from the town. She was 
 the only Englishwoman in Sulaco. 
 
 Giorgio Viola had a great consideration for the 
 English. This feeling, born on the battlefields of 
 Uruguay, was forty years old at the very least. Several 
 of them had poured their blood for the cause of freedom 
 in America, and the first he had ever known he re- 
 membered by the name of Samuel; he commanded a 
 negro company under Garibaldi, during the famous 
 siege of Montevideo, and died heroically with his 
 negroes at the fording of the Boyana. He, Giorgia, had 
 reached the rank of ensign—alferez—and cooked for the 
 general. Later, in Italy, he, with the rank of lieutenant, 
 rode with the staff and still cooked for the general. He 
 had cooked for him in Lombardy through the whole 
 campaign; on the march to Rome he had lassoed his 
 beef in the Campagna after the American manner; he 
 had been wounded in the defence of the Roman Re- 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE Bl 
 
 public; he was one of the four fugitives who, with the 
 general, carried out of the woods the inanimate body of 
 the general’s wife into the farmhouse where she died, 
 exhausted by the hardships of that terrible retreat. 
 He had survived that disastrous time to attend his 
 general in Palermo when the Neapolitan shells from the 
 castle crashed upon the town. He had cooked for him 
 on the field of Volturno after fighting all day. And 
 everywhere he had seen Englishmen in the front rank 
 of the army of freedom. He respected their nation be- 
 cause they loved Garibaldi. Their very countesses 
 and princesses had kissed the general’s hands in London, 
 it was said. He could well believe it; for the nation was 
 noble, and the man was a saint. It was enough to look 
 once at his face to see the divine force of faith in him 
 and his great pity for all that was poor, suffering, and 
 cppressed in this world. 
 
 The spirit of self-forgetfulness, the simple devotion to 
 a vast humanitarian idea which inspired the thought 
 and stress of that revolutionary time, had left its mark 
 upon Giorgio in a sort of austere contempt for all 
 personal advantage. This man, whom the lowest class 
 in Sulaco suspected of having a buried hoard in his 
 kitchen, had all his life despised money. The leaders of 
 his youth had lived poor, had died poor. It had been a 
 habit of his mind to disregard to-morrow. It was 
 engendered partly by an existence of excitement, 
 adventure, and wild warfare. But mostly it was a 
 matter of principle. It did not resemble the careless- 
 ness of a condottiere, it was a puritanism of conduct, 
 born of stern enthusiasm like the puritanism of religion. 
 
 This stern devotion to a cause had cast a gloom upon 
 Giorgio’s old age. It cast a gloom because the cause 
 seemed lost. Too many kings and emperors flourished 
 yet in the world which God had meant for the people. 
 
32 NOSTROMO 
 
 He was sad because of his simplicity. Though always 
 ready to help his countrymen, and greatly respected by 
 the Italian emigrants wherever he lived (in his exile he 
 called it), he could not conceal from himself that they 
 cared nothing for the wrongs of down-trodden nations. 
 They listened to his tales of war readily, but seemed to 
 ask themselves what he had got out of it after all. 
 There was nothing that they could see. “We wanted 
 nothing, we suffered for the love of all humanity!” he 
 cried out furiously sometimes, and the powerful voice, 
 the blazing eyes, the shaking of the white mane, the 
 brown, sinewy hand pointing upwards as if to cali 
 heaven to witness, impressed his hearers. After the old 
 man had broken off abruptly with a jerk of the head and 
 a movement of the arm, meaning clearly, “But what's 
 the good of talking to you?” they nudged each other. 
 There was in old Giorgio an energy of feeling, a personal 
 quality of conviction, something they called “terri- 
 bilita °*°—“‘an old lion,” they used to say of him. Some 
 slight incident, a chance word would set him off talking 
 on the beach to the Italian fishermen of Maldonado, in 
 the little shep he kept afterwards (in Valparaiso) to his 
 countrymen customers; of an evening, suddenly, in the 
 café at one end of the Casa Viola (the other was re- 
 served for the English engineers) to the select clzenteéle of 
 engine-drivers and foremen of the railway shops. 
 
 With their handsome, bronzed, lean faces, shiny 
 black ringlets, glistening eyes, broad-chested, bearded, 
 sometimes a tiny gold ring in the lobe of the ear, 
 the aristocracy of the railway works listened to him, 
 turning away from their cards or dominoes. Here 
 and there a fair-haired Basque studied his hand 
 meantime, waiting without protest. No native of 
 Costaguana intruded there. This was the Italian 
 stronghold. Even the Sulaco policemen on a night 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 33 
 
 patrol let their horses pace softly by, bending low in the 
 saddle to glance through the window at the heads in a 
 fog of smoke; and the drone of old Giorgio’s declamatory 
 narrative seemed to sink behind them into the plain. 
 Only now and then the assistant of the chief of police, 
 some broad-faced, brown little gentleman, with a great 
 deal of Indian in him, would put in an appearance. 
 Leaving his man outside with the horses he advanced 
 with a confident, sly smile, and without a word up to the 
 long trestle table. He pointed to one of the bottles 
 on the shelf; Giorgio, thrusting his pipe into his mouth 
 abruptly, served him in person. Nothing would be 
 heard but the slight jingle of the spurs. His glass 
 emptied, he would take a leisurely, scrutinizing look all 
 round the room, go out, and ride away slowly, vient 
 towards the town. 
 
CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 IN THIS way only was the power of the local authori- 
 ties vindicated amongst the great body of strong- 
 limbed foreigners who dug the earth, blasted the 
 rocks, drove the engines for the “progressive and 
 patriotic undertaking.” In these very words eighteen 
 months before the Excellentissimo Sefior don Vincente 
 Ribiera, the Dictator of Costaguana, had described the 
 National Central Railway in his great speech at the 
 turning of the first sod. 
 
 He had come on purpose to Sulaco, and there was a 
 one-o clock dinner-party, a convité offered by the O.S.N. 
 Company on board the Juno after the function on shore. 
 Captain Mitchell had himself steered the cargo lighter, 
 all draped with flags, which, in tow of the Juno’s steam 
 launch, took the Excellentissimo from the jetty to the 
 ship. Everybody of note in Sulaco had been invited— 
 the one or two foreign merchants, all the representatives 
 of the old Spanish families then in town, the great 
 owners of estates on the plain, grave, courteous, simple 
 men, caballeros of pure descent, with small hands and 
 feet, conservative, hospitable, and kind. The Oc- 
 cidental Province was their stronghold; their Blanco 
 party had triumphed now; it was their President- 
 Dictator, a Blanco of the Blancos, who sat smiling 
 urbanely between the representatives of two friendly 
 foreign powers. They had come with him from Sta. 
 Marta to countenance by their presence the enterprise 
 in which the capital of their countries was engaged. 
 
 The only lady of that company was Mrs. Gould, the 
 
 34 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 35 
 
 wife of Don Carlos, the administrator of the San Tomé 
 silver mine. The ladies of Sulaco were not advanced 
 enough to take part in the public life to that extent. 
 They had come out strongly at the great ball at the 
 Intendencia the evening before, but Mrs. Gould alone 
 had appeared, a bright spot in the group of black coats 
 behind the President-Dictator, on the crimson cloth- 
 covered stage erected under a shady tree on the shore 
 of the harbour, where the ceremony of turning the first 
 sod had taken place. She had come off in the cargo 
 lighter, full of notabilities, sitting under the flutter of 
 gay flags, in the place of honour by the side of Captain 
 Mitchell, who steered, and her clear dress gave the only 
 truly festive note to the sombre gathering in the long, 
 gorgeous saloon of the Juno. 
 
 The head of the chairman of the railway board (from 
 London), handsome and pale in a silvery mist of white 
 hair and clipped beard, hovered near her shoulder 
 attentive, smiling, and fatigued. The journey from 
 London to Sta. Marta in mail boats and the special 
 carriages of the Sta. Marta coast-line (the only railway 
 so far) had been tolerable—even pleasant—quite toler- 
 able. But the trip over the mountains to Sulaco was 
 another sort of experience, in an old diligencia over 1m- 
 passable roads skirting awful precipices. 
 
 “We have been upset twice in one day on the brink of 
 very deep ravines,” he was telling Mrs. Gould in an 
 undertone. ‘And when we arrived here at last I don’t 
 know what we should have done without your hos- 
 pitality. What an out-of-the-way place Sulaco is!— 
 and for a harbour, too! Astonishing!”’ 
 
 “Ah, but we are very proud of it. It used to be 
 historically important. The highest ecclesiastical court, 
 for two viceroyalties, sat here in the olden time,” she 
 instructed him with animation. 
 
36 NOSTROMO 
 
 “I am impressed. I didn’t mean to be disparaging. 
 You seem very patriotic.”’ 
 
 “The place is lovable, if only by its-situation. Per- 
 haps you don’t know what an old resident I am.” 
 
 ‘“How old, I wonder,’ he murmured, looking at her 
 with a slight smile. Mrs. Gould’s appearance was 
 made youthful by the mobile intelligence of her face. 
 “We can’t give you your ecclesiastical court back again; 
 but you shall have more steamers, a railway, a tele- 
 graph-cable—a future in the great world which is worth 
 infinitely more than any amount of ecclesiastical past. 
 You shall be brought in touch with something greater 
 than two viceroyalties. But I had no notion that a 
 place on a sea-coast could remain so isolated from the 
 world. If it had been a thousand miles inland now—most 
 remarkable! Has anything ever happened here for a 
 hundred years before to-day?” 
 ' While he talked in a slow, humorous tone, she kept 
 her little smile. Agreeing ironically, she assured him 
 that certainly not—nothing ever happened in Sulaco. 
 Even the revolutions, of which there had been two 
 in her time, had respected the repose cf the place. 
 Their course ran in the more populous southern parts 
 of the Republic, and the great valley of Sta. Marta, 
 which was like one great battlefield of the ‘parties, 
 with the possession of the capital for a prize and 
 an outlet to another ocean. They were more advanced 
 over there. Here in Sulaco they heard only the echoes 
 of these great questions, and, of course, their official 
 world changed each time, coming to them over their 
 rampart of mountains which he himself had traversed 
 in an old diligencia, with such a risk to life and limb. 
 
 The chairman of the railway had been enjoying her 
 hospitality for several days, and he was really grateful 
 for it. It was only since he had left Sta. Marta that he 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 37 
 
 had utterly lost touch with the feeling of European life 
 on the background of his exotic surroundings. In the 
 capital he had been the guest of the Legation, and had 
 been kept busy negotiating with the members of Don 
 Vincente’s Government—cultured men, men to whom 
 the conditions of civilized business were not unknown. 
 What concerned him most at the time was the 
 acquisition of land for the railway. In the Sta. Marta 
 Valley, where there was already one line in existence, 
 the people were tractable, and it was only a matter of 
 price. A commission had been nominated to fix the 
 values, and the difficulty resolved itself into the judi- 
 cious influencing of the Commissioners. But in Sulaco— 
 the Occidental Province for whose very development 
 the railway was intended—there had been trouble. It 
 had been lying for ages ensconced behind its natural 
 barriers, repelling modern enterprise by the precipices 
 of its mountain range, by its shallow harbour opening 
 into the everlasting calms of a gulf full of clouds, by 
 the benighted state of mind of the owners of its fertile 
 territory—all these aristocratic old Spanish families, all 
 those Don Ambrosios this and Don Fernandos that, who 
 seemed actually to dislike and distrust the coming of the 
 railway over their lands. It had happened that some of 
 the surveying parties scattered all over the province had 
 been warned off with threats of violence. In other cases 
 outrageous pretensions as to price had been raised. 
 But the man of railways prided himself on being equal to 
 every emergency. Since he was met by the inimical 
 sentiment of blind conservatism in Sulaco he would 
 meet it by sentiment, too, before taking his stand on his 
 right alone. The Government was bound to carry out 
 its part of the contract with the board of the new 
 railway company, even if it had to use force for the 
 purpose. But he desired nothing Jess than an armed 
 
38 NOSTROMO 
 
 disturbance in the smooth working of his plans. They 
 were much too vast and far-reaching, and too promis- 
 ing to leave a stone unturned; and so he imagined to get 
 the President-Dictator over there on a tour of cere- 
 monies and speeches, culminating in a great function - 
 at the turning of the first sod by the harbour shore. 
 After all he was their own creature—that Don Vincente. 
 He was the embodied triumph of the best elements in 
 the State. These were facts, and, unless facts meant 
 nothing, Sir John argued to himself, such a man’s in- 
 fluence must be real, and his personal action would 
 produce the conciliatory effect he required. He had 
 succeeded in arranging the trip with the help of a very 
 clever advocate, who was known in Sta. Marta as the 
 agent of the Gould silver mine, the biggest thing in 
 Sulaco, and even in the whole Republic. It was indeed 
 a fabulously rich mine. Its so-called agent, evidently a 
 man of culture and ability, seemed, without official 
 position, to possess an extraordinary influence in the 
 highest Government spheres: He was able to assure 
 Sir John that the President-Dictator would make the 
 journey. He regretted, however, in the course of the 
 same conversation, that General Montero insisted upon 
 going, too. 
 
 General Montero, whom the beginning of the struggle 
 had found an obscure army captain employed on the 
 wild eastern frontier of the State, had thrown in his lot 
 with the Ribiera party at a moment when special 
 circumstances had given that small adhesion a for- 
 tuitous importance. The fortunes of war served him 
 marvellously, and the victory of Rio Seco (after a day 
 of desperate fighting) put a seal to his success. At the 
 end he emerged General, Minister of War, and the 
 military head of the Blanco party, although there was 
 nothing aristocratic in his descent. Indeed, it was said 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 39 
 
 that he and his brother, orphans, had been brought up 
 by the munificence of a famous European traveller, in 
 whose service their father had lost his life. Another 
 story was that their father had been nothing but a char- 
 coal burner in the woods, and their mother a baptised 
 Indian woman from the far interior. 
 
 However that might be, the Costaguana Press was in 
 the habit of styling Montero’s forest march from his 
 commandancia to join the Blanco forces at the begin- 
 ning of the troubles, the “most heroic military exploit 
 of modern times.’ About the same time, too, his 
 brother had turned up from Europe, where he had gone 
 apparently as secretary to a consul. Having, however, 
 collected a small band of outlaws, he showed some 
 talent as guerilla chief and had been rewarded at the 
 pacification by the post of Military Commandant of the 
 capital. 
 
 The Minister of War, then, accompanied the Dicta- 
 tor. The board of the O.S.N. Company, working hand- 
 in-hand with the railway people for the good of the Re- 
 public, had on this important occasion instructed 
 Captain Mitchell to put the mail-boat Juno at the 
 disposal of the distinguished party. Don Vincente, 
 journeying south from Sta. Marta, had embarked at 
 Cayta, the principal port of Costaguana, and came to 
 Sulaco by sea. But the chairman of the railway 
 company had courageously crossed the mountains in a 
 ramshackle diligencia, mainly for the purpose of meeting 
 his engineer-in-chief engaged in the final survey of the 
 road. 
 
 For all the indifference of a man of affairs to nature, 
 whose hostility can always be overcome by the re- 
 sources of finance, he could not help being impressed 
 by his surroundings during his halt at the surveying 
 camp established at the highest point his railway was to 
 
40 NOSTROMO 
 
 reach. He spent the night there, arriving just too late 
 to see the last dying glow of sunlight upon the snowy 
 flank of Higuerota. Pillared masses of black basalt 
 framed like an open portal a portion of the white field 
 lying aslant against the west. In the transparent air 
 of the high altitudes everything seemed very near, 
 steeped in a clear stillness as in an imponderable liquid; 
 and with his ear ready to catch the first sound of the 
 _ expected diligencia the engineer-in-chief, at the door of a 
 hut of rough stones, had contemplated the changing 
 hues on the enormous side of the mountain, thinking 
 that in this sight, as in a piece of inspired music, there 
 could be found together the utmost delicacy of shaded 
 expression and a stupendous magnificence of effect. 
 
 Sir John arrived too late to hear the magnificent and 
 inaudible strain sung by the sunset amongst the high 
 peaks of the Sierra. It had sung itself out into the 
 breathless pause of deep dusk before, climbing down the 
 fore wheel of the diligencia with stiff limbs, he shook 
 hands with the engineer. 
 
 They gave him his dinner in a stone hut like a cubical 
 boulder, with no door or windows in its two openings; 
 a bright fire of sticks (brought on muleback from the 
 first valley below) burning outside, sent in a wavering 
 glare; and two candles in tin candlesticks—lighted, it 
 was explained to him, in his honour—stood on a sort of 
 rough camp table, at which he sat on the right hand of 
 the chief. He knew how to be amiable; and the young 
 men of the engineering staff, for whom the surveying of 
 the railway track had the glamour of the first steps on 
 the path of life, sat there, too, listening modestly, with 
 their smooth faces tanned by the weather, and very 
 pleased to witness so much affability in so great a man. 
 
 Afterwards, late at night, pacing to and fro outside, 
 he had a long talk with his chief engineer. He knew 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE At 
 
 him well of old. This was not the first undertaking in 
 which their gifts, as elementally different as fire and 
 water, had worked in conjunction. From the contact 
 of these two personalities, who had not the same vision 
 _ of the world, there was generated a power for the world’s 
 service—a subtle force that could set in motion mighty 
 machines, men’s muscles, and awaken also in human 
 breasts an unbounded devotion to the task. Of the 
 young fellows at the table, to whom the survey of the 
 track was like the tracing of the path of life, more than 
 one would be called to meet death before the work was 
 done. But the work would be done: the force would be 
 almost as strong as a faith. Not quite, however. In 
 the silence of the sleeping camp upon the moonlit 
 plateau forming the top of the pass like the floor of a 
 vast arena surrounded by the basalt walls of precipices, 
 two strolling figures in thick ulsters stood still, and the 
 voice of the engineer pronounced distinctly the words— 
 
 “We can’t move mountains!” 
 
 Sir John, raising his head to follow the pointing 
 gesture, felt the full force of the words. The white 
 Higuerota soared out of the shadows of rock and earth 
 like a frozen bubble under the moon. All was still, till 
 near by, behind the wall of a corral for the camp ani- 
 mals, built roughly of loose stones in the form of a 
 circle, a pack mule stamped his forefoot and blew 
 heavily twice. 
 
 The engineer-in-chief had used the phrase in answer 
 to the chairman’s tentative suggestion that the tracing 
 of the line could, perhaps, be altered in deference to the 
 prejudices of the Sulaco landowners. The chief engi- 
 neer believed that the obstinacy of men was the lesser 
 obstacle. Moreover, to combat that they had the great 
 influence of Charles Gould, whereas tunnelling under 
 Higuerota would have been a colossa! undertaking. 
 
42 NOSTROMO 
 
 “Ah, yes! Gould. What sort of a man is he?” 
 
 Sir John had heard much of Charles Gould in Sta. 
 Marta, and wanted to know more. ‘The engineer-in- 
 chief assured him that the administrator of the San 
 Tomé silver mine had an immense influence over all 
 these Spanish Dons. He had also one of the best 
 houses in Sulaco, and the Gould hospitality was be- 
 yond all praise. 
 
 “They received me as if they had known me for 
 years,’ he said. “The little lady is kindness per- 
 sonified. I stayed with them for a month. He helped 
 me to organize the surveying parties. His practical 
 ownership of the San Tomé silver mine gives him a 
 special position. He seems to have the ear of every 
 provincial authority apparently, and, as I said, he can 
 wind all the hidalgos of the province round his little 
 finger. If you follow his advice the difficulties will fall 
 away, because he wants the railway. Of course, you 
 must be careful in what you say. He’s English, and 
 besides he must be immensely wealthy. The Holroyd 
 house is in with him in that mine, so you may im- 
 agine——”’ 
 
 He interrupted himself as, from before one of the 
 little fires burning outside the low wall of the corral, 
 arose the figure of a man wrapped in a poncho up to the 
 neck. ‘The saddle which he had been using for a pillow 
 made a dark patch on the ground against the red glow of 
 embers. 
 
 “T shall see Holroyd himself on my way back through 
 the States,” said Sir John. “I’ve ascertained that he, 
 too, wants the railway.”’ 
 
 The man who, perhaps disturbed by the proximity of 
 the voices, had arisen from the ground, struck a match 
 to light a cigarette. The flame showed a bronzed, 
 black-whiskered face, a pair of eyes gazing straight; 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 43 
 
 then, rearranging his wrappings, he sank full length and 
 laid his head again on the saddle. 
 
 *'That’s our camp-master, whom I must send back to 
 Sulaco now we are going to carry our survey into the 
 Sta. Marta Valley,” said the engineer. “A most useful 
 fellow, lent me by Captain Mitchell of the O.S.N. 
 Company. It was very good of Mitchell. Charles 
 Gould told me I couldn’t do better than take advantage 
 of the offer. He seems to know how to rule all these 
 muleteers and peons. We had not the slightest trouble 
 with our people. He shall escort your diligencia right 
 into Sulaco with some of our railway peons. The road 
 is bad. To have him at hand may save you an upset 
 or two. He promised me to take care of your person 
 all the way down as if you were his father.” 
 
 This camp-master was the Italian sailor whom all the 
 Europeans in Sulaco, following Captain Mitchell’s 
 Mispronunciation, were in the habit of calling Nos- 
 tromo. And indeed, taciturn and ready, he did take 
 excellent care of his charge at the bad parts of the road, 
 as Sir John himself acknowledged to Mrs. Gould after- 
 wards. 
 
CHAPTER SIX 
 
 At THAT time Nostromo had been already long enough 
 in the country to raise to the highest pitch Captain 
 Mitchell’s opinion of the extraordinary value of his 
 discovery. Clearly he was one of those invaluable 
 subordinates whom to possess is a legitimate cause of 
 boasting. Captain Mitchell plumed himself upon his 
 eye for men—but he was not selfish—and in the in- 
 nocence of his pride was already developing that mania 
 for “lending you my Capataz de Cargadores’’ which 
 was to bring Nostromo into personal contact, sooner or 
 later, with every European in Sulaco, as a sort of univer- 
 sal factotum—a prodigy of efficiency in his own sphere 
 of life. 
 
 “The fellow is devoted to me, body and soul!”’ 
 Captain Mitchell was given to affirm; and though no- 
 body, perhaps, could have explained why it should be 
 so, it was impossible on a survey of their relation to 
 throw doubt on that statement, unless, indeed, one 
 were a bitter, eccentric character like Dr. Monygham— 
 for instance—whose short, hopeless laugh expressed 
 somehow an immense mistrust of mankind. Not that 
 Dr. Monygham was a prodigal either of laughter or of 
 words. He was bitterly taciturn when at his best. At 
 his worst people feared the open scornfulness of his 
 tongue. Only Mrs. Gould could keep his unbelief in 
 men’s motives within due bounds; but even to her 
 (on an occasion not connected with Nostromo, and in a 
 tone which for him was gentle), even to her, he had said 
 once, “Really, it is most unreasonable to demand that a 
 
 44 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE A5 
 
 man should think of other people so much better than 
 he is able to think of himself.” 
 
 And Mrs. Gould had hastened to drop the subject. 
 There were strange rumours of the English doctor. 
 Years ago, in the time of Guzman Bento, he had been 
 mixed up, it was whispered, in a conspiracy which was 
 betrayed and, as people expressed it, drowned in blood. 
 His hair had turned grey, his hairless, seamed face was 
 of a brick-dust colour; the large check pattern of his 
 flannel shirt and his old stained Panama hat were an 
 established defiance to the conventionalities of Sulaco. 
 Had it not been for the immaculate cleanliness of his 
 apparel he might have been taken for one of those 
 shiftless Europeans that are a moral eyesore to the 
 respectability of a foreign colony in almost every exotic 
 part of the world. The young ladies of Sulaco, adorn- 
 ing with clusters of pretty faces the balconies along the 
 Street of the Constitution, when they saw him pass, 
 with his limping gait and bowed head, a short linen 
 jacket drawn on carelessly over the flannel check shirt, 
 would remark to each other, “‘Here is the Sefior doctor 
 going to call on Dofia Emilia. He has got his little 
 coat on.”” The inference was true. Its deeper meaning 
 was hidden from their simple intelligence. Moreover. 
 they expended no store of thought on the doctor. He 
 was old, ugly, learned—and a little ‘“‘loco’’—mad, if not 
 a bit of a sorcerer, as the common people suspected him 
 of being. The little white jacket was in reality a con- 
 cession to Mrs, Gould’s humanizing influence. The 
 doctor, with his habit of sceptical, bitter speech, had 
 no other means of showing his profound respect for 
 the character of the woman who was known in the 
 country as the English Sefiora. He presented this 
 tribute very seriously indeed; it was no trifle for a man 
 of his habits. Mrs. Gould felt that, too, perfectly. 
 
46 NOSTROMO 
 
 She would never have thought of imposing upon him 
 this marked show of deference. 
 
 She kept her old Spanish house (one of the finest 
 specimens in Sulaco) open for the dispensation of the 
 small graces of existence. She dispensed them with 
 simplicity and charm because she was guided by an 
 alert perception of values. She was highly gifted in the 
 art of human intercourse which consists in delicate 
 shades of self-forgetfulness and in the suggestion of 
 universal comprehension. Charles Gould (the Gould 
 family, established in Costaguana for three generations, 
 always went to England for their education and for 
 their wives) imagined that he had fallen in love with a 
 girl’s sound common sense like any other man, but these 
 were not exactly the reasons why, for instance, the 
 whole surveying camp, from the youngest of the young 
 men to their mature chief, should have found occasion 
 to allude to Mrs. Gould’s house so frequently amongst 
 the high peaks of the Sierra. She would have pro- 
 tested that she had done nothing for them, with a low 
 laugh and a surprised widening of her grey eyes, had 
 anybody told her how convincingly she was remem- 
 bered on the edge of the snow-line above Sulaco. But 
 directly, with a little capable air of setting her wits to 
 work, she would have found an explanation. “Of 
 course, it was such a surprise for these boys to find any 
 sort of welcome here. And I suppose they are home- 
 sick. I suppose everybody must be always just a little 
 homesick.” 
 
 She was always sorry for homesick people. 
 
 Born in the country, as his father before him, spare 
 and tall, with a flaming moustache, a neat chin, clear 
 blue eyes, auburn hair, and a thin, fresh, red face, 
 Charles Gould looked like a new arrival from over the 
 sea. His grandfather had fought in the cause of 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE AG 
 
 independence under Bolivar, in that famous English 
 legion which on the battlefield of Carabobo had been 
 saluted by the great Liberator as Saviours of his 
 country. One of Charles Gould’s uncles had been the 
 elected President of that very province of Sulaco (then 
 called a State) in the days of Federation, and after- 
 wards had been put up against the wall of a church and 
 shot by the order of the barbarous Unionist general, 
 Guzman Bento. It was the same Guzman Bento who, 
 becoming later Perpetual President, famed for his ruth- 
 less and cruel tyranny, reached his apotheosis in the 
 popular legend of a sanguinary land-haunting spectre 
 whose body had been carried off by the devil in person 
 trom the brick mausoleum in the nave of the Church of 
 Assumption in Sta. Marta. Thus, at least, the priests 
 explained its disappearance to the barefooted multi- 
 tude that streamed in, awestruck, to gaze at the hole in 
 the side of the ugly box of bricks before the great altar. 
 
 Guzman Bento of cruel memory had put to death 
 great numbers of people besides Charles Gould’s uncle; 
 but with a relative martyred in the cause of aristocracy, 
 the Sulaco Oligarchs (this was the phraseology of Guz- 
 man Bento’s time; now they were called Blancos, and 
 had given up the federal idea), which meant the families 
 of pure Spanish descent, considered Charles as one of 
 themselves. With such a family record, no one could 
 be more of a Costaguanero than Don Carlos Gould; but 
 his aspect was so characteristic that in the talk of 
 common people he was just the Inglez—the English- 
 man of Sulaco. He looked more English than a casual 
 tourist, a sort of heretic pilgrim, however, quite un- 
 known in Sulaco. He looked more English than the 
 last arrived batch of young railway engineers, than 
 anybody out of the hunting-field pictures in the num- 
 bers of Punch reaching his wife’s drawing-room two 
 
48 NOSTROMO 
 
 months or so after date. It astonished you to hear him 
 talk Spanish (Castillan, as the natives say) or the 
 Indian dialect of the country-people so naturally. His 
 accent had never been English; but there was something 
 so indelible in all these ancestral Goulds—tliberators, 
 explorers, coffee planters, merchants, revolutionists— 
 of Costaguana, that he, the only representative of the 
 third generation in a continent possessing its own style 
 of horsemanship, went on looking thoroughly English 
 even on horseback. This is not said of him in the 
 mocking spirit of the Llaneros—men of the great plains 
 —who think that no one in the world knows how to sit 
 a horse but themselves. Charles Gould, to use the 
 suitably lofty phrase, rode like a centaur. Riding 
 for him was not a special form cf exercise; it was a 
 natural faculty, as walking straight is to all men sound 
 of mind and limb; but, all the same, when cantering 
 beside the rutty ox-cart track to the mine he looked in 
 his English clothes and with his imported saddlery as 
 though he had come this moment to Costaguana at his 
 easy swift pasotrote, straight out of some green meadow 
 at the other side of the world. 
 
 His way would lie along the old Spanish road—the 
 Camino Real of popular speech—the only remaining 
 vestige of a fact and name left by that royalty old 
 Giorgio Viola hated, and whose very shadow had de- 
 parted from the land; for the big equestrian statue of 
 Charles IV at the entrance of the Alameda, towering 
 white against the trees, was only known to the folk 
 from the country and to the beggars of the town that 
 slept on the steps around the pedestal, as the Horse 
 of Stone. The other Carlos, turning off to the left 
 with a rapid clatter of hoofs on the disjointed pave- 
 -ment—Don Carlos Gould, in his English clothes, looked 
 as incongruous, but much more at home than the kingly 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 49 
 
 cavalier reining in his steed on the pedestal above the 
 sleeping leperos, with his marble arm raised towards 
 the marble rim of a plumed hat. 
 
 The weather-stained effigy of the mounted king, with 
 its vague suggestion of a saluting gesture, seemed to 
 present an inscrutable breast to the political changes 
 which had robbed it of its very name; but neither did 
 the other horseman, well known to the people, keen 
 and alive on his well-shaped, slate-coloured beast with 
 a white eye, wear his heart on the sleeve of his English 
 coat. His mind preserved its steady poise as if shel- 
 tered in the passionless stability of private and public, 
 decencies at home in Europe. He accepted with a like 
 ealm the shocking manner in which the Sulaco ladies 
 smothered their faces with pearl powder till they 
 looked like white plaster casts with beautiful living eyes, 
 the peculiar gossip of the town, and the continuous 
 political changes, the constant “saving of the country,” 
 which to his wife seemed a puerile and bloodthirsty 
 game of murder and rapine played with terrible earnest- 
 ness by depraved children. In the early days of her 
 Costaguana life, the little lady used to clench her hands 
 with exasperation at not being able to take the public 
 affairs of the country as seriously as the incidental 
 atrocity of methods deserved. She saw in them a 
 comedy of naive pretences, but hardly anything genuine 
 except her own appalled indignation. Charles, very 
 quiet and twisting his long moustaches, would decline to 
 discuss them at all. Once, however, he observed to 
 her gently— 
 
 “My dear, you seem to forget that I was born here.” 
 
 These few words made her pause as if they had been 
 a sudden revelation. Perhaps the mere fact of being 
 born in the country did make a difference. She had a 
 great confidence in her husband; it had always been 
 
50 NOSTROMO 
 
 very great. He had struck her imagination from the 
 first by his unsentimentalism, by that very quietude of 
 mind which she had erected in her thought for a sign of 
 perfect competency in the business of living. Don 
 José Avellanos, their neighbour across the street, a 
 statesman, a poet, a man of culture, who had repre- 
 sented his country at several European Courts (and 
 had suffered untold indignities as a state prisoner in the 
 time of the tyrant Guzman Bento), used to declare in 
 Dofia Emilia’s drawing-room that Carlos had all the 
 English qualities of character with a truly patriotic 
 heart. 
 
 Mrs. Gould, raising her eyes to her husband’s thin, 
 red and tan face, could not detect the slightest quiver of 
 a feature at what he must have heard said of his 
 patriotism. Perhaps he had just dismounted on his 
 return from the mine; he was English enough to dis- 
 regard the hottest hours of the day. Basilio, in a livery 
 of white linen and a red sash, had squatted for a moment 
 behind his heels to unstrap the heavy, blunt spurs in 
 the patio; and then the Sefior Administrator would go 
 up the staircase into the gallery. Rows of plants in 
 pots, ranged on the balustrade between the pilasters | 
 of the arches, screened the corrédor with their leaves and 
 flowers from the quadrangle below, whose paved space 
 is the true hearthstone of a South American house, 
 where the quiet hours of domestic life are marked by 
 the shifting of light and shadow on the flagstones. 
 
 Sefior Avellanos was in the habit of crossing the patio 
 at five o’clock almost every day. Don José chose to 
 ezome over at tea-time because the English rite at Dofia 
 Emilia’s house reminded him of the time he lived in 
 London as Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of 
 St. James. He did not like tea; and, usually, rocking 
 his American chair, his neat little shiny boots crossed on 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 51 
 
 the foot-rest, he would talk on and on with a sort of 
 complacent virtuosity wonderful in a man of his age, 
 while he held the cup in his hands for a long time. His 
 close-cropped head was perfectly white; his eyes coal- 
 black. 
 
 On seeing Charles Gould step into the sala he would 
 nod provisionally and go on to the end of the oratorial 
 period. Only then he would say— 
 
 “Carlos, my friend, you have ridden from San Tomé 
 in the heat of the day. Always the true English activity. 
 No? What?” 
 
 He drank up all the tea at once in one draught. This 
 performance was invariably followed by a slight shudder 
 and a low, involuntary “br-r-r-r,”’ which was not covered 
 by the hasty exclamation, “‘ Excellent!” 
 
 Then giving up the empty cup into his young friend’s 
 hand, extended with a smile, he continued to expatiate 
 upon the patriotic nature of the San Tomé mine for the 
 simple pleasure of talking fluently, it seemed, while his 
 reclining body jerked backwards and forwards in a 
 rocking-chair of the sort exported from the United 
 States. The ceiling of the largest drawing-room of the 
 Casa Gould extended its white level far above his head. 
 The loftiness dwarfed the mixture of heavy, straight- 
 backed Spanish chairs of brown wood with leathern 
 seats, and European furniture, low, and cushioned all 
 over, like squat little monsters gorged to bursting with 
 steel springs and horsehair. There were knick-knacks 
 on little tables, mirrors let into the wall above marble 
 consoles, square spaces of carpet under the two groups 
 of armchairs, each presided over by a deep sofa; smaller 
 rugs scattered all over the floor of red tiles; three win- 
 dows from the ceiling down to the ground, opening on a 
 baleony, and flanked by the perpendicular folds of the 
 dark hangings. The stateliness of ancient days lingered 
 
 UNIVERS Ty 
 Lino IBpany 
 
52 ~ NOSTROMO 
 
 between the four high, smooth walls, tinted a delicate 
 primrose-colour; and Mrs. Gould, with her little head 
 and shining coils of hair, sitting in a cloud of muslin and 
 lace before a slender mahogany table, resembled a fairy 
 posed lightly before dainty philtres dispensed out of 
 vessels of silver and porcelain. 
 
 Mrs. Gould knew the history of the San Tomé mine. 
 Worked in the early days mostly by means of lashes on 
 the backs of slaves, its yield had been paid for in its own 
 weight of human bones. Whole tribes of Indians had 
 perished in the exploitation; and then the mine was 
 abandoned, since with this primitive method it had 
 ceased to make a profitable return, no matter how many 
 corpses were thrown into its maw. Then it became for- 
 gotten. It was rediscovered after the War of Indepen- 
 dence. An English company obtained the right to 
 work it, and found so rich a vein that neither the ex- 
 actions of successive governments, nor the periodical 
 raids of recruiting officers upon the population of paid 
 miners they had created, could discourage their per- 
 severance. But in the end, during the long turmoil of 
 pronunciamentos that followed the death of the famous 
 Guzman Bento, the native miners, incited to revolt by 
 the emissaries sent out from the capital, had risen upon 
 their English chiefs and murdered them toaman. The 
 decree of confiscation which appeared immediately 
 afterwards in the Diario Official, published in Sta. 
 Marta, began with the words: ‘‘Justly incensed at the 
 grinding oppression of foreigners, actuated by sordid 
 motives of gain rather than by love for a country where 
 they come impoverished to seek their fortunes, the 
 mining population of San Tomé, etc. . .°’ and 
 ended with the declaration: ‘‘ The chief of the eae has 
 resolved to exercise to the full his power of clemency. 
 The mine, which by every law, international, human. 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 53 
 
 and divine, reverts now to the Government as national 
 property, shall remain closed till the sword drawn for 
 the sacred defence of liberal principles has accomplished 
 its mission of securing the happiness of our beloved 
 country.” 
 
 And for many years this was the last of the San Tomé 
 mine. What advantage that Government had ex- 
 pected from the spoliation, it is impossible to tell now. 
 Costaguana was made with difficulty to pay a beggarly 
 money compensation to the families of the victims, and 
 then the matter dropped out of diplomatic despatches. 
 But afterwards another Government bethought itself of 
 that valuable asset. It was an ordinary Costaguana 
 Government—the fourth in six years—but it judged of 
 its opportunities sanely. It remembered the San Tomé 
 mine with a secret conviction of its worthlessness in 
 their own hands, but with an ingenious insight into the 
 various uses a silver mine can be put to, apart from the 
 sordid process of extracting the metal from under the 
 ground. The father of Charles Gould, for a long 
 time one of the most wealthy merchants of Costaguana, 
 had already lost a considerable part of his fortune in 
 forced loans to the successive Governments. He was 
 a man of calm judgment, who never dreamed of pressing 
 his claims; and when, suddenly, the perpetual con- 
 cession of the San Tomé mine was offered to him in full 
 settlement, his alarm became extreme. He was versed 
 in the ways of Governments. Indeed, the intention of 
 this affair, though no doubt deeply meditated in the 
 closet, lay open on the surface of the document pre- 
 sented urgently for his signature. The third and most 
 important clause stipulated that the concession-holder 
 should pay at once to the Government five years’ 
 royalties on the estimated output of the mine. 
 
 Mr. Gould, senior, defended himself from this fatal 
 
54. NOSTROMO 
 
 favour with many arguments and entreaties, but with- 
 out success. He knew nothing of mining; he had no 
 means to put his concession on the European market; 
 the mine as a working concern did not exist. The 
 buildings had been burnt down, the mining plant had 
 been destroyed, the mining population had disappeared 
 from the neighbourhood years and years ago; the very 
 road had vanished under a flood of tropical vegetation 
 as effectually as if swallowed by the sea; and the main 
 gallery had fallen in within a hundred yards from the 
 entrance. It was no longer an abandoned mine; it was 
 a wild, inaccessible, and rocky gorge of the Sierra, where 
 vestiges of charred timber, some heaps of smashed 
 bricks, and a few shapeless pieces of rusty iron could 
 have been found under the matted mass of thorny 
 creepers covering the ground. Mr. Gould, senior, did 
 not desire the perpetual possession of that desolate 
 locality; in fact, the mere vision of it arising before his 
 mind in the still watches of the night had the power to 
 exasperate him into hours of hot and agitated insomnia. 
 
 It so happened, however, that the Finance Minister of 
 the time was a man to whom, in years gone by, Mr. 
 Gould had, unfortunately, declined to grant some small — 
 pecuniary assistance, basing his refusal on the ground 
 that the applicant was a notorious gambler and cheat, 
 besides being more than half suspected of a robbery 
 with violence on a wealthy ranchero in a remote country 
 district, where he was actually exercising the function 
 of a judge. Now, after reaching his exalted position, 
 that politician had proclaimed his intention to repay 
 evil with good to Sefior Gould—the poor man. He 
 affirmed and reaffirmed this resolution in the drawing- 
 rooms of Sta. Marta, in a soft and implacable voice, and 
 with such malicious glances that Mr. Gould’s best 
 friends advised him earnestly to attempt no bribery 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 55 
 
 to get the matter dropped. It would have been useless. 
 Indeed, it would not have been a very safe proceeding. 
 Such was also the opinion of a stout, loud-voiced lady of 
 French extraction, the daughter, she said, of an officer 
 of high rank (officier supérieur de Varmée), who was 
 accommodated with lodgings within the walls of a 
 secularized convent next door to the Ministry of 
 Finance. That florid person, when approached on be- 
 half of Mr. Gould in a proper manner, and with a 
 suitable present, shook her head despondently. She 
 was good-natured, and her despondency was genuine. 
 She imagined she could not take money in consideration 
 of something she could not accomplish. The friend of 
 Mr. Gould, charged with the delicate mission, used to 
 say afterwards that she was the only honest person 
 closely or remotely connected with the Government 
 he had ever met. “No go,” she had said with a cavalier. 
 husky intonation which was natural to her, and using 
 turns of expression more suitable to a child of parents 
 unknown than to the orphaned daughter of a general 
 officer. ‘“‘No; it’s no go. Pas moyen, mon garcon. 
 C'est dommage, tout de méme. Ah! zut! Je ne vole 
 pas mon monde. Je ne suis pas ministre—moi! Vous 
 pouvez emporter votre petit sac.” 
 
 For a moment, biting her carmine lip, she deplored 
 inwardly the tyranny of the rigid principles governing 
 the sale of her influence in high places. Then, signifi- 
 cantly, and with a touch of impatience, “Allez,” she 
 added, “‘et dites bien a votre bonhomme—entendez-vous?— 
 qu il faut avaler la pilule.”’ 
 
 After such a warning there was nothing for it but to 
 sign and pay. Mr. Gould had swallowed the pill, and 
 it was as though it had been compounded of some subtle 
 poison that acted directly on his brain. He became at 
 once mine-ridden, and as he was well read in light 
 
56 NOSTROMO 
 
 literature it took to his mind the form of the Old Man 
 of the Sea fastened upon his shoulders. He also began 
 to dream of vampires. Mr. Gould exaggerated to him- 
 self the disadvantages of his new position, because he 
 viewed it emotionally. His position in Costaguana 
 was no worse than before. But man is a desperately 
 conservative creature, and the extravagant novelty of 
 this outrage upon his purse distressed his sensibilities. 
 Everybody around him was being robbed by the 
 grotesque and murderous bands that played their game 
 of governments and revolutions after the death of 
 Guzman Bento. His experience had taught him that, 
 however short the plunder might fall of their legitimate 
 expectations, no gang in possession of the Presidential 
 Palace would be so incompetent as to suffer itself to be 
 baffled by the want of a pretext. The first casual 
 colonel of the barefooted army of scarecrows that came 
 along was able to expose with force and precision to any 
 mere civilian his titles to a sum of 10,000 dollars; the 
 while his hope would be immutably fixed upon a 
 gratuity, at any rate, of no less than a thousand. Mr. 
 Gould knew that very well, and, armed with resigna- | 
 tion, had waited for better times. But to be robbed 
 under the forms of legality and business was intolerable 
 to his imagination. Mr. Gould, the father, had one 
 fault in his sagacious and honourable character: he 
 attached too much importance to form. It is a failing 
 common to mankind, whose views are tinged by preju- 
 dices. There was for him in that affair a malignancy of 
 perverted justice which, by means of a moral shock, 
 attacked his vigorous physique. “It will end by 
 killing me,” he used to affirm many times a day. And, 
 in fact, since that time he began to suffer from fever, 
 from liver pains, and mostly from a worrying inability 
 to think of anything else. The Finance Minister could 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 57 
 
 have formed no conception of the profound subtlety of 
 his revenge. Even Mr. Gould’s letters to his fourteen- 
 year-old boy Charles, then away in England for his 
 education, came at last to talk cf practically nothing but 
 the mine. He groaned over the injustice, the persecu- 
 tion, the outrage of that mine; he occupied whole pages 
 in the exposition of the fatal consequences attaching to 
 the possession of that mine from every point of view, 
 with every dismal inference, with words of horror at the 
 apparently eternal character of that curse. For the 
 Concession had been granted to him and his descen- 
 dants for ever. He implored his son never to return to 
 Costaguana, never to claim any part of his inheritance 
 there, because it was tainted by the infamous Con- 
 cession; never to touch it, never to approach it, to for- 
 get that America existed, and pursue a mercantile 
 career in Europe. And each letter ended with bitter 
 self-reproaches for having stayed too long in that 
 cavern of thieves, intriguers, and brigands. 
 
 To be told repeatedly that one’s future is blighted 
 because of the possession of a silver mine is not, at the 
 age of fourteen, a matter of prime importance as to its 
 main statement; but in its form it is calculated to excite 
 a certain amount of wonder and attention. In course 
 of time the boy, at first only puzzled by the angry 
 jeremiads, but rather sorry for his dad, began to turn 
 the matter over in his mind in such moments as he 
 could spare from play and study. In about a year he 
 had evolved from the lecture of the letters a definite 
 conviction that there was a silver mine in the Sulaco 
 province of the Republic of Costaguana, where poor 
 Uncle Harry had been shot by soldiers a great many 
 years before. There was also connected closely with 
 that mine a thing called the “iniquitous Gould Con- 
 cession,” apparently written on a paper which his 
 
58 NOSTROMO 
 
 father desired ardently to “‘tear and fling into the 
 faces’? of presidents, members of judicature, and 
 ministers of State. And this desire persisted, though 
 the names of these people, he noticed, seldom remained 
 the same for a whole year together. This desire (since 
 the thing was iniquitous) seemed quite natural to the 
 boy, though why the affair was iniquitous he did not 
 know. Afterwards, with advancing wisdom, he man- 
 aged to clear the plain truth of the business from the 
 fantastic intrusions of the Old Man of the Sea, vampires, 
 and ghouls, which had lent to his father’s correspon- 
 dence the flavour of a gruesome Arabian Nights tale. 
 In the end, the growing youth attained to as close an 
 intimacy with the San Tomé mine as the old man who 
 wrote these plaintive and enraged letters on the other 
 side of the sea. He had been made several times al- 
 ready to pay heavy fines for neglecting to work the 
 mine, he reported, besides other sums extracted from 
 him on account of future royalties, on the ground that a 
 man with such a valuable concession in his pocket could 
 not refuse his financial assistance to the Government of 
 the Republic. The last of his fortune was passing 
 away from him against worthless receipts, he wrote, in a 
 rage, whilst he was being pointed out as an individual 
 who had known how to secure enormous advantages 
 from the necessities of his country. And the young 
 man in Europe grew more and more interested in that 
 thing which could provoke such a tumult of words and 
 passion. 
 
 He thought of it every day; but he thought of it 
 without bitterness. It might have been an unfortunate 
 affair for his poor dad, and the whole story threw a 
 queer light upon the social and political life of Costa- 
 guana. ‘The view he took of it was sympathetic to his 
 father, yet calm and reflective. His personal feelings 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 59 
 
 had not been outraged, and it is difficult to resent with 
 proper and durable indignation the physical or mental 
 anguish of another organism, even if that other organ- 
 ism is one’s own father. By the time he was twenty 
 Charles Gould had, in his turn, fallen under the spell 
 of the San Tomé mine. But it was another form of 
 enchantment, more suitable to his youth, into whose 
 magic formula there entered hope, vigour, and self- 
 confidence, instead of weary indignation and despair. 
 Left after he was twenty to his own guidance (except 
 for the severe injunction not to return to Costaguana), 
 he had pursued his studies in Belgium and France with 
 the idea of qualifying for a mining engineer. But this 
 scientific aspect of his labours remained vague and 
 imperfect in his mind. Mines had acquired for him a 
 dramatic interest. He studied their peculiarities from 
 a personal point of view, too, as one would study the 
 varied characters of men. He visited them as one 
 goes with gouriosity to call upon remarkable persons. 
 He visited mines in Germany, in Spain, in Cornwall. 
 Abandoned workings had for him strong fascination. 
 Their desolation appealed to him like the sight of hu- 
 man misery, whose causes are varied and profound. 
 They might have been worthless, but also they might 
 have been misunderstood. His future wife was the 
 first, and perhaps the only person to detect this secret 
 mood which governed the profoundly sensible, almost 
 voiceless attitude of this man towards the world of 
 material things. And at once her delight in him, linger- 
 ing with half-open wings like those birds that cannot rise 
 easily from a flat level, found a pinnacle from which to 
 soar up into the skies. 
 
 They had become acquainted in Italy, where the 
 future Mrs. Gould was staying with an old and pale 
 aunt who, years before, had married a middle-aged, 
 
60 NOSTROMO 
 
 impoverished Italian marquis. She now mourned that 
 man, who had known how to give up his life to the 
 independence and unity of his country, who had known 
 how to be as enthusiastic in his generosity as the young- 
 est of those who fell for that very cause of which old 
 Giorgio Viola was a drifting relic, as a broken spar is 
 suffered to float away disregarded after a naval victory. 
 The Marchesa led a still, whispering existence, nun-like 
 in her black robes and a white band over the forehead, 
 in a corner of the first floor of an ancient and ruinous 
 palace, whose big, empty halls downstairs sheltered 
 under their painted ceilings the harvests, the fowls, and 
 even the cattle, together with the whole family of the 
 tenant farmer. 
 
 The two young people had met in Lucca. After that 
 meeting Charles Gould visited no mines, though they 
 went together in a carriage, once, to see some marble 
 quarries, where the work resembled mining in so far 
 that it also was the tearing of the raw material of 
 treasure from the earth. Charles Gould did not open 
 his heart to her in any set speeches. He simply went 
 on acting and thinking in her sight. This is the true 
 method of sincerity. One of his frequent remarks 
 was, “I think sometimes that poor father takes a 
 wrong view of that San Tomé business.” And they 
 discussed that opinion long and earnestly, as if they 
 could influence a mind across half the globe; but in 
 reality they discussed it because the sentiment of love 
 can enter into any subject and live ardently in remote 
 phrases. For this natural reason these discussions were 
 precious to Mrs. Gould in her engaged state. Charles 
 feared that Mr. Gould, senior, was wasting his strength 
 and making himself ill by his efforts to get rid of the 
 Concession. ‘“‘I fancy that this is not the kind of 
 handling it reguires,’’ he mused aloud, as if to himself. 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 61 
 
 And when she wondered frankly that a man of character 
 should devote his energies to plotting and intrigues, 
 Charles would remark, with a gentle concern that 
 understood her wonder, “You must not forget that he 
 was born there.”’ 
 
 She would set her quick mind to work upon that, and 
 then make the inconsequent: retort, which he accepted 
 2s perfectly sagacious, because, in fact, it was so—— 
 
 “Well, and you? You were born there, too.”’ 
 
 He knew his answer. 
 
 “That’s different. I’ve been away ten years. Dad 
 never had such a long spell; and it was more than thirty 
 years ago.” 
 
 She was the first person to whom he opened his lips 
 after receiving the news of his father’s death. 
 
 “It has killed him!”’ he said. 
 
 He had walked straight out of town with the news, 
 straight out before him in the noonday sun on the white 
 road, and his feet had brought him face to face with 
 her in the hall of the ruined palazzo, a room mag- 
 nificent and naked, with here and there a long strip of 
 damask, black with damp and age, hanging down on a 
 bare panel of the wall. It was furnished with exactly 
 one gilt armchair, with a broken back, and an octagon 
 columnar stand bearing a heavy marble vase orna- 
 mented with sculptured masks and garlands of flowers, 
 and cracked from top to bottom. Charles Gould was 
 dusty with the white dust of the road lying on his boots, 
 on his shoulders, on his cap with two peaks. Water 
 dripped from under it all over his face, and he grasped a 
 thick oaken cudgel in his bare right hand. | 
 
 She went very pale under the roses of her big straw 
 hat, gloved, swinging a clear sunshade, caught just as 
 she was going out to meet him at the bottom of the hill, 
 where three poplars stand near the wall of a vineyard. 
 
62 NOSTROMO 
 
 “Tt has killed him!” he repeated. “‘““He ought to 
 have had many years yet. Weare a long-lived family.” 
 
 She was too startled to say anything; he was contem- 
 plating with a penetrating and motionless stare the 
 cracked marble urn as though he had resolved to fix its 
 shape for ever in his memory. It was only when, turn- 
 ing suddenly to her, he blurted out twice, “I’ve come 
 to you I’ve come straight to you ” without 
 being able to finish his phrase, that the great pitifulness 
 of that lonely and tormented death in Costaguana came 
 to her with the full force of its misery. He caught hold 
 of her hand, raised it to his lips, and at that she dropped 
 her parasol to pat him on the cheek, murmured “Poor 
 boy,” and began to dry her eyes under the downward 
 curve of her hat-brim, very small in her simple, white 
 frock, almost like a lost child crying in the degraded 
 grandeur of the noble hall, while he stood by her, again 
 perfectly motionless in the contemplation of the marble 
 urn. 
 
 Afterwards they went out for a long walk, which was 
 silent till he exclaimed suddenly— 
 
 “Yes. But if he had only grappled with it in a 
 proper way!”’ 
 
 And then ‘they stopped. Everywhere there were 
 long shadows lying on the hills, on the roads, on the 
 enclosed fields of olive trees; the shadows of poplars, of 
 wide chestnuts, of farm buildings, of stone walls; and in 
 mid-air the sound of a bell, thin and alert, was like the 
 throbbing pulse of the sunset glow. Her lips were 
 slightly parted as though in surprise that he should not 
 be looking at her with his usual expression. His usual 
 expression was unconditionally approving and atten- 
 tive. He was in his talks with her the most anxious and 
 deferential of dictators, an attitude that pleased her 
 immensely. It affirmed her. power without detracting 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 63 
 
 from his dignity. That slight girl, with her little feet, 
 little hands, little face attractively overweighted by 
 great coils of hair; with a rather large mouth, whose 
 mere parting seemed to breathe upon you the fragrance 
 of frankness and generosity, had the fastidious soul of 
 an experienced woman. She was, before all things and 
 all flatteries, careful of her pride in the object of her 
 choice. But now he was actually not looking at her at 
 all; and his expression was tense and irrational, as is 
 natural in a man who elects to stare at nothing past a 
 young girl’s head. 
 
 “Well, yes. It was iniquitous. They corrupted 
 him thoroughly, the poor old boy. Oh! why wouldn’t 
 he let me go back to him? But now I shall know how 
 to grapple with this.” 
 
 After pronouncing these words with immense as- 
 surance, he glanced down at her, and at once fell a prey 
 to distress, incertitude, and fear. 
 
 The only thing he wanted to know now, he said, was 
 whether she did love him enough—whether she would 
 have the courage to go with him so far away? He put 
 these questions to her in a voice that trembled with 
 anxiety—for he was a determined man. 
 
 She did. She would. And immediately the future 
 hostess of all the Europeans in Sulaco had the physical 
 experience of the earth falling away from under her. It 
 vanished completely, even to the very sound of the bell. 
 When her feet touched the ground again, the bell was 
 still ringing in the valley; she put her hands up to her 
 hair, breathing quickly, and glanced up and down the 
 stony lane. It was reassuringly empty. Meantime, 
 Charles, stepping with one foot into a dry and dusty 
 ditch, picked up the open parasol, which had bounded 
 away from them with a martial sound of drum taps. 
 He handed it to her soberly, a little crestfallen. 
 
64 NOSTROMO 
 
 They turned back, and after she had slipped her hand 
 on his arm, the first words he pronounced were— 
 
 “It’s lucky that we shall be able to settle in a coast 
 town. You’ve heard its name. Itis Sulaco. Iam so 
 glad poor father did get that house. He bought a big 
 house there years ago, in order that there should always 
 be a Casa Gould in the principal town of what used to be 
 called the Occidental Province. I lived there once, as a 
 small boy, with my dear mother, for a whole year, while 
 poor father was away in the United States on business. 
 You shall be the new mistress of the Casa Gould.” 
 
 And later, in the inhabited corner of the Palazzo 
 above the vineyards, the marble hills, the pies and 
 olives of Lucca, he also said— 
 
 “The name of Gould has been always highly re- 
 spected in Sulaco. My uncle Harry was chief of the 
 State for some time, and has left a great name amongst 
 the first families. By this I mean the pure Creole 
 families, who take no part in the miserable farce of - 
 governments. Uncle Harry was no adventurer. In 
 Costaguana we Goulds are no adventurers. He was of 
 the country, and he loved it, but he remained essentially 
 an Englishman in his ideas. He made use of the 
 political cry of his time. It was Federation. But he 
 was no politician. He simply stood up for social order 
 out of pure love for rational liberty and from his hate of 
 oppression. ‘There was no nonsense about him. He 
 went to work in his own way because it seemed right, 
 just as I feel I must lay hold of that mine.” 
 
 In such words he talked to her because his memory 
 was very full of the country of his childhood, his heart 
 of his life with that girl, and his mind of the San Tomé 
 Concession. He added that he would have to leave her 
 for a few days to find an American, a man from San 
 Francisco, who was still somewhere in Europe. A few 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 65 
 
 months before he had made his acquaintance in an oid 
 historic German town, situated in a mining district. 
 The American had his womankind with him, but seemed 
 lonely while they were sketching all day long the old 
 doorways and the turreted corners of the medizval 
 houses. Charles Gould had with him the inseparable 
 
 ‘companionship of the mine. The other man was 
 
 ” 
 
 interested in mining enterprises, knew something of 
 Costaguana, and was no stranger to the name of Gould. 
 They had talked together with some intimacy which was 
 made possible by the difference of their ages. Charles 
 wanted now to find that capitalist of shrewd mind and 
 accessibie character. His father’s fortune in Costa- 
 guana, which he had supposed to be still considerable, 
 seemed to have melted in the raseally crucible of 
 revolutions. Apart from some ten thousand pounds 
 deposited in England, there appeared to be nothing 
 left except the house in Sulaco, a vague right of forest 
 exploitation in a remote and savage district, and the 
 San Tomé Concession, which had attended his poor 
 father to the very brink of the grave. 
 
 He explained those things. It was late when they 
 parted. She had never before given him such a 
 fascinating vision of herself. All the eagerness of youth 
 for a strange life, for great distances, for a future in 
 which there was an air of adventure, of combat—a 
 subtle thought of redress and conquest, had filled her 
 with an intense excitement, which she returned to the 
 giver with a more open and exquisite display of tender- 
 ness. 
 
 He left her to walk down the hill, and directly he 
 found himself alone he became sober. That irreparable 
 change a death makes in the course of our daily thoughts 
 can be felt in a vague and poignant discomfort of mind. 
 
 It hurt Charles Gould to feel that never more, by no 
 
66 NOSTROMO 
 
 effort of will, would he be able to think of his father in 
 the same way he used to think of him when the poor 
 man was alive. His breathing image was no longer 
 in his power. ‘This consideration, closely affecting his 
 own identity, filled his breast with a mournful and angry 
 desire for action. In this his instinct was unerring. 
 Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and 
 the friend of flattering illusions. Only in the conduct 
 of our action can we find the sense of mastery over the 
 Fates. For his action, the mine was obviously the only 
 field. It was imperative sometimes to know how to. 
 disobey the solemn wishes of the dead. He resolved 
 firmly to make his disobedience as thorough (by way 
 of atonement) as it well could be. The mine had been 
 the cause of an absurd moral disaster; its working must 
 be made a serious and moral success. He owed it to 
 the dead man’s memory. Such were the—properly 
 speaking—emotions of Charles Gould. His thoughts 
 ran upon the means of raising a large amount of capital 
 in San Francisco or elsewhere; and incidentally there 
 occurred to him also the general reflection that the 
 counsel of the departed must be an unsound guide. 
 Not one of them could be aware beforehand what — 
 enormous changes the death of any given individual 
 may produce in the very aspect of the world. | 
 
 The latest phase in the history of the mine Mrs. 
 Gould knew from personal experience. It was in 
 essence the history of her married life. The mantle of 
 the Goulds’ hereditary position in Sulaco had descended 
 amply upon her little person; but she would not allow 
 the peculiarities of the strange garment to weigh down 
 the vivacity of her character, which was the sign of no 
 mere mechanical sprightliness, but of an eager intelli- 
 gence. It must not be supposed that Mrs. Gould’s 
 mind was masculine. A woman with a masculine mine 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 67 
 
 is not a being of superior efficiency; she is simply a 
 phenomenon of imperfect differentiation—interestingly 
 barren and without importance. Dofia Emilia’s in- 
 telligence being feminine led her to achieve the conquest 
 ef Sulaco, simply by lighting the way for her un- 
 selfishness and sympathy. She could converse charm- 
 ingly, but she was not talkative. The wisdom of the 
 heart having no concern with the erection or demolition 
 of theories any more than with the defence of preju- 
 dices, has no random words at its command. The 
 words it pronounces have the value of acts of integrity, 
 tolerance, and compassion. A woman’s true tender- 
 ness, like the true virility of man, is expressed in action 
 of a conquering kind. The ladies of Sulaco adored 
 Mrs. Gould. ‘They still look upon me as something of 
 a monster,” Mrs. Gould had said pleasantly to one of 
 the three gentlemen from San Francisco she had to 
 entertain in her new Sulaco house just about a year 
 after her marriage. 
 
 They were her first visitors from abroad, and they 
 had come to look at the San Tomé mine. She jested 
 most agreeably, they thought; and Charles Gould, be- 
 sides knowing thoroughly what he was about, had 
 shown himself a real hustler. These facts caused them 
 to be well disposed towards his wife. An unmistakable 
 enthusiasm, pointed by a slight flavour of irony, made 
 her talk of the mine absolutely fascinating to her 
 visitors, and provoked them to grave and indulgent 
 smiles in which there was a good deal of deference. 
 Perhaps had they known how much she was inspired 
 by an idealistic view of success they would have been 
 amazed at the state of her mind as the Spanish-Ameri- 
 can ladies had been amazed at the tireless activity of 
 her body. She would—in her own words—have been 
 for them “something of a monster.”” However, the 
 
68 NOSTROMO. 
 
 Goulds were in essentials a reticent couple, and their 
 guests departed without the suspicion of any other pur- 
 pose but simple profit in the working of a silver mine. 
 Mrs. Gould had out her own carriage, with two white 
 mules, to drive them down to the harbour, whence the 
 Ceres wes to carry them off into the Olympus of pluto- 
 crats. Captain Mitchell had snatched at the occasion 
 of leave-taking to remark to Mrs. Gould, im a low, con- 
 fidential mutter, “This marks an epoch.”’ 
 
 Mrs. Gould loved the patio of her Spanish house. A 
 broad flight of stone steps was overlooked silently from 
 a niche in the wall by a Madonna in blue robes with the 
 crowned child sitting on her arm. Subdued voices 
 ascended in the early mornings from the paved well 
 of the quadrangle, with the stamping of horses and 
 mules led out in pairs to drink at the cistern. A tangle 
 of slender bamboo stems drooped its narrow, blade-like 
 leaves over the square pool of water, and the fat coach- 
 man sat mufHled up on the edge, holding lazily the ends 
 of halters in his hand. Barefooted servants passed to 
 and fro, issuing from dark, low doorways below; two 
 laundry girls with baskets of washed linen; the baker 
 with the tray of bread made for the day; Leonarda— 
 her own camerista—bearing high up, swung from her 
 hand raised above her raven black head, a bunch of 
 starched under-skirts dazzlingly white in the slant of 
 sunshine. Then the old porter would hobble in, sweep- 
 ing the flagstones, and the house was ready for the day. 
 All the lofty rooms on three sides of the quadrangle 
 opened into each other:and into the corredor, with its 
 wrought-iron railings and a border of flowers, whence, 
 like the lady of the medizval castle, she could witness 
 from above all the departures and arrivals of the Casa, 
 to which the sonorous arched gateway lent an air of 
 stately importance. 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 69 
 
 She had watched her carriage roll away with the 
 three guests from the north. She smiled. Their three 
 arms went up simultaneously to their three hats. Cap- 
 tain Mitchell, the fourth, in attendance, had already 
 begun a pompous discourse. ‘Then she lingered. She 
 lingered, approaching her face to the clusters of flowers 
 here and there as if to give time to her thoughts to 
 catch up with her slow footsteps along the straight 
 vista of the corredor. 
 
 A fringed Indian hammock from Aroa, gay with 
 coloured featherwork, had been swung judiciously in a 
 corner that caught the early sun; for the mornings are 
 cool in Sulaco. The cluster of flor de noche buena 
 blazed in great masses before the open glass doors of the 
 reception rooms. A big green parrot, brilliant like an 
 emerald in a cage that flashed like gold, screamed out 
 ferociously, ““Viva Costaguana!”’ then called twice 
 mellifluously, ““Leonarda! Leonarda!”’ in imitation of 
 Mrs. Gould’s voice, and suddenly took refuge in im- 
 mobility and silence. Mrs. Gould reached the end of 
 the gallery and put her head through the door of her 
 husband’s room. 
 
 Charles Gould, with cone foot on a low wooden stool, 
 was already strapping his spurs. He wanted to hurry 
 back to the mine. Mrs. Gould, without coming in, 
 glanced about the room. One tall, broad bookcase, 
 with glass doors, was full of books; but in the other, 
 without shelves, and lined with red baize, were arranged 
 firearms: Winchester carbines, revolvers, a couple of 
 shot-guns, and even two pairs of double-barrelled holster 
 pistols. Between them, by itself, upon a strip of 
 scarlet velvet, hung an old cavalry sabre, once the 
 property of Don Enrique Gould, the hero of the Occi- 
 dental Province, presented by Don José Avellanos, the 
 hereditary friend of the family. 
 
70 NOSTROMO. 
 
 Otherwise, the plastered white walls were completely 
 bare, except for a water-colour sketch of the San Tomé 
 mountain—the work of Dofia Emilia herself. In the 
 middle of the red-tiled floor stood two long tables 
 littered with plans and papers, a few chairs, and a glass 
 show-case containing specimens of ore from the mine. 
 Mrs. Gould, looking at all these things in turn, won- 
 dered aloud why the talk of these wealthy and enter- 
 prising men discussing the prospects, the working, and 
 the safety of the mine rendered her so impatient and un- 
 easy, whereas she could talk of the mine by the hour with 
 her husband with unwearied interest and satisfaction. 
 
 And dropping her eyelids expressively, she added— 
 
 “What do you feel about it, Charley?” 
 
 Then, surprised at her husband’s silence, she raised 
 her eyes, opened wide, as pretty as pale flowers. He 
 had done with the spurs, and, twisting his moustache 
 with both hands, horizontally, he contemplated her 
 from the height of his long legs with a visible apprecia- 
 tion of her appearance. ‘The consciousness of being 
 thus contemplated pleased Mrs. Gould. 
 
 “They are considerable men,” he said. 
 
 “T know. But you have listened to their con- 
 versation? They don’t seem to have understood any- | 
 thing they have seen here.” : 
 
 “They have seen the mine. They have understood 
 that to some purpose,” Charles Gould interjected, in 
 defence of the visitors; and then his wife mentioned the 
 name of the most considerable of the three. He was 
 considerable in finance and in industry. His name was 
 familiar to many millions of people. He was so con- 
 siderable that he would never have travelled so far 
 away from the centre of his activity if the doctors had 
 not insisted, with veiled menaces, on his taking a long 
 holiday. 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE it 
 
 “Mr. Holroyd’s sense of religion,’ Mrs. Gould pur- 
 sued, “was shocked and disgusted at the tawdriness of 
 the dressed-up saints in the cathedral—the worship, he 
 called it, of wood and tinsel. But it seemed to me that 
 he looked upon his own God as a sort of influential 
 partner, who gets his share of profits in the endowment 
 of churches. That’s a sort of idolatry. He told me he 
 endowed churches every year, Charley.” 
 
 “No end of them,” said Mr. Gould, marvelling in- 
 wardly at the mobility of her physiognomy. “All over 
 the country. He’s famous for that sort of munificence.”’ 
 
 “Oh, he didn’t boast,” Mrs. Gould declared, scrupu- 
 lously. “I believe he’s really a good man, but so stupid! 
 A poor Chulo who offers a little silver arm or leg to 
 thank his god for a cure is as rational and more touch- 
 ing.” 
 
 *““He’s at the head of immense silver and iron inter- 
 ests,’ Charles Gould observed. 
 
 “Ah, yes! The religion of silver and iron. He’s a 
 very civil man, though he looked awfully solemn when 
 he first saw the Madonna on the staircase, who’s only 
 wood and paint; but he said nothing to me. My dear 
 Charley, I heard those men talk among themselves. 
 Can it be that they really wish to become, for an im- 
 mense consideration, drawers of water and hewers of 
 wood to all the countries and nations of the earth?”’ 
 
 **A man must work to some end,’”’Charles Gould said, 
 vaguely. ) 
 
 Mrs. Gould, frowning, surveyed him from head to 
 foot. With his riding breeches, leather leggings (an 
 article of apparel never before seen in Costaguana), a 
 Norfolk coat of grey flannel, and those great flaming 
 moustaches, he suggested an officer of cavalry turned 
 gentleman farmer. This combination was gratifying to 
 Mrs. Gould’s tastes. ‘‘How thin the poor boy is!”’ she 
 
72 NOSTROMO. 
 
 thought. ‘He overworks himself.”’ But there was no 
 denying that his fine-drawn, keen red face, and his 
 whole, long-limbed, lank person had an air of breeding 
 and distinction. And Mrs. Gould relented. 
 
 “T only wondered what you felt,’ she murmured, 
 gently. 
 
 During the last few days, as it happened, Charles 
 Gould had been kept too busy thinking twice before he 
 spoke to have paid much attention to the state of his 
 feelings. But theirs was a successful match, and he 
 had no difficulty in finding his answer. 
 
 “The best of my feelings are in your keeping, my 
 dear,” he said, lightly; and there was so much truth in 
 that obscure phrase that he experienced towards her 
 at the moment a great increase of gratitude and tender- 
 ness. 
 
 Mrs. Gould, however, did not seem to find this answer 
 in the least obscure. She brightened up delicately; 
 already he had changed his tone. 
 
 “But there are facts. The worth of the mine—as a 
 mine—is beyond doubt. It shall make us very wealthy. 
 The mere working of it is a matter of technical knowl- 
 edge, which I have—which ten thousand other men in 
 the world have. But its safety, its continued existence 
 as an enterprise, giving a return to men—to strangers, 
 comparative strangers—who invest money in it, is left 
 altogether in my hands. I have inspired confidence in 
 a man of wealth and position. You seem to think this 
 perfectly natural—do you? Well, I don’t know. I 
 don’t know why I have; but it is a fact. This fact 
 makes everything possible, because without it I would 
 never have thought of disregarding my father’s wishes. 
 I would never have disposed of the Concession as a 
 speculator disposes of a valuable right to a company— 
 for cash and shares, to grow rich eventually if possible, 
 
THE SILVER OF THRE MINE 73 
 
 but at any rate to put some money at once in his pocket. 
 No. Even if it had been feasible—which I doubt—I 
 would not have done so. Poor father did not under- 
 stand. He was afraid I would hang on to the ruinous 
 thing, waiting for just some such chance, and waste my 
 life miserably. That was the true sense of his pro- 
 hibition, which we have deliberately set aside.” 
 
 They were walking up and down the corredor. Her 
 head just reached to his shoulder. His arm, extended 
 downwards, was about her waist. His spurs jingled 
 slightly. 
 
 “He had not seen me for ten years. He did not know 
 me. He parted from me for my sake, and he would 
 never let me come back. He was always talking in his 
 letters of leaving Costaguana, of abandoning everything 
 and making his escape. But he was too valuable a 
 prey. They would have thrown him into one of their 
 prisons at the first suspicion.” 
 
 His spurred feet clinked slowly. He was bending 
 over his wife as they walked. The big parrot, turning 
 its head askew, followed their pacing figures with a 
 round, unblinking eye. 
 
 “He was a lonely man. Ever since I was ten years 
 old he used to talk to me as if I had been grown up. 
 When I was in Europe he wrote to me every month. 
 Ten, twelve pages every month of my life for ten years. 
 And, after all, he did not know me! Just think of it— 
 ten whole years away; the years I was growing up into a 
 man. He could not know me. Do you think he 
 could?” 
 
 Mrs. Gould shook her head negatively; which was just 
 what her husband had expected from the strength of the 
 argument. But she shook her head negatively only 
 because she thought that no one could know her Charles 
 —treally know him for what he was but herself. The 
 
74 NOSTROMO — 
 
 thing was obvious. It could be felt. It required no 
 argument. And poor Mr. Gould, senior, who had died 
 too soon to ever hear of their engagement, remained too 
 shadowy a figure for her to be credited with knowledge 
 of any sort whatever. 
 
 “No, he did not understand. In my view this mine 
 could never have been a thing to sell. Never! After 
 all his misery I simply could not have touched it for 
 money alone,’ Charles Gould pursued: and she pressed. 
 her head to his shoulder approvingly. 
 
 These two young people remembered the life which 
 had ended wretchedly just when their own lives had 
 come together in that splendour of hopeful love, which 
 to the most sensible minds appears like a triumph of 
 good over all the evils of the earth. A vague idea of 
 rehabilitation had entered the plan of their life. That 
 it was so vague as to elude the support of argument 
 made it only the stronger. It had presented itself to 
 them at the instant when the woman’s instinct of de- 
 votion and the man’s instinct of activity receive from 
 the strongest of illusions their most powerful impulse. 
 The very prohibition imposed the necessity of success. 
 It was as if they had been morally bound to make good 
 their vigorous view of life against the unnatural error of 
 weariness and despair. If the idea of wealth was 
 present to them it was only in so far as it was bound with 
 that other success. Mrs. Gould, an orphan from early 
 childhood and without fortune, brought up in an 
 atmosphere of intellectual interests, had never con- 
 sidered the aspects of great wealth. They were too 
 remote, and she had not learned that they were de- 
 sirable. On the other hand, she had not known any- 
 thing of absolute want. Even the very poverty of her 
 aunt, the Marchesa, had nothing intolerable to a re- 
 fined mind; it seemed in accord with a great grief: it hae 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 75 
 
 the austerity of a sacrifice offered to a noble ideal. 
 Thus even the most legitimate touch of materialism 
 was wanting in Mrs. Gould’s character. The dead man 
 of whom she thought with tenderness (because he was 
 Charley’s father) and with some impatience (because he 
 had been weak), must be put completely in the wrong. 
 Nothing else would do to keep their prosperity without a 
 stain on its only real, on its immaterial side! 
 
 Charles Gould, on his part, had been obliged to keep 
 the idea of wealth well to the fore; but he brought it 
 forward as a means, not as an end. Unless the mine 
 was good business it could not be touched. He had to 
 insist on that aspect of the enterprise. It was his lever 
 to move men who had capital. And Charles Gould be- 
 lieved in the mine. He knew everything that could be 
 known of it. His faith in the mine was contagious, 
 though it was not served by a great eloquence; but busi- 
 ness men are frequently as sanguine and imaginative 
 as lovers. ‘They are affected by a personality much 
 oftener than people would suppose; and Charles Gould, 
 in his unshaken assurance, was absolutely convincing. 
 Besides, it was a matter of common knowledge to the 
 men to whom he addressed himself that mining in 
 Costaguana was a game that could be made consid- 
 ably more than worth the candle. The men of affairs 
 knew that very well. The real difficulty in touching it 
 was elsewhere. Against that there was an implication 
 of calm and implacable resolution in Charles Gould’s 
 very voice. Men of affairs venture sometimes on acts 
 that the common judgment of the world would pro- 
 nounce absurd; they make their decisions on apparently 
 impulsive and human grounds. “Very well,” had said 
 the considerable personage to whom Charles Gould on 
 his way out through San Francisco had lucidly exposed 
 his point of view. “Let us suppose that the mining 
 
76 NOSTROMO 
 
 affairs of Sulaco are taken in hand. There would 
 then be in it: first, the house of Holroyd, which is all 
 right; then, Mr. Charles Gould, a citizen of Costaguana, 
 who is also all right; and, lastly, the Government of the 
 Republic. So far this resembles the first start of the 
 Atacama nitrate fields, where there was a financing 
 house, a gentleman of the name of Edwards, and—a 
 Government; or, rather, two Governments—two South 
 American Governments. And you know what came of 
 it. War came of it; devastating and prolonged war 
 came of it, Mr. Gould. However, here we possess the 
 advantage of having only one South American Govern- 
 ment hanging around for plunder out of the deal. It is 
 an advantage; but then there are degrees of badness, 
 and that Government is the Costaguana Government.” 
 
 Thus spoke the considerable personage, the million- 
 aire endower of churches on a scale befitting the great- 
 ness of his native land—the same to whom the doctors 
 used the language of horrid and veiled menaces. He 
 was a big-limbed, deliberate man, whose quiet burliness 
 lent to an ample silk-faced frock-coat a superfine 
 dignity. His hair was iron grey, his eyebrows were 
 still black, and his massive profile was the profile of a | 
 Ceesar’s head on an old Roman coin. But his parentage 
 was German and Scotch and English, with remote 
 strains of Danish and French blood, giving him the 
 temperament of a Puritan and an insatiable imagination 
 of conquest. He was completely unbending to his 
 visitor, because of the warm introduction the visitor had 
 brought from Europe, and because of an irrational 
 liking for earnestness and determination wherever met, 
 to whatever end directed. 
 
 “The Costaguana Government shall play its hand 
 for all it’s worth—and don’t you forget it, Mr. Gould. 
 Now, what is Costaguana? It is the bottomless pit of 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 77 
 
 10 per cent. loans and other fool investments. Euro- 
 pean capital has been flung into it with both hands for 
 years. Not ours, though. We in this country know 
 just about enough to keep indoors when it rains. We 
 can sit and watch. Of course, some day we shall step 
 in. We are bound to. But there’s no hurry. Time 
 itself has got to wait on the greatest country in the 
 whole of God’s Universe. We shall be giving the word 
 for everything: industry, trade, law, journalism, art, 
 politics, and religion, from Cape Horn clear over to 
 Smith’s Sound, and beyond, too, if anything worth 
 taking hold of turns up at the North Pole. And then 
 we shall have the leisure to take in hand the outlying 
 islands and continents of the earth. We shall run the 
 world’s business whether the world likes it or not. The 
 world can’t help it—and neither can we, I guess.”’ 
 By this he meant to express his faith in destiny in 
 words suitable to his intelligence, which was unskilled 
 in the presentation of general ideas. His intelligence 
 was nourished on facts; and Charles Gould, whose 
 imagination had been permanently affected by the one 
 great fact of a silver mine, had no objection to this 
 theory of the world’s future. If it had seemed dis- 
 tasteful for a moment it was because the sudden state- 
 ment of such vast eventualities dwarfed almost to 
 nothingness the actual matter in hand. He and his 
 plans and all the mineral wealth of the Occidental 
 Province appeared suddenly robbed of every vestige 
 of magnitude. The sensation was disagreeable; but 
 Charles Gould was not dull. Already he felt that he 
 was producing a favourable impression; the conscious- 
 ness of that flattering fact helped him to a vague smile, 
 which his big interlocutor took for a smile of discreet 
 and admiring assent. He smiled quietly, too; and 
 izamediately Charles Gould, with that mental agility 
 
78 NOSTROMO 
 
 mankind will display in defence of a cherished hope, 
 reflected that the very apparent insignificance of his 
 aim would help him to success. His personality and his 
 mine would be taken up because it was a matter of no 
 great consequence, one way or another, to a man who 
 referred his action to such a prodigious destiny. And 
 Charles Gould was not humiliated by this consideration, 
 because the thing remained as big as ever for him. No- 
 body else’s vast conceptions of destiny could diminish 
 the aspect of his desire for the redemption of the San 
 Tomé mine. In comparison to the correctness of 
 his aim, definite in space and absolutely attainable 
 within a limited time, the other man appeared for an 
 instant as a dreamy idealist of no importance. 
 
 The great man, massive and benignant, had been 
 looking at him thoughtfully; when he broke the short 
 silence it was to remark that concessions flew about — 
 thick in the air of Costaguana. Any simple soul that 
 just yearned to be taken in could bring down a con- 
 cession at the first shot. 
 
 “‘Ourconsuls get their mouths stopped with them,” he 
 continued, with a twinkle of genial scorn in his eyes. 
 But in a moment he became grave. “A conscientious, 
 upright man, that cares nothing for boodle, and keeps 
 clear of their intrigues, conspiracies, and factions, soon 
 gets his passports. See that, Mr. Gould? Persona non 
 grata. 'That’s the reason our Government is never 
 properly informed. On the other hand, Europe must — 
 be kept out of this continent, and for proper interfer- 
 ence on our part the time is not yet ripe, I dare say. 
 But we here—we are not this country’s Government, 
 neither are we simple souls. Your affair is all right. 
 The main question for us is whether the second partner, 
 and that’s you, is the right sort to hold his own against 
 the third and unwelcome partner, which is one or 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 79 
 
 another of the high and mighty robber gangs that run 
 the Costaguana Government. What do you think, 
 Mr. Gould, eh?”’ 
 
 He bent forward to look steadily into the unflinching 
 eyes of Charles Gould, who, remembering the large box 
 full of his father’s letters, put the accumulated scorn 
 and bitterness of many years into the tone of his 
 answer— 
 
 ‘““As far as the knowledge of these men and their 
 methods and their politics is concerned, I can answer 
 for myself. I have been fed on that sort of knowledge 
 since I wasa boy. Iam not likely to fall into mistakes 
 from excess of optimism.” 
 
 “Not likely, eh? That’s all right. Tact and a stiff 
 upper lip is what you'll want; and you could bluffia 
 little on the strength of your backing. Not too much, 
 though. We will go with you as long as the thing runs 
 straight. But we won’t be drawn into any large 
 trouble. This is the experiment which I am willing to 
 make. There is some risk, and we will take it; but if 
 you can’t keep up your end, we will stand our loss, of 
 course, and then—we'll let the thing go. This mine 
 can wait; it has been shut up before, as you know. You 
 must understand that under no circumstances will we © 
 consent to throw good money after bad.” 
 
 Thus the great personage had spoken then, in his 
 own private office, in a great city where other men 
 (very considerable in the eyes of a vain populace) 
 waited with alacrity upon a wave of his hand. And 
 rather more than a year later, during his unexpected 
 appearance in Sulaco, he had emphasized his uncom- 
 promising attitude with a freedom of sincerity per- 
 mitted to his wealth and influence. He did this with 
 the less reserve, perhaps, because the inspection of 
 what had been done, and more still the way in which 
 
80 NOSTROMO 
 
 successive steps had been taken, had impressed him 
 with the conviction that Charles Gould was perfectly 
 capable of keeping up his end. 
 
 “This young fellow,” he thought to himself, “may 
 yet become a power in the land.”’ 
 
 This thought flattered him, for hitherto the only 
 account of this young man he could give to his intimates 
 was— 
 
 ““My brother-in-law met him in one of these one- 
 horse old German towns, near some mines, and sent 
 him on to me with a letter. He’s one of the Costaguana 
 Goulds, pure-bred Englishmen, but all born in the 
 country. His uncle went into politics, was the last 
 Provincial President of Sulaco, and got shot after a 
 battle. His father was a prominent business man in 
 Sta. Marta, tried to keep clear of their politics, and died 
 ruined after a lot of revolutions. And that’s your 
 Costaguana in a nutshell.” 
 
 Of course, he was too great a man to be questioned 
 as to his motives, even by his intimates. The outside 
 world was at liberty to wonder respectfully at the 
 hidden meaning of his actions. He was so great a man 
 that his lavish patronage of the “purer forms of Christi- 
 anity’’ (which in its naive form of church-building 
 amused Mrs. Gould) was looked upon by his fellow- 
 citizens as the manifestation of a pious and humble 
 spirit. But in his own circles of the financial world the 
 taking up of such a thing as the San Tomé mine was 
 regarded with respect, indeed, but rather as a subject 
 for discreet jocularity. It was a great man’s caprice. 
 In the great Holroyd building (an enormous pile of 
 iron, glass, and blocks of stone at the corner of two 
 streets, cobwebbed aloft by the radiation of telegraph 
 wires) the heads of principal departments exchanged | 
 humorous glances, which meant that they were not let 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 81 
 
 into the secrets of the San Tomé business. The 
 Costaguana mail (it was never large—one fairly heavy 
 envelope) was taken unopened straight into the great 
 man’s room, and no instructions dealing with it had 
 ever been issued thence. ‘The office whispered that he 
 answered personally—and not by dictation either, but 
 actually writing in his own hand, with pen and ink, 
 and, it was to be supposed, taking a copy in his own 
 private press copy-book, inaccessible to profane eyes. 
 Some scornful young men, insignificant pieces of minor 
 machinery in that eleven-storey-high workshop of great 
 affairs, expressed frankly their private opinion that the 
 great chief had done at last something silly, and was 
 ashamed of his folly; others, elderly and insignificant, 
 but full of romantic reverence for the business that had 
 devoured their best years, used to mutter darkly and 
 knowingly that this was a portentous sign; that the 
 Holroyd connection meant by-and-by to get hold of the 
 whole Republic of Costaguana, lock, stock, and barrel. 
 But, in fact, the hobby theory was the right one. It 
 interested the ‘great man to attend personally to the 
 San Tomé mine; it interested him so much that he 
 allowed this hobby to give a direction to the first com- 
 plete holiday he had taken for quite a startling number 
 of years. He was not running a great enterprise there; 
 no mere railway board or industrial corporation. He 
 was running aman! A success would have pleased him 
 very much on refreshingly novel grounds; but, on the 
 other side of the same feeling, it was incumbent upon 
 him to cast it off utterly at the first sign of failure. A 
 man may be thrown off. The papers had unfortunately 
 trumpeted all over the land his journey to Costaguana. 
 If he was pleased at the way Charles Gould was going 
 on, he infused an added grimness into his assurances of 
 supvort. Even at the very last interview, half an hour 
 
82 NOSTROMO 
 
 or so before he rolled out of the patio, hat in hand, be- 
 hind Mrs. Gould’s white mules, he had said in Charles’s 
 room— 
 
 “You go ahead in your own way, and I shall know 
 how to help you as long as you hold your own. But you 
 may rest assured that 1 in a given case we shall know how 
 to drop you in time.” 
 
 To this Charles Gould’s only answer had been: “You 
 may begin sending out the machinery as soon as you 
 like.” 
 
 And the great man had liked this imperturbable 
 assurance. The secret of it was that to Charles 
 Gould’s mind these uncompromising terms were agree- 
 able. Like this the mine preserved its identity, with 
 which he had endowed it as a boy; and it remained 
 dependent on himself alone. It was a serious affair, 
 and he, too, took it grimly. 
 
 “Ot course,” he said to his wife, alluding to this last 
 conversation with the departed guest, while they 
 walked slowly up and down the corredor, followed by 
 the irritated eye of the parrot—“‘of course, a man of 
 that sort can take up a thing or drop it when he likes. 
 He will suffer from no sense of defeat. He may have 
 to give in, or he may have to die to-morrow, but the — 
 great silver and iron interests will survive, and some 
 day will get hold of Costaguana along with the rest of 
 the world.” 
 
 They had stopped near the cage. The parrot, 
 catching the sound of a word belonging to his vocabu- 
 lary, was moved to interfere. Parrots are very human. 
 
 “Viva Costaguana!”’ he shrieked, with intense self- 
 assertion, and, instantly ruffling up his feathers, as- 
 sumed an air of puffed-up somnolence behind the 
 glittering wires. 
 
 “And do you believe that, Charley?’? Mrs. Gould 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 83 
 
 asked. ‘“‘This seems to me most awful materialism, 
 and J 
 
 “My dear, it’s nothing to me,” interrupted her hus 
 band, in a reasonable tone. ‘“‘I make use of what I see. 
 What’s it to me whether his talk is the voice of destiny 
 or simply a bit of clap-trap eloquence? There’s a good 
 deal of eloquence of one sort or another produced in 
 both Americas. The air of the New World seems 
 favourable to the art of declamation. Have you for- 
 gotten how dear Avellanos can hold forth for hours 
 here——?”’ 
 
 “Oh, but that’s different,” protested Mrs. Gould, 
 almost shocked. The allusion was not to the point. 
 Don José was a dear good man, who talked very well, 
 and was enthusiastic about the greatness of the San 
 Tomé mine. “How can you compare them, Charles?”’ 
 she exclaimed, reproachfully “He has suffered—and yet 
 he hopes.” 
 
 The working competence of men—which she never 
 questioned—was very surprising to Mrs. Gould, be- 
 cause upon so many obvious issues they showed them- 
 selves strangely muddle-headed. 
 
 Charles Gould, with a careworn calmness which 
 secured for him at once his wife’s anxious sympathy, 
 assured her that he was not comparing. He was an 
 American himself, after all, and perhaps he could under- 
 stand both kinds of eloquence—“‘if 1t were worth while 
 to try,” he added, grimly. But he had breathed the air 
 of England longer than any of his people had done for 
 three generations, and really he begged to be excused. 
 His poor father could be eloquent, too. And he asked 
 his wife whether she remembered a passage in one of 
 his father’s last letters where Mr. Gould had ex- 
 pressed the conviction that ““God looked wrathfully 
 at these countries. or else He would let some ray of hope 
 
84. NOSTROMO 
 
 fall through a rift in the appalling darkness of intrigue, 
 bloodshed, and crime that hung over the Queen of 
 Continents.” . 
 
 Mrs. Gould had not forgotten. ‘You read it to me, 
 Charley,” she murmured. “It was a striking pro- 
 nouncement. How deeply your father must have felt 
 its terrible sadness!”’ 
 
 “He did not like to be robbed. It exasperated him,”’ 
 said Charles Gould. “But the image will serve well 
 enough. What is wanted here is law, good faith, order, 
 security. Any one can declaim about these things, but 
 I pin my faith to material interests. Only let the 
 material interests once get a firm footing, and they are 
 bound to impose the conditions on which alone they 
 can continue to exist. That’s how your money-mak- 
 ing is justified here in the face of lawlessness and dis- 
 order. It is justified because the security which it 
 demands must be shared with an oppressed people. A 
 better justice will come afterwards. That’s your ray of 
 hope.”’ His arm pressed her slight form closer to his 
 side for a moment. “‘And who knows whether in that 
 sense even the San Tomé mine may not become that 
 little rift in the darkness which poor father despaired of 
 ever seeing?”’ 
 
 She glanced up at him with admiration. He was 
 competent; he had given a vast shape to the vagueness 
 of her unselfish ambitions. 
 
 “Charley,” she said, “you are splendidly diso- 
 bedient.”’ 
 
 He left her suddenly in the corredor to go and get his 
 hat, a soft, grey sombrero, an article of national cos- 
 tume which combined unexpectedly well with his 
 English get-up. He came back, a riding-whip under 
 his arm, buttoning up a dogskin glove; his face re- 
 flected the resolute nature of his thoughts. His wife 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 85 
 
 had waited for him at the head of the stairs, and before 
 he gave her the parting kiss he finished the conversa- 
 tion— 
 
 “What should be perfectly clear to us,” he said, “is 
 the fact that there is no going back. Where could we 
 begin life afresh? We are in now for all that there is 
 in us.” 
 
 He bent over her upturned face very tenderly and a 
 little remorsefully. Charles Gould was competent 
 because he had no illusions. The Gould Concession 
 had to fight for life with such weapons as could be found 
 at once in the mire of a corruption that was so universal 
 as almost to lose its significance. He was prepared to 
 stoop for his weapons. For a moment he felt as if the 
 silver mine, which kad killed his father, had decoyed 
 him further than he meant to go; and with the round- 
 about logic of emotions, he felt that the worthiness of 
 his life was bound up with success. There was no 
 going back. 
 
CHAPTER SEVEN 
 
 Mrs. Goutp was too intelligently sympathetic not 
 to share that feeling. It made life exciting, and she 
 was too much of a woman not to like excitement. But 
 it frightened her, too, a little; and when Don José 
 Avellanos, rocking in the American chair, would go so 
 far as to say, ““Even, my dear Carlos, if you had failed; 
 even if some untoward event were yet to destroy your 
 work—which God forbid!—you would have deserved 
 well of your country,’ Mrs. Gould would look up from 
 the tea-table profoundly at her unmoved husband 
 stirring the spoon in the cup as though he had not heard 
 a word. 
 
 Not that Don José anticipated anything of the sort. 
 He could not praise enough dear Carlos’s tact and 
 courage. His English, rock-like quality of character 
 was his best safeguard, Don José affirmed; and, turning 
 to Mrs. Gould, “As to you, Emilia, my soul”—he would 
 address her with the familiarity of his age and old 
 friendship—“‘ you are as true a patriot as though you 
 had been born in our midst.” 
 
 This might have been less or more than the truth. 
 Mrs. Gould, accompanying her husband all over the 
 province in the search for labour, had seen the land 
 with a deeper glance than a trueborn Costaguanera 
 could have done. In her travel-worn riding habit, her 
 face powdered white like a plaster cast, with a further 
 protection of a small silk mask during the heat of the 
 day, she rode on a well-shaped, light-footed pony in the 
 centre of a little cavalcade. Two mozos de campo, 
 
 86 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 87 
 
 picturesque in great hats, with spurred bare heels, 
 in white embroidered calzoneras, leather jackets and 
 striped ponchos, rode ahead with carbines across their 
 shoulders, swaying in unison to the pace of the horses. 
 A tropilla of pack mules brought up the rear in charge of 
 a thin brown muleteer, sitting his long-eared beast very 
 near the tail, legs thrust far forward, the wide brim of 
 his hat set far back, making a sort of halo for his head. 
 An old Costaguana officer, a retired senior major of 
 humble origin, but patronized by the first families on 
 account of his Blanco opinions, had been recommended 
 by Don José for commissary and organizer of that 
 expedition. The points of his grey moustache hung far 
 below his chin, and, riding on Mrs. Gould’s left hand, 
 ‘he looked about with kindly eyes, pointing out the 
 features of the country, tellmg the names of the little 
 pueblos and of the estates, of the smooth-walled 
 haciendas like long fortresses crowning the knolls above 
 the level of the Sulaco Valley. It unrolled itself, with 
 green young crops, plains, woodland, and gleams of 
 water, park-like, from the blue vapour of the distant 
 sierra to an Immense quivering horizon of grass and sky, 
 where big white clouds seemed to fall slowly into the 
 darkness of their own shadows. 
 
 Men ploughed with wooden ploughs and yoked oxen, 
 small on a boundless expanse, as if attacking immensity 
 itself. The mounted figures of vaqueros galloped in 
 the distance, and the great herds fed with all their 
 horned heads one way, in one single wavering line as far 
 as eye could reach across the broad potreros. A spread- 
 ing cotton-wool tree shaded a thatched ranche by the 
 road; the trudging files of burdened Indians taking off 
 their hats, would lift sad, mute eyes to the cavalcade 
 raising the dust of the crumbling camino real made by 
 the hands of their enslaved forefathers. And Mrs. 
 
88 NOSTROMO 
 
 Gould, with each day’s journey, seemed to come nearer 
 to the soul of the land in the tremendous disclosure 
 of this interior unaffected by the slight European veneer 
 of the coast towns, a great land of plain and mountain 
 and people, suffering and mute, waiting for the future 
 in a pathetic immobility of patience. 
 
 She knew its sights and its hospitality, dispensed with 
 a sort of slumbrous dignity in those great houses pre- 
 senting long, blind walls and heavy portals to the wind- 
 swept pastures. She was given the head of the tables, 
 where masters and dependants sat in a simple and 
 patriarchal state. The ladies of the house would talk 
 softly in the moonlight under the orange trees of the 
 courtyards, impressing upon her the sweetness of their 
 voices and the something mysterious in the quietude 
 of their lives. In the morning the gentlemen, well 
 mounted in braided sombreros and embroidered riding 
 suits, with much silver on the trappings of their horses, 
 would ride forth to escort the departing guests before 
 committing them, with grave good-byes, to the care of 
 God at the boundary pillars of their estates. In all 
 these households she could hear stories of political 
 outrage; friends, relatives, ruined, imprisoned, killed in 
 the battles of senseless civil wars, barbarously executed 
 in ferocious proscriptions, as though the government of 
 the country had been a struggle of lust between bands | 
 of absurd devils let loose upon the land with sabres and 
 uniforms and grandiloquent phrases. And on all the 
 lips she found a weary desire for peace, the dread of 
 officialdom with its nightmarish parody of administra- 
 tion without law, without security, and without justice. 
 
 She bore a whole two months of wandering very well; 
 she had that power of resistance to fatigue which one 
 discovers here and there in some quite frail-looking 
 women with surprise—like a state of possession by a 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 89 
 
 remarkably stubborn spirit. Don Pépé—the old Costa- 
 guana major—after much display of solicitude for the 
 delicate lady, had ended by conferring upon her the 
 name of the “‘Never-tired Sefiora.”” Mrs. Gould was 
 indeed becoming a Costaguanera. Having acquired 
 in Southern Europe a knowledge of true peasantry, she 
 was able to appreciate the great worth of the people. She 
 saw the man under the silent, sad-eyed beast of burden. 
 She saw them on the road carrying loads, lonely figures 
 upon the plain, toiling under great straw hats, with 
 their white clothing flapping about their limbs in the 
 wind; she remembered the villages by some group of 
 Indian women at the fountain impressed upon her 
 memory, by the face of some young Indian girl with a 
 melancholy and sensual profile, raising an earthenware 
 vessel of cool water at the door of a dark hut with a 
 wooden porch cumbered with great brown jars. The 
 solid wooden wheels of an ox-cart, halted with its shafts 
 in the dust, showed the strokes of the axe; and a party 
 of charcoal carriers, with each man’s load resting above 
 his head on the top of the low mud wall, slept stretched 
 in a row within the strip of shade. 
 
 The heavy stonework of bridges and churches left 
 by the conquerors proclaimed the disregard of human 
 labour, the tribute-labour of vanished nations. The 
 power of king and church was gone, but at the sight of 
 some heavy ruinous pile overtopping from a knoll the 
 low mud walls of a village, Don Pépé would interrupt 
 the tale of his campaigns to exclaim— 
 
 “Poor Costaguana! Before, it was everything for 
 the Padres, nothing for the people; and now it is every- 
 thing for those great politicos in Sta. Marta, for negroes 
 and thieves.”’ 
 
 Charles talked with the alcaldes, with the fiscales, 
 with the principal people in towns, and with the 
 
90 NOSTROMO 
 
 caballeros on the estates. The commandantes of the 
 districts offered him escorts—for he could show an 
 authorization from the Sulaco political chief of the day. 
 How much the document had cost him in gold twenty- 
 dollar pieces was a secret between himself, a great man 
 in the United States (who condescended to answer the 
 Sulaco mail with his own hand), and a great man of 
 another sort, with a dark olive complexion and shifty 
 eyes, inhabiting then the Palace of the Intendencia in 
 Sulaco, and who piqued himself on his culture and 
 Europeanism generally in a rather French style be- 
 cause he had lived in Europe for some years—in exile, 
 he said. However, it was pretty well known that just 
 before this exile he had incautiously gambled away all 
 the cash in the Custom House of a small port where a 
 friend in power had procured for him the post of sub- 
 collector. That youthful indiscretion had, amongst 
 other inconveniences, obliged him to earn his living 
 for a time as a café waiter in Madrid; but his talents 
 must have been great, after all, since they had enabled 
 him to retrieve his political fortunes so splendidly. 
 Charles Gould, exposing his business with an imperturb- 
 able steadiness, called him Excellency. 
 
 The provincial Excellency assumed a weary su- 
 periority, tilting his chair far back near an open window 
 in the true Costaguana manner. The military band 
 happened to be braying operatic selections on the plaza 
 just then, and twice he raised his hand imperatively for 
 silence in order to listen to a favourite passage. 
 
 “Exquisite, delicious!’? he murmured; while Charles 
 Gould waited, standing by with inscrutable patience. 
 “Lucia, Lucia di Lammermoor! I am passionate fo. 
 music. It transports me. Ha! the divine—ha!— 
 Mozart. Si! divine . . . What is it you were 
 saying?” 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 91 
 
 Of course, rumours had reached him already of the 
 newcomer’s intentions. Besides, he had received an 
 official warning from Sta. Marta. His manner was 
 intended simply to conceal his curiosity and impress 
 his visitor. But after he had locked up something 
 valuable in the drawer of a large writing-desk in a dis- 
 tant part of the room, he became very affable, and 
 walked back to his chair smartly. 
 
 “Tf you intend to build villages and assemble a 
 population near the mine, you shall require a decree 
 of the Minister of the Interior for that,” he suggested 
 in a business-like manner. 
 
 *“T have already sent a memorial,” said Charles 
 Gould, steadily, “and I reckon now confidently upon 
 your Excellency’s favourable conclusions.” 
 
 The Excellency was a man of many moods. With 
 the receipt of the money a great mellowness had de- 
 scended upon his simple soul. Unexpectedly he fetched 
 a deep sigh. 
 
 *“Ah, Don Carlos! What we want is advanced men 
 like you in the province. The lethargy—the lethargy 
 of these aristocrats! The want of public spirit! The 
 absence of all enterprise! I, with my profound studies 
 in Europe, you understand * 
 
 With one hand thrust into his swelling bosom, he 
 rose and fell on his toes, and for ten minutes, almost 
 without drawing breath, went on hurling himself 
 intellectually to the assault of Charles Gould’s polite 
 silence; and when, stopping abruptly, he fell back into 
 his chair, it was as though he had been beaten off from 
 a fortress. To save his dignity he hastened to dismiss 
 this silent man with a solemn inclination of the head 
 and the words, pronounced with moody, fatigued con- 
 descension— 
 
 “You may depend upon my enlightened goodwill 
 
92 NOSTROMO 
 
 as long as your conduct as a good citizen deserves 
 ity,’ 
 
 He took up a paper fan and began to cool himself with 
 a consequential air, while Charles Gould bowed and 
 withdrew. Then he dropped the fan at once, and 
 stared with an appearance of wonder and perplexity at 
 the closed door for quite a long time. At last he 
 shrugged his shoulders as if to assure himself of his dis- 
 dain. Cold, dull. No intellectuality. Red hair. A 
 true Englishman. He despised him. 
 
 His face darkened. What meant this unimpressed 
 and frigid behaviour? He was the first of the suc- 
 cessive politicians sent out from the capital to rule the 
 Occidental Province whom the manner of Charles 
 Gould in official intercourse was to strike as offensively 
 independent. 
 
 Charles Gould assumed that if the appearance of 
 listening to deplorable balderdash must form part of the 
 price he had to pay for being left unmolested, the obliga- 
 tion of uttering balderdash personally was by no means 
 included in the bargain. He drew the line there. To 
 these provincial autocrats, before whom the peaceable 
 population of all classes had been accustomed to 
 tremble, the reserve of that English-looking engineer 
 caused an uneasiness which swung to and fro between 
 cringing and truculence. Gradually all of them dis- 
 covered that, no matter what party was in power, that 
 man remained in most effective touch with the higher 
 authorities in Sta. Marta. 
 
 This was a fact, and it accounted perfectly for the 
 Goulds being by no means so wealthy as the engineer-in- 
 chief on the new railway could legitimately suppose. 
 Following the advice of Don José Avellanos, who was a 
 man of good counsel (though rendered timid by his 
 horrible experiences of Guzman Bento’s time), Charles 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 93 
 
 Gould had kept clear of the capital; but in the current 
 gossip of the foreign residents there he was known 
 (with a good deal of seriousness underlying the ireny) 
 by the nickname of “ King of Sulaco.”” An advocate of 
 the Costaguana Bar, a man of reputed ability and good 
 character, member of the distinguished Moraga family 
 possessing extensive estates in the Sulaco Valley, was 
 pointed out to strangers, with a shade of mystery and 
 respect, as the agent of the San Tomé mine—“ political, 
 you know.’ He was tall, black-whiskered, and dis- 
 creet. It was known that he had easy access to minis- 
 ters, and that the numerous Costaguana generals were 
 always anxious to dine at his house. Presidents 
 granted him audience with facility. He corresponded 
 actively with his maternal uncle, Don José Avellanos; 
 but his letters—unless those expressing formally his 
 dutiful affection—were seldom entrusted to the Costa- 
 guana Post Office. There the envelopes are opened, 
 indiscriminately, with the frankness of a brazen and 
 childish impudence characteristic of some Spanish- 
 American Governments. But it must be noted that at 
 about the time of the re-opening of the San Tomé mine 
 the muleteer who had been employed by Charles Gould 
 in his preliminary travels on the Campo added his small 
 train of animals to the thin stream of traffic carried 
 over the mountain passes between the Sta. Marta up- 
 land and the Valley of Sulaco. There are no travellers 
 by that arduous and unsafe route unless under very 
 exceptional circumstances, and the state of inland 
 trade did not visibly require additional transport 
 facilities; but the man seemed to find his account in it. 
 A few packages were always found for him whenever he 
 took the road. Very brown and wooden, in goatskin 
 breeches with the hair outside, he sat near the tail of 
 his own smart mule, his great hat turned against the 
 
94 NOSTROMO 
 
 sun, an expression of blissful vacancy on his long face, 
 humming day after day a love-song in a plaintive key, 
 or, without a change of expression, letting out a yell at 
 his small tropilla in front. A round little guitar hung 
 high up on his back; and there was a place scooped out 
 artistically in the wood of one of his pack-saddles where 
 a tightly rolled piece of paper could be slipped in, the 
 wooden plug replaced, and the coarse canvas nailed on 
 again. When in Sulaco it was his practice to smoke and 
 doze all day long (as though he had no care in the world) 
 on a stone bench outside the doorway of the Casa 
 Gould and facing the windows of the Avellanos house. 
 Years and years ago his mother had been chief laundry- 
 woman in that family—very accomplished in the mat- 
 ter of clear-starching. He himself had been born on 
 one of their haciendas. His name was Bonifacio, and 
 Don José, crossing the street about five o’clock to call on 
 Dofia Emilia, always acknowledged his humble salute 
 by some movement of hand or head. The porters of 
 both houses conversed lazily with him in tones of grave 
 intimacy. His evenings he devoted to gambling and 
 to calls in a spirit of generous festivity upon the peyne 
 d’oro girls in the more remote side-streets of the town. 
 But he, too, was a discreet man. 
 
CHAPTER EIGHT 
 
 TuHosE of us whom business or curiosity took to 
 Sulaco in these years before the first advent of the rail- 
 Way can remember the steadying effect of the San 
 Tomé mine upon the life of that remote province. The 
 outward appearances had not changed then as they 
 have changed since, as I am told, with cable cars 
 running along the streets of the Constitution, and 
 carriage roads far into the country, to Rincon and other 
 villages, where the foreign merchants and the Ricos 
 generally have their modern villas, and a vast railway 
 goods yard by the harbour, which has a quay-side, a 
 long range of warehouses, and quite serious, organized 
 labour troubles of its own. 
 
 Nobody had ever heard of labour troubles then. The 
 Cargadores of the port formed, indeed, an unruly 
 brotherhood of all sorts of scum, with e patron saint 
 of their own. They went on strike regularly (every 
 bull-fight day), a form of trouble that even Nostromo 
 at the height of his prestige could never cope with 
 efficiently; but the morning after each fiesta, before the 
 Indian market-women had opened their mat parasols 
 on the plaza, when the snows of Higuerota gleamed 
 pale over the town on a yet black sky, the appearance 
 of a phantom-like horseman mounted on a silver-grey 
 mare solved the problem of labour without fail. His 
 steed paced the lanes of the slums and the weed-grown 
 enclosures within the old. ramparts, between the black, 
 lightless cluster of huts, like cow-byres, like dog- 
 kennels. The horseman hammered with the butt of a 
 
 95 
 
96 NOSTROMO 
 
 heavy revolver at the doors of low pulperias, of ob- 
 scene lean-to sheds sloping against the tumble-down 
 piece of a noble wall, at the wooden sides of dwellings so 
 flimsy that the sound of snores and sleepy mutters 
 within could be heard in the pauses of the thundering 
 clatter of his blows. He called out men’s names 
 menacingly from the saddle, once, twice. The drowsy 
 answers—grumpy, conciliating, savage, jocular, or 
 deprecating—came out into the silent darkness in which 
 the horseman sat still, and presently a dark figure would 
 flit out coughing in the still air. Sometimes a low- 
 toned woman cried through the window-hole softly, 
 **He’s coming directly, sefior,” and the horseman waited 
 silent on a motionless horse. But if perchance he had 
 to dismount, then, after a while, from the door of that 
 hovel or of that pulperia, with a ferocious scuffle and 
 stifled imprecations, a cargador would fly out head 
 first and hands abroad, to sprawl under the forelegs of 
 the silver-grey mare, who only pricked forward her 
 sharp little ears. She was used to that work; and the 
 man, picking himself up, would walk away hastily from 
 Nostromo’s revolver, reeling a little along the street 
 and snarling low curses. At sunrise Captain Mitchell, 
 coming out anxiously in his night attire on to the 
 wooden balcony running the whole length of the O.S.N. 
 Company’s lonely building by the shore, would see 
 the lighters already under way, figures moving busily 
 about the cargo cranes, perhaps hear the invaluable 
 Nostromo, now dismounted and in the checked shirt 
 and red sash of a Mediterranean sailor, bawling orders 
 from the end of the jetty in a stentorian voice. A 
 fellow in a thousand! 
 
 The material apparatus of perfected civilization 
 which obliterates the individuality of old towns under 
 the stereotyped conveniences of modern life had not 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 97 
 
 intruded as yet; but over the worn-out antiquity of 
 Sulaco, so characteristic with its stuccoed houses and 
 barred windows, with the great yellowy-white walls of 
 abandoned convents behind the rows of sombre green 
 cypresses, that fact—very modern in its spirit—the 
 San Tomé mine had already thrown its subtle influence. 
 It had altered, too, the outward character of the 
 crowds on feast days on the plaza before the open portal 
 of the cathedral, by the number of white ponchos with a 
 green stripe affected as holiday wear by the San Tomé 
 miners. ‘They had also adopted white hats with green 
 cord and braid—articles of good quality, which could 
 be obtained in the storehouse of the administration for 
 very little money. A peaceable Cholo wearing these 
 colours (unusual in Costaguana) was somehow very 
 seldom beaten to within an inch of his life on a charge of 
 disrespect to the town police; neither ran he much risk 
 of being suddenly lassoed on the road by a recruiting 
 party of lanceros—a method of voluntary enlistment 
 looked upon as almost legal in the Republic. Whole 
 villages were known to have volunteered for the army 
 in that way; but, as Don Pépé would say with a hope- 
 less shrug to Mrs. Gould, “‘What would you! Poor 
 people! Pobrecitos! Pobrecitos! But the State must 
 have its soldiers.”’ 
 
 Thus professionally spoke Don Pépé, the fighter, with 
 pendent moustaches, a nut-brown, lean face, and a 
 clean run of a cast-iron jaw, suggesting the type of a 
 cattle-herd horseman from the great Llanos of the 
 South. “If you will listen to an old officer of Paez, 
 sefiores,’ was the exordium of all his speeches in the 
 Aristocratic Club of Sulaco, where he was admitted on 
 account of his past services to the extinct cause of 
 Federation. The club, dating from the days of the 
 proclamation of Costaguana’s independence, boasted 
 
98 | NOSTROMO 
 
 many names of liberators amongst its first founders. 
 Suppressed arbitrarily innumerable times by various 
 Governments, with memories of proscriptions and of at 
 least one wholesale massacre of its members, sadly 
 assembled for a banquet by the order of a zealous 
 military commandante (their bodies were afterwards 
 stripped naked and flung into the plaza out of the win- 
 dows by the lowest scum of the populace), it was again 
 flourishing, at that period, peacefully. It extended to 
 strangers the large hospitality of the cool, big rooms of 
 its historic quarters in the front part of a house, once the 
 residence of a high official of the Holy Office. The two 
 wings, shut up, crumbled behind the nailed doors, and 
 what may be described as a grove of young orange trees 
 grown in the unpaved patio concealed the utter ruin of 
 the back part facing the gate. You turned in from the 
 street, as if entering a secluded orchard, where you came 
 upon the foot of a disjointed staircase, guarded by a 
 moss-stained effigy of some saintly bishop, mitred and 
 staffed, and bearing the indignity of a broken nose 
 meekly, with his fine stone hands crossed on his breast. 
 The chocolate-coloured faces of servants with mops of 
 black hair peeped at you from above; the click of 
 billiard balls came to your ears, and ascending the 
 steps, you would perhaps see in the first sala, very stiff 
 upon a straight-backed chair, in a good light, Don Pépé 
 moving his long moustaches as he spelt his way, at arm’s 
 length, through an old Sta. Marta newspaper. His 
 horse—a stony-hearted but persevering black brute 
 with a hammer head—you would have seen in the 
 street dozing motionless under an immense saddle, with 
 its nose almost touching the curbstone of the sidewalk. 
 
 Don Pépé, when “down from the mountain,” as the 
 phrase, often heard in Sulaco, went, could also be seen 
 in the drawing-room of the Casa Gould. He sat with 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 99 
 
 modest assurance at some distance from the tea-table. 
 With his knees close together, and a kindly twinkle of 
 drollery in his deep-set eyes, he would throw his small 
 and ironic pleasantries into the current of conversation. 
 There was in that man a sort of sane, humorous shrewd- 
 ness, and a vein of genuine humanity so often found in 
 simple old soldiers of proved courage who have seen 
 much desperate service. Of course he knew nothing 
 whatever of mining, but his employment was of a special 
 kind. He was in charge of the whole population in the 
 territory of the mine, which extended from the head of 
 the gorge to where the cart track from the foot of the 
 mountain enters the plain, crossing a stream over a 
 little wooden bridge painted green—green, the colour of 
 hope, being also the colour of the mine. 
 
 It was reported in Sulaco that up there “‘at the moun- 
 tain” Don Pépé walked about precipitous paths, girt 
 with a great sword and in a shabby uniform with 
 tarnished bullion epaulettes of a senior major. Most 
 miners being Indians, with big wild eyes, addressed him 
 as Taita (father), as these barefooted people of Costa- 
 guana will address anybody who wears shoes; but it was 
 Basilio, Mr. Gould’s own mozo and the head servant of 
 the Casa, who, in all good faith and from a sense of 
 propriety, announced him once in the solemn words, 
 “El Sefior Gobernador has arrived.” 
 
 Don José Avellanos, then in the drawing-room, was 
 delighted beyond measure at the aptness of the title, 
 with which he greeted the old major banteringly as 
 soon as the latter’s soldierly figure appeared in the door- 
 way. Don Pépé only smiled in his lorg moustaches, as 
 much as to say, “You might have found a worse name 
 for an old soldier.” 
 
 And El Seftor Gobernador he had remained, with his 
 small jokes upon his function and upon his domain, 
 
100 NOSTROMO 
 
 where he affirmed with humorous exaggeration to Mrs. 
 Gould— 
 
 *“No two stones could come together anywhere with- 
 out the Gobernador hearing the click, sefiora.” 
 
 And he would tap his ear with the tip of his forefinger 
 knowingly. Even when the number of the miners alone 
 rose to over six hundred he seemed to know each of them 
 individually, all the innumerable Josés, Manuels, 
 Ignacios, from the villages primero—segundo—or 
 tercero (there were three mining villages) under his 
 government. He could distinguish them not only by 
 their flat, joyless faces, which to Mrs. Gould looked all 
 alike, as if run into the same ancestral mould of suffer- 
 ing and patience, but apparently also by the infinitely 
 graduated shades of reddish-brown, of blackish-brown, 
 of coppery-brown backs, as the two shifts, stripped to 
 linen drawers and leather skull-caps, mingled together 
 with a confusion of naked limbs, of shouldered picks, 
 swinging lamps, in a great shuffle of sandalled feet on 
 the open plateau before the entrance of the main 
 tunnel. It was a time of pause. The Indian boys 
 leaned idly against the long line of little cradle wagons 
 standing empty; the screeners and ore-breakers squat- 
 ted on their heels smoking long cigars; the great wooden 
 shoots slanting over the edge of the tunnel plateau were 
 silent; and only the ceaseless, violent rush of water in 
 the open flumes could be heard, murmuring fiercely, 
 with the splash and rumble of revolving turbine- 
 wheels, and the thudding march of the stamps pound- 
 ing to powder the treasure rock on the plateau below. 
 The heads of gangs, distinguished by brass medals 
 hanging on their bare breasts, marshalled their squads; 
 and at last the mountain would swallow one-half of the 
 silent crowd, while the other half would move off in long 
 files down the zigzag paths leading to the bottom of the 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 101 
 
 gorge. It was deep; and, far below, a thread of vegeta- 
 tion winding between the blazing rock faces resembled 
 a slender green cord, in which three lumpy knots of 
 banana patches, palm-leaf roots, and shady trees 
 marked the Village One, Village Two, Village Three, 
 housing the miners of the Gould Concession. 
 
 Whole families had been moving from the first 
 towards the spot in the Higuerota range, whence the 
 rumour of work and safety had spread over the pastoral 
 Campo, forcing its way also, even as the waters of a high 
 flood, into the nooks and crannies of the distant blue 
 walls of the Sierras. Father first, in a pointed straw 
 hat, then the mother with the bigger children, generally 
 also a diminutive donkey, all under burdens, except the 
 leader himself, or perhaps some grown girl, the pride of 
 the family, stepping barefooted and straight as an 
 arrow, with braids of raven hair, a thick, haughty pro- 
 file, and no load to carry but the small guitar of the 
 country and a pair of soft leather sandals tied together 
 on her back. At the sight of such parties strung out on 
 the cross trails between the pastures, or camped by the 
 side of the royal road, travellers on horseback would 
 remark to each other— 
 
 “More people going to the San Tomé mine. We 
 shall see others to-morrow.” 
 
 And spurring on in the dusk they would discuss the 
 great news of the province, the news of the San Tomé 
 mine. A rich Englishman was going to work it—and 
 perhaps not an Englishman, Quien sabe! A foreigner 
 with much money. Oh, yes, it had begun. A party of 
 men who had been to Sulaco with a herd of black bulls. 
 for the next corrida had reported that from the porch 
 of the posada in Rincon, only a short league from the 
 town, the lights on the mountain were visible, twinkling 
 above the trees. And there was a woman seen riding 
 
102 NOSTROMO 
 
 a horse sideways, not in the chair seat, but upon a sort 
 of saddle, and a man’s hat on her head. She walked 
 about, too, on foot up the mountain paths. A woman 
 engineer, it seemed she was. 
 
 “What an absurdity! Impossible, sefior 
 
 “S87! Si! Una Americana del Norte.” 
 
 ‘Ah, well! if your worship is informed. Una Ameri- 
 cana; it need be something of that sort.” : 
 
 And they would laugh a little with astonishment and 
 scorn, keeping a wary eye on the shadows of the road, 
 for one is liable to meet bad men when travelling late on 
 the Campo. 
 
 And it was not only the men that Don Pépé knew so 
 well, but he seemed able, with one attentive, thoughtful 
 glance, to classify each woman, girl, or growing youth 
 of his domain. It was only the small fry that puzzled 
 him sometimes. He and the padre could be seen 
 frequently side by side, meditative and gazing across the 
 street of a village at a lot of sedate brown children, try- 
 ing to sort them out, as it were, in low, consulting tones, 
 or else they would together put searching questions as 
 to the parentage of some small, staid urchin met 
 wandering, naked and grave, along the road. with a 
 cigar in his baby mouth, and perhaps his mother’s 
 rosary, purloined for purposes of ornamentation, hang- 
 ing in a loop of beads low down on his rotund little 
 stomach. The spiritual and temporal pastors of the 
 mine flock were very good friends. With Dr. Monyg- 
 ham, the medical pastor, who had accepted the charge 
 from Mrs. Gould, and lived in the hospital building, 
 they were on not so intimate terms. But no one could 
 be on intimate terms with El Sefior Doctor, who, with 
 his twisted shoulders, drooping head, sardonic mouth, 
 and side-long bitter glance, was mysterious and un- 
 canny. The other two authorities worked in _ har- 
 
 ize 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 103 
 
 mony. Father Roman, dried-up, small, alert, wrinkled, 
 with big round eyes, a sharp chin, and a great snuff- 
 taker, was an old campaigner, too; he had _ shriven 
 many simple souls on the battlefields of the Republic, 
 kneeling by the dying on hillsides, in the long grass, 
 in the gloom of the forests, to hear the last confession 
 with the smell of gunpowder smoke in his nostrils, the 
 rattle of muskets, the hum and spatter of bullets in his 
 ears. And where was the harm if, at the presbytery, 
 they had a game with a pack of greasy cards in the 
 early evening, before Don Pépé went his last rounds to 
 see that all the watchmen of the mine—a body or- 
 ganized by himself—were at their posts? For that last 
 duty before he slept Don Pépé did actually gird his old 
 sword on the verandah of an unmistakable American 
 white frame house, which Father Roman called the 
 presbytery. Near by, a long, low, dark building, 
 steeple-roofed, like a vast barn with a wooden cross 
 over the gable, was the miners’ chapel. There Father 
 Roman said Mass every day before a sombre altar- 
 piece representing the Resurrection, the grey slab of the 
 tombstone balanced on one corner, a figure soaring up- 
 wards, long-limbed and livid, in an oval of pallid light, 
 and a helmeted brown legionary smitten down, right 
 across the bituminous foreground. “This picture, my 
 children, muy linda e maravillosa,’’ Father Roman would 
 say to some of his flock, “which you behold here through 
 the munificence of the wife of our Sefior Administrador, 
 has been painted in Europe, a country of saints and 
 miracles, and much greatez than our Costaguana.”’ 
 And he would take a pinch of snuff with unction. But 
 when once an inquisitive spirit desired to know in what 
 direction this Europe was situated, whether up or down 
 the coast, Father Roman, to conceal his perplexity, be- 
 came very reserved and severe. “Ne doubt it is 
 
104 NOSTROMO 
 
 extremely far away. But ignorant sinners like you of 
 the San Tomé mine should think earnestly of ever- 
 lasting punishment instead of inquirmg into the 
 magnitude of the earth, with its countries and popula- 
 tions altogether beyond your understanding.” 
 
 With a “Good-night, Padre,” “Good-night, Don 
 Pépé,”’ the Gobernador would go off, holding up his 
 sabre against his side, his body bent forward, with a 
 long, plodding stride in the dark. The jocularity 
 proper to an innocent card game for a few cigars or a 
 bundle of yerba was replaced at once by the stern duty 
 mood of an officer setting out to visit the outposts of an 
 encamped army. One loud blast of the whistle that. 
 hung from his neck provoked instantly a great shrilling 
 of responding whistles, mingled with the barking of 
 dogs, that would calm down slowly at last, away up at 
 the head of the gorge; and in the stillness two serenos, 
 on guard by the bridge, would appear walking noise- 
 lessly towards him. On one side of the road a long 
 frame building—the store—would be closed and barri- 
 caded from end to end; facing it another white frame 
 house, still longer, and with a verandah—the hospital— 
 would have lights in the two windows of Dr. Monyg- 
 ham’s quarters. Even the delicate foliage of a clump of | 
 pepper trees did not stir, so breathless would be the 
 darkness warmed by the radiation of the over-heated 
 rocks. Don Pépé would stand still for a moment with 
 the two motionless serenos before him, and, abruptly, 
 high up on the sheer face of the mountain, dotted with 
 single torches, like drops of fire fallen from the two great 
 blazing clusters of lights above, the ore shoots would 
 begin to rattle. The great clattering, shuffling noise, 
 gathering speed and weight, would be caught up by the 
 walls of the gorge, and sent upon the plain in a growl of 
 thunder. The pasadero in Rincon swore that on calm 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 105 
 
 nights, by listening intently, he could catch the sound 
 in his doorway as of a storm in the mountains. 
 
 To Charles Gould’s fancy it seemed that the sound 
 must reach the uttermost limits of the province. Rid- 
 ing at night towards the mine, it would meet him at the 
 edge of a little wood just beyond Rincon. There was 
 no mistaking the growling mutter of the mountain 
 pouring its stream of treasure under the stamps; and _ it 
 came to his heart with the peculiar force of a procla- 
 mation thundered forth over the land and the marvel- 
 lousness of an accomplished fact fulfilling an audacious 
 desire. He had heard this very sound in his imagin- 
 ation on that far-off evening when his wife and him- 
 self, after a tortuous ride through a strip of forest, 
 had reined in their horses near the stream, and had 
 gazed for the first time upon the jungle-grown soli- 
 tude of the gorge. The head of a palm rose here 
 and there. In a high ravine round the corner of the 
 San Tomé mountain (which is square like a block- 
 house) the thread of a slender waterfall flashed bright 
 and glassy through the dark green of the heavy fronds 
 of tree-ferns. Don Pépé, in attendance, rode up, 
 and, stretching his arm up the gorge, had declared 
 with mock solemnity, “Behold the very paradise of 
 snakes, sefiora.”’ 
 
 And then they had wheeled their horses and ridden 
 back to sleep that night at Rincon. The alcalde—an 
 old, skinny Moreno, a sergeant of Guzman Bento’s 
 time—had cleared respectfully out of his house with his 
 three pretty daughters, to make room for the foreign 
 sefiora and their worships the Caballeros. All he asked 
 Charles Gould (whom he took for a mysterious and 
 official person) to do for him was to remind the supreme 
 Government—El Gobierno supremo—of a_ pension 
 (amounting to about a dollar a month) to which he 
 
106 NOSTROMO 
 
 believed himself entitled. It had been promised to 
 him, he affirmed, straightening his bent back martially, 
 “‘many years ago, for my valour in the wars with the 
 wild Indios when a young man, sefior.”’ 
 
 The waterfall existed no longer. The tree-ferns that 
 had luxuriated in its spray had died around the dried- 
 up pool, and the high ravine was only a big trench half 
 filled up with the refuse of excavations and tailings. 
 The torrent, dammed up above, sent its water rushing 
 along the open flumes of scooped tree trunks striding on 
 trestle-legs to the turbines working the stamps on the 
 lower plateau—the mesa grande of the San Tomé 
 mountain. Only the memory of the waterfall, with its 
 amazing fernery, like a hanging garden above the rocks 
 of the gorge, was preserved in Mrs. Gould’s water- 
 colour sketch; she had made it hastily one day from a 
 cleared patch in the bushes, sitting in the shade of a 
 roof of straw erected for her on three rough poles under 
 Don Pépé’s direction. 
 
 Mrs. Gould had seen it all from the beginning: the 
 clearing of the wilderness, the making of the road, the 
 cutting of new paths up the cliff face of San Tomé. For 
 weeks together she had lived on the spot with her hus- 
 band; and she was so little in Sulaco during that year 
 that the appearance of the Gould carriage on the 
 Alameda would cause a social excitement. From the 
 heavy family coaches full of stately sefioras and black- 
 eyed sefioritas rolling solemnly in the shaded alley white 
 hands were waved towards her with animation in a 
 flutter of greetings. Dofia Emilia was “down from the 
 mountain.” 
 
 But not for long. Dofia Emilia would be gone “up to 
 the mountain”’ in a day or two, and her sleek carriage 
 mules would have an easy time of it for another long 
 spell. She had watched the erection of tbe first frame- 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 107 
 
 house put up on the lower mesa for an office and Don 
 Pépé’s quarters; she heard with a thrill of thankful 
 emotion the first wagon load of ore rattle down the then 
 only shoot; she had stood by her husband’s side per- 
 fectly silent, and gone cold all over with excitement at 
 the instant when the first battery of only fifteen stamps 
 was put in motion for the first time. On the occasion 
 when the fires under the first set of retorts in their shed 
 had glowed far into the night she did not retire to rest 
 on the rough cadre set up for her in the as yet bare 
 frame-house till she had seen the first spongy lump of 
 silver yielded to the hazards of the world by the dark 
 depths of the Gould Concession; she had laid her un- 
 mercenary hands, with an eagerness that made them 
 tremble, upon the first silver ingot turned out still warm 
 from the mould; and by her imaginative estimate of its 
 power she endowed that lump of metal with a justifi- 
 cative conception, as though it were not a mere fact, 
 but something far-reaching and impalpable, like the 
 true expression of an emotion or the emergence of a 
 principle. 
 
 Don Pépé, extremely interested, too, looked over her 
 shoulder with a smile that, making longitudinal folds 
 on his face, caused it to resemble a leathern mask with a 
 benignantly diabolic expression. 
 
 “Would not the muchachos of Hernandez like to get 
 hold of this insignificant object, that looks, por Dios, 
 very much like a piece of tin?”’ he remarked, jocularly. 
 
 Hernandez, the robber, had been an inoffensive, small 
 ranchero, kidnapped with circumstances of peculiar 
 atrocity from his home during one of the civil wars, and 
 forced to serve in the army. There his conduct as 
 soldier was exemplary, till, watching his chance, he 
 killed his colonel, and managed to get clear away. With 
 a band of deserters, who chose him for their chief, he had 
 
 | 
 
108 ~ NOSTROMO 
 
 taken refuge beyond the wild and waterless Bolson de 
 Tonoro. The haciendas paid him blackmail in cattle 
 and horses; extraordinary stories were told of his powers 
 and of his wonderful escapes from capture. He used 
 to ride, single-handed, into the villages and the little 
 towns on the Campo, driving a pack mule before him, 
 with two revolvers in his belt, go straight to the shop or 
 store, select what he wanted, and ride away unopposed 
 because of the terror his exploits and his audacity in- 
 spired. Poor country people he usually left alone; the 
 upper class were often stopped on the roads and robbed; 
 but any unlucky official that fell into his hands was sure 
 to get a severe flogging. ‘The army officers did not like 
 his name to be mentioned in their presence. His 
 followers, mounted on stolen horses, laughed at the pur- 
 suit of the regular cavalry sent to hunt them down, and 
 whom they took pleasure to ambush most scientifically 
 in the broken ground of their own fastness. Wxpedi- 
 tions had been fitted out; a price had been put upon his 
 head; even attempts had been made, treacherously of 
 course, to open negotiations with him, without in the 
 slightest way affecting the even tenor of his career. At 
 last, in true Costaguana fashion, the Fiscal of Tonoro, 
 who was ambitious of the glory of having reduced the 
 famous Hernandez, offered him a sum of money and a 
 safe conduct out of the country for the betrayal of his 
 band. But Hernandez evidently was not of the stuff 
 of which the distinguished military politicians and 
 conspirators of Costaguana are made. ‘This clever but 
 common device (which frequently works like a charm 
 in putting down revolutions) failed with the chief of 
 vulgar Salteadores. It promised well for the Fiscal at 
 first, but ended very badly for the squadron of lanceros 
 posted (by the Fiscal’s directions) in a fold of the ground 
 into which Hernandez had promised to lead his un- 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 109 
 
 suspecting followers They came, indeed, at the ap- 
 pointed time, but creeping on their hands and knees 
 through the bush, and only let their presence be known 
 by a general discharge of firearms, which emptied 
 many saddles. The troopers who escaped came riding 
 very hard into Tonoro. It is said that their commanding 
 officer (who, being better mounted, rode far ahead of the 
 rest) afterwards got into a state of despairing in- 
 toxication and beat the ambitious Fiscal severely with 
 the flat of his sabre in the presence of his wife and 
 daughters, for bringing this disgrace upon the National 
 Army. The highest civil official of Tonoro, falling to 
 the ground in a swoon, was further kicked all over the 
 body and rowelled with sharp spurs about the neck and 
 face because of the great sensitiveness of his military 
 colleague. This gossip of the inland Campo, so 
 characteristic of the rulers of the country with its 
 story of oppression, inefficiency, fatuous methods, 
 treachery, and savage brutality, was perfectly known 
 to Mrs. Gould. That it should be accepted with no 
 indignant comment by people of intelligence, refinement, 
 and character as something inherent in the nature of 
 things was one of the symptoms of degradation that had 
 the power to exasperate her almost to the verge of 
 despair. Still looking at the ingot of silver, she shook 
 her head at Don Pépé’s remark— 
 
 “Tf it had not been for the lawless tyranny of your 
 Government, Don Pépé, many an outlaw now with 
 Hernandez would be living peaceably and happy by the 
 honest work of his hands.” 
 
 “Sefiora,” cried Don Pépé, with enthusiasm, “it is 
 true! It is as if God had given you the power to look 
 into the very breasts of people. You have seen them 
 working round you, Dofia Emilia—meek as lambs, 
 patient like their own burros, brave like bons. 1 have 
 
110 NOSTROMO 
 
 led them to the very muzzles of guns—l, who stand 
 here before you, sefiora—in the time of Paez, who was 
 full of generosity, and in courage only approached by 
 the uncle of Don Carlos here, as far as I know. No 
 wonder there are bandits in the Campo when there are 
 none but thieves, swindlers, and sanguinary macaques 
 to rule us in Sta. Marta. However, all the same, a 
 bandit is a bandit, and we shall have a dozen good 
 straight Winchesters to ride with the silver down to 
 Sulaco.”’ 
 
 Mrs. Gould’s ride with the first silver escort to Sulaco 
 was the closing episode of what she called “my camp 
 life’? before she had settled in her town-house per- 
 manently, as was proper and even necessary for the wife 
 of the administrator of such an important institution as 
 the San Tomé mine. For the San Tomé mine was to 
 become an institution, a rallying point for everything 
 in the province that needed order and stability to live. 
 Security seemed to flow upon this land from the 
 mountain-gorge. The authorities of Sulaco had learned 
 that the San ‘Tomé mine could make it worth their while 
 to leave things and people alone. ‘This was the nearest 
 approach to the rule of common-sense and justice 
 Charles Gould felt it possible to secure at first. In fact, 
 the mine, with its organization, its population growing 
 fiercely attached to their position of privileged safety, 
 with its armoury, with its Don Pépé, with its armed 
 body of serenos (where, it was said, many an outlaw and 
 deserter—and even some members of Hernandez’s 
 band—had found a place), the mine was a power in the 
 land. As a certain prominent man in Sta. Marta had 
 exclaimed with a hollow laugh, once, when discussing 
 the line of action taken by the Sulaco: authorities at a 
 time of political crisis— 
 
 “You call these men Government officials? They? 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 111 
 
 Never! They are officials of the mine—officials of the 
 Concession—I tell you.” 
 
 The prominent man (who was then a person in power, 
 with a lemon-coloured face and a very short and curly, 
 not to say woolly, head of hair) went so far in his 
 temporary discontent as to shake his yellow fist under 
 the nose of his interlocutor, and shriek— 
 
 “Yes! All! Silence! All! Itell you! The political 
 Jefé, the chief of the police, the chief of the customs, the 
 general, all, all, are the officials of that Gould.”’ 
 
 Thereupon an intrepid but low and argumentative 
 murmur would flow on for a space in the ministerial 
 cabinet, and the prominent man’s passion would end 
 in a cynical shrug of the shoulders. After all, he seemed 
 to say, what did it matter as long as the minister himself 
 was not forgotten during his brief day of authority? 
 But all the same, the unofficial agent of the San Tomé 
 mine, working for a good cause, had his moments of 
 anxiety, which were reflected in his letters to Don José 
 Avellanos, his maternal uncle. 
 
 “No sanguinary macaque from Sta. Marta shall set 
 foot on that part of Costaguana which lies beyond the 
 San Tomé bridge,’ Don Pépé used to assure Mrs. 
 Gould. “Except, of course, as an honoured guest— 
 for our Sefior Administrador is a deep politico.” But 
 to Charles Gould, in his own room, the old Major would 
 remark with a grim and soldierly cheeriness, “We are 
 all playing our heads at this game.” 
 
 Don José Avellanos would mutter “Imperium in 
 imperio, Emilia, my soul,” with an air of profound self- 
 satisfaction which, somehow, in a curious way, seemed 
 to contain a queer admixture of bodily discomfort. 
 But that, perhaps, could only be visible to the initiated. 
 
 And for the initiated it was a wonderful place, this 
 drawing-room of the Casa Gould, with its momentary 
 
112 NOSTROMO 
 
 glimpses of the master—El Sefior Administrador— 
 older, harder, mysteriously silent, with the lines 
 deepened on his English, ruddy, out-of-doors com- 
 plexion; flitting on his thin cavalryman’s legs across the 
 doorways, either just “back from the mountain” 
 or with jingling spurs and riding-whip under his arm, on 
 the point of starting “for the mountain.” Then 
 Don Pépé, modestly martial in his chair, the llanero 
 who seemed somehow to have found his martial 
 jocularity, his knowledge of the world, and his manner 
 perfect for his station, in the midst of savage armed 
 contests. with his kind; Avellanos, polished and 
 familiar, the diplomatist with his loquacity covering 
 much caution and wisdom in delicate advice, with his 
 manuscript of a historical work on - Costaguana, 
 entitled “‘ Fifty Years of Misrule,’’? which, at present, he 
 thought it was not prudent (even if it were possible) 
 “to give to the world’’; these three, and also Dofia 
 Emilia amongst them, gracious, small, and fairy-like, 
 before the glittering tea-set, with one common master- 
 thought in their heads, with one common feeling of a 
 tense situation, with one ever-present aim to preserve 
 the inviolable character of the mine at every cost. 
 And there was also to be seen Captain Mitchell, a 
 little apart, near one of the long windows, with an air 
 of old-fashioned neat old bachelorhood about him, 
 slightly pompous, in a white waistcoat, a little dis- 
 regarded and unconscious of it; utterly in the dark, and 
 imagining himself to be in the thick of things. The 
 good man, having spent a clear thirty years of his life 
 on the high seas before getting what he called a “shore 
 billet,” was astonished at the importance of trans- 
 actions (other than relating to shipping) which take 
 place on dry land. Almost every event out of the 
 usual daily course “marked an epoch” for him or else 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 113 
 
 was “history’’; unless w:th his pomposity struggling 
 with a discomfited droop of his rubicund, rather hand- 
 some face, set off by snow-white close hair and short 
 whiskers, he would mutter— 
 
 “Ah, that! That, sir, was a mistake.” 
 
 The reception of the first consignment of San Tomé 
 silver for shipment to San Francisco in one of the O.S.N. 
 Co.’s mail-boats had, of course, “‘marked an epoch”’ for 
 Captain Mitchell. The ingots packed in boxes of stiff 
 ox-hide with plaited handles, small enough to be carried 
 easily by two men, were brought down by the serenos of 
 the mine walking in careful couples along the half- 
 mile or so of steep, zigzag paths to the foot of the 
 mountain. There they would be loaded into a string 
 of two-wheeled carts, resembling roomy coffers with a 
 door at the back, and harnessed tandem with two 
 mules each, waiting under the guard of armed and 
 mounted serenos. Don Pépé padlocked each door in 
 succession, and at the signal of his whistle the string of 
 carts would move off, closely surrounded by the clank 
 of spur and carbine, with jolts and cracking of whips, 
 with a sudden deep rumble over the boundary bridge 
 (“‘into the land of thieves and sanguinary macaques,” 
 Don Pépé defined that crossing); hats bobbing in the 
 first light of the dawn, on the heads of cloaked figures; 
 Winchesters on hip; bridle hands protruding lean and 
 brown from under the falling folds of the ponchos. The 
 convoy skirting a little wood, along the mine trail, be- 
 tween the mud huts and low walls of Rincon, increased 
 its pace on the camino real, mules urged to speed, escort 
 galloping, Don Carlos riding alone ahead of a dust storm 
 affording a vague vision of long ears of mules, of flut- 
 tering little green and white flags stuck upon each cart; 
 of raised arms in a mob of sombreros with the white 
 gleam of ranging eyes; and Don Pépé, hardly visible in 
 
114 NOSTROMO 
 
 the rear of that rattling dust trail, with a stiff seat and 
 impassive face, rising and falling rhythmically on an 
 ewe-necked silver-bitted black brute with a hammer 
 head. 
 
 The sleepy people in the little clusters of huts, in the 
 small ranchos near the road, recognized by the headlong 
 sound the charge of the San Tomé silver escort towards 
 the crumbling wall of the city on the Campo side. 
 They came to the doors to see it dash by over ruts and 
 stones, with a clatter and clank and cracking of whips, 
 with the reckless rush and precise driving of a field 
 battery hurrying into action, and the solitary English 
 figure of the Sefior Administrador ridmg far ahead in 
 the lead. 
 
 In the fenced roadside paddocks loose horses galloped 
 wildly for a while; the heavy cattle stood up breast deep 
 in the grass, lowing mutteringly at the flying noise; a 
 meek Indian villager would glance back once and 
 hasten to shove his loaded little donkey bodily against 
 a wall, out of the way of the San Tomé silver escort 
 going to the sea; a small knot of chilly leperos under the 
 Stone Horse of the Alameda would mutter: “‘Caramba!” 
 on seeing it take a wide curve at a gallop and dart into 
 the empty Street of the Constitution; for it was con- 
 sidered the correct thing, the only proper style by the 
 mule-drivers of the San Tomé mine to go through the 
 waking town from end to end without a check in the 
 speed as if chased by a devil. 
 
 The early sunshine glowed on the delicate primrose, 
 pale pink, pale blue fronts of the big houses with all 
 their gates shut yet, and no face behind the iron bars 
 of the windows. In the whole sunlit range of empty 
 balconies along the street only one white figure would be 
 visible high up above the clear pavement—the wife of 
 the Sefior Administrador—leaning over to see the escort 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 115 
 
 go by to the harbour, a mass of heavy, fair hair twisted 
 up negligently on her little head, and a lot of lace about 
 the neck of her muslin wrapper. With a smile to her 
 husband’s single, quick, upward glance, she would watch 
 the whole thing stream past below her feet with an 
 orderly uproar, till she answered by a friendly sign the 
 salute of the galloping Don Pépé, the stiff, deferential 
 inclination with a sweep of the hat below the knee. 
 The string of padlocked carts lengthened, the size of 
 the escort grew bigger as the years went on. Every 
 three months an increasing stream of treasure swept 
 through the streets of Sulaco on its way to the strong 
 room in the O.S.N. Co.’s building by the harbour, 
 there to await shipment for the North. Increasing in 
 volume, and of immense value also; for, as Charles 
 Gould told his wife once with some exultation, there had | 
 never been seen anything in the world to approach the, 
 vein of the Gould Concession. For them both, each 
 passing of the escort under the balconies of the Casa 
 Gould was like another victory gained in the conquest 
 of peace for Sulaco. | 
 No doubt the initial action of Charles Gould had been 
 
 helped at the beginning by a period of comparative 
 peace which occurred just about that time; and also by 
 the general softening of manners as compared with the 
 epoch of civil wars whence had emerged the iron 
 tyranny of Guzman Bento of fearful memory. In the 
 contests that broke out at the end of his rule (which had 
 kept peace in the country for a whole fifteen years) 
 there was more fatuous imbecility, plenty of cruelty and 
 suffering still, but much less of the old-time fierce and 
 blindly ferocious political fanaticism. It was all more 
 vile, more base, more contemptible, and infinitely more 
 manageable in the very outspoken cynicism of motives. 
 It was more clearly a brazen-faced scramble for a con- 
 
116 NOSTROMO 
 
 stantly diminishing quantity of booty; since all enter- 
 prise had been stupidly killed in the land. Thus it 
 came to pass that the province of Sulaco, once the field 
 of cruel party vengeances, had become in a way one of 
 the considerable prizes of political career. The great of 
 the earth (in Sta. Marta) reserved the posts in the old 
 Occidental State to those nearest and dearest to them: 
 nephews, brothers, husbands of favourite sisters, bosom 
 friends, trusty supporters—or prominent supporters of 
 whom perhaps they were afraid. It was the blessed 
 province of great opportunities and of largest salaries; 
 for the San Tomé mine had its own unofficial pay list, 
 whose items and amounts, fixed in consultation by | 
 Charles Gould and Sefior Avellanos, were known to a 
 prominent business man in the United States, who for 
 twenty minutes or so in every month gave his undivided 
 attention to Sulaco affairs. At the same time the 
 material interests of all sorts, backed up by the in- 
 fluence of the San Tomé mine, were quietly gathering 
 substance in that part of the Republic. If, for instance, 
 the Sulaco Collectorship was generally understood, in 
 the political world of the capital, to open the way to the 
 Ministry of Finance, and so on for every official post, 
 then, on the other hand, the despondent business circles | 
 of the Republic had come to consider the Occidental 
 Province as the promised land of safety, especially if a 
 man managed to get on good terms with the adminis- 
 tration of the mine. ‘“‘Charles Gould; excellent fellow! 
 Absolutely necessary to make sure of him before taking 
 a single step. Get an introduction to him from Moraga 
 if you can—the agent of the King of Sulaco, don’t you 
 know.” 
 
 No wonder, then, that Sir John, coming from Europe 
 to smooth the path for his railway, had been meeting the 
 name (and even the nickname) of Charles Gould at 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 117 
 
 every turn in Costaguana. The agent of the San Tomé 
 Administration in Sta. Marta (a polished, well-informed 
 gentleman, Sir John thought him) had certainly helped 
 so greatly in bringing about the presidential tour that he 
 began to think that there was something in the faint 
 whispers hinting at the immense occult influence of 
 the Gould Concession. What was currently whispered 
 was this—that the San Tomé Administration had, in 
 part, at least, financed the last revolution, which had 
 brought into a five-year dictatorship Don Vincente 
 Ribiera, a man of culture and of unblemished character, 
 invested with a mandate of reform by the best elements 
 of the State. Serious, well-informed men seemed to 
 believe the fact, to hope for better things, for the 
 establishment of legality, of good faith and order in 
 public life. So much the better, then, thought Sir John. 
 He worked always on a great scale; there was a loan to 
 the State, and a project for systematic colonization of 
 the Occidental Province, involved in one vast scheme 
 with the construction of the National Central Railway. 
 Good faith, order, honesty, peace, were badly wanted 
 for this great development of material interests. Any- 
 body on the side of these things, and especially if able 
 to help, had an importance in Sir John’s eyes. He had 
 not been disappointed in the “King of Sulaco.” The 
 local difficulties had fallen away, as the engineer-in-chief 
 had foretold they would, before Charles Gould’s medi- 
 ation. Sir John had been extremely féted in Sulaco, 
 next to the President-Dictator, a fact which might have 
 accounted for the evident ill-humour General Montero 
 displayed at lunch given on board the Juno just before 
 she was to sail, taking away from Sulaco the President- 
 Dictator and the distinguished foreign guests in his 
 train. 
 
 The Excellentissimo (“the hope of honest men,” as 
 
118 NOSTROMO 
 
 Don José had addressed him in a public speech delivered 
 in the name of the Provincial Assembly of Sulaco) sat at 
 the head of the long table; Captain Mitchell, positively 
 stony-eyed and purple in the face with the solemnity of 
 this “historical event,’’ occupied the foot as the repre- 
 sentative of the O.S.N. Company in Sulaco, the hosts of 
 that informal function, with the captain of the ship and 
 some minor officials from the shore around him. Those 
 cheery, swarthy little gentlemen cast jovial side-glances 
 at the bottles of champagne beginning to pop behind 
 the guests’ backs in the hands of the ship’s stewards. 
 ‘The amber wine creamed up to the rims of the glasses. 
 
 Charles Gould had his place next to a foreign envoy, 
 who, in a listless undertone, had been talking to him 
 fitfully of hunting and shooting. ‘The well-nourished, 
 pale face, with an eyeglass and drooping yellow mous- 
 tache, made the Sefior Administrador appear by con- 
 trast twice as sunbaked, more flaming red, a hundred 
 times more intensely and silently alive. Don José 
 Avellanos touched elbows with the other foreign diplo- 
 mat, a dark man with a quiet, watchful, self-confident 
 demeanour, and a touch of reserve. All etiquette being 
 laid aside on the occasion, General Montero was the 
 only one there in full uniform, so stiff with embroideries 
 in front that his broad chest seemed protected by a 
 cuirass of gold. Sir John at the beginning had got 
 away from high places for the sake of sitting near Mrs. 
 Gould. 
 
 The great financier was trying to express to her his 
 grateful sense of her hospitality and of his obligation to 
 her husband’s “‘enormous influence in this part of the 
 country,” when she interrupted him by a low “Hush!” 
 The President was going to make an informal pro- 
 nouncement. 
 
 The Excellentissimo was on his legs. He said only a 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 119 
 
 few words, evidently deeply felt, and meant perhaps 
 mostly for Avellanos—his old friend—as to the necessity 
 of unremitting effort to secure the lasting welfare of the 
 country emerging after this last struggle, he hoped, into 
 a period of peace and material prosperity. 
 
 Mrs. Gould, listening to the mellow, slightly mourn- 
 ful voice, looking at this rotund, dark, spectacled face, 
 at the short body, obese to the point of infirmity, 
 thought that this man of delicate and melancholy mind, 
 physically almost a cripple, coming out of his retire- 
 ment into a dangerous strife at the call of his fellows, 
 had the right to speak with the authority of his self- 
 sacrifice. And yet she: was made uneasy. He was 
 more pathetic than promising; this first civilian Chief of 
 the State Costaguana had ever known, pronouncing, 
 glass in hand, his simple watchwords of honesty, peace, 
 respect for law, political good faith abroad and at 
 home—the safeguards of national honour. 
 
 He sat down. During the respectful, appreciative 
 buzz of voices that followed the speech, General 
 Montero raised a pair of heavy, drooping eyelids and 
 rolled his eyes with a sort of uneasy dullness from face 
 to face. The military backwoods hero of the party, 
 though secretly impressed by the sudden novelties and 
 splendours of his position (he had never been on board a 
 ship before, and had hardly ever seen the sea except 
 from a distance), understood by a sort of instinct the 
 advantage his surly, unpolished attitude of a savage 
 fighter gave him amongst all these refined Blanco 
 aristocrats. But why was it that nobody was looking 
 at him? he wondered to himself angrily. He was able 
 to spell out the print of newspapers, and knew that he 
 had performed the “greatest military exploit of modern 
 times.” 
 
 ““My husband wanted the railway,’’ Mrs. Gould said 
 
120 NOSTROMO 
 
 to Sir John in the general murmur of resumed con- 
 versations. “All this brings nearer the sort of future we 
 desire for the country, which has waited for it in sorrow 
 long enough, God knows. But I will confess that the 
 other day, during my afternoon drive when I suddenly 
 saw an Indian boy ride out of a wood with the red flag of 
 a surveying party in his hand, I felt something of a 
 shock. The future means change—an utter change. 
 And yet even here there are simple and picturesque 
 things that one would like to preserve.” 
 
 Sir John listened, smiling. But it was his turn now 
 to hush Mrs. Gould. 
 
 “General Montero is going to speak,’ he whispered, 
 and almost immediately added, in comic alarm, “‘ Heav: 
 ens! he’s going to propose my own health, I believe.” 
 
 General Montero had risen with a jingle of steel 
 scabbard and a ripple of glitter on his gold-embroidered 
 breast; a heavy sword-hilt appeared at his side above 
 the edge of the table. In this gorgeous uniform, with 
 his bull neck, his hooked nose flattened on the tip upon 
 a blue-black, dyed moustache, he looked like a disguised 
 and sinister vaquero. The drone of his voice had a 
 strangely rasping, soulless ring. He floundered, lower- 
 ing, through a few vague sentences; then suddenly 
 raising his big head and his voice together, burst out 
 harshly— 
 
 “The honour of the country is in the hands of the 
 army. I assure you I shall be faithful to it.” He 
 hesitated till his roaming eyes met Sir John’s face upon 
 which he fixed a lurid, sleepy glance; and the figure of 
 the lately negotiated loan came into his mind. He 
 lifted his glass. “‘I drink to the health of the man who 
 brings us a million and a half of pounds.” 
 
 He tossed off his champagne, and sat down heavily 
 with a half-surprised, half-bullying look all round the 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 121 
 
 faces in the profound, as if appalled, silence which 
 succeeded the felicitous toast. Sir John did not move. 
 
 “T don’t think I am called upon to rise,’ he mur- 
 mured to Mrs. Gould. “That sort of thing speaks for 
 itself.””,, But Don José Avellanos came to the rescue 
 with a short oration, in which he alluded pointedly to 
 England’s goodwill towards Costaguana—“‘a goodwill,” 
 he continued, significantly, “of which I, having been in 
 my time accredited to the Court of St. James, am able 
 to speak with some knowledge.”’ 
 
 Only then Sir John thought fit to respond, which he 
 did gracefully in bad French, punctuated by bursts of 
 applause and the ““Hear! Hears!” of Captain Mitchell, 
 who was able to understand a word now and inen. 
 Directly he had done, the financier of railways turned to 
 Mrs. Gould— 
 
 “You were good enough to say that you intended to 
 ask me for something,” he reminded her, gallantly. 
 “What is it? Be assured that any request from you 
 would be considered in the light of a favour to myself.” 
 
 She thanked him by a gracious smile. Everybody 
 was rising from the table. 
 
 “Let us go on deck,” she proposed, “where I'll be 
 able to point out to you the very object of my request.”’ 
 
 An enormous national flag of Costaguana, diagonal 
 red and yellow, with two green palm trees in the middle, 
 floated lazily at the mainmast head of the Juno. A 
 multitude of fireworks being let off in their thousands 
 at the water’s edge in honour of the President kept up a 
 mysterious crepitating noise half round the harbour. 
 Now and then a lot of rockets, swishing upwards in- 
 visibly, detonated overhead with only a puff of smoke 
 in the bright sky. Crowds of people could be seen 
 between the town gate and the harbour, wnder the 
 bunches of multicoloured flags fluttering on tall poles. 
 
122 NOSTROMO 
 
 Faint bursts of military music would be heard suddenly, 
 and the remote sound of shouting. A knot of ragged 
 negroes at the end of the wharf kept on loading and 
 firmg a small iron cannon time after time. A greyish 
 haze of dust hung thin and motionless against the sun. 
 
 Don Vincente Ribiera made a few steps under the 
 deck-awning, leaning on the arm of Sefior Avellanos; a 
 wide circle was formed round him, where the mirthiess 
 smile of his dark lips and the sightless glitter of his 
 spectacles could be seen turning amiably from side to 
 side. The informal function arranged on purpose on 
 board the Juno to give the President-Dictator an op- 
 portunity to meet intimately some of his most notable 
 adherents in Sulaco was drawing to an end. On one 
 side, General Montero, his bald head covered now by a 
 plumed cocked hat, remained motionless on a skylight 
 seat, a pair of big gauntleted hands folded on the hilt 
 of the sabre standing upright between his legs. The 
 white plume, the coppery tint of his broad face, the 
 blue-black of the moustaches under the curved beak, 
 the mass of gold on sleeves and breast, the high shming 
 boots with enormous spurs, the working nostrils, the 
 imbecile and domineering stare of the glorious victor 
 of Rio Seco had in them something ominous and in- 
 credible; the exaggeration of a cruel caricature, the 
 fatuity of solemn masquerading, the atrocious grotes- 
 queness of some military idol of Aztec conception and 
 European bedecking, awaiting the homage of wor- 
 shippers. Don José approached diplomatically this 
 weird and inscrutable portent, and Mrs. Gould turned 
 her fascinated eyes away at last. 
 
 Charles, coming up to take leave of Sir John, heard 
 him say, as he bent over his wife’s hand, “Certainly. 
 Of course, my dear Mrs. Gould, for a protégé of yours! 
 Not the slightest difficulty. Consider it done.” 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 123 
 
 Going ashore in the same boat with the Goulds, Don 
 José Avellanos was very silent. Even in the Gould 
 carriage he did not open his lips for a long time. The 
 mules trotted slowly away from the wharf between the 
 extended hands of the beggars, who for that day seemed 
 to have abandoned in a body the portals of churches. 
 Charles Gould sat on the back seat and looked away 
 upon the plain. A multitude of booths made of green 
 boughs, of rushes, of odd pieces of plank eked out with 
 bits of canvas had been erected all over it for the sale of 
 cana, of dulces, of fruit, of cigars. Over little heaps of 
 glowing charcoal *Indian women, squatting on mats, 
 cooked food in black earthen pots, and boiled the water 
 for the maté gourds, which they offered in soft, caressing 
 voices to the country people. A racecourse had been 
 staked out for the vaqueros; and away to the left, from 
 where the crowd was massed thickly about a huge 
 temporary erection, like a circus tent of wood with a 
 conical grass roof, came the resonant twanging of harp 
 strings, the sharp ping of guitars, with the grave drum- 
 ming throb of an Indian gombo pulsating steadily 
 through the shrill choruses of the dancers. 
 
 Charles Gould said presently— 
 
 *“All this piece of land belongs now to the Railway 
 Company. ‘There will be no more popular feasts held 
 here.” 
 
 Mrs. Gould was rather sorry to think so. She took 
 this opportunity to mention how she had just obtained 
 from Sir John the promise that the house occupied by 
 Giorgio Viola should not be interfered with. She 
 declared she could never understand why the survey 
 engineers ever talked of demolishing that old building. 
 It was not in the way of the projected harbour branch 
 of the line in the least. 
 
 She stopped the carriage before the door to reassure at 
 
124 NOSTROMO 
 
 once the old Genoese, who came out bare-headed and 
 stood by the carriage step. She talked to him in 
 Italian, of course, and he thanked her with calm dignity. 
 An old Garibaldino was grateful to her from the bottom 
 of his heart for keeping the roof over the heads of his 
 wife and children. He was too old to wander any more. 
 
 “And is it for ever, signora?”’ he asked. 
 
 “For as long as you like.” 
 
 “Bene. Then the place must be named. It was not 
 worth while before.” 
 
 He smiled ruggedly, with a running together of 
 wrinkles At the corners of his eyes. ‘‘I shall set about 
 the painting of the name to-morrow.” 
 
 “And what is it going to be, Giorgio?” 
 
 “Albergo d’Italia Una,” said the old Garibaldino, 
 looking away for a moment. ‘More in memory of 
 those who have died,” he added, “than for the country 
 stolen from us soldiers of liberty by the craft of that 
 accursed Piedmontese race of kings and ministers.” 
 
 Mrs. Gould smiled slightly, and, bending over a 
 little, began to inquire about his wife and children. He 
 had sent them into town on that day. The padrona 
 was better in health; many thanks to the signora for 
 inquiring. 
 
 People were passing in twos and threes, in whole 
 parties of men and women attended by trotting chil- 
 dren. A horseman mounted on a silver-grey mare drew 
 rein quietly in the shade of the house after taking off his 
 hat to the party in the carriage, who returned smiles 
 and familiar nods. Old Viola, evidently very pleased 
 with the news he had just heard, interrupted himself for 
 a moment to tell him rapidly that the house was secured, 
 by the kindness of the English signora, for as long as he 
 liked to keep it. The other listened attentively, but 
 made no response. 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 125 
 
 When the carriage moved on he took off his hat again, 
 a grey sombrero with a silver cord and tassels. The 
 bright colours of a Mexican serape twisted on the cantle, 
 the enormous silver buttons on the embroidered leather 
 jacket, the row of tiny silver buttons down the seam of the 
 trousers, the snowy linen, a silk sash with embroidered 
 ends, the silver plates on headstall and saddle, proclaimed 
 the unapproachable style of the famous Capataz de 
 Cargadores—a Mediterranean sailor—got up with more 
 finished splendour than any well-to-do young ranchero 
 of the Campo had ever displayed on a high holiday. 
 
 “Tt is a great thing for me,’ murmured old Giorgio, 
 still thinking of the house, for now he had grown weary 
 of change. “The signora just said a word to the 
 Englishman.”’ 
 
 “The old Englishman who has enough money to pay 
 for a railway? He is going off in an hour,” remarked 
 Nostromo, carelessly. “Buon viaggio, then. Ive 
 guarded his bones all the way from the Entrada pass 
 down to the plain and into Sulaco, as though he had 
 been my own father.” 
 
 Old Giorgio only moved his head sideways absently. 
 Nostromo pointed after the Goulds’ carriage, nearing 
 the grass-grown gate in the old town wall that was like 
 a wall of matted jungle. 
 
 ‘And I have sat alone at night with my revolver in 
 the Company’s warehouse time and again by the side of 
 that other Englishman’s heap of silver, guarding it as 
 though it had been my own.” | 
 
 Viola seemed lost in thought. ‘“‘It is a great thing for 
 me,” he repeated again, as if to himself. 
 
 “It is,” agreed the magnificent Capataz de Carga- 
 dores, calmly. “Listen, Vecchio—go in and bring me 
 out a cigar, but don’t look for it in my room. There’s 
 nothing there.” 
 
126 NOSTROMO 
 
 Viola stepped into the café and came out directly, 
 still absorbed in his idea, and tendered him a cigar, 
 mumbling thoughtfully in his moustache, “Children 
 growing up—and girls, too! Girls!’ He sighed and 
 fell silent. 
 
 “What, only one?” remarked Nostromo, looking 
 down with a sort of comic inquisitiveness at the un- 
 conscious old man. ‘“‘No matter,” he added, with lofty 
 negligence; “‘one is enough till another is wanted.” 
 
 He lit it and let the match drop from his passive 
 fingers. Giorgio Viola looked up, and said abruptly— 
 
 “My son would have been just such a fine young man 
 as you, Gian’ Battista, if he had lived.” 
 
 “What? Your son? But you are right, padrone. 
 If he had been like me he would have been a man.” 
 
 He turned his horse slowly, and paced on between the 
 booths, checking the mare almost to a standstill now 
 and then for children, for the groups of people from the 
 distant Campo, who stared after him with admiration. 
 The Company’s lightermen saluted him from afar; and 
 the greatly envied Capataz de Cargadores advanced, 
 amongst murmurs of recognition and obsequious greet- 
 ings, towards the huge circus-like erection. The throng 
 thickened; the guitars tinkled louder; other horsemen 
 sat motionless, smoking calmly above the heads of the 
 crowd; it eddied and pushed before the doors of the 
 high-roofed building, whence issued a shuffle and 
 thumping of feet in time to the dance music vibrating 
 and shrieking with a racking rhythm, overhung by the 
 tremendous, sustained, hollow roar of the gombo. ‘The 
 barbarous and imposing noise of the big drum, that 
 can madden a crowd, and that even Europeans cannot 
 hear without a strange emotion, seemed to draw 
 Nostromo on to its source, while a man, wrapped up in 
 a faded, torn poncho, walked by his stirrup, and, 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 127 
 
 buffeted right and left, begged “his worship” in- 
 sistently for employment on the wharf. He whined, 
 offering the Sefior Capataz half his daily pay for the 
 privilege of being admitted to the swaggering fraternity 
 of Cargadores; the other half would be enough for him, 
 he protested. But Captain Mitchell’s right-hand man— 
 “invaluable for our work—a perfectly incorruptible 
 fellow”—after looking down critically at the ragged 
 mozo, shook his head without a word in the uproar 
 going on around. 
 
 The man fell back; and a little further on Nostromo 
 had to pull up. From the doors of the dance hall men 
 and women emerged tottering, streaming with sweat, 
 trembling in every limb, to lean, panting, with staring 
 eyes and parted lips, against the wall of the structure, 
 where the harps and guitars played on with mad speed 
 in an incessant roll of thunder. Hundreds of hands 
 clapped in there; voices shrieked, and then all at once 
 would sink low, chanting in unison the refrain of a love 
 song, with a dying fall. A red flower, flung with a good 
 aim from somewhere in the crowd, struck the resplen- 
 dent Capataz on the cheek. 
 
 He caught it as it fell, neatly, but for some time did 
 not turn his head. When at last he condescended to 
 look round, the throng near him had parted to make 
 way for a pretty Morenita, her hair held up by a small 
 golden comb, who was walking towards him in the open 
 space. 
 
 Her arms and neck emerged plump and bare from a 
 snowy chemisette; the blue woollen skirt, with all the 
 fullness gathered in front, scanty on the hips and tight 
 across the back, disclosed the provoking action of her 
 walk. She came straight on and laid her hand on the 
 mare’s neck with a timid, coquettish look upwards out 
 of the corner of her eyes. 
 
128 NOSTROMO 
 
 “Querido,” she murmured, caressingly, “‘why do you 
 pretend not to see me when I pass?”’ 
 
 *“Because I don’t love thee any more,”’ said Nostromo, 
 deliberately, after a moment of reflective silence. 
 
 The hand on the mare’s neck trembled suddenly. 
 She dropped her head before all the eyes in the wide 
 circle formed round the generous, the terrible, the in- 
 constant Capataz de Cargadores, and his Morenita. 
 
 Nostromo, looking down, saw tears beginning to 
 fall down her face. 
 
 ‘‘Has it come, then, ever beloved of my heart?” she 
 whispered. “‘Is it true?” 
 
 “No,” said Nostromo, looking away carelessly. “It 
 was a lie. I love thee as much as ever.” 
 
 - “Ts that true?” she cooed, joyously, her cheeks still 
 wet with tears. 
 
 “Tt isrtruext 
 
 “True on the life?” 
 
 **As true as that; but thou must not ask me to swear 
 it on the Madonna that stands in thy room.” And the 
 Capataz laughed a little in response to the grins of the 
 crowd. 
 
 She pouted—very pretty—a little uneasy. 
 
 *“No, I will not ask for that. I can see love in your 
 eyes.” She laid her hand on his knee. ‘‘ Why are you 
 trembling like this? From love?” she continued, 
 while the cavernous thundering of the gombo went on 
 without a pause. “But if you love her as much as that, 
 you must give your Paquita a gold-mounted rosary of 
 beads for the neck of her Madonna.” 
 
 “No,” said Nostromo, looking into her uplifted, 
 begging eyes, which suddenly turned stony with surprise. 
 
 “No? Then what else will your worship give me on 
 the day of the fiesta?” she asked, angrily; “so as not to 
 shame me before all these people.” 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 129 
 
 “There is no shame for thee in getting nothing from 
 thy lover for once.”’ 
 
 “True! The shame is your worship’s—my poor 
 lover’s,”’ she flared up, sarcastically. 
 
 Laughs were heard at her anger, at her retort. What 
 an audacious spitfire she was! The people aware of 
 this scene were calling out urgently to others in the 
 crowd. The circle round the silver-grey mare narrowed 
 slowly. 
 
 The girl went off a pace or two, confronting the mock- 
 ing curiosity of the eyes, then flung back to the stirrup, 
 tiptoeing, her enraged face turned up to Nostromo with 
 a pair of blazing eyes. He bent low to her in the sad- 
 dle. 
 
 *‘ Juan,” she hissed, ‘‘I could stab thee to the heart!”’ 
 
 The dreaded Capataz de Cargadores, magnificent and 
 carelessly public in his amours, flung his arm round her 
 neck and kissed her spluttering lips. A murmur went 
 round. 
 
 “A knife!” he demanded at large, holding her firmly 
 by the shoulder. 
 
 Twenty blades flashed out together in the circle. A 
 young man in holiday attire, bounding in, thrust one in 
 Nostromo’s hand and bounded back into the ranks, very 
 proud of himself. Nostromo had not even looked at 
 him. 
 
 “Stand on my foot,” he commanded the girl, who, 
 suddenly subdued, rose lightly, and when he had her up, 
 encircling her waist, her face near to his, he pressed the 
 knife into her little hand. 
 
 ““No, Morenita! You shall not put me to shame,” 
 he said. ‘‘You shall have your present; and so that 
 everyone should know who is your lover to-day, you 
 may cut all the silver buttons off my coat.” 
 
 There were shouts of laughter and applause at this 
 
130 NOSTROMO 
 
 witty freak, while the girl passed the keen blade, and 
 the impassive rider jingled in his palm the increasing 
 hoard of silver buttons. He eased her to the ground 
 with both her hands full. After whispering for a while 
 with a very strenuous face, she walked away, staring 
 haughtily, and vanished into the crowd. 
 
 The circle had broken up, and the lordly Capataz de 
 Cargadores, the indispensable man, the tried and trusty 
 Nostromo, the Mediterranean sailor come ashore 
 casually to try his luck in Costaguana, rode slowly 
 towards the harbour. The Juno was just then swing- 
 ing round; and even as Nostromo reined up again to 
 look on, a flag ran up on the improvised flagstaff erected 
 in an ancient and dismantled little fort at the harbour 
 entrance. Half a battery of field guns had been hur- 
 ried over there from the Sulaco barracks for the 
 purpose of firing the regulation salutes for the President- 
 Dictator and the War Minister. As the mail-boat 
 headed through the pass, the badly timed reports 
 announced the end of Don Vincente Ribiera’s first 
 official visit to Sulaco, and for Captain Mitchell the end 
 of another “historic occasion.”? Next time when the 
 “Hope of honest men” was to come that way, a year 
 and a half later, it was unofficially, over the mountain 
 tracks, fleeing after a defeat on a lame mule, to be only 
 . Just saved by Nostromo from an ignominious death at 
 the hands of a mob. It was a very different event, of 
 which Captain Mitchell used to say— 
 
 “It was history—history, sir! And that fellow of 
 mine, Nostromo, you know, was right in it. Absolutely 
 making history, sir.”’ 
 
 But this event, creditable to Nostromo, was to lead 
 immediately to another, which could not be classed 
 either as “history”? or as “a mistake” in Captain 
 Mitchell’s phraseology. He had another word for it. 
 
THE SILVER OF THE MINE 131 
 
 “Sir,” he used to say afterwards, “that was no mis- 
 take. It was a fatality. A misfortune, pure and 
 simple, sir. And that poor fellow of mine was right in 
 it—right in the middle of it! A fatality, if ever there 
 was one—and to my mind he has never been the same 
 man since.” 
 
oe ing enon 
 hes erie) ie 
 eee Ly 
 
 iy 
 
 - bole 
 
 qe: 
 
 iPod 
 
PART SECOND 
 
 THE ISABELS 
 
tated yt 
 
 x 
 
CHAPTER ONE 
 
 THROUGH good and evil report in the varying fortune 
 of that struggle which Don José had characterized in 
 the phrase, “the fate of national honesty trembles in the 
 balance,”’ the Gould Concession, “Imperium in Im- 
 perio,” had gone on working; the square mountain had 
 gone on pouring its treasure down the wooden shoots 
 to the unresting batteries of stamps; the lights of San 
 Tomé had twinkled night after night upon the great, 
 limitless shadow of the Campo; every three months 
 the silver escort had gone down to the sea as if neither 
 the war nor its consequences could ever affect the 
 ancient Occidental State secluded beyond its high 
 barrier of the Cordillera. All the fighting took place 
 on the other side of that mighty wall of serrated peaks 
 lorded over by the white dome of Higuerota and as yet 
 unbreached by the railway, of which only the first part, 
 the easy Campo part from Sulaco to the Ivie Valley at 
 the foot of the pass, had been laid. Neither did the 
 telegraph line cross the mountains yet; its poles, like 
 slender beacons on the plain, penetrated into the forest 
 fringe of the foot-hills cut by the deep avenue of the 
 track; and its wire ended abruptly in the construction 
 camp at a white deal table supporting a Morse ap- 
 paratus, in a long hut of planks with a corrugated iron 
 roof overshadowed by gigantic cedar trees—the quar- 
 ters of the engineer in charge of the advance section. 
 
 The harbour was busy, too, with the traffic in rail- 
 way material, and with the movements of troops along 
 the coast. The O.S.N. Company found much occupa- 
 
 135 
 
136 NOSTROMO 
 
 tion for its fleet. Costaguana had no navy, and, apart 
 from a few coastguard cutters, there were no national 
 ships except a couple of old merchant steamers used as 
 transports. 
 
 Captain Mitchell, feeling more and more in the thick 
 of history, found time for an hour or so during an 
 afternoon in the drawing-room of the Casa Gould, 
 where, with a strange ignorance of the real forces at 
 work around him, he professed himself delighted to get 
 away from the strain of affairs. He did not know what 
 he would have done without his invaluable Nostromo, 
 he declared. Those confounded Costaguana politics 
 gave him more work—he confided to Mrs. Gould— 
 than he had bargained for. 
 
 Don José Avellanos had displayed in the service of the 
 endangered Ribiera Government an organizing activity 
 and an eloquence of which the echoes reached even 
 Europe. For, after the new loan to the Ribiera Govern- 
 ment, Europe had become interested in Costaguana. 
 The Sala of the Provincial Assembly (in the Municipal 
 Buildings of Sulaco), with its portraits of the Liberators 
 on the walls and an old flag of Cortez preserved in a 
 glass case above the President’s chair, had heard all 
 these speeches—the early one containing the im- 
 passioned declaration “Militarism is the enemy,” the 
 famous one of the “trembling balance”’ delivered on 
 the occasion of the vote for the raising of a second 
 Sulaco regiment in the defence of the reforming Govern- 
 ment; and when the provinces again displayed their 
 old flags (proscribed in Guzman Bento’s time) there 
 was another of those great orations, when Don José 
 greeted these old emblems of the war of Independence, 
 brought out again in the name of new Ideals. The 
 old idea of Federalism had disappeared. For his part 
 ke did not wish to revive old political doctrines. They 
 
THE ISABELS 137 
 
 were perishable. They died. But the doctrine of 
 political rectitude was immortal. The second Sulaco 
 regiment, to whom he was presenting this flag, was going 
 to show its valour in a contest for order, peace, progress; 
 for the establishment of national self-respect without 
 which—he declared with energy—‘“we are a reproach 
 and a byword amongst the powers of the world.” 
 
 Don José Avellanos loved his country. He had 
 served it lavishly with his fortune during his diplomatic 
 career, and the later story of his captivity and bar- 
 barous ill-usage under Guzman Bento was well known 
 to his listeners. It was a wonder that he had not been 
 a victim of the ferocious and summary executions which 
 marked the course of that tyranny; for Guzman had 
 ruled the country with the sombre imbecility of political 
 fanaticism. ‘The power of Supreme Government had 
 become in his dull mind an object of strange worship, as 
 if it were some sort of cruel deity. It was incarnated in 
 himself, and his adversaries, the Federalists, were the 
 supreme sinners, objects of hate, abhorrence, and fear, 
 as heretics would be to a convinced Inquisitor. For 
 years he had carried about at the tail of the Army of 
 Pacification, all over the country, a captive band of 
 such atrocious criminals, who considered themselves 
 most unfortunate at not having been summarily exe- 
 cuted. It was a diminishing company of nearly naked 
 skeletons, loaded with irons, covered with dirt, with 
 vermin, with raw wounds, all men of position, of educa- 
 tion, of wealth, who had learned to fight amongst them- 
 selves for scraps of rotten beef thrown to them by 
 soldiers, or to beg a negro cook for a drink of muddy 
 water in pitiful accents. Don José Avellanos, clanking 
 his chains amongst the others, seemed only to exist in 
 order to prove how much hunger, pain, degradation, 
 and cruel torture a human body can stand without 
 
138 NOSTROMO 
 
 parting with the last spark of life. Sometimes interroga- 
 tories, backed by some primitive method of torture, 
 were administered to them by a commission of officers 
 hastily assembled in a hut of sticks and branches, and 
 made pitiless by the fear for their own lives. A lucky 
 one or two of that spectral company of prisoners would 
 perhaps be led tottering behind a bush to be shot by a 
 file of soldiers. Always an army chaplain—some un- 
 shaven, dirty man, girt with a sword and with a tiny 
 cross embroidered in white cotton on the left breast of a 
 heutenant’s uniform—would follow, cigarette in the 
 corner of the mouth, wooden stool in hand, to hear the 
 confession and give absolution; for the Citizen Saviour 
 of the Country (Guzman Bento was called thus officially 
 in petitions) was not averse from the exercise of rational 
 clemency. The irregular report of the firmg squad 
 would be heard, followed sometimes by a single finish- 
 ing shot; a little bluish cloud of smoke would float up 
 above the green bushes, and the Army of Pacification 
 would move on over the savannas, through the forests, 
 crossing rivers, invading rural pueblos, devastating the 
 haciendas of the horrid aristocrats, occupying the in- 
 land towns in the fulfilment of its patriotic mission, and 
 leaving behind a united land wherein the evil taint of 
 Federalism could no longer be detected in the smoke of 
 burning houses and the smell of spilt blood. 
 
 Don José Avellanos had survived that time. 
 
 Perhaps, when contemptuously signifying to him his 
 release, the Citizen Saviour of the Country might have 
 thought this benighted aristocrat too broken in health 
 and spirit and fortune to be any longer dangerous. Or, 
 perhaps, it may have been a simple caprice. Guzman 
 Bento, usually full of fanciful fears and brooding sus- 
 picions, had sudden accesses of unreasonable self- 
 confidence when he perceived himself elevated on 4 
 
THE ISABELS 139 
 
 pinnacle of power and safety beyond the reach of mere 
 mortal plotters. At such times he would impulsively 
 command the celebration of a solemn Mass of thanks- 
 giving, which would be sung in great pomp in the 
 cathedral of Sta. Marta by the trembling, subservient 
 Archbishop of his creation. He heard it sitting in a 
 gilt armchair placed before the high altar, surrounded 
 by the civil and military heads of his Government. 
 The unofficial world of Sta. Marta would crowd into 
 the cathedral, for it was not quite safe for anybody of 
 mark to stay away from these manifestations of presi- 
 dential piety. Having thus acknowledged the only 
 power he was at all disposed to recognize as above him- 
 self, he would scatter acts of political grace in a sardonic 
 wantonness of clemency. There was no other way left 
 now to enjoy his power but by seeing his crushed 
 adversaries crawl impotently into the light of day out of 
 the dark, noisome cells of the Collegio. Their harmless- 
 ness fed his insatiable vanity, and they could always be 
 got hold of again. It was the rule for all the women of 
 their families to present thanks afterwards in a special 
 audience. The incarnation of that strange god, El 
 Gobierno Supremo, received them standing, cocked 
 hat on head, and exhorted them in a menacing mutter 
 to show their gratitude by bringing up their children in 
 fidelity to the democratic form of government, “which 
 I have established for the happiness of our country.” 
 His front teeth having been knocked out in some ac- 
 cident of his former herdsman’s life, his utterance was 
 spluttering and indistinct. He had been working for 
 Costaguana alone in the midst of treachery and op- 
 position. Let it cease now lest he should become 
 weary of forgiving! 
 
 Don José Avellanos had known this forgiveness. 
 
 He was broken in health and fortune deplorably 
 
140 NOSTROMO 
 
 enough to present a truly gratifying spectacle to the 
 supreme chief of democratic institutions. He retired 
 to Sulaco. His wife had an estate in that province, and 
 she nursed him back to life out of the house of death and 
 captivity. When she died, their daughter, an only 
 child, was old enough to devote herself to “poor papa.” 
 
 Miss Avellanos, born in Europe and educated partly 
 in England, was a tall, grave girl, with a self-possessed 
 manner, a wide, white forehead, a wealth of rich brown 
 hair, and blue eyes. 
 
 The other young ladies of Sulaco stood in awe of her 
 character and accomplishments. She was reputed to 
 be terribly learned and serious. As to pride, it was 
 well known that all the Corbelans were proud, and her 
 mother was a Corbelan. Don José Avellanos depended 
 very much upon the devotion of his beloved Antonia. 
 He accepted it in the benighted way of men, who, 
 though made in God’s image, are like stone idols without 
 sense before the smoke of certain burnt offerings. He 
 was ruined in every way, but a man possessed of pas- 
 sion is not a bankrupt in life. Don José Avellanos. 
 desired passionately for his country: peace, prosperity, 
 and (as the end of the preface to “Fifty Years of Mis- 
 rule” has it) “an honourable place in the comity of 
 civilized nations.”’ In this last phrase the Minister 
 Plenipotentiary, cruelly humiliated by the bad faith 
 of his Government towards the foreign bondholders, 
 stands disclosed in the patriot. 
 
 The fatuous turmoil of greedy factions succeeding the 
 tyranny of Guzman Bento seemed to bring his desire to 
 the very door of opportunity. He was too old to 
 descend personally into the centre of the arena at Sta. 
 Marta. But the men who acted there sought his ad- 
 vice at every step. He himself thought that he could 
 be most useful at a distance, in Sulaco. His name, his 
 
THE ISABELS 141 
 
 connections, his former position, his experience com- 
 manded the respect of his class. The discovery that 
 this man, living in dignified poverty in the Corbelan 
 town residence (opposite the Casa Gould), could dis- 
 pose of material means towards the support of the 
 cause increased his influence. It was his open letter of 
 appeal that decided the candidature of Don Vincente 
 Ribiera for the Presidency. Another of these informal 
 State papers drawn up by Don José (this time in the 
 shape of an address from the Province) induced that 
 scrupulous constitutionalist to accept the extraordinary 
 powers conferred upon him for five years by an over- 
 whelming vote of congress in Sta. Marta. It was a 
 specific mandate to establish the prosperity of the 
 people on the basis of firm peace at home, and to redeem 
 the national credit by the satisfaction of all just claims 
 abroad. 
 
 On the afternoon the news of that vote had reached 
 Sulaco by the usual roundabout postal way through 
 Cayta, and up the coast by steamer. Don José, who 
 had been waiting for the mail in the Goulds’ drawing- 
 room, got out of the rocking-chair, letting his hat fall 
 off his knees. He rubbed his silvery, short hair with 
 both hands, speechless with the excess of joy. 
 
 “Emilia, my soul,’ he had burst out, “let me em- 
 brace you! Let me a 
 
 Captain Mitchell, had he been there, would no doubt 
 have made an apt remark about the dawn of a new era; 
 but if Don José thought something of the kind, his 
 eloquence failed him on this occasion. The inspirer of 
 that revival of the Blanco party tottered where he 
 stood. Mrs. Gould moved forward quickly and, as she 
 offered her cheek with a smile to her old friend, managed 
 very cleverly to give him the support of her arm he 
 really needed. 
 
142 NOSTROMO 
 
 Don José had recovered himself at once, but for a 
 time he could do no more than murmur, “Oh, you two 
 patriots! Oh, you two patriots!’’—looking from one to 
 the other. Vague plans of another historical work, 
 wherein all the devotions to the regeneration of the 
 country he loved would be enshrined for the reverent 
 worship of posterity, flitted through his mind. The 
 historian who had enough elevation of soul to write of 
 Guzman Bento: “Yet this monster, imbrued in the 
 blood of his countrymen, must not be held unreservedly 
 to the execration of future years. It appears to be 
 true that he, too, loved his country. He had given it 
 twelve years of peace; and, absolute master of lives and 
 fortunes as he was, he died poor. His worst fault, per- 
 haps, was not his ferocity, but his ignorance;”’ the man 
 who could write thus of a cruel persecutor (the passage 
 occurs in his “History of Misrule’’) felt at the fore- 
 shadowing of success an almost boundless affection for 
 his two helpers, for these two young people from over 
 the sea. 
 
 Just as years ago, calmly, from the conviction of 
 practical necessity, stronger than any abstract political 
 doctrine, Henry Gould had drawn the sword, so now, 
 the times being changed, Charles Gould had flung the 
 silver of the San Tomé into the fray. The Inglez of 
 Sulaco, the “Costaguana Englishman” of the third 
 generation, was as far from being a political intriguer as 
 his uncle from a revolutionary swashbuckler. Spring- 
 ing from the instinctive uprightness of their natures 
 _ their action was reasoned. They saw an opportunity 
 and used the weapon to hand. 
 
 Charles Gould’s position—a commanding position in 
 the background of that attempt to retrieve the peace 
 and the credit of the Republic—was very clear. At the 
 beginning he had had to accommodate himself to exist- 
 
THE ISABELS 143 
 
 ing circumstances of corruption so naively brazen as to 
 disarm the hate of a man courageous enough not to be 
 afraid of its irresponsible potency to ruin everything it 
 touched. It seemed to him too contemptible for hot 
 anger even. He made use of it with a cold, fearless 
 scorn, manifested rather than concealed by the forms 
 of stony courtesy which did away with much of the 
 ignominy of the situation. At bottom, perhaps, he 
 suffered from it, for he was not a man of cowardly 
 illusions, but he refused to discuss the ethical view with 
 his wife. He trusted that, though a little disenchanted, 
 she would be intelligent enough to understand that his 
 character safeguarded the enterprise of their lives 
 as much or more than his policy. The extraordinary 
 development of the mine had put a great power into his 
 hands. To feel that prosperity always at the mercy of 
 unintelligent greed had grown irksome to him. To 
 Mrs. Gould it was humiliating. At any rate, it was 
 dangerous. In the confidential communications pass- 
 ing between Charles Gould, the King of Sulaco, and the 
 head of the silver and steel interests far away in Cali. 
 fornia, the conviction was growing that any attemp* 
 made by men of education and integrity ought to be 
 discreetly supported. “You may tell your friend 
 Avellanos that I think so,”” Mr. Holroyd had written 
 at the proper moment from his inviolable sanctuary 
 within the eleven-storey high factory of great affairs. 
 And shortly afterwards, with a credit opened by the 
 Third Southern Bank (located next door but one to the 
 Holroyd Building), the Ribierist party in Costaguana 
 took a practical shape under the eye of the administra- 
 tor of the San Tomé mine. And Don José, the heredi- 
 tary friend of the Gould family, could say: “Perhaps, 
 my dear Carlos, J shall not have believed in vain.” 
 
CHAPTER TWO 
 
 Arter another armed struggle, decided by Montero’s 
 victory of Rio Seco, had been added to the tale of civil 
 wars, the “honest men,’ as Don José called them, could 
 breathe freely for the first time in half a century. The 
 Five-Year-Mandate law became the basis of that re- 
 generation, the passionate desire and hope for which had 
 been like the elixir of everlasting youth for Don José 
 Avellanos. 
 
 And when it was suddenly—and not quite unexpect- 
 edly—endangered by that “brute Montero,” it was a 
 passionate indignation that gave him a new lease of 
 life, as it were. Already, at the time of the President- 
 Dictator’s visit to Sulaco, Moraga had sounded a note 
 of warning from Sta. Marta about the War Minister. 
 Montero and his brother made the subject of an earnest 
 talk between the Dictator-President and the Nestor- 
 inspirer of the party. But Don Vincente, a doctor of 
 philosophy from the Cordova University, seemed to 
 have an exaggerated respect for military ability, whose 
 mysteriousness—since it appeared to be altogether 
 independent of intellect—imposed upon his imagina- 
 tion. The victor of Rio Seco was a popular hero. His 
 services were so recent that the President-Dictator 
 quailed before the obvious charge of political ingrati- 
 tude. Great regenerating transactions were being 
 initiated—the fresh loan, a new railway line, a vast 
 colonization scheme. Anything that could unsettle 
 the publie opinion in the capital was to be avoided. 
 Don José bowed to these arguments and tried to dismiss 
 
 144 
 
THE ISABELS 145 
 
 from his mind the gold-laced portent in boots, and with 
 a sabre, made meaningless now at last, he hoped, in the 
 new order of things. 
 
 Less than six months after the President-Dictator’s 
 visit, Sulaco learned with stupefaction of the military 
 revolt in the name of national honour. The Minister 
 of War, in a barrack-square allocution to the officers of 
 the artillery regiment he had been inspecting, had 
 declared the national honour sold to foreigners. The 
 Dictator, by his weak compliance with the demands of 
 the European powers—for the settlement of long out- 
 standing money claims—had showed himself unfit to 
 rule. A letter from Moraga explained afterwards that 
 the initiative, and even the very text, of the incendiary 
 allocution came, in reality, from the other Montero, the 
 ex-guerillero, the Commandante de Plaza. The ener- 
 getic treatment of Dr. Monygham, sent for in haste “to 
 the mountain,” who came galloping three leagues in the 
 dark, saved Don José from a dangerous attack of 
 jaundice. 
 
 After getting over the shock, Don José refused to let 
 nimself be prostrated. Indeed, better news succeeded 
 at first. The revolt in the capital had been suppressed 
 after a night of fighting in the streets. Unfortunately, 
 both the Monteros had been able to make their escape 
 south, to their native province of Entre-Montes. ‘The 
 hero of the forest march, the victor of Rio Seco, had 
 been received with frenzied acclamations in Nicoya, the 
 provincial capital. The troops in garrison there had 
 gone to him in a body. The brothers were organizing 
 an army, gathering malcontents, sending emissaries 
 primed with patriotic lies to the people, and with 
 promises of plunder to the wild llaneros. Even a 
 Monterist press had come into existence, speaking 
 oracularly of the secret promises of support given by 
 
146 NOSTROMO 
 
 “our great sister Republic of the North” against the 
 sinister land-grabbing designs of European powers, 
 cursing in every issue the “miserable Ribiera,’” who 
 had plotted to deliver his country, bound hand and foot, 
 for a prey to foreign speculators. 
 
 Sulaco, pastoral and sleepy, with its opulent Campo 
 and the rich silver mine, heard the din of arms fitfully 
 in its fortunate isolation. It was nevertheless in the 
 very forefront of the defence with men and money; but 
 the very rumours reached it circuitously—from abroad 
 even, so much was it cut off from the rest of the Re- 
 public, not only by natural obstacles, but also by the 
 vicissitudes of the war. ‘The Monteristos were be- 
 sieging Cayta, an important postal link. The over- 
 land couriers ceased to come across the mountains, and 
 no muleteer would consent to risk the journey at last; 
 even Bonifacio on one occasion failed to return from 
 Sta. Marta, either not. daring to start, or perhaps 
 captured by the parties of the enemy raiding the 
 country between the Cordillera and the capital. Mon- 
 terist publications, however, found their way into the 
 province, mysteriously enough; and also Monterist 
 emissaries preaching death to aristocrats in the villages 
 and towns of the Campo. Very early, at the beginning 
 of the trouble, Hernandez, the bandit, had proposed 
 (through the agency of an old priest of a village in the 
 wilds) to deliver two of them to the Ribierist authori- 
 ties in Tonoro. They had come to offer him a free 
 pardon and the rank of colonel from General Montero 
 in consideration of joining the rebel army with his 
 mounted band. No notice was taken at the time of the 
 proposal. It was joined, as an evidence of good faith, 
 to a petition praying the Sulaco Assembly for per- 
 mission to enlist, with all his followers, in the forces 
 being then raised in Sulaco for the defence of the Five- 
 
THE ISABELS 147 
 
 Year Mandate of regeneration. The petition, like 
 everything else, had found its way into Don José’s 
 hands. He had showed to Mrs. Gould these pages of 
 dirty-greyish rough paper (perhaps looted in some 
 village store), covered with the crabbed, illiterate hand- 
 writing of the old padre, carried off from his hut by the 
 side of a mud-walled church to be the secretary of the 
 dreaded Salteador. They had both bent in the lamp- 
 light of the Gould drawing-room over the document 
 containing the fierce and yet humble appeal of the man 
 against the blind and stupid barbarity turning an hon- 
 est ranchero into a bandit. <A postscript of the priest 
 stated that, but for being deprived of his liberty for 
 ten days, he had been treated with humanity and the 
 respect due to his sacred calling. He had been, it ap- 
 pears, confessing and absolving the chief and most of 
 the band, and he guaranteed the sincerity of their good 
 disposition. He had distributed heavy penances, no 
 doubt in the way of litanies and fasts; but he argued 
 shrewdly that it would be difficult for them to make 
 their peace with God durably till they had made peace 
 with men. 
 
 Never before, perhaps, had Hernandez’s head been 
 in less jeopardy than when he petitioned humbly for 
 permission to buy a pardon for himself and his gang of 
 deserters by armed service. He could range afar from 
 the waste lands protecting his fastness, unchecked, be- 
 cause there were no troops left in the whole province. 
 The usual garrison of Sulaco had gone south to the 
 war, with its brass band playing the Bolivar march on 
 the bridge of one of the O.S.N. Company’s steamers. 
 The great family coaches drawn up along the shore of the 
 harbour were made to rock on the high leathern springs 
 by the enthusiasm of the sefioras and the sefioritas 
 standing up to wave their lace handkerchiefs, as lighter 
 
148 NOSTROMO 
 
 after lighter packed full of troops left the end of the 
 jetty. 
 
 Nostromo directed the embarkation, under the super- 
 intendendence of Captain Mitchell, red-faced in the 
 sun, conspicuous in a white waistcoat, representing the 
 allied and anxious goodwill of all the material interests 
 of civilization. General Barrios, who commanded the 
 troops, assured Don José on parting that in three weeks 
 he would have Montero in a wooden cage drawn by 
 three pair of oxen ready for a tour through all the towns 
 of the Republic. 
 
 “And then, sefiora,” he continued, baring his curly 
 iron-grey head to Mrs. Gould in her landau—“and 
 then, sefiora, we shall convert our swords into plough- 
 shares and grow rich. Even I, myself, as soon as this 
 little business is settled, shall open a fundacion on some 
 land I have on the llanos and try to make a little money 
 in peace and quietness. Sefiora, you know, all Costa- 
 guana knows—what do I say?—this whole South 
 American continent knows, that Pablo Barrios has had 
 his fill of military glory.” . 
 
 Charles Gould was not present at the anxious and 
 patriotic send-off. It was not his part to see the soldiers 
 embark. It was neither his part, nor his inclination, 
 nor his policy. His part, his inclination, and his policy 
 were united in one endeavour to keep unchecked the 
 flow of treasure he had started single-handed from the 
 re-opened scar in the flank of the mountain. As the 
 mine developed he had trained for himself some native 
 help. There were foremen, artificers and clerks, with 
 Don Pépé for the gobernador of the mining population. 
 For the rest his shoulders alone sustained the whole 
 weight of the “Imperium in Imperio,” the great Gould 
 Concession whose mere shadow had been enough to 
 crush the life out of his father. 
 
THE ISABELS 149 
 
 Mrs. Gould had no silver mine to look after. In the 
 general life of the Gould Concession she was represented 
 by her two lieutenants, the doctor and the priest, but 
 she fed her woman’s love of excitement on events whose 
 significance was purified to her by the fire of her 
 imaginative purpose. On that day she had brought the 
 Avellanos, father and daughter, down to the harbour 
 with her. 
 
 Amongst his other activities of that stirring time, 
 Don José had become the chairman of a Patriotic Com- 
 mittee which had armed a great proportion of troops in 
 the Sulaco command with an improved model of a mili- 
 tary rifle. It had been just discarded for something 
 still more deadly by one of the great European powers. 
 How much of the market-price for second-hand weapons 
 was covered by the voluntary contributions of the 
 principal families, and how much came from those 
 funds Don José was understood to command abroad, 
 remained a secret which he alone could have disclosed; 
 but the Ricos, as the populace called them, had con- 
 tributed under the pressure of their Nestor’s eloquence. 
 Some of the more enthusiastic ladies had been moved to 
 bring offerings of jewels into the hands of the man who 
 was the life and soul of the party. 
 
 There were moments when both his life and his soul 
 seemed overtaxed by so many years of undiscouraged 
 belief in regeneration. He appeared almost inanimate, 
 sitting rigidly by the side of Mrs. Gould in the landau, 
 with his fine, old, clean-shaven face of a uniform tint as 
 if modelled in yellow wax, shaded by a soft felt hat, 
 the dark eyes looking out fixedly. Antonia, the 
 beautiful Antonia, as Miss Avellanos was called in 
 Sulaco, leaned back, facing them; and her full figure, the 
 grave oval of her face with full red lips, made her look 
 more mature than Mrs. Gould, with her mobile ex- 
 
150 NOSTROMO 
 
 pression and small, erect person under a slightly swaying 
 sunshade. 
 
 Whenever possible Antonia attended her father; her 
 recognized devotion weakened the shocking effect of her 
 scorn for the rigid conventions regulating the life of 
 Spanish-American girlhood. And, in truth, she was no 
 longer girlish. It was said that she often wrote State 
 papers from her father’s dictation, and was allowed to 
 read all the books in his library. At the receptions— 
 where the situation was saved by the presence of a very 
 decrepit old lady (a relation of the Corbelans), quite 
 deaf and motionless in an armchair—Antonia could 
 hold her own in a discussion with two or three men at a 
 time. Obviously she was not the girl to be content 
 with peeping through a barred window at a cloaked 
 figure of a lover ensconced in a doorway opposite— 
 which is the correct form of Costaguana courtship. It 
 was generally believed that with her foreign upbringing 
 and foreign ideas the learned and proud Antonia would 
 never marry—unless, indeed, she married a foreigner 
 from Europe or North America, now that Sulaco seemed 
 on the point of being invaded by all the world. 
 
CHAPTER THREE 
 
 WHEN General Barrios stopped to address Mrs. 
 Gould, Antonia raised negligently her hand holding an 
 open fan, as if to shade from the sun her head, wrapped 
 in a light lace shawl. The clear gleam of her blue eyes 
 gliding behind the black fringe of eyelashes paused for a 
 moment upon her father, then travelled further to the 
 figure of a young man of thirty at most, of medium 
 height, rather thick-set, wearing a light overcoat. 
 Bearing down with the open palm of his hand upon the 
 knob of a flexible cane, he had been looking on from a 
 distance; but directly he saw himself noticed, he ap- 
 proached quietly and put his elbow over the door of the 
 landau. 
 
 The shirt collar, cut low in the neck, the big bow of 
 his cravat, the style of his clothing, from the round hat 
 to the varnished shoes, suggested an idea of French 
 elegance; but otherwise he was the very type of a fair 
 Spanish creole. The fluffy moustache and the short, 
 curly, golden beard did not conceal his lips, rosy, fresh, 
 almost pouting in expression. His full, round face was 
 of that warm, healthy creole white which is never 
 tanned by its native sunshine. Martin Decoud was 
 seldom exposed to the Costaguana sun under which he 
 was born. His people had been long settled in Paris, 
 where he had studied law, had dabbled in literature, had 
 hoped now and then in moments of exaltation to be- 
 come a poet like that other foreigner of Spanish blood, 
 José Maria Herédia. In other moments he had, to pass 
 the time, condescended to write articles on European 
 
 151 
 
152 NOSTROMO 
 
 affairs for the Semenario, the principal newspaper in 
 Sta. Marta, which printed them under the heading 
 “From our special correspondent,” though the author- 
 ship was an open secret. Everybody in Costaguana, 
 where the tale of compatriots in Europe is jealously 
 kept, knew that it was “‘the son Decoud,” a talented 
 voung man, supposed to be moving in the higher 
 spheres of Society. As a matter of fact, he was an idle 
 boulevardier, in touch with some smart journalists, 
 made free of a few newspaper offices, and welcomed in 
 the pleasure haunts of pressmen. This life, whose 
 dreary superficiality is covered by the glitter of univer- 
 sal blague, like the stupid clowning of a harlequin by 
 the spangles of a motley costume, induced in him a 
 Frenchified—but most un-French—cosmopolitanism, in 
 reality a mere barren indifferentism posing as intellec- 
 tual superiority. Of his own country he used to say to 
 his French associates: “Imagine an atmosphere of 
 opera-bouffe in which all the comic business of stage 
 statesmen, brigands, etc., etc., all their farcical stealing, 
 intriguing, and stabbing is done in dead earnest. It is 
 screamingly funny, the blood flows all the time, and 
 the actors believe themselves to be influencing the fate 
 of the universe. Of course, government in general, any 
 government anywhere, is a thing of exquisite comicality 
 to a discerning mind; but really we Spanish-Americans 
 do overstep the bounds. No man of ordinary intelli- 
 gence can take part in the intrigues of wne farce macabre. 
 However, these Ribierists, of whom we hear so much 
 just now, are really trying in their own comical way to 
 make the country habitable, and even to pay some of 
 its debts. My friends, you had better write up Sefior 
 Ribiera all you can in kindness to your own bondholders. 
 Really, if what I am told in my letters is true, there is 
 some chance for them at last.”’ 3 
 
THE ISABELS 153 
 
 And he would explain with railing verve what Don 
 Vincente Ribiera stood for—a mournful little man op- 
 pressed by his own good intentions, the significance of 
 battles won, who Montero was (un grotesque vaniteuz et 
 féroce), and the manner of the new loan connected with 
 railway development, and the colonization of vast 
 tracts of land in one great financial scheme. 
 
 And his French friends would remark that evidently 
 this little fellow Decoud connaissait la question a fond. 
 An important Parisian review asked him for an article 
 on the situation. It was composed in a serious tone and 
 in a spirit of levity. Afterwards he asked one of his 
 intimates 
 
 “Have you read my thing about the regeneration of 
 Costaguana—uwune bonne blague, hein ?”’ 
 
 He imagined himself Parisian to the tips of his fingers. 
 But far from being that he was in danger of remaining a 
 sort of nondescript dilettante all his life. He had 
 pushed the habit of universal raillery to a point where it 
 blinded him to the genuine impulses of his own nature. 
 To be suddenly selected for the executive member of 
 the patriotic small-arms committee of Sulaco seemed to 
 him the height of the unexpected, one of those fantastic 
 moves of which only his “dear countrymen” were 
 capable. 
 
 “It’s like a tile falling on my head. I—I—executive 
 member! It’s the first I hear of it! What do I know 
 of military rifles? C’est funambulesque !”’ he had ex- 
 claimed to his favourite sister; for the Decoud family— 
 except the old father and mother—used the French 
 language amongst themselves. “And you should see 
 the explanatory and confidential letter! Eight pages 
 of it—no less!” 
 
 This letter, in Antonia’s handwriting, was signed by 
 Don José, who appealed to the “young and gifted 
 
154 NOSTROMO 
 
 Costaguanero”’ on public grounds, and privately opened 
 his heart to his talented god-son, a man of wealth and 
 leisure, with wide relations, and by his parentage and 
 bringing-up worthy of all confidence. 
 
 “Which means,’ Martin commented, cynically, to 
 his sister, “that I am not likely to misappropriate 
 the funds, or go blabbing to our Chargé d’Affaires 
 here.” 
 
 The whole thing was being carried out behind the 
 back of the War Minister, Montero, a mistrusted 
 member of the Ribiera Government, but difficult to 
 get rid of at once. He was not to know anything of it 
 till the troops under Barrios’s command had the new 
 rifle in their hands. The President-Dictator, whose 
 position was very difficult, was alone in the secret. 
 
 “How funny!’? commented Martin’s sister and con- 
 fidante; to which the brother, with an air of best Pari- 
 sian blague, had retorted: 
 
 “It’s immense! The idea of that Chief of the State 
 engaged, with the help of private citizens, in digging a 
 mine under his own indispensable War Minister. No! 
 We are unapproachable!”? And he laughed immoder- 
 ately. 
 
 Afterwards his sister was surprised at the earnestness 
 and ability he displayed in carrying out his mission, 
 which circumstances made delicate, and his want of 
 special knowledge rendered difficult. She had never 
 seen Martin take so much trouble about anything in his 
 whole life. 
 
 “Tt amuses me,” he had explained, briefly. “I am 
 beset by a lot of swindlers trying to sell all sorts of gas- 
 pipe weapons. They are charming; they invite me to 
 expensive luncheons; I keep up their hopes; it’s ex- 
 tremely entertaining. Meanwhile, the real affair is 
 being carried through in quite another quarter.” 
 
THE ISABELS 155 
 
 When the business was concluded he declared sud- 
 denly his intention of seeing the precious consignment 
 delivered safely in Sulaco. The whole burlesque busi- 
 ness, he thought, was worth following up to the end. 
 He mumbled his excuses, tugging at his golden beard, 
 before the acute young lady who (after the first wide 
 stare of astonishment) looked at him with narrowed 
 eyes, and pronounced slowly— 
 
 “I believe you want to see Antonia.” 
 
 “What Antonia?’’ asked the Costaguana _ boule- 
 vardier, in a vexed and disdainful tone. He shrugged 
 his shoulders, and spun round on his heel. His sister 
 called out after him joyously— 
 
 “The Antonia you used to know when she wore her 
 hair in two plaits down her back.” 
 
 He had known her some eight years since, shortly be- 
 fore the Avellanos had left Europe for good, as a tall 
 girl of sixteen, youthfully austere, and of a character 
 already so formed that she ventured to treat slightingly 
 his pose of disabused wisdom. On one occasion, as 
 though she had lost all patience, she flew out at him 
 about the aimlessness of his life and the levity of his 
 opinions. He was twenty then,.an only son, spoiled by 
 his adoring family. This attack disconcerted him so 
 greatly that he had faltered in his affectation of amused 
 superiority before that insignificant chit of a school-girl. 
 But the impression left was so strong that ever since all 
 the girl friends of his sisters recalled to him Antonia 
 Avellanos by some faint resemblance, or by the great 
 force of contrast. It was, he told himself, like a 
 ridiculous fatality. And, of course, in the news the 
 Decouds received regularly from Costaguana, the 
 name of their friends, the Avellanos, cropped up fre- 
 quently—the arrest and the abominable treatment of 
 the ex-Minister, the dangers and hardships endured by 
 
156 NOSTROMO 
 
 the family, its withdrawal in poverty to Sulaco, the 
 death of the mother. | 
 
 The Monterist pronunciamento had taken place be- 
 fore Martin Decoud reached Costaguana. He came 
 out in a roundabout way, through Magellan’s Straits by 
 the main line and the West Coast Service of the O.S.N. 
 Company. His precious consignment arrived just in 
 time to convert the first feelings of consternation into a 
 mood of hope and resolution. Publicly he was made 
 much of by the familias principales. Privately Don 
 José, still shaken and weak, embraced him with tears 
 in his eyes. 
 
 “You have come out yourself! No less could be ex- 
 pected from a Decoud. Alas! our worst fears have been 
 realized,’’ he moaned, affectionately. And again he 
 hugged his god-son. ‘This was indeed the time for men 
 of intellect and conscience to rally round the endangered 
 cause. 
 
 It was then that Martin Decoud, the adopted child of 
 Western Europe, felt the absolute change of atmos- 
 phere. He submitted to being embraced and talked to 
 without a word. He was moved in spite of himself by 
 that note of passion and sorrow unknown con the more 
 refined stage of European politics. But when the tall 
 Antonia, advancing with her light step in the dimness. 
 of the big bare Sala of the Avellanos house, offered him 
 her hand (in her emancipated way), and murmured, “I 
 am glad to see you here, Don Martin,” he felt how im- 
 possible it would be to tell these two people that he had 
 intended to go away by the next month’s packet. Don 
 José, meantime, continued his praises. Every acces- 
 sion added to public confidence, and, besides, what an 
 example to the young men at home from the brilliant 
 defender of the country’s regeneration, the worthy ex- 
 pounder of the party’s political faith before the world! 
 
THE ISABELS 157 
 
 Everybody had read the magnificent article in the 
 famous Parisian Review. The world was now in- 
 formed: and the author’s appearance at this moment 
 was like a public act of faith. Young Decoud felt over. 
 come by a feeling of impatient confusion. His plan had 
 been to return by way of the United States through 
 California, visit Yellowstone Park, see Chicago, 
 Niagara, have a look at Canada, perhaps make a short 
 stay in New York, a longer one in Newport, use his 
 letters of introduction. The pressure of Antonia’s hand 
 was so frank, the tone of her voice was so unexpectedly 
 unchanged in its approving warmth, that all he found to 
 say after his low bow was— 
 
 “IT am inexpressibly grateful for your welcome; but 
 why need a man be thanked for returning to his native 
 country? Iam sure Dofia Antonia does not think so.” 
 
 “Certainly not, sefior,” she said, with that perfectly 
 calm openness of manner which characterized all her 
 utterances. “But when he returns, as you return, one 
 may be glad—for the sake of both.” 
 
 Martin Decoud said nothing of his plans. He not 
 only never breathed a word of them to any one, but only 
 a fortnight later asked the mistress of the Casa Gould 
 (where he had of course obtained admission at once), 
 leaning forward in his chair with an air of well-bred 
 familiarity, whether she could not detect in him that 
 day a marked change—an air, he explained, of more 
 excellent gravity. At this Mrs. Gould turned her face 
 full towards him with the silent inquiry of slightly 
 widened eyes and the merest ghost of a smile, an 
 habitual movement with her, which was very fascinat- 
 ing to men by something subtly devoted, finely self- 
 forgetful in its lively readiness of attention. Because, 
 Decoud continued imperturbably, he felt no longer 
 an idle cumberer of the earth. She was, he assured 
 
158 NOSTROMO 
 
 her, actually beholding at that moment the Journalist 
 of Sulaco. At once Mrs. Gould glanced towards An- 
 tonia, posed upright in the corner of a high, straight- 
 backed Spanish sofa, a large black fan waving slowly 
 against the curves of her fine figure, the tips of crossed 
 feet peeping from under the hem of the black skirt. 
 Decoud’s eyes also remained fixed there, while in an 
 undertone he added that Miss Avellanos was quite 
 aware of his new and unexpected vocation, which in 
 Costaguana was generally the speciality of half- 
 educated negroes and wholly penniless lawyers. Then, 
 confronting with a sort of urbane effrontery Mrs. 
 Gould’s gaze, now turned sympathetically upon him- 
 self, he breathed out the words, “Pro Patria!” 
 
 What had happened was that he had all at once 
 yielded to Don José’s pressing entreaties to take the 
 direction of a newspaper that would “voice the aspira: 
 tions of the province.” It had been Don José’s old and 
 cherished idea. The necessary plant (on a modest 
 scale) and a large consignment of paper had been re- 
 ceived from America some time before; the right man 
 alone was wanted. Even Sefior Moraga in Sta. Marta 
 had not been able to find one, and the matter was now 
 becoming pressing; some organ was absolutely needed 
 to counteract the effect of the lies disseminated by the 
 Monterist press: the atrocious calumnies, the appeals 
 to the people calling upon them to rise with their knives 
 in their hands and put an end once for all to the Blancos, 
 to these Gothic remnants, to these sinister mummies, 
 these impotent paraliticos, who plotted with foreigners 
 for the surrender of the lands and the slavery of the 
 people. 
 
 The clamour of this Negro Liberalism frightened 
 Sefior Avellanos. A newspaper was the only remedy. 
 And now that the right man had been found in Decoud, 
 
THE ISABELS 159 
 
 great black letters appeared painted between the win- 
 dows above the arcaded ground floor of a house on the 
 Plaza. It was next to Anzani’s great emporium of 
 boots, silks, ironware, muslins, wooden toys, tiny silver 
 arms, legs, heads, hearts (for ex-voto offerings), rosaries, 
 champagne, women’s hats, patent medicines, even a few 
 dusty books in paper covers and mostly in the French 
 language. The big black letters formed the words, 
 “Offices of the Porvenir.” From these offices a single 
 folded sheet of Martin’s journalism issued three times a 
 week; and the sleek yellow Anzani prowling in a suit of 
 ample black and carpet slippers, before the many doors 
 of his establishment, greeted by a deep, side-long incli- 
 nation of his body the Journalist of Sulaco going to and 
 fro on the business of his august calling. 
 
CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 PERHAPS it was in the exercise of his calling that he 
 had come to see the troops depart. The Porvenir of the 
 day after next would no doubt relate the event, but its 
 editor, leaning his side against the landau, seemed to 
 look at nothing. ‘The front rank of the company of 
 infantry drawn up three deep across the shore end of the 
 jetty when pressed too close would bring their bayonets 
 to the charge ferociously, with an awful rattle; and then 
 the crowd of spectators swayed back bodily, even under 
 the noses of the big white mules. Notwithstanding the 
 great multitude there was only a low, muttering noise; 
 the dust hung in a brown haze, in which the horsemen, 
 wedged in the throng here and there, towered from the 
 hips upwards, gazing all one way over the heads. AI- 
 most every one of them had mounted a friend, who 
 steadied himself with both hands grasping his shoulders 
 from behind; and the rims of their hats touching, made 
 like one disc sustaining the cones of two pointed crowns 
 with a double face underneath. A hoarse mozo would 
 bawl out something to an acquaintance in the ranks, or 
 a woman would shriek suddenly the word Adios / 
 followed by the Christian name of a man. 
 
 General Barrios, in a shabby blue tunic and white 
 peg-top trousers falling upon strange red boots, kept his 
 head uncovered and stooped slightly, propping himself 
 up with a thick stick. No! He had earned enough 
 military glory to satiate any man, he insisted to Mrs. 
 Gould, trying at the same time to put an air of gallantry 
 into his attitude. A few jetty hairs hung sparsely from 
 
 160 
 
THE ISABELS | 161 
 
 his upper lip, he had a salient nose, a thin, long jaw, and 
 a black silk patch over one eye. His other eye, small 
 and deep-set, twinkled erratically in all directions, 
 aimlessly affable. ‘The few European spectators, all 
 men, who had naturally drifted into the neighbourhood 
 of the Gould carriage, betrayed by the solemnity of their 
 faces their impression that the general must have had too 
 much punch (Swedish punch, imported in bottles by 
 Anzani) at the Amarilla Club before he had started with 
 his Staff on a furious ride to the harbour. But Mrs. 
 Gould bent forward, self-possessed, and declared her 
 conviction that still more glory awaited the general in 
 the near future. 
 
 “Sefiora!’’ he remonstrated, with great feeling, “‘in 
 the name of God, reflect! How can there be any glory 
 for a man like me in overcoming that bald-headed 
 erbustero with the dyed moustaches?”’ 
 
 Pablo Ignacio Barrios, son of a village aleade, general 
 of division, commanding in chief the Occidental Mili- 
 tary district, did not frequent the higher society of the 
 town. He preferred the unceremonious gatherings of 
 men where he could tell jaguar-hunt stories, boast of 
 his powers with the lasso, with which he could perform 
 extremely difficult feats of the sort “no married man 
 should attempt,” as the saying goes amongst the 
 llaneros; relate tales of extraordinary night rides, en- 
 counters with wild bulls, struggles with crocodiles, 
 adventures in the great forests, crossings of swollen 
 rivers. And it was not mere boastfulness that prompted 
 the general’s reminiscences, but a genuine love of that 
 wild life which he had led in his young days before he 
 turned his back for ever on the thatched roof of the 
 parental tolderia in the woods. Wandering away as 
 far as Mexico he had fought against the French by the 
 side (as he said) of Juarez, and was the only military 
 
162 NOSTROMO 
 
 man of Costaguana who had ever encountered European 
 troops in the field. That fact shed a great lustre upon 
 his name till it became eclipsed by the rising star of 
 Montero. All his life he had been an inveterate gam- 
 bler. He alluded himself quite openly to the current 
 story how once, during some campaign (when in com- 
 mand of a brigade), he had gambled away his horses, 
 pistols, and accoutrements, to the very epaulettes, 
 playing monte with his colonels the night before the 
 battle. Finally, he had sent under escort his sword 
 (a presentation sword, with a gold hilt) to the town in 
 the rear of his position to be immediately pledged for 
 five hundred pesetas with a sleepy and frightened 
 shop-keeper. By daybreak he had lost the last of that 
 money, too, when his only remark, as he rose calmly, 
 was, “Now let us go and fight to the death.” From 
 that time he had become aware that a general could 
 lead his troops into battle very well with a simple stick 
 in his hand. “It has been my custom ever since,” he 
 would say. 
 
 He was always overwhelmed with debts; even during 
 the periods of splendour in his varied fortunes of a 
 Costaguana general, when he held high military com- 
 mands, his gold-laced uniforms were almost always in 
 pawn with some tradesman. And at last, to avoid the 
 incessant difficulties of costume caused by the anxious 
 lenders, he had assumed a disdain of military trappings, 
 an eccentric fashion of shabby old tunics, which had 
 become like a second nature. But the faction Barrios 
 joined needed to fear no political betrayal. He was 
 too much of a real soldier for the ignoble traffic of buy- 
 ing and selling victories. A member of the foreign 
 diplomatic body in Sta. Marta had once passed a 
 judgment upon him: “Barrios is a man of perfect 
 honesty and even of some talent for war, mais al manque 
 
THE ISABELS 163 
 
 de tenue.”” After the triumph of the Ribierists he had 
 obtained the reputedly lucrative Occidental command, 
 mainly through the exertions of his creditors (the Sta. 
 Marta shopkeepers, all great politicians), who moved 
 heaven and earth in his interest publicly, and privately 
 besieged Sefior Moraga, the influential agent of the 
 San Tomé mine, with the exaggerated lamentations 
 that if the general were passed over, “We shall all be 
 ruined.” An incidental but favourable mention of his 
 name in Mr. Gould senior’s long correspondence with 
 his son had something to do with his appointment, too; 
 but most of all undoubtedly his established political 
 honesty. No one questioned the personal bravery of 
 the Tiger-killer, as the populace called him. He was, 
 however, said to be unlucky in the field—but this was 
 to be the beginning of an era of peace. The soldiers 
 liked him for his humane temper, which was like a 
 strange and precious flower unexpectedly blooming on 
 the hotbed of corrupt revolutions; and when he rode 
 slowly through the streets during some military display, 
 the contemptuous good humour of his solitary eye roam- 
 ing over the crowds extorted the acclamations of the 
 populace. The women of that class especially seemed 
 positively fascinated by the long drooping nose, the 
 peaked chin, the heavy lower lip, the black silk eye- 
 patch and band slanting rakishly over the forehead. 
 His high rank always procured an audience of Ca- 
 balleros for his sporting stories, which he detailed very 
 well with a simple, grave enjoyment. As to the society 
 of ladies, it was irksome by the restraints it imposed 
 without any equivalent, as far as he could see. He had 
 not, perhaps, spoken three times on the whole to Mrs. 
 Gould since he had taken up his high command; but he 
 had observed her frequently riding with the Sefior 
 Administrador, and had pronounced that there was 
 
164 NOSTROMO 
 
 more sense in her little bridle-hand than in all the fe- 
 male heads in Sulaco. His impulse had been to be very 
 civil on parting to a woman who did not wobble in the 
 saddle, and happened to be the wife of a personality 
 very Important to a man always short of money. He 
 even pushed his attentions so far as to desire the aide-de- 
 camp at his side (a thick-set, short captain with a Tar- 
 tar physiognomy) to bring along a corporal with a file of 
 men in front of the carriage, lest the crowd in its back- 
 ward surges should “incommode the mules of the 
 sefiora.” Then, turning to the small knot of silent 
 Europeans looking on within earshot, he raised his 
 voice protectingly— 
 
 “Sefiores, have no apprehension. Go on quietly 
 making your Ferro Carril—your railways, your tele- 
 graphs. Your There’s enough wealth in Costa- 
 guana to pay for everything—or else you would not be 
 here. Ha! ha! Don’t mind this little picardia of my 
 friend Montero. In a little while you shall behold his 
 dyed moustaches through the bars of a strong wooden 
 cage. Si, sefiores! Fear nothing, develop the country, 
 work, work!” ; 
 
 The little group of engineers received this exhortation 
 without a word, and after waving his hand at them 
 loftily, he addressed himself again to Mrs. Gould— 
 
 “That is what Don José says we must do. Be enter- 
 prising! Work! Grow rich! To put Montero in a 
 cage is my work; and when that insignificant piece of 
 business is done, then, as Don José wishes us, we shall 
 grow rich, one and all, like so many Englishmen, be- 
 cause it is money that saves a country, and i 
 
 But a young officer in a very new uniform, hurrying 
 up from the direction of the jetty, interrupted his 
 interpretation of Sefior Avellanos’s ideals. The general 
 made a movement of impatience; the other went on 
 
THE ISABELS 165 
 
 talking to him insistently, with an air of respect. The 
 horses of the Staff had been embarked, the steamer’s 
 gig was awaiting the general at the boat steps; and 
 Barrios, after a fierce stare of his one eye, began to take 
 leave. Don José roused himself for an appropriate 
 phrase pronounced mechanically. The terrible strain 
 of hope and fear was telling on him, and he seemed to 
 husband the last sparks of his fire for those oratorical 
 efforts of which even the distant Europe was to hear. 
 Antonia, her red lips firmly closed, averted her head 
 behind the raised fan; and young Decoud, though he 
 felt the girl’s eyes upon him, gazed away persistently, 
 hooked on his elbow, with a scornful and complete de- 
 tachment. Mrs. Gould heroically concealed her dis- 
 may at the appearance of men and events so remote 
 from her racial conventions, dismay too deep to be 
 uttered in words even to her husband. She understood 
 his voiceless reserve better now. Their confidential 
 intercourse fell, not in moments of privacy, but pre- 
 cisely in public, when the quick meeting of their glances 
 would comment upon some fresh turn of events. She 
 had gone to his school of uncompromising silence, the 
 only one possible, since so much that seemed shocking, 
 weird, and grotesque in the working out of their pur- 
 poses had to be accepted as normal in this country. 
 Decidedly, the stately Antonia looked more mature and 
 infinitely calm; but she would never have known how 
 to reconcile the sudden sinkings of her heart with an 
 amiable mobility of expression. 
 
 Mrs. Gould smiled a good-bye at Barrios, nodded 
 round to the Europeans (who raised their hats si- 
 multaneously) with an engaging invitation, “I hope to 
 see you all presently, at home’’; then said nervously to 
 Decoud, *‘ Get in, Don Martin,” and heard him mutter 
 to himself in French, as he opened the carriage door, 
 
166 NOSTROMO 
 
 “Le sort en est jeté.”’ She heard him with a sort of 
 exasperation. Nobody ought to have known better 
 than himself that the first cast of dice had been already 
 thrown long ago in a most desperate game. Distant 
 acclamations, words of command yelled out, and a roll 
 of drums on the jetty greeted the departing general. 
 Something like a slight faintness came over her, and she 
 looked blankly at Antonia’s still face, wondering what 
 would happen to Charley if that absurd man failed. 
 “A la casa, Ignacio,” she cried at the motionless broad 
 back of the coachman, who gathered the reins without 
 haste, mumbling to himself under his breath, “Sv, 
 la casa. St, st nifia.” 
 
 The carriage rolled noiselessly on the soft track, the 
 shadows fell long on the dusty little plain interspersed 
 with dark bushes, mounds of turned-up earth, low 
 wooden buildings with iron roofs of the Railway 
 Company; the sparse row of telegraph poles strode 
 obliquely clear of the town, bearing a single, almost in- 
 visible wire far into the great campo—like a slender, 
 vibrating feeler of that progress waiting outside for a 
 moment of peace to enter and twine itself about ne 
 weary heart of the land. 
 
 The café window of the Albergo d'Italia Una was full 
 of sunburnt, whiskered faces of railway men. But at 
 the other end of the house, the end of the Signori 
 Inglesi, old Giorgio, at the door with one of his girls on 
 each side, bared his bushy head, as white as the snows of 
 Higuerota. Mrs. Gould stopped the carriage. She 
 seldom failed to speak to her protégé; moreover, the 
 excitement, the heat, and the dust had made her 
 thirsty. She asked for a glass of water. Giorgio sent 
 the children indoors for it, and approached with pleasure 
 expressed in his whole rugged countenance. It was not 
 often that he had occasion to see his benefactress,; 
 
THE ISABELS 167 
 
 who was also an Englishwoman—another title to his 
 regard. He offered some excuses for his wife. It 
 was a bad day with her; her oppressions—he tapped his 
 own broad chest. She could not move from her chair 
 that day. 
 
 Decoud, ensconced in the corner of his seat, observed 
 gloomily Mrs. Gould’s old revolutionist, then, offhand— 
 
 “Well, and what do you think of it all, Garibaldino?” 
 
 Old Giorgio, looking at him with some curiosity, said 
 civilly that the troops had marched very well. One- 
 eyed Barrios and his officers had done wonders with the 
 recruits in a short time. ‘Those Indios, only caught the 
 other day, had gone swinging past in double quick time, 
 like bersaglieri; they looked well fed, too, and had whole 
 uniforms. ‘Uniforms!”’ he repeated with a half-smile 
 of pity. A look of grim retrospect stole over his pierc- 
 ing, steady eyes. It had been otherwise in his time 
 when men fought against tyranny, in the forests of 
 Brazil, or on the plains of Uruguay, starving on half- 
 raw beef without salt, half naked, with often only a 
 knife tied to a stick for a weapon. “And yet we 
 used to prevail against the oppressor,” he concluded, 
 proudly. ar 
 
 His animation fell; the slight gesture of his han 
 expressed discouragement; but he added that he had 
 asked one of the sergeants to show him the new rifle. 
 There was no such weapon in his fighting days; and if 
 Barrios could not— 
 
 “Yes, yes,” broke in Don José, almost trembling 
 with eagerness. “Weare safe. The good Sefior Viola 
 is a man of experience. Extremely deadly—is it not 
 so? You have accomplished your mission admirably, 
 my dear Martin.” 
 
 Decoud, lolling back moodily, contemplated old 
 Viola. 
 
168 NOSTROMO 
 
 “Ah! Yes. A man of experience. But who are 
 you for, really, in your heart?” 
 
 Mrs. Gould leaned over to the children. Linda had 
 brought out a glass of water on a tray, with extreme 
 care; Giselle presented her with a bunch of flowers 
 gathered hastily. 
 
 “For the people,’ declared old Viola, sternly. 
 
 “We are all for the people—in the end.” 
 
 “Yes,” muttered old Viola, savagely. “‘And mean- 
 time they fight for you. Blind. Esclavos!”’ 
 
 At that moment young Scarfe of the railway staff 
 emerged from the door of the part reserved for the 
 Signori Inglesi. He had come down to headquarters 
 from somewhere up the line on a light engine, and had 
 had just time to get a bath and change his clothes. He 
 was a nice boy, and Mrs. Gould welcomed him. 
 
 “It’s a delightful surprise to see you, Mrs. Gould. 
 I’ve just come down. Usualluck. Missed everything, 
 of course. ‘This show is just over, and I hear there has 
 _ been a great dance at Don Juste Lopez’s last night. Is 
 
 it true?”’ 
 
 “The young patricians,’’ Decoud began suddenly in 
 his precise English, “have indeed been dancing before 
 they started off to the war with the Great Pompey.” 
 
 Young Scarfe stared, astounded. “You haven’t 
 met before,’ Mrs. Gould intervened. ‘“‘Mr. Decoud— 
 Mr. Scarfe.” 
 
 “Ah! But we are not going to Pharsalia,” pro- 
 tested Don José, with nervous haste, also in English. 
 “You should not jest like this, Martin.” 
 
 Antonia’s breast rose and fell with a deeper breath. 
 The young engineer was utterly in the dark. “Great 
 what?” he muttered, vaguely. : 
 
 “Luckily, Montero is not a Cesar,’’ Decoud con- 
 tinued. “Not the two Monteros put together would 
 
THE ISABELS 169 
 
 make a decent parody of a Cesar.’ He crossed his 
 arms on his breast, loaking at Sefior Avellanos, who 
 had returned to his immobility. “It is only you, Don 
 José, who are a genuine old Roman—vir Romanus— 
 eloquent and inflexible.” 
 
 Since he had heard the name of Montero pronounced, 
 young Scarfe had been eager to express his simple feel- 
 ings. In a loud and youthful tone he hoped that this 
 Montero was going to be licked once for all and done 
 with. There was no saying what would happen to the 
 railway if the revolution got the upper hand. Perhaps 
 it would have to be abandoned. It would not be the 
 first railway gone to pot in Costaguana. “You know, 
 it’s one of their so-called national things,” he ran on, 
 wrinkling up his nose as if the word had a suspicious 
 flavour to his profound experience of South American 
 affairs. And, of course, he chatted with animation, it 
 had been such an immense piece of luck for him at his 
 age to get appointed on the staff “of a big thing like 
 that—don’t you know.” It would give him the pull 
 over a lot of chaps all through life, he asserted. ‘ There- 
 fore—down with Montero! Mrs. Gould.” His artless 
 grin disappeared slowly before the unanimous gravity 
 of the faces turned upon him from the carriage; only 
 that “old chap,’ Don José, presenting a motionless, 
 waxy profile, stared straight on as if deaf. Scarfe did 
 not know the Avellanos very well. They did not give 
 balls, and Antonia never appeared at a ground-floor 
 window, as some other young ladies used to do at- 
 tended by elder women, to chat with the caballeros on 
 horseback in the Calle. The stares of these creoles did 
 not matter much; but what on earth had come to Mrs. 
 Gould? She said, “Go on, Ignacio,” and gave him a 
 slow inclination of the head. He heard a short laugh 
 from that round-faced, Frenchified fellow. He coloured 
 
170 NOSTROMO 
 
 up to the eyes, and stared at Giorgio Viola, who had 
 fallen back with the children, hat in hand. 
 
 “T shall want a horse presently,” he said with some 
 asperity to the old man. 
 
 “Si, sefior. ‘There are plenty of horses,’ murmured 
 the Garibaldino, smoothing absently, with his brown 
 hands, the two heads, one dark with bronze glints, the 
 other fair with a coppery ripple, of the two girls by his 
 side. The returning stream of sightseers raised a 
 great dust on the road. Horsemen noticed the group. 
 “Go to your mother,” he said. “They are growing iy 
 as I am growing older, and there is nobody uy 
 
 He looked at the young engineer and stopped, as if 
 awakened from a dream; then, folding his arms on his 
 breast, took up his usual position, leanimg back in the 
 doorway with an upward glance fastened on the white 
 shoulder of Higuerota far away. 
 
 In the carriage Martin Decoud, shifting his position 
 as though he could not make himself comfortable, mut- 
 tered as he swayed towards Antonia, “I suppose you 
 hate me.” Then in a loud voice he began to con- 
 gratulate Don José upon all the engineers being con- 
 vinced Ribierists. ‘The interest of all those foreigners 
 was gratifying. “You have heard this one. He is an 
 enlightened well-wisher. It is pleasant to think that 
 the prosperity of Costaguana is of some use to the 
 world.” 
 
 “He is very young,” Mrs. Gould remarked, quietly. 
 
 *“And so very wise for his age,” retorted Decoud. 
 “But here we have the naked truth from the mouth of 
 that child. You are right, Don José. The natural 
 treasures of Costaguana are of importance to the pro- 
 gressive Europe represented by this youth, just as three 
 hundred years ago the wealth of our Spanish fathers 
 was a serious object to the rest of Europe—as repre- 
 
THE ISABELS 171 
 
 sented by the bold buccaneers. There is a curse of 
 futility upon our character: Don Quixote and Sancho 
 Fanza, chivalry and materialism, high-sounding senti- 
 ments and a supine morality, violent efforts for an idea 
 and a sullen acquiescence in every form of corruption. 
 We convulsed a continent for our independence only to 
 become the passive prey of a democratic parody, the 
 helpless victims of scoundrels and cut-throats, our 
 institutions a mockery, our laws a farce—a Guzman 
 Bento our master! And we have sunk so low that when 
 a man like you has awakened our conscience, a stupid 
 barbarian of a Montero—Great Heavens! a Montero!— 
 becomes a deadly danger, and an ignorant, boastful 
 Indio, like Barrios, is our defender.”’ 
 
 But Don José, disregarding the general indictment as 
 though he had not heard a word of it, took up the de- 
 fence of Barrios. ‘The man was competent enough for 
 his special task in the plan of campaign. It consisted 
 in an offensive movement, with Cayta as base, upon the 
 flank of the Revolutionist forces advancing from the 
 south against Sta. Marta, which was covered by another 
 army with the President-Dictator in its midst. Don 
 José became quite animated with a great flow of speech, 
 bending forward anxiously under the steady eyes of his 
 daughter. Decoud, as if silenced by so much ardour, 
 did not make a sound. ‘The bells of the city were strik- 
 ing the hour of Oracion when the carriage rolled under 
 the old gateway facing the harbour like a shapeless 
 monument of leaves and stones. The rumble of wheels 
 under the sonorous arch was traversed by a strange, 
 piercing shriek, and Decoud, from his back seat, had a 
 view of the people behind the carriage trudging along 
 the road outside, all turning their heads, in sombreros 
 and rebozos, to look at a locomotive which rolled 
 quickly out of sight behind Giorgio Viola’s house, under 
 
172 NOSTROMO 
 
 a white trail of steam that seemed to vanish in the 
 breathless, hysterically prolonged scream of warlike 
 triumph. And it was all like a fleeting vision, the 
 shrieking ghost of a railway engine fleeing across the 
 frame of the archway, behind the startled movement 
 of the people streaming back from a military spectacle 
 with silent footsteps on the dust of the road. It wasa 
 material train returning from the Campo to the pali- 
 saded yards. The empty cars rolled lightly on the 
 single track; there was no rumble of wheels, no tremor 
 of the ground. The engine-driver, running past the 
 Casa Viola with the salute of an uplifted arm, checked 
 his speed smartly before entering the yard; and when 
 the ear-splitting screech of the steam-whistle for the 
 brakes had stopped, a series of hard, battering shocks, 
 mingled with the clanking of chain-couplings, made a 
 tumult of blows and shaken fetters under the vault of 
 the gate. 
 
CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 Tue Gould carriage was the first to return from the 
 harbour to the empty town. On the ancient pavement, 
 laid out in patterns, sunk into ruts and holes, the portly 
 Ignacio, mindful of the springs of the Parisian-built 
 landau, had pulled up to a walk, and Decoud in his 
 corner contemplated moodily the inner aspect of the 
 gate. ‘The squat turreted sides held up between them 
 a mass of masonry with bunches of grass growing at the 
 top, and a grey, heavily scrolled, armorial shield of stone 
 above the apex of the arch with the arms of Spain nearly 
 smoothed out as if in readiness for some new device 
 typical of the impending progress. 
 
 The explosive noise of the railway trucks seemed to 
 augment Decoud’s irritation. He muttered something 
 to himself, then began to talk aloud in curt, angry 
 phrases thrown at the silence of the two women. They 
 did not look at him at all; while Don José, with his semi- 
 translucent, waxy complexion, overshadowed by the 
 soft grey hat, swayed a little to the jolts of the carriage 
 by the side of Mrs. Gould. 
 
 “This sound puts a new ithe on a very old 
 truth.” 
 
 Decoud speke in French, perhaps because of Ignacio 
 on the box above him; the old coachman, with his broad 
 back filling a short, silver-braided jacket, had a big 
 pair of ears, whose thick rims stood well away from his 
 cropped head. 
 
 “Yes, the noise outside the city wall is new, but the 
 
 principle is old.” 
 178 
 
174 NOSTROMO 
 
 He ruminated his discontent for a while, then began 
 afresh with a sidelong glance at Antonia— 
 
 “No, but just imagine our forefathers in morions and 
 corselets drawn up outside this gate, and a band of 
 adventurers just landed from their ships in the harbour 
 there. Thieves, of course. Speculators, too. Their 
 expeditions, each one, were the speculations of grave 
 and reverend persons in England. That is history, as 
 that absurd sailor Mitchell is always saying.” 
 
 *Mitchell’s arrangements for the embarkation of the 
 troops were excellent!’’ exclaimed Don José. 
 
 “'That!—that! oh, that’s really the work of that 
 Genoese seaman! But to return to my noises; there 
 used to be in the old days the sound of trumpets outside 
 that gate. War trumpets! I’m sure they were trum- 
 pets. I have read somewhere that Drake, who was 
 the greatest of these men, used to dine alone in his © 
 cabin on board ship to the sound of trumpets. In 
 those days this town was full of wealth. Those men 
 came to take it. Now the whole land is like a treasure- 
 house, and all these people are breaking into it, whilst 
 we are cutting each other’s throats. The only thing 
 that keeps them out is mutual jealousy. But they'll 
 come to an agreement some day—and by the time we've © 
 settled our quarrels and become decent and honourable, 
 there'll be nothing left for us. It has always been the 
 same. We are a wonderful people, but it has always 
 been our fate to be’”—he did not say “robbed,” but 
 added, after a pause— exploited!” 
 
 Mrs. Gould said, “Oh, this is unjust!”” And Antonia 
 interjected, “Don’t answer him, Emilia. He 1s at- 
 tacking me.” 
 
 “You surely do not think I was attacking Don Car- 
 los!” Decoud answered. 
 
 And then the carriage stopped before the door of the 
 
THE ISABELS 175 
 
 Casa Gould. The young man offered his hand to the 
 ladies. They went in first together; Don José walked 
 by the side of Decoud, and the gouty old porter tottered 
 after them with some light wraps on his arm. 
 
 Don José slipped his hand under the arm of the 
 journalist of Sulaco. 
 
 “The Porvenir must have a long and confident article 
 upon Barrios and the irresistibleness of his army of 
 Cayta! The moral effect should be kept up in the 
 country. We must cable encouraging extracts to 
 Europe and the United States to maintain a favour- 
 able impression abroad.” 
 
 Decoud muttered, ““Oh, yes, we must comfort our 
 friends, the speculators.” 
 
 The long open gallery was in shadow, with its screen 
 of plants in vases along the balustrade, holding out. 
 motionless blossoms, and all the glass doors of the 
 reception-rooms thrown open. A jingle of spurs died 
 out at the further end. | 
 
 Basilio, standing aside against the wall, said in a soft 
 tone to the passing ladies, “‘ The Sefior Administrador is 
 just back from the mountain.”’ 
 
 In the great sala, with its groups of ancient Spanish 
 and modern European furniture making as if different 
 centres under the high white spread of the ceiling, the 
 silver and potcelain of the tea-service gleamed among 
 a cluster of dwarf chairs, like a bit of a lady’s 
 boudoir, putting in a note of feminine and intimate 
 delicacy. 
 
 Don José in his rocking-chair placed his hat on his 
 lap, and Decoud walked up and down the whole length 
 of the room, passing between tables loaded with knick-. 
 knacks and almost disappearing behind the high backs: 
 of leathern sofas. He was thinking of the angry face of 
 Antonia; he was confident that he would make his 
 
176 NOSTROMO 
 
 peace with her. He had not stayed in Sulaco to quarrel 
 with Antonia. : 
 
 Martin Decoud was angry with himself. All he saw 
 and heard going on around him exasperated the pre- 
 conceived views of his European civilization. To 
 contemplate revolutions from the distance of the 
 Parisian Boulevards was quite another matter. Here 
 on. the spot it was not possible to dismiss their tragic 
 comedy with the expression, “Quelle farce !”’ 
 
 The reality of the political action, such as it was, 
 seemed closer, and acquired poignancy by Antonia’s 
 belief in the cause. Its crudeness hurt his feelings. He 
 was surprised at his own sensitiveness. 
 
 “IT suppose I am more of a Costaguanero than I would 
 have believed possible,” he thought to himself. 
 
 His disdain grew like a reaction of his scepticism 
 against the action into which he was forced by his 
 infatuation for Antonia. He soothed himself by saying 
 he was not a patriot, but a lover. 
 
 The ladies came in bareheaded, and Mrs. Gould sank 
 low before the little tea-table. Antonia took up her 
 usual place at the reception hour—the corner of a 
 leathern couch, with a rigid grace in her pose and a fan 
 in herhand. Decoud, swerving from the straight line of 
 his march, came to lean over the high back of her seat. 
 
 For a long time he talked into her ear from behind, 
 softly, with a half smile and an air of apologetic famili- 
 arity. Her fan lay half grasped on her knees. She 
 never looked at him. His rapid utterance grew more 
 and more insistent and caressing. At last he ventured 
 a slight laugh. 
 
 “No, really. You must forgive me. One must be 
 serious sometimes.’ He paused. She turned her 
 head a little; her blue eyes glided slowly towards him, 
 slightly upwards, mollified and questioning. 
 
THE ISABELS 177 
 
 “You can’t think I am serious when I call Montero a 
 gran bestia every second day in the Porvenir? That 
 is not a serious occupation. No occupation is serious, 
 not even when a bullet through the heart is the penalty 
 of failure!” 
 
 Her hand closed firmly on her fan. 
 
 “Some reason, you understand, I mean some sense, 
 may creep into thinking; some glimpse of truth. I 
 mean some effective truth, for which there is no room 
 in politics or journalism. I happen to have said what 
 I thought. And you are angry! If you do me the 
 kindness to think a little you will see that I spoke like a 
 patriot.” 
 
 She opened her red lips for the first time, not un- 
 kindly. | 
 
 “Yes, but you never see the aim. Men must be used 
 as they are. I suppose nobody is really disinterested, 
 unless, perhaps, you, Don Martin.” 
 
 “God forbid! It’s the last thing I should like you to 
 believe of me.” He spoke lightly, and paused. 
 
 She began to fan herself with a slow movement with- 
 out raising her hand. After a time he whispered pas- 
 sionately— 
 
 **Antonia!”’ 
 
 She smiled, and extended her hand after the English 
 manner towards Charles Gould, who was bowing before 
 her; while Decoud, with his elbows spread on the back 
 of the sofa, dropped his eyes and murmured, “‘ Bonjour.” 
 
 The Sefior Administrador of the San Tomé mine bent 
 over his wife for a moment. They exchanged a few 
 words, of which only the phrase, “The greatest enthu- 
 siasm,” pronounced by Mrs. Gould, could be heard. 
 
 “Yes,” Decoud began in a murmur. “Even he!”’ 
 
 “This is sheer calumny,” said Antonia, not very 
 severely. 
 
178 NOSTROMO 
 
 “You just ask him to throw his mine into the melting- 
 pot for the great cause,’ Decoud whispered. 
 
 Don José had raised his voice. He rubbed his hands 
 cheerily. The excellent aspect of the troops and the 
 great quantity of new deadly rifles on the shoulders of 
 those brave men seemed to fill him with an ecstatic 
 confidence. 
 
 Charles Gould, very tall and thin before his chair, 
 listened, but nothing could be discovered in his face 
 except a kind and deferential attention. 
 
 Meantime, Antonia had risen, and, crossing the 
 room, stood looking out of one of the three long windows 
 giving on the street. Decoud followed her. The 
 window was thrown open, and he leaned against the 
 thickness of the wall. The long folds of the damask 
 curtain, falling straight from the broad brass cornice, 
 hid him partly from the room. He folded his arms on 
 his breast, and looked steadily at Antonia’s profile. 
 
 The people returning from the harbour filled the 
 pavements; the shuffle of sandals and a low murmur of 
 voices ascended to the window. Now and then a coach 
 rolled slowly along the disjointed roadway of the Calle 
 de la Constitucion. There were not many private 
 carriages in Sulaco; at the most crowded hour on the © 
 Alameda they could be counted with one glance of the 
 eye. The great family arks swayed on high leathern 
 springs, full of pretty powdered faces in which the eyes 
 looked intensely alive and black. And first Don Juste 
 Lopez, the President of the Provincial Assembly, 
 passed with his three lovely daughters, solemn in a 
 black frock-coat and stiff white tie, as when directing a 
 debate from a high tribune. ‘Though they all raised 
 their eyes, Antonia did not make the usual greeting 
 gesture of a fluttered hand, and they affected not to see 
 the two young people, Costaguaneros with European 
 
THE ISABELS 179 
 
 manners, whose eccentricities were discussed behind the 
 barred windows of the first families in Sulaco. And 
 then the widowed Sefiora Gavilaso de Valdes rolled by, 
 handsome and dignified, in a great machine in which 
 she used to travel to and from her country house, sur- 
 rounded by an armed retinue in leather suits and big 
 sombreros, with carbines at the bows of their saddles. 
 She was a woman of most distinguished family, proud, 
 rich, and kind-hearted. Her second son, Jaime, had 
 just gone off on the Staff of Barrios. The eldest, a 
 worthless fellow of a moody disposition, filled Sulaco 
 with the noise of his dissipations, and gambled heavily 
 at the club. The two youngest boys, with yellow Ri- 
 bierist cockades in their caps, sat on the front seat. 
 She, too, affected not to see the Sefior Decoud talking 
 publicly with Antonia in defiance of every convention. 
 And he not even her novio as far as the world knew! 
 Though, even in that case, it would have been scandal 
 enough. But the dignified old lady, respected and 
 admired by the first families, would have been still 
 more shocked if she could have heard the words they 
 were exchanging. 
 
 “Did you say I lost sight of the aim? I have only 
 one aim in the world.” 
 
 She made an almost imperceptible negative move-" 
 ment of her head, still staring across the street at the 
 Avellanos’s house, grey, marked with decay, and with 
 iron bars like a prison. 
 
 **And it would be so easy of attainment,” he con- 
 tinued, “this aim which, whether knowingly or not, I 
 have always had in my heart—ever since the day when 
 you snubbed me so horribly once in Paris, you re- 
 member.” 
 
 A slight smile seemed to move the corner of the lip 
 that was on his side. 
 
180 NOSTROMO 
 
 “You know you were a very terrible person, a sort of 
 Charlotte Corday in a schoolgirl’s dress; a ferocious 
 patriot. I suppose you would have stuck a knife into 
 Guzman Bento?” 
 
 She interrupted him. “You do me too much 
 honour.” 
 
 “At any rate,”’ he said, changing suddenly to a tone of 
 bitter levity, “you would have sent me to stab him 
 without compunction.”’ 
 
 “Ah, par exemple !”? she murmured in a shocked tone. 
 
 “Well,” he argued, mockingly, “you do keep me here 
 writing deadly nonsense. Deadly to me! It has al- 
 ready killed my self-respect. And you may imagine,” 
 he continued, his tone passing into light banter, “that 
 Montero, should he be successful, would get even with 
 me in the only way such a brute can get even with a 
 man of inteiligence who condescends to call him a gran’ 
 bestia three times a week. It’s a sort of intellectual 
 death; but there is the other one in the background for 
 a journalist of my ability.” 
 
 “Tf he is successful!”’ said Antonia, thoughtfully. 
 
 “You seem satisfied to see my life hang on a thread,”’ 
 Decoud replied, with a broad smile. “And the other 
 Montero, the ‘my trusted brother’ of the proclamations, 
 the guerrillero—haven’t I written that he was taking 
 the guests’ overcoats and changing plates in Paris at 
 our Legation in the intervals of spying on our refugees 
 there, in the time of Rojas? He will wash out that 
 sacred truth in blood. In my blood! Why do you 
 look annoyed? ‘This is simply a bit of the biography of 
 one of our great men. What do you think he will do to 
 me? ‘There is a certain convent wall round the corner 
 of the Plaza, opposite the door of the Bull Ring. You 
 know? Opposite'the door with the inscription, “Intrada 
 de la Sombra.’ Appropriate, perhaps! That’s where 
 
THE ISABELS 181 
 
 the uncle of our host gave up his Anglo-South-Ameri- 
 ean soul. And, note, he might have run away. A man 
 who has fought with weapons may run away. You 
 might have let me go with Barrios if you had cared for 
 me. I would have carried one of those rifles, in which 
 Don José believes, with the greatest satisfaction, in the 
 ranks of poor peons and Indios, that know nothing 
 either of reason or politics. The most forlorn hope in 
 the most forlorn army on earth would have been safer 
 than that for which you made me stay here. When you 
 make war you may retreat, but not when you spend 
 your time in inciting poor ignorant fools to kill and to 
 die.” 
 
 His tone remained light, and as if unaware of his 
 presence she stood motionless, her hands clasped 
 lightly, the fan hanging down from her interlaced 
 fingers. He waited for a while, and then— 
 
 “I shall go to the wall,” he said, with a sort of jocular 
 desperation. | 
 
 Even that declaration did not make her look at him. 
 Her head remained still, her eyes fixed upon the house 
 of the Avellanos, whose chipped pilasters, broken 
 cornices, the whole degradation of dignity was hidden 
 now by the gathering dusk of the street. In her whole 
 figure her lips alone moved, forming the words— 
 
 ** Martin, you will make me cry.” 
 
 He remained silent for a minute, startled, as if over- 
 whelmed by a sort of awed happiness, with the lines of 
 the mocking smile still stiffened about his mouth, and 
 incredulous surprise in his eyes. The value of a sen- 
 tence is in the personality which utters it, for nothing 
 new can be said by man or woman; and those were the 
 last words, it seemed to him, that could ever have been 
 spoken by Antonia. He had never made it up with 
 her so completely in all their intercourse of small en- 
 
182 NOSTROMO 
 
 counters; but even before she had time to turn towards 
 him, which she did slowly with a rigid grace, he had 
 begun to plead— 
 
 “My sister is only waiting to embrace you. My 
 father is transported with joy. I won’t say anything 
 of my mother! Our mothers were like sisters. There 
 is the mail-boat for the south next week—let us go. 
 That Moraga is a fool! A man like Montero is 
 bribed. It’s the practice of the country. It’s tradi- 
 tion—it’s politics. Read ‘Fifty Years of Misrule.’” 
 
 “Leave poor papa alone, Don Martin. He be- 
 lieves x 
 
 “T have the greatest tenderness for your father,” 
 he began, hurriedly. “But I love you, Antonia! And 
 Moraga has miserably mismanaged this business. Per- 
 haps your father did, too; I don’t know. Montero was 
 bribeable. Why, I suppose he only wanted his share of 
 this famous loan for national development. Why 
 didn’t the stupid Sta. Marta people give him a mission 
 to Europe, or something? He would have taken five 
 years’ salary in advance, and gone on loafing in Paris, 
 this stupid, ferocious Indio!”’ 
 
 “The man,” she said, thoughtfully, and very calm 
 before this outburst, “was intoxicated with vanity. 
 We had all the information, not from Moraga only; 
 from others, too. There was his brother intriguing, 
 too.” 
 
 “Oh, yes!”’ he said. ‘Of course you know. You 
 know everything. You read all the correspondence, 
 you write all the papers—all those State papers 
 that are inspired here, in this room, in blind deference 
 to a theory of political purity. Hadn’t you Charles 
 Gould before your eyes? Rey de Sulaco! He and 
 his mine are the practical demonstration of what 
 could have been done. Do you think he succeeded 
 
THE ISABELS 183 
 
 by his fidelity to a theory of virtue? And all those 
 railway people, with their honest work! Of course, 
 their work is honest! But what if you cannot work 
 honestly till the thieves are satisfied? Could he not, 
 a gentleman, have told this Sir John what’s-his-name 
 that Montero had to be bought off—he and all his 
 Negro Liberals hanging on to his gold-laced sleeve? 
 He ought to have been bought off with his own stupid 
 weight of gold—his weight of gold, I tell you, boots, 
 sabre, spurs, cocked hat, and all.” 
 
 She shook her head slightly. “It was impossible,” 
 she murmured. 
 
 “He wanted the whole lot?) What?” 
 
 She was facing him now in the deep recess of the 
 window, very close and motionless. Her lips moved 
 rapidly. Decoud, leaning his back against the wall. 
 listened with crossed arms and lowered eyelids. He 
 drank the tones of her even voice, and watched the 
 agitated life of her throat, as if waves of emotion had 
 run from her heart to pass out into the air in her 
 reasonable words. He also had his aspirations, he 
 aspired to carry her away out of these deadly futilities 
 of pronunciamientos and reforms. All this was wrong 
 —utterly wrong; but she fascinated him, and some- 
 times the sheer sagacity of a phrase would break the 
 charm, replace the fascination by a sudden unwilling 
 thrill of interest. Some women hovered, as it were, on 
 the threshold of genius, he reflected. They did not 
 want to know, or think, or understand. Passion stood 
 for all that, and he was ready to believe that some start- 
 lingly profound remark, some appreciation of character, 
 or a judgment upon an event, bordered on the miracu- 
 lous. In the mature Antonia he could see with an 
 extraordinary vividness the austere schoolgirl of the 
 
 earlier days. She seduced his attention; sometimes he 
 
184 NOSTROMO 
 
 could not restrain a murmur of assent; now and then he 
 advanced an objection quite seriously. Gradually they 
 began to argue; the curtain half hid them from the 
 people in the sala. 
 
 Outside it had grown dark. From the deep trench of 
 shadow between the houses, lit up vaguely by the 
 glimmer of street lamps, ascended the evening silence 
 of Sulaco; the silence of a town with few carriages, of 
 unshod horses, and a softly sandalled population. The 
 windows of the Casa Gould flung their shining parallelo- 
 grams upon the house of the Avellanos. Now and then 
 a shuffle of feet passed below with the pulsating red 
 glow of a cigarette at the foot of the walls; and the 
 night air, as if cooled by the snows of Higuerota, re- 
 freshed their faces. 
 
 “We Occidentals,” said Martin Decoud, using the 
 usual term the provincials of Sulaco applied to them- 
 selves, ““have been always distinct and separated. As 
 long as we hold Cayta nothing can reach us. Jn all our 
 troubles no army has marched over those mountains. 
 A revolution in the central provinces isolates us at once. 
 Look how complete it is now! The news of Barrios’ 
 movement will be cabled to the United States, and only 
 in that way will it reach Sta. Marta by the cable from 
 the other seaboard. We have the greatest riches, the 
 greatest fertility, the purest blood in our great fam- 
 ilies, the most laborious population. The Occidental 
 Province should stand alone. The early Federalism 
 was not bad for us. Then came this union which 
 Don Henrique Gould resisted. It opened the road to 
 tyranny; and, ever since, the rest of Costaguana hangs 
 like a millstone round our necks. The Occidental 
 territory is large enough to make any man’s country. 
 Look at the mountains! Nature itself seems to cry 
 to us, “Separate!’”’ 
 
THE ISABELS 185 
 
 She made an energetic gesture of negation. A 
 silence fell. 
 
 “Oh, yes, I know it’s contrary to the doctrine laid 
 down in the ‘History of Fifty Years’ Misrule.’ I am 
 only trying to be sensible. But my sense seems always 
 to give you cause for offence. Have I startled you very 
 much with this perfectly reasonable aspiration?” 
 
 She shook her head. No, she was not startled, but 
 the idea shocked her early convictions. Her patriotism 
 was larger. She had never considered that possibility. 
 
 “It may yet be the means of saving some of your con- 
 victions,”’ he said, prophetically. 
 
 She did not answer. She seemed tired. They 
 leaned side by side on the rail of the little balcony, very 
 friendly, having exhausted politics, giving themselves 
 up to the silent feeling of their nearness, in one of those 
 profound pauses that fall upon the rhythm of passion. 
 Towards the plaza end of the street the glowing coals 
 in the brazeros of the market women cooking their 
 evening meal gleamed red along the edge of the pave- 
 ment. A man appeared without a sound in the light 
 of a street lamp, showing the coloured inverted triangle 
 of his bordered poncho, square on his shoulders, hang- 
 ing to a point below his knees. From the harbour end 
 of the Calle a horseman walked his soft-stepping mount, 
 gleaming silver-grey abreast each lamp under the dark 
 shape of the rider. 
 
 “Behold the illustrious Capataz de: Cargadores,”’ 
 said Decoud, gently, ““coming in all his splendour after 
 his work is done. The next great man of Sulaco after 
 Don Carlos Gould. But he is good-natured, and let 
 me make friends with him.”’ 
 
 “Ah, indeed!” said Antonia. ““How did you make 
 friends?”’ 
 
 “A journalist ought to have his finger on the popular 
 
186 NOSTROMO 
 
 pulse, and this man is one of the leaders of the populace. 
 A journalist ought to know remarkable men—and this 
 man is remarkable in his way.” 
 
 “Ah, yes!” said Antonia, thoughtfully. “It is 
 known that this Italian has a great influence.” 
 
 The horseman had passed below them, with a gleam 
 of dim light on the shining broad quarters of the grey 
 mare, on a bright heavy stirrup, on a long silver spur; 
 but the short flick of yellowish flame in the dusk was 
 powerless against the muffled-up mysteriousness of the 
 dark figure with an invisible face concealed by a great 
 sombrero. 
 
 Decoud and Antonia remained leaning over the 
 balcony, side by side, touching elbows, with their heads 
 overhanging the darkness of the street, and the bril- 
 liantly lighted sala at their backs. This was a téte-d-téte 
 of extreme impropriety; something of which in the 
 whole extent of the Republic only the extraordinary 
 Antonia could be capable—the poor, motherless girl, 
 never accompanied, with a careless father, who had 
 thought only of making her learned. Even Decoud 
 himself seemed to feel that this was as much as he could 
 expect of having her to himself till—till the revolution 
 was over and he could carry her off to Europe, away 
 from the endlessness of civil strife, whose folly seemed 
 even harder to bear than its ignominy. After one 
 Montero there would be another, the lawlessness of a 
 populace of all colours and races, barbarism, irre- 
 mediable tyranny. As the great Liberator Bolivar had 
 said in the bitterness of his spirit, ““America is un- 
 governable. Those who worked for her independence 
 have ploughed the sea.” He did not care, he declared 
 boldly; he seized every opportunity to tell her that 
 though she had managed to make a Blanco journalist 
 of him, he was no patriot. First of all, the word had 
 
THE ISABELS 187 
 
 no sense for cultured minds, to whom the narrowness of 
 every belief is odious; and secondly, in connection with 
 the everlasting troubles of this unhappy country it was 
 hopelessly besmirched; it had been the cry of dark 
 barbarism, the cloak of lawlessness, of crimes, of ra- 
 pacity, of simple thieving. 
 
 He was surprised at the warmth of his own utterance. 
 He had no need to drop his voice; it had been low all 
 the time, a mere murmur in the silence of dark houses 
 with their shutters closed early against the night air, 
 as is the*custom of Sulaco. Only the sala of the Casa 
 Gould flung out defiantly the blaze of its four windows, 
 the bright appeal of light in the whole dumb obscurity 
 of the street. And the murmur on the little balcony 
 went on after a short pause. 
 
 “But we are labouring to change all that,’ Antonia 
 protested. “It-is exactly what we desire. It is our 
 object. It is the great cause. And the word you 
 despise has stood also for sacrifice, for courage, for 
 constancy, for suffering. Papa, who a 
 
 *Ploughing the sea,’ interrupted Decoud, looking 
 down. 
 
 There was below the sound of hasty and ponderous 
 footsteps. 
 
 “Your uncle, the grand-vicar of the cathedral, has 
 just turned under the gate,’ observed Decoud. “He 
 said Mass for the troops in the Plaza this morning. 
 They had built for him an altar of drums, you know. 
 And they brought outside all the painted blocks to take 
 the air. All the wooden saints stood militarily in a row 
 at the top of the great flight of steps. They looked 
 like a gorgeous escort attending the Vicar-General. I 
 saw the great function from the windows of the Por- 
 venir. He is amazing, your uncle, the last of the 
 Corbelans. He glittered exceedingly in his vestments 
 
188 NOSTROMO 
 
 with a great crimson velvet cross down his back. And 
 all the time our saviour Barrios sat in the Amarilla 
 Club drinking punch at an open window. Lsprit forti— 
 our Barrios. I expected every moment your uncle to 
 launch an excommunication there and then at the black 
 eye-patch in the window across the Plaza. But not 
 at all. Ultimately the troops marched off. Later 
 Barrios came down with some of the officers, and stood 
 with his uniform all unbuttoned, discoursing at the 
 edge of the pavement. Suddenly your uncle appeared, 
 no longer glittering, but all black, at the cathedral door 
 with that threatening aspect he has—you know, like a 
 sort of avenging spirit. He gives one look, strides over 
 straight at the group of uniforms, and leads away the 
 general by the elbow. He walked him for a quarter of 
 an hour in the shade of a wall. Never let go his elbow 
 for a moment, talking all the time with exaltation, and 
 gesticulating with a long black arm. It was a curious 
 scene. The officers seemed struck with astonishment. 
 Remarkable man, your missionary uncle. He hates an 
 infidel much less than a heretic, and prefers a heathen 
 many times to an infidel. He condescends graciously 
 to call me a heathen, sometimes, you know.” 
 
 Antonia listened with her hands over the balustrade, 
 opening and shutting the fan gently; and Decoud talked 
 a little nervously, as if afraid that she would leave him 
 at the first pause. Their comparative isolation, the 
 precious sense of intimacy, the slight contact of their 
 arms, affected him softly; for now and then a tender 
 inflection crept into the flow of his ironic murmurs. 
 
 “Any slight sign of favour from a relative of yours is 
 welcome, Antonia. And perhaps he understands me, 
 after all! But I know him, too, our Padre Corbelan. 
 The idea of political honour, justice, and honesty for 
 him consists in the restitution of the confiscated Church 
 
THE ISABELS 189 
 
 property. Nothing else could have drawn that fierce 
 converter of savage Indians out of the wilds to work for 
 the Ribierist cause! Nothing else but that wild hope! 
 He would make a pronunciamiento himself for such an 
 object against any Government if he could only get 
 followers! What does Don Carlos Gould think of 
 that? But, of course, with his English impenetrability, 
 nobody can tell what he thinks. Probably he thinks of 
 nothing apart from his mine; of his ‘Imperium in 
 Imperio.” AstoMrs. Gould, she thinks of her schools, of 
 her hospitals, of the mothers with the young babies, of 
 every sick old man in the three villages. If you were to 
 turn your head now you would see her extracting a re- 
 port from that sinister doctor in a check shirt—what’s 
 his name? Monygham—or else catechising Don Pépé 
 or perhaps listening to Padre Roman. They are all 
 down here to-day—all her ministers of state. Well, 
 she is a sensible woman, and perhaps Don Carlos is a 
 sensible man. It’s a part of solid English sense not to 
 think too much; to see only what may be of practical 
 use at the moment. These people are not like ourselves. 
 We have no political reason; we have political passions 
 —sometimes. Whatisaconviction? A particular view 
 of our personal advantage either practical or emotional. 
 No one is a patriot for nothing. The word serves us 
 well. But I am clear-sighted, and I shall not use that 
 word to you, Antonia! I haveno patriotic illusions. I 
 have only the supreme illusion of a lover.”’ 
 
 He paused, then muttered almost inaudibly, “That 
 can lead one very far, though.” 
 
 Behind their backs the political tide that once in 
 every twenty-four hours set with a strong flood through 
 the Gould drawing-room could be heard, rising higher 
 in a hum of voices. Men had been dropping in singly, 
 or in twos and threes: the higher officials of the province, 
 
190 NOSTROMO 
 
 engineers of the railway, sunburnt and in tweeds, with 
 the frosted head of their chief smiling with slow, humor- 
 ous indulgence amongst the young eager faces. Scarfe, 
 the lover of fandangos, had already slipped out in search 
 of some dance, no matter where, on the outskirts of the 
 town. Don Juste Lopez, after taking his daughters 
 home, had entered solemnly, in a black creased coat 
 buttoned up under his spreading brown beard. The 
 few members of the Provincial Assembly present 
 clustered at once around their President to discuss the 
 news of the war and the last proclamation of the rebel 
 Montero, the miserable Montero, calling in the name of 
 ‘a justly incensed democracy” upon all the Provincial 
 Assemblies of the Republic to suspend their sittings till 
 his sword had made peace and the will of the people 
 could be consulted. It was practically an invitation to 
 dissolve: an unheard-of audacity of that evil madman. 
 
 The indignation ran high in the knot of deputies be- 
 hind José Avellanos. Don José, lifting up his voice, 
 cried out to them over the high back of his chair, 
 **Sulaco has answered by sending to-day an army upon 
 his flank. If all the other provinces show only half as 
 much patriotism as we, Occidentals Pe 
 
 A great outburst of acclamations covered the vibrat- — 
 ing treble of the life and soul of the party. Yes! Yes! 
 This was true! A great truth! , Sulaco was in the fore- 
 front, as ever! It was a boastful tumult, the hopeful- 
 ness inspired by the event of the day breaking out 
 amongst those caballeros of the Campo thinking of their 
 herds, of their lands, of the safety of their families. 
 Everything was at stake. . . . No! It was im- 
 possible that Montero should succeed! This criminal, 
 this shameless Indio! The clamour continued for some 
 time, everybody else in the room looking towards the 
 group where Don Juste had put on his air of impartial 
 
THE ISABELS 191 
 
 solemnity as if presiding at a sitting of the Provincial 
 Assembly. Decoud had turned round at the noise, 
 and, leaning his back on the balustrade, shouted into 
 the room with all the strength of his lungs, “‘Gran’ 
 bestia !” 
 
 This unexpected cry had the effect of stilling the 
 noise. All the eyes were directed to the window with 
 an approving expectation; but Decoud had already 
 turned his back upon the room, and was again leaning 
 out over the quiet street. 
 
 “This is the quintessence of my journalism; that is 
 the supreme argument,” he said to Antonia. “I have 
 invented this definition, this last word on a great 
 question. But I am no patriot. I am no more of a 
 patriot than the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores, this 
 Genoese who has done such great things for this harbour 
 —this active usher-in of the material implements for our 
 progress. You have heard Captain Mitchell confess 
 over and over again that till he got this man he could 
 never tell how long it would take to unload a ship. 
 That is bad for progress. You have seen him pass by 
 after his labours on his famous horse to dazzle the girls 
 in some ballroom with an earthen floor. He is a 
 fortunate fellow! His work is an exercise of personal 
 powers; his leisure is spent in receiving the marks of 
 extraordinary adulation. And he likes it, too. Can 
 anybody be more fortunate? ‘To be feared and ad- 
 mired is ce 
 
 ‘And are these your highest aspirations, Don 
 Martin?” interrupted Antonia. 
 
 “T was speaking of a man of that sort,”’ said Decoud, 
 eurtly. “The heroes of the world have been feared and 
 admired. What more could he want?” 
 
 Decoud had often felt his familiar habit of ironic 
 thought fall shattered against Antonia’s gravity. She 
 
192 NOSTROMO 
 
 irritated him as if she, too, had suffered from that in- 
 explicable feminine obtuseness which stands so often 
 between a man and a woman of the more ordinary sort. 
 But he overcame his vexation at once. He was very 
 far from thinking Antonia ordinary, whatever verdict 
 his scepticism might have pronounced upon himself. 
 With a touch of penetrating tenderness in his voice he 
 assured her that his only aspiration was to a felicity so 
 high that it seemed almost unrealizable on this earth. 
 
 She coloured invisibly, with a warmth against which 
 the breeze from the sierra seemed to have lost its cooling 
 power in the sudden melting of the snows. His whisper 
 could not have carried so far, though there was enough 
 ardour in his tone to melt a heart of ice. Antonia 
 turned away abruptly, as if to carry his whispered 
 assurance into the room behind, full of light, noisy with 
 voices. 
 
 The tide of political speculation was beating high 
 within the four walls of the great sala, as if driven 
 beyond the marks by a great gust of hope. Don Juste’s 
 fan-shaped beard was still the centre of loud and 
 animated discussions. ‘There was a self-confident ring 
 in all the voices. Even the few Europeans around 
 Charles Gould—a Dane, a couple of Frenchmen, a dis- 
 creet fat German, smiling, with down-cast eyes, the 
 representatives of those material interests that had got 
 a footing in Sulaco under the protecting might of the 
 San Tomé mine—had infused a lot of good humour into 
 their deference. Charles Gould, to whom they were 
 paying their court, was the visible sign of the stability 
 that could be achieved on the shifting ground of revolu- 
 tions. They felt hopeful about their various under- 
 takings. One of the two Frenchmen, small, black, with 
 glittering eyes lost in an immense growth of bushy 
 beord, waved his tiny brown hands and delicate wrists. 
 
THE ISABELS 193 
 
 He had been travelling in the interior of the province 
 for a syndicate of European capitalists. His forcible 
 “ Monsieur 1 Administrateur” returning every minute 
 shrilled above the steady hum of conversations. He 
 was relating his discoveries. He was ecstatic. Charles 
 Gould glanced down at him courteously. 
 
 At a given moment of these necessary receptions it 
 was Mrs. Gould’s habit to withdraw quietly into a 
 little drawing-room, especially her own, next to the 
 great sala. She had risen, and, waiting for Antonia, 
 listened with a slightly worried graciousness to the 
 engineer-in-chief of the railway, who stooped over her, 
 relating slowly, without the slightest gesture, some- 
 thing apparently amusing, for his eyes had a humorous 
 twinkle. Antonia, before she advanced into the room 
 to jom Mrs. Gould, turned her head over her shoulder 
 towards Decoud, only for a moment. 
 
 “Why should any one of us think his aspirations 
 unrealizable?”’ she said, rapidly. 
 
 “T am going to cling to mine to the end, Antonia,” 
 he answered, through clenched teeth, then bowed very 
 low, a little distantly. 
 
 The engineer-in-chief had not finished telling his 
 amusing story. The humours of railway building in 
 South America appealed to his keen appreciation of the 
 absurd, and he told his instances of ignorant prejudice 
 and as ignorant cunning very well. Now, Mrs. Gould 
 gave him all her attention as he walked by her side 
 escorting the ladies out of the room. Finally all three 
 passed unnoticed through the glass doors in the gallery. 
 Only a tall priest stalking silently in the noise of the sala 
 checked himself to look after them. Father Corbelan, 
 whom Decoud had seen from the balcony turning into 
 the gateway of the Casa Gould, had addressed no one 
 since coming in. The long, skimpy soutane accentu- 
 
194 NOSTROMO 
 
 ated the tallness of his stature; he carried his power- 
 ful torso thrown forward; and the straight, black bar of 
 his joined eyebrows, the pugnacious outline of the bony 
 face, the white spot of a scar on the bluish shaven 
 cheeks (a testimonial to his apostolic zeal from a party 
 of unconverted Indians), suggested something unlawful 
 behind his priesthood, the idea of a chaplain of bandits. 
 
 He separated his bony, knotted hands clasped behind 
 his back, to shake his finger at Martin. 
 
 Decoud had stepped into the room after Antonia. 
 But he did not go far. He had remained just within, 
 against the curtain, with an expression of not quite 
 genuine gravity, like a grown-up person taking part in a 
 game of children. He gazed quietly at the threatening 
 finger. 
 
 “I have watched your reverence converting General 
 Barrios by a special sermon on the Plaza,” he said, with- 
 out making the slightest movement. 
 
 “What miserable nonsense!’’ Father Corbelan’s 
 deep voice resounded all over the room, making all the 
 heads turn on the shoulders. “‘ The man is a drunkard. 
 Sefiores, the God of your General is a bottle!” 
 
 His contemptuous, arbitrary voice caused an uneasy 
 suspension of every sound, as if the self-confidence of | 
 the gathering had been staggered by a blow. But 
 nobody took up Father Corbelan’s declaration. 
 
 It was known that Father Corbelan had come out of 
 the wilds to advocate the sacred rights of the Church 
 with the same fanatical fearlessness with which he had 
 gone preaching to bloodthirsty savages, devoid of hu- 
 man compassion or worship of any kind. Rumours of 
 legendary proportions told of his successes as a mission- 
 ary beyond the eye of Christian men. He had baptized 
 whole nations of Indians, living with them like a savage 
 himself. It was related that the padre used to ride with 
 
THE ISABELS 195 
 
 his Indians for days, half naked, carrying a bullock-hide 
 shield, and, no doubt, a long lance, too—who knows? 
 That he had wandered clothed in skins, seeking. for 
 proselytes somewhere near the snow line of the Cor- 
 dillera. Of these exploits Padre Corbelan himself was 
 never known to talk. But he made no secret of his 
 opinion that the politicians of Sta. Marta had harder 
 hearts and more corrupt minds than the heathen to 
 whom he had carried the word of God. His injudicious 
 zeal for the temporal welfare of the Church was damag- 
 ing the Ribierist cause. It was common knowledge 
 that he had refused to be made titular bishop of the 
 Occidental diocese till justice was done to a despoiled 
 Church. The political Géfé of Sulaco (the same 
 dignitary whom Captain Mitchell saved from the 
 mob afterwards) hinted with naive cynicism that 
 doubtless their Excellencies the Ministers sent the padre 
 over the mountains to Sulaco in the worst season of the 
 year in the hope that he would be frozen to death by 
 the icy blasts of the high paramos. Every year a few 
 hardy muleteers—men inured to exposure—were known. 
 to perish in that way. But what would you have? 
 Their Excellencies possibly had not realized what a 
 tough priest he was. Meantime, the ignorant were 
 beginning to murmur that the Ribierist reforms meant 
 simply the taking away of the land from the people. 
 Some of it was to be given to foreigners who made the 
 railway; the greater part was to go to the padres. 
 These were the results of the Grand Vicar’s zeal. 
 Even from the short allocution to the troops on the 
 Plaza (which only the first ranks could have heard) he 
 had not been able to keep out his fixed idea of an 
 outraged Church waiting for reparation from a penitent 
 country. The political Géfé had been exasperated. 
 But he could not very ‘well throw the brother-in-law 
 
196 NOSTROMO 
 
 of Don José into the prison of the Cabildo. The chief 
 magistrate, an easy-going and popular official, visited 
 the Casa Gould, walking over after sunset from the 
 Intendencia, unattended, acknowledging with dignified 
 courtesy the salutations of high and low alike. That 
 evening he had walked up straight to Charles Gould 
 and had hissed out to him that he would have liked to 
 deport the Grand Vicar out of Sulaco, anywhere, to 
 some desert island, to the Isabels, for instance. “‘The 
 one without water preferably—eh, Don Carlos?” he had 
 added in a tone between jest and earnest. This un- 
 controllable priest, who had rejected his offer of the 
 episcopal palace for a residence and preferred to hang 
 his shabby hammock amongst the rubble and spiders 
 of the sequestrated Dominican Convent, had taken into 
 his head to advocate an unconditional pardon for Her- 
 nandez the Robber! And this was not enough; he 
 seemed to have entered into communication with the 
 most audacious criminal the country had known for 
 years. The Sulaco police knew, of course, what was 
 going on. Padre Corbelan had got hold of that reckless 
 Italian, the Capataz de Cargadores, the only man fit 
 for such an errand, and had sent a message through him. 
 Father Corbelan had studied in Rome, and could | 
 speak Italian. The Capataz was known to visit the 
 old Dominican Convent at night. An old woman who 
 served the Grand Vicar had heard the name of Her- 
 nandez pronounced; and only last Saturday afternoon 
 the Capataz had been observed galloping out of town. 
 He did not return for two days. The police would have 
 laid the Italian by the heels if it had not been for fear of 
 the Cargadores, a turbulent body of men, quite apt to 
 raise a tumult. Nowadays it was not so easy to govern 
 Sulaco. Bad characters flocked into it, attracted by the 
 money in the pockets of the railway workmen. The 
 
THE ISABELS 197 
 
 populace was made restless by Father Corbelan’s dis- 
 courses. And the first magistrate explained to Charles 
 Gould that now the province was stripped of troops any 
 outbreak of lawlessness would find the authorities with 
 their boots off, as it were. 
 
 Then he went away moodily to sit in an armchair, 
 smoking a long, thin cigar, not very far from Don 
 José, with whom, bending over sideways, he exchanged 
 a few words from time to time. He ignored the en- 
 trance of the priest, and whenever Father Corbelan’s 
 voice was raised behind him, he shrugged his shoulders 
 impatiently. 
 
 Father Corbelan had remained quite motionless for a 
 time with that something vengeful in his immobility 
 which seemed to characterize all his attitudes. <A lurid 
 glow of strong convictions gave its peculiar aspect to the 
 black figure. But its fierceness became softened as the 
 padre, fixing his eyes upon Decoud, raised his long, 
 black arm slowly, impressively— 
 
 “And you—you are a perfect heathen,” he said, in a 
 subdued, deep voice. 
 
 He made a step nearer, pointing a forefinger at the 
 young man’s breast. Decoud, very calm, felt the wall 
 behind the curtain with the back of his head. Then, 
 with his chin tilted well up, he smiled. 
 
 “Very well,” he agreed with the slightly weary non- 
 chalance of a man well used to these passages. “But 
 is it perhaps that you have not discovered yet what is 
 the God of my worship? It was an easier task with our 
 Barrios.” 
 
 The priest suppressed a gesture of discouragement. 
 “You believe neither in stick nor stone,” he said. 
 
 “Nor bottle,’ added Decoud without stirring. 
 ‘Neither does the other of your reverence’s confidants. 
 I mean the Capataz of the Cargadores. He does not 
 
198 NOSTROMO 
 
 drink. Your reading of my character does honour to 
 you perspicacity. But why call me a heathen?” 
 
 “True,” retorted the priest. ““You are ten times 
 worse. A miracle could not convert you.” 
 
 “T certainly do not believe in miracles,’ said Decoud, 
 quietly. Father Corbelan shrugged his high, broad 
 shoulders doubtfully. 
 
 “A sort of Frenchman—godless—a materialist,” 
 he pronounced slowly, as if weighing the terms of a 
 careful analysis. ‘“‘ Neither the son of his own country 
 nor of any other,” he continued, thoughtfully. 
 
 “Scarcely human, in fact,’ Decoud commented under 
 his breath, his head at rest against the wall, his eyes 
 gazing up at the ceiling. 
 
 ‘The victim of this faithless age,’’ Father Corbelan 
 resumed in a deep but subdued voice. 
 
 “But of some use as a journalist.”” Decoud changed 
 his pose and spoke in a more animated tone. “Has 
 your worship neglected to read the last number of the 
 Porvenir ? I assure you it is just like the others. On 
 the general policy it continues to call Montero a gran’ 
 bestia, and stigmatize his brother, the guerrillero, for a 
 combination of lacquey and spy. What could be more 
 effective? In local affairs it urges the Provincial | 
 Government to enlist bodily into the national army the 
 band of Hernandez the Robber—who is apparently 
 the protégé of the Church—or at least of the Grand 
 Vicar. Nothing could be more sound.” 
 
 The priest nodded and turned on the heels of his 
 square-toed shoes with big steel buckles. Again, with 
 his hands clasped behind his back, he paced to and fro, 
 planting his feet firmly. When he swung about, the 
 skirt of his soutane was inflated slightly by the brusque- 
 ness of his movements. 
 
 The great sala had been emptying itself slowly. 
 
THE ISABELS 199 
 
 When the Géfé Politico rose to go, most of those still 
 remaining stood up suddenly in sign of respect, and Don 
 José Avellanos stopped the rocking of his chair. But 
 the good-natured First Official made a deprecatory ges- 
 ture, waved his hand to Charles Gould, and went out 
 discreetly. 
 
 In the comparative peace of the room the screaming 
 * Monsieur  Administrateur”’ of the frail, hairy French- 
 man seemed to acquire a preternatural shrillness. The 
 explorer of the Capitalist syndicate was still enthusias- 
 tic. ‘Ten million dollars’ worth of copper practically in 
 sight, Monsieur l Administrateur. ‘Ten millions in sight! 
 And a railway coming—a railway! They will never 
 believe my report. C'est trop beau.” He fell a prey to 
 a screaming ecstasy, in the midst of sagely nodding 
 heads, before Charles Gould’s imperturbable calm. 
 
 And only the priest continued his pacing, flinging 
 round the skirt of his soutane at each end of his beat. 
 Decoud murmured to him ironically: “Those gentlemen 
 talk about their gods.”’ 
 
 Father Corbelan stopped short, looked at the jour- 
 nalist of Sulaco fixedly for a moment, shrugged his 
 shoulders slightly, and resumed his plodding walk of an 
 Ohstinate traveller. 
 
 And now the Europeans were dropping off from the 
 ‘group around Charles Gould till the Administrador of 
 the Great Silver Mine could be seen in his whole lank 
 length, from head to foot, left stranded by the ebbing 
 tide of his guests on the great square of carpet, as it 
 were a multi-coloured shoal of flowers and arabesques 
 under his brown boots. Father Corbelan approached 
 the rocking-chair of Don José Avellanos. 
 
 *“Come, brother,” he said, with kindly brusqueness 
 and a touch of relieved impatience a man may feel at the 
 end of a perfectly useless ceremony. “A laCasa! A 
 
200 NOSTROMO 
 
 la Casa! This has been all talk. Let us now go and 
 think and pray for guidance from Heaven.” 
 
 He rolled his black eyes upwards. By the side of the 
 frail diplomatist—the life and soul of the party—he 
 seemed gigantic, with a gleam of fanaticism in the 
 glance. But the voice of the party, or, rather, its 
 mouthpiece, the “son Decoud” from Paris, turned 
 journalist for the sake of Antonia’s eyes, knew very well 
 that it was not so, that he was only a strenuous priest 
 with one idea, feared by the women and execrated by 
 the men of the people. Martin Decoud, the dilettante 
 in life, imagined himself to derive an artistic pleasure 
 from watching the picturesque extreme of wrong- 
 headedness into which an honest, almost sacred, con- 
 viction may drive a man. “It is like madness. It 
 must be—because it’s self-destructive,” Decoud had 
 said to himself often. It seemed to him that every 
 conviction, as soon as it became effective, turned into 
 that form of dementia the gods send upon those they 
 wish to destroy. But he enjoyed the bitter flavour of 
 that example with the zest of a connoisseur in the art 
 of his choice. Those two men got on well together, as 
 if each had felt respectively that a masterful con- 
 viction, as well as utter scepticism, may lead a man 
 very far on the by-paths of political action. 
 
 Don José obeyed the touch of the big hairy hand. 
 Decoud followed out the brothers-in-law. And there 
 remained only one visitor in the vast empty sala, 
 bluishly hazy with tobacco smoke, a'‘heavy-eyed, round- 
 cheeked man, with a drooping moustache, a hide mer- 
 chant from Esmeralda, who had come overland to 
 Sulaco, riding with a few peons across the coast range. 
 He was very full of his journey, undertaken mostly for 
 the purpose of seeing the Sefior Administrador of San 
 Tomé in relation to some assistance he required in his 
 
THE ISABELS 901 
 
 hide-exporting business. He hoped to enlarge it greatly 
 now that the country was going to be settled. It was 
 going to be settled, he repeated several times, degrad- 
 ing by a strange, anxious whine the sonority of the 
 Spanish language, which he pattered rapidly, like some 
 sort of cringing jargon. A plain man could carry on his 
 little business now in the country, and even think of 
 enlarging it—with safety. Was it not so? He seemed 
 to beg Charles Gould for a confirmatory word, a grunt 
 of assent, a simple nod even. 
 
 He could get nothing. His alarm increased, and in 
 the pauses he would dart his eyes here and there; then, 
 loth to give up, he would branch off into feeling allusion 
 to the dangers of his journey. The audacious Her- 
 nandez, leaving his usual haunts, had crossed the 
 Campo of Sulaco, and was known to be lurking in the 
 ravines of the coast range. Yesterday, when distant 
 only a few hours from Sulaco, the hide merchant and his 
 servants had seen three men on the road arrested sus- 
 piciously, with their horses’ heads together. Two of 
 these rode off at once and disappeared in a shallow 
 quebrada to the left. “We stopped,” continued the 
 man from Esmeralda, “and I tried to hide behind a 
 small bush. But none of my mozos would go forward 
 to find out what it meant, and the third horseman 
 seemed to be waiting for us to come up. It was no use. 
 We had been seen. So we rode slowly on, trembling. 
 He let us pass—a man on a grey horse with his hat down 
 on his eyes—without a word of greeting; but by-and-by 
 we heard him galloping after us. We faced about, but 
 that did not seem to intimidate him. He rode up at 
 speed, and touching my foot with the toe of his boot, 
 asked me for a cigar, with a blood-curdling laugh. He 
 did not seem armed, but when he put his hand back to 
 reach for the matches I saw an enormous revolver 
 
202 NOSTROMO 
 
 strapped to his waist. I shuddered. He had very 
 fierce whiskers, Don Carlos, and as he did not offer to go 
 on we dared not move. At last, blowing the smoke 
 of my cigar into the air through his nostrils, he said, 
 ‘Sefior, it would be perhaps better fer you if I rode be- 
 hind your party. You are not very far from Sulaco 
 now. Go you with God.’ What would you? We 
 went on. ‘There was no resisting him. He might have 
 been Hernandez himself; though my servant, who has 
 been many times to Sulaco by sea, assured me that he 
 had recognized him very well for the Capataz of the 
 Steamship Company’s Cargadores. Later, that same 
 evening, I saw that very man at the corner of the Plaza 
 talking to a girl, a Morenita, who stood by the stirrup 
 with her hand on the grey horse’s mane.” 
 
 “TI assure you, Sefior Hirsch,” murmured Charles 
 Gould, “that you ran no risk on this occasion.” 
 
 “That may be, sefior, though I tremble yet. A most 
 fieree man—to look at. And what does it mean? A 
 person employed by the Steamship Company talking 
 with salteadores—no less, sefior; the other horsemen 
 were salteadores—in a lonely place, and behaving like 
 a robber himself! A cigar is nothing, but what was 
 there to prevent him asking me for my purse?”’ 
 
 “No, no, Sefior Hirsch,’ Charles Gould murmured, 
 letting his glance stray away a little vacantly from the 
 round face, with its hooked beak upturned towards him 
 in an almost childlike appeal. “If it was the Capataz 
 de Cargadores you met—and there is no doubt, is there? 
 —you were perfectly safe.” 
 
 “Thank you. You are very good. A very fierce- 
 looking man, Don Carlos. He asked me for a cigar in a 
 most familiar manner. What would have happened if 
 I had not had a cigar? JI shudder yet. What business 
 had he to be talking with robbers in a lonely place?”’ 
 
THE ISABELS 203 
 
 But Charles Gould, openly preoccupied now, gave 
 not a sign, made no sound. ‘The impenetrability of the 
 embodied Gould Concession had its surface shades. To 
 be dumb is merely a fatal affliction; but the King of 
 Sulaco had words enough to give him all the mysterious 
 weight of a taciturn force. His silences, backed by 
 the power of speech, had as many shades of significance 
 as uttered words in the way of assent, of doubt, of 
 negation—even of simple comment. Some seemed to 
 say plainly, “‘Think it over’; others meant clearly, 
 “Go ahead”’; a simple, low “I see,”’ with an affirmative 
 nod, at the end of a patient listening half-hour was the 
 equivalent of a verbal contract, which men had learned 
 to trust implicitly, since behind it all there was the 
 great San Tomé mine, the head and front of the material 
 interests, so strong that it depended on no man’s good- 
 will in the whole length and breadth of the Occidental 
 Province—that is, on no goodwill which it could not buy 
 ten times over. But to the little hook-nosed man from 
 Esmeralda, anxious about the export of hides, the 
 silence of Charles Gould portended a failure. Evi- 
 dently this was no time for extending a modest man’s 
 business. He enveloped in a swift mental malediction 
 the whole country, with all its inhabitants, partisans of 
 Ribiera and Montero alike; and there were incipient 
 tears in his mute anger at the thought of the in- 
 numerable ox-hides going to waste upon the dreamy 
 expanse of the Campo, with its single palms rising like 
 ships at sea within the perfect circle of the horizon, its 
 clumps of heavy timber motionless like solid islands of 
 leaves above the running waves of grass. There were 
 hides there, rotting, with no profit to anybody—rotting 
 where they had been dropped by men called away to 
 attend the urgent necessities of political revolutions. 
 The practical, mercantile soul of Sefior Hirsch rebelled 
 
204 NOSTROMO 
 
 against all that foolishness, while he was taking a 
 respectful but disconcerted leave of the might and 
 majesty of the San Tomé mine in the person of Charles 
 Gould. He could not restrain a heart-broken murmur, 
 wrung out of his very aching heart, as it were. 
 
 “Tt is a great, great foolishness, Don Carlos, all this. 
 The price of hides in Hamburg is gone up—up. Of 
 course the Ribierist Government will do away with all 
 that—when it gets established firmly. Meantime a 
 
 He sighed. 
 
 “Yes, meantime,’ 
 ably. 
 
 The other shrugged his shoulders. But he was not 
 ready to go yet. There was a little matter he would like 
 to mention very much if permitted. It appeared he had 
 some good friends in Hamburg (he murmured the name 
 of the firm) who were very anxious to do business, in 
 dynamite, he explained. A contract for dynamite with 
 the San Tomé mine, and then, perhaps, later on, other 
 mines, which were sure to—— ‘The little man from 
 Esmeralda was ready to enlarge, but Charles inter- 
 rupted him. It seemed as though the patience of the 
 Sefior Administrador was giving way at last. 
 
 *““Sefior Hirsch,”’ he said, “I have enough dynamite 
 stored up at the mountain to send it down crashing into 
 the valley’’—his voice rose a littl—‘“to send half 
 Sulaco into the air if I liked.” 
 
 ~Charles Gould smiled at the round, startled eyes of 
 the dealer in hides, who was murmuring hastily, “Just 
 so. Just so.” And now he was going. It was im- 
 possible to do business in explosives with an Adminis- 
 trador so well provided and so discouraging. He had 
 suffered agonies in the saddle and had exposed himself 
 to the atrocities of the bandit Hernandez for nothing 
 at all. Neither hides nor dynamite—and the very 
 
 b 
 
 repeated Charles Gould, inscrut- 
 
THE ISABELS 205 
 
 shoulders of the enterprising Israelite expressed de- 
 jection. At the door he bowed low to the engineer-in- 
 chief. But at the bottom of the stairs in the patio he 
 stopped short, with his podgy hand over his lips in an 
 attitude of meditative astonishment. 
 
 “What does he want to keep so much dynamite for?”’ 
 he muttered. “And why does he talk like this to me?”’ 
 
 The engineer-in-chief, looking in at the door of the 
 empty sala, whence the political tide had ebbed out to 
 the last insignificant drop, nodded familiarly to the 
 master of the house, standing motionless like a tall 
 beacon amongst the deserted shoals of furniture. 
 
 “Good-night, Iam going. Got my bike downstairs. 
 The railway will know where to go for dynamite should 
 we get short at any time. We have done cutting and 
 chopping for a while now. We shall begin soon to blast 
 our way through.” 
 
 “Don’t come to me,” said Charles Gould, with per- 
 fect serenity. “I shan’t have an ounce to spare for 
 anybody. Not an ounce. Not for my own brother, if 
 I had a brother, and he were the engineer-in-chief of 
 the most promising railway in the world.” 
 
 “What’s that?” asked the engineer-in-chief, with 
 equanimity. “‘Unkindness?”’ 
 
 “No,”’ said Charles Gould, stolidly. “Policy.” 
 
 “Radical, I should think,” the engineer-in-chief ob- 
 served from the doorway. 
 
 “Is that the right name?” Charles Gould said, from 
 the middle of the room. 
 
 “I mean, going to the roots, you know,” the engineer 
 explained, with an air of enjoyment. 
 
 “Why, yes,” Charles pronounced, slowly. “The 
 Gould Concession has struck such deep roots in this 
 country, in this province, in that gorge of the moun- 
 tains, that nothing but dynamite shall be allowed te 
 
206 NOSTROMO 
 
 dislodge it from there. It’s my choice. It’s my last 
 card to play.” 
 
 The engineer-in-chief whistled low. “A _ pretty 
 game,” he said, with a shade of discretion. “And have 
 you told Holroyd of that extraordinary trump card you 
 hold in your hand?”’ 
 
 “Card only when it’s played; when it falls at the end 
 of the game. ‘Till then you may call it a—a 
 
 “Weapon,” suggested the railway man. 
 
 “No. You may call it rather an argument,” cor- 
 rected Charles Gould, gently. ‘And that’s how I’ve 
 presented it to Mr. Holroyd.” 
 
 ** And what did he say to it?”’ asked the engineer, with 
 undisguised interest. 
 
 ““He”’—Charles Gould spoke after a slight pause— 
 “he said something about holding on like grim death 
 and putting our trust in God. I should imagine he 
 must have been rather startled. But then’’—pursued 
 the Administrador of the San Tomé mine—“ but then, 
 he is very far away, you know, and, as they say in this 
 country, God is very high above.” 
 
 The engineer’s appreciative laugh died away down 
 the stairs, where the Madonna with the Child on her 
 arm seemed to look after his shaking broad back from 
 her shallow niche. 
 
CHAPTER SIX 
 
 A PROFOUND stillness reigned in the Casa Gould. 
 The master of the house, walking along the corredor, 
 opened the door of his room, and saw his wife sitting in 
 a big armchair—his own smoking armchair—thought- 
 ful, contemplating her little shoes. And she did not 
 raise her eyes when he walked in. 
 
 “Tired?” asked Charles Gould. 
 
 “A little,’ said Mrs. Gould. Still without looking 
 up, she added with feeling, “There is an awful sense of 
 unreality about all this.” 
 
 Charles Gould, before the long table strewn with 
 papers, on which lay a hunting crop and a pair of spurs, 
 stood looking at his wife: “The heat and dust must. 
 have been awful this afternoon by the waterside,” he 
 murmured, sympathetically. “The glare on the water 
 must have been simply terrible.” 
 
 “One could close one’s eyes to the glare,” said Mrs. 
 Gould. ‘But, my dear Charley, it is impossible for me 
 to close my eyes to our position; to this awful. . .” 
 
 She raised her eyes and looked at her husband’s Ree 
 from which all sign of sympathy or any other feeling 
 had disappeared. “Why don’t you tell me some- 
 thing?”’ she almost wailed. 
 
 “IT thought you had understood me perfectly from 
 the first,” Charles Gould said, slowly. “I thought we 
 had said all there was to say a long time ago. There 
 is nothing to say now. There were things to be done. 
 We have done them; we have gone on doing them. 
 There is no going back now. I don’t suppose that, even 
 
 207 
 
208 NOSTROMO 
 
 from the first, there was really any possible way back. 
 And, what’s more, we can’t even afford to stand still.”’ 
 
 “Ah, if one only knew how far you mean to go,” said 
 his wife. inwardly trembling, but in an almost playful 
 tone. 
 
 “Any distance, any length, of course,” was the 
 answer, in a matter-of-fact tone, which caused Mrs. 
 Gould to make another effort to repress a shudder. 
 
 She stood up, smiling graciously, and her little figure 
 seemed to be diminished still more by the heavy mass of 
 her hair and the long train of her gown. 
 
 “But always to success,” she said, persuasively. 
 
 Charles Gould, enveloping her in the steely blue 
 glance of his attentive eyes, answered without hesita- 
 tion— 
 
 “Oh, there is no alternative.” 
 
 He put an immense assurance into his tone. As to 
 the words, this was all that his conscience would allow 
 him to say. 
 
 Mrs. Gould’s smile remained a shade too long upon 
 her lips. She murmured— . 
 
 *““T will leave you; I’ve a slight headache. ‘The heat, 
 the dust, were indeed I suppose you are going 
 back to the mine before the morning?”’ 
 
 **At midnight,” said Charles Gould. “We are bring- 
 ing down the silver to-morrow. Then I shall take three 
 whole days off in town with you.” 
 
 **Ah, you are going to meet the escort. I shall be on 
 the balcony at five o’clock to see you pass. ‘Till then, 
 good-bye.” 
 
 Charles Gould walked rapidly round the table, and, 
 seizing her hands, bent down, pressing them both to his 
 lips. Before he straightened himself up again to his full 
 height she had disengaged one to smooth his cheek with 
 a light touch, as if he were a little boy. 
 
THE ISABELS 209 
 
 “Try to get some rest for a couple of hours,’’ she mur- 
 mured, with a glance at a hammock stretched in a 
 distant part of the room. Her long train swished 
 softly after her on the red tiles. At the door she 
 looked back. 
 
 Two big lamps with unpolished glass globes bathed in 
 a soft and abundant light the four white walls of the 
 room, with a glass case of arms, the brass hilt of Henry 
 Gould’s cavalry sabre on its square of velvet, and the 
 water-colour sketch of the San Tomé gorge. And Mrs. 
 Gould, gazing at the last in its black wooden frame, 
 sighed out— 
 
 “Ah, if we had left it alone, Charley!” 
 
 “No,” Charles Gould said, moodily; “it was im- 
 possible to leave it alone.”’ | 
 
 “Perhaps it was impossible,’ Mrs. Gould admitted, 
 slowly. Her lips quivered a little, but she smiled with 
 an air of dainty bravado. “We have disturbed a good 
 many snakes in that Paradise, Charley, haven’t we?”’ 
 
 “Yes, I remember,” said Charles Gould, “it was 
 Don Pépé who called the gorge the Paradise of snakes. 
 No doubt we have disturbed a great many. But re- 
 member, my dear, that it is not now as it was when you 
 made that sketch.” He waved his hand towards the 
 small water-colour hanging alone upon the great bare 
 wall. “It is no longer a Paradise of snakes. We have 
 brought mankind into it, and we cannot turn our backs 
 upon them to go and begin a new life elsewhere.”’ 
 
 He confronted his wife with a firm, concentrated gaze, 
 which Mrs. Gould returned with a brave assumption of 
 fearlessness before she went out, closing the door gently 
 after her. 
 
 In contrast with the white glaring room the dimly 
 lit corredor had a restful mysteriousness of a forest 
 glade, suggested by the stems and the leaves of the 
 
210 NOSTROMO 
 
 plants ranged along the balustrade of the open side. In 
 the streaks of light falling through the open doors of the 
 reception-rooms, the blossoms, white and red and pale 
 lilac, came out vivid with the brilliance of flowers in a 
 stream of sunshine; and Mrs. Gould, passing on, had the 
 vividness of a figure seen in the clear patches of sun that 
 chequer the gloom of open glades in the woods. The 
 stones in the rings upon her hand pressed to her fore- 
 head glittered in the lamplight abreast of the door of the 
 sala. 
 
 *“Who’s there?”’ she asked, in a startled voice. “Is 
 that you, Basilio?”’ She looked in, and saw Martin 
 Decoud walking about, with an air of having lost some- 
 thing, amongst the chairs and tables. 
 
 “Antonia has forgotten her fan in here,” said De- 
 coud, with a strange air of distraction; “‘so I entered 
 to see.” 
 
 But, even as he said this, he had obviously given up 
 his search, and walked straight towards Mrs. Gould, 
 who looked at him with doubtful surprise. 
 
 *““Sefiora,’ he began, in a low voice. 
 
 “What is it, Don Martin?” asked Mrs. Gould. And 
 then she added, with a slight laugh, “I am so nervous 
 to-day,” as if to explain the eagerness of the question. 
 
 “Nothing immediately dangerous,” said Decoud, 
 who now could not conceal his agitation. “‘Pray don’t 
 distress yourself. No, really, you must not distress 
 yourself.”’ 
 
 Mrs. Gould, with her candid eyes very wide open, 
 her lips composed into a smile, was steadying herself 
 with a little bejewelled hand against the side of the door. 
 
 “Perhaps you don’t know how alarming you are, 
 appearing like this unexpectedly % 
 
 “T! Alarming!’ he protested, sincerely vexed and 
 surprised. “I assure you that I am not in the least 
 
THE ISABELS 211 
 
 alarmed myself. A fan is lost; well, it will be found 
 again. But I don’t think it is here. It is a fan I 
 am looking for. I cannot understand how Antonia 
 could Well! Have you found it, amigo?”’ 
 
 *“No, sefior,” said behind Mrs. Gould the soft voice 
 of Basilio, the head servant of the Casa. “I don’t 
 think the sefiorita could have left it in this house at all.”’ 
 
 “Go and look for it in the patio again. Go now, my 
 friend; look for it on the steps, under the gate; examine 
 every flagstone; search for it till I come down 
 again. . . . That fellow’—he addressed himself 
 in English to Mrs. Gould—“‘is always stealing up be- 
 hind one’s back on his bare feet. I set him to look for 
 that fan directly I came in to justify my reappearance, 
 my sudden return.”’ 
 
 He paused and Mrs. Gould said, amiably, “You are 
 always welcome.” She paused for a second, too. “But 
 I am waiting to learn the cause of your return.”’ 
 
 Decoud affected suddenly the utmost nonchalance. 
 
 “TI can’t bear to be spied upon. Oh, the cause? 
 Yes, there is a cause; there is something else that is lost 
 besides Antonia’s favourite fan. As I was walking 
 home after seeing Don José and Antonia to their house, 
 the Capataz de Cargadores, riding down the street, 
 spoke to me.”’ 
 
 *“Has anything happened to the Violas?” inquired 
 Mrs. Gould. 
 
 “The Violas? You mean the old Garibaldino who 
 keeps the hotel where the engineers live? Nothing 
 happened there. The Capataz said nothing of them; he 
 only told me that the telegraphist of the Cable Com- 
 pany was walking on the Plaza, bareheaded, looking out 
 for me. There is news from the interior, Mrs. Gould. 
 I should rather say rumours of news.” 
 
 “Good news?” said Mrs. Gould in a low voice. 
 
212 NOSTROMO 
 
 “Worthless, I should think. But if I must define 
 them, I would say bad. ‘They are to the effect that a 
 two days’ battle had been fought near Sta. Marta, and 
 that the Ribierists are defeated. It must have hap- 
 pened a few days ago—perhaps a week. ‘The rumour 
 has just reached Cayta, and the man in charge of the 
 cable station there has telegraphed the news to his 
 colleague here. We might just as well have kept 
 Barrios in Sulaco.”’ 
 
 *What’s to be done now?”’ murmured Mrs. Gould. 
 
 “Nothing. He’s at sea with the troops. He will 
 get to Cayta in a couple of days’ time and learn the 
 news there. What he will do then, who can say? 
 Hold Cayta? Offer his submission to Montero? Dis- 
 band his army—this last most likely, and go himself 
 in one of the O.S.N. Company’s steamers, north or 
 south—to Valparaiso or to San Francisco, no matter 
 where. Our Barrios has a great practice in exiles and 
 vepatriations, which mark the points in the political 
 game.” 
 
 Decoud, exchanging a steady stare with Mrs. Gould, 
 added, tentatively, as it were, ““And yet, if we had 
 Barrios with his 2,000 improved rifles here, something 
 could have been done.” | 
 
 ‘““Montero victorious, completely victorious!” Mrs. 
 Gould breathed out in a tone of unbelief. 
 
 *“A canard, probably. That sort of bird is hatched 
 in great numbers in such times as these. And even if it 
 were true? Well, let us put things at their worst, let 
 us say it is true.” 
 
 “Then everything is lost,” said Mrs. Gould, with the 
 calmness of despair. 
 
 Suddenly she seemed to divine, she seemed to see 
 Decoud’s tremendous excitement under its cloak of 
 studied carelessness. It was. indeed, becoming visible 
 
THE ISABELS 213 
 
 in his audacious and watchful stare, in the curve, half- 
 reckless, half-contemptuous, of his lips. And a French 
 phrase came upon them as if, for this Costaguanero of 
 the Boulevard, that had been the only forcible lan- 
 guage— 
 
 “Non, Madame. Rien nest perdu.” 
 
 It electrified Mrs. Gould out of her benumbed atti- 
 tude, and she said, vivaciously— 
 
 “What would you think of doing?” 
 
 But already there was something of mockery in 
 Decoud’s suppressed excitement. 
 
 “What would you expect a true Costaguanero to do? 
 Another revolution, of course. On my word of honour, 
 Mrs. Gould, I believe I am a true hzjo del pays, a true 
 son of the country, whatever Father Corbelan may say. 
 And I’m not so much of an unbeliever as not to have 
 faith in my own ideas, in my own remedies, in my own 
 desires.” 
 
 “Yes,” said Mrs. Gould, doubtfully. 
 
 “You don’t seem convinced,” Decoud went on again 
 in French. “Say, then, in my passions.” 
 
 Mrs. Gould received this addition unflinchingly. To 
 understand it thoroughly she did not require to hear 
 his muttered assurance— 
 
 “There is nothing I would not do for the sake of 
 Antonia. There is nothing I am not prepared to under- 
 take. There is no risk I am not ready to run.” 
 
 Decoud seemed to find a fresh audacity in this voicing 
 of his thoughts. ‘‘ You would not believe me if I were 
 to say that it is the love of the country which if 
 
 She made a sort of discouraged protest with her arm, 
 as if to express that she had given up expecting that 
 motive from any one. 
 
 “A Sulaco revolution,’’ Decoud pursued in a forcible 
 undertone. ‘“‘The Great Cause may be served here, 
 
Q14 NOSTROMO 
 
 on the very spot of its inception, in the place of its 
 birth, Mrs. Gould.”’ 
 
 Frowning, and biting her lower lip thoughtfully, she 
 made a step away from the door. 
 
 “You are not going to speak to your husband?” De- 
 coud arrested her anxiously. 
 
 “But you will need his help?”’ 
 
 “No doubt,’ Decoud admitted without hesitation. 
 “Everything turns upon the San Tomé mine, but I 
 would rather he didn’t know anything as yet of my— 
 my hopes.” 
 
 A puzzled look came upon Mrs. Gould’s face, and 
 Decoud, approaching, explained confidentially— 
 
 ‘Don’t you see, he’s such an idealist.” 
 
 Mrs. Gould flushed pink, and her eyes grew darker 
 at the same time. 
 
 “Charley an idealist!” she said, as if to herself, 
 wonderingly. “What on earth do you mean?” 
 
 “Yes,” conceded Decoud, “‘it’s a wonderful thing to 
 say with the sight of the San Tomé mine, the greatest 
 fact in the whole of South America, perhaps, before our 
 very eyes. But look even at that, he has idealized this 
 fact to a point ” He paused. “Mrs. Gould, are 
 you aware to what point he has idealized the existence, 
 the worth, the meaning of the San Tomé mine? Are 
 you aware of it?”’ 
 
 He must have known what he was talking about. 
 
 The effect he expected was produced. Mrs. Gould, 
 ready to take fire, gave it up suddenly with a low little 
 sound that resembled a moan. 
 
 **What do you know?”’ she asked in a feeble voice. 
 
 “Nothing,” answered Decoud, firmly. “But, then, 
 don’t you see, he’s an Englishman?” 
 
 “Well, what of that?” asked Mrs. Gould. 
 
 “Simply that he cannot act or exist without idealizing 
 
THE ISABELS 215 
 
 every simple feeling, desire, or achievement. He could 
 not believe his own motives if he did not make them 
 first a part of some fairy tale. The earth is not quite 
 good enough for him, I fear. Do you excuse my frank- 
 ness? Besides, whether you excuse it or not, it is part 
 of the truth of things which hurts the—what do you call 
 them?—the Anglo-Saxon’s susceptibilities, and at the 
 present moment I don’t feel as if I could treat seriously 
 either his conception of things or—if you allow me to 
 say so—or yet yours.” 
 
 Mrs. Gould gave no sign of being offended. ‘“‘I sup- 
 pose Antonia understands you thoroughly?” 
 
 “Understands? Well, yes. But I am not sure that 
 she approves. ‘That, however, makes no difference. I 
 am honest enough to tell you that, Mrs. Gould.” 
 
 “Your idea, of course, is separation,” she said. 
 
 “Separation, of course,’ declared Martin. “Yes; 
 separation of the whole Occidental Province from the 
 rest of the unquiet body. But my true idea, the only 
 one I care for, is not to be separated from Antonia.” 
 
 “And that is all?” asked Mrs. Gould, without 
 severity. 
 
 “Absolutely. I am not deceiving myself about my 
 motives. She won’t leave Sulaco for my sake, there- 
 fore Sulaco must leave the rest of the Republic to its 
 fate. Nothing could be clearer than that. I like 
 a clearly defined situation. I cannot part with An- 
 tonia, therefore the one and indivisible Republic of 
 Costaguana must be made to part with its western 
 province. Fortunately it happens to be also a sound 
 policy. The richest, the most fertile part of this land 
 may be saved from anarchy. Personally, I care little, 
 very little; but it’s a fact that the establishment of 
 Montero in power would mean death tome. In all the 
 proclamations of general pardon which I have seen, 
 
216 NOSTROMO 
 
 my name, with a few others, is specially excepted. The 
 brothers hate me, as you know very well, Mrs. Gould; 
 and behold, here is the rumour of them having won a 
 battle. You say that supposing it is true, I have plenty 
 of time to run away.” 
 
 The slight, protesting murmur on the part of Mrs. 
 Gould made him pause for a moment, while he looked 
 at her with a sombre and resolute glance. 
 
 “Ah, but I would, Mrs. Gould. I would run away 
 if it served that which at present is my only desire. I 
 am courageous enough to say that, and to do it, too. 
 But women, even our women, are idealists. It is 
 Antonia that won’t run away. A novel sort of vanity.”’ 
 
 “You call it vanity,” said Mrs. Gould, in a shocked 
 voice. 
 
 “Say pride, then, which, Father Corbelan would tell 
 you, isamortal sin. ButIamnot proud. Iam simply 
 too much in love to run away. At the same time I 
 want to live. There is no love fora dead man. There- 
 fore it is necessary that Sulaco should not recognize the 
 victorious Montero.” 
 
 “And you think my husband will give you his sup- 
 port?” 
 
 “I think he can be drawn into it, like all idealists, 
 when he once sees a sentimental basis for his action. 
 But I wouldn’t talk to him. Mere clear facts won’t 
 appeal to his sentiment. It is much better for him to 
 convince himself in his own way. And, frankly, I could 
 not, perhaps, just now pay sufficient respect to either 
 his motives or even, perhaps, to yours, Mrs. Gould.” 
 
 It was evident that Mrs. Gould was very determined 
 not to be offended. She smiled vaguely, while she 
 seemed to think the matter over. As far as she could 
 judge from the girl’s half-confidences, Antonia under- 
 stood that young man. Obviously there was promise of 
 
THE ISABELS ol 
 
 safety in his plan, or rather in his idea. Moreover, 
 right or wrong, the idea could dono harm. And it was 
 quite possible, also, that the rumour was false. 
 
 “You have some sort of a plan,” she said. 
 
 “Simplicity itself. Barrios has started, let him go 
 on then; he will hold Cayta, which is the door of the sea 
 . route to Sulaco. They cannot send a sufficient force 
 over the mountains. No; not even to cope with the 
 band of Hernandez. Meantime we shall organize our 
 resistance here. And for that, this very Hernandez 
 will be useful. He has defeated troops as a bandit; he 
 will no doubt accomplish the same thing if he is made a 
 colonel or even a general. You know the country well 
 enough not to be shocked by what I say, Mrs. Gould. 
 I have heard you assert that this poor bandit was the 
 living, breathing example of cruelty, injustice, stupidity, 
 and oppression, that ruin men’s souls as well as their 
 fortunes in this country. Well, there would be some 
 poetical retribution in that man arising to crush the evils 
 which had driven an honest ranchero into a life of 
 crime. A fine idea of retribution in that, isn’t there?” 
 
 Decoud had dropped easily into English, which he 
 spoke with precision, very correctly, but with too many 
 2 sounds. 
 
 “Think also of your hospitals, of your schools, of 
 your ailing mothers and feeble old men, of all that 
 population which you and your husband have brought 
 into the rocky gorge of San Tomé. Are you not re- 
 sponsible to your conscience for all these people? Is it 
 not worth while to make another effort, which is not at 
 all so desperate as it looks, rather than a 
 
 Decoud finished his thought with an upward toss of 
 the arm, suggesting annihilation; and Mrs. Gould 
 turned away her head with a look of horror. 
 
 “Why don’t you say all this to my husband?”’ she 
 
218 NOSTROMO 
 
 asked, without looking at Decoud, who stood watching 
 the effect of his words. 
 
 “Ah! But Don Carlos is so English,” he began. 
 Mrs. Gould interrupted— 
 
 “Leave that alone, Don Martin. He’s as much a. 
 Costaguanero No! He’s more of a Costaguanero 
 than yourself.” 
 
 *““Sentimentalist, sentimentalist,’? Decoud almost. 
 cooed, in a tone of gentle and soothing deference. 
 “Sentimentalist, after the amazing manner of your 
 people. I have been watching El Rey de Sulaco since 
 I came here on a fool’s errand, and perhaps impelled by 
 some treason of fate lurking behind the unaccountable 
 turns of a man’s life. But I don’t matter, I am not a 
 sentimentalist, I cannot endow my personal desires. 
 with a shining robe of silk and jewels. Life is not for 
 me a moral romance derived from the tradition of a 
 pretty fairy tale. No, Mrs. Gould; I am practical. I 
 am not afraid of my motives. But, pardon me, I have 
 been rather carried away. What I wish to say is that I 
 have been observing. I won’t tell you what I have 
 discovered i 
 
 “No. That is unnecessary,’ whispered Mrs. Gould, 
 once more averting her head. 
 
 “Itis. Except one little fact, that your husband does 
 not like me. It’s a small matter, which, in the circum- 
 stances, seems to acquire a perfectly ridiculous im- 
 portance. Ridiculous and immense; for, clearly, money 
 is required for my plan,” he reflected; then added. 
 meaningly, ““and we have two sentimentalists to deal 
 with.” 
 
 “T don’t know that I understand you, Don Martin,” 
 said Mrs. Gould, coldly, preserving the low key of their 
 conversation. ‘‘But, speaking as if I did, who is the 
 other?” 
 
THE ISABELS 219 
 
 “The great Holroyd in San Francisco, of course,” 
 Decoud whispered, lightly. “I think you understand 
 me very well. Women are idealists; but then they are 
 So perspicacious.”’ 
 
 But whatever was the reason of that remark, dis- 
 paraging and complimentary at the same time, Mrs. 
 Gould seemed not to pay attention to it. The name of 
 Holroyd had given a new tone to her anxiety. 
 
 “The silver escort is coming down to the harbour to- 
 morrow; a whole six months’ working, Don Martin!” 
 she cried in dismay. 
 
 **Let it come down, then,” breathed out Decoud, 
 earnestly, almost into her ear. 
 
 “But if the rumour should get about, and especially 
 if it turned out true, troubles might break out in the 
 town,” objected Mrs. Gould. 
 
 Decoud admitted that it was possible. He knew 
 well the town children of the Sulaco Campo: sullen, 
 thievish, vindictive, and bloodthirsty, whatever great 
 qualities their brothers of the plain might have had. 
 But then there was that other sentimentalist, who 
 attached a strangely idealistic meaning to concrete 
 facts. This stream of silver must be kept flowing 
 north to return in the form of financial backing from the 
 great house of Holroyd. Up at the mountain in the 
 strong room of the mine the silver bars were worth less 
 for his purpose than so much lead, from which at least 
 bullets may be run. Let it come down to the harbour, 
 ready for shipment. 
 
 The next north-going steamer would carry it off for 
 the very salvation of the San Tomé mine, which had 
 produced so much treasure. And, moreover, the 
 rumour was probably false, he remarked, with much 
 conviction in his hurried tone. 
 
 “Besides, sefiora,’” concluded Decoud, “we may 
 
220 NOSTROMO 
 
 suppress it for many days. I have been talking with 
 the telegraphist in the middle of the Plaza Mayor; thus 
 { am certain that we could not have been overheard. 
 There was not even a bird in the air near us. And also 
 let me tell you something more. J have been making 
 friends with this man called Nostromo, the Capataz. 
 We had a conversation this very evening, I walking by 
 the side of his horse as he rode slowly out of the town 
 just now. He promised me that if a riot took place for 
 any reason—even for the most political of reasons, you 
 understand—his Cargadores, an important part of the 
 populace, you will admit, should be found on the side of 
 the Europeans.” 
 
 “He has promised you that?’”? Mrs. Gould inquired, 
 with interest. “‘What made him make that promise to 
 you?” 
 
 “Upon my word, I don’t know,” declared Decoud, in 
 a slightly surprised tone. “He certainly promised me 
 that, but now you ask me why, I could not tell you 
 his reasons. He talked with his usual carelessness, 
 which, if he had been anything else but a common 
 sailor, I would call a pose or an affectation.” 
 
 Decoud, interrupting himself, looked at Mrs. Gould 
 curiously. | 
 
 ““Upon the whole,” he continued, “I suppose he 
 expects something to his advantage from it. You 
 mustn’t forget that he does not exercise his extraor- 
 dinary power over the lower classes without a certain 
 amount of personal risk and without a great profusion 
 in spending his money. One must pay in some way or 
 other for such a solid thing as individual prestige. He 
 told me after we made friends at a dance, in a Posada 
 kept by a Mexican just outside the walls, that he had 
 come here to make his fortune. I suppose he looks 
 upon his prestige as a sort of investment.” 
 
THE ISABELS 221 
 
 “Perhaps he prizes it for its own sake,’ Mrs. Gould 
 said in a tone as if she were repelling an undeserved 
 aspersion. “Viola, the Garibaldino, with whom he has 
 lived for some years, calls him the Incorruptible.”’ 
 
 “Ah! he belongs to the group of your protégés out 
 there towards the harbour, Mrs. Gould. Muy bien. 
 And Captain Mitchell calls him wonderful. I have 
 heard no end of tales of his strength, his audacity, his 
 fidelity. No end of fine things. H’m! incorruptible! 
 It is indeed a name of honour for the Capataz of the 
 Cargadores of Sulaco. Incorruptible! Fine, but vague. 
 However, I suppose he’s sensible, too. And I talked to 
 him upon that sane and practical assumption.” 
 
 “I prefer to think him disinterested, and therefore 
 trustworthy,” Mrs. Gould said, with the nearest ap- 
 proach to curtness it was in her nature to assume. 
 
 “Well, if so, then the silver will be still more safe. 
 Let it come down, sefiora. Let it come down, so that it 
 may go north and return to us in the shape of credit.” 
 
 Mrs. Gould glanced along the corredor towards the 
 door of her husband’s room. Decoud, watching her as 
 if she had his fate in her hands, detected an almost 
 imperceptible nod of assent. He bowed with a smile, 
 and, putting his hand into the breast pocket of his coat, 
 pulled out a fan of light feathers set upon painted leaves 
 of sandal-wood. “I had it in my pocket,” he mur- 
 mured, triumphantly, “for a plausible pretext.” He 
 bowed again. ‘‘Good-night, sefiora.” 
 
 Mrs. Gould continued along the corredor away from 
 her husband’s room. The fate of the San Tomé mine 
 was lying heavy upon her heart. It was a long time 
 now since she had begun to fear it. It had been an 
 idea. She had watched it with misgivings turning into 
 a fetish, and now the fetish had grown into a monstrous 
 and crushing weight. It was as if the inspiration of 
 
222 NOSTROMO 
 
 their early years had left her heart to turn into a wall of 
 silver-bricks, erected by the silent work of evil spirits, 
 between her and her husband. He seemed to dwell 
 alone within a circumvallation of precious metal, leav- 
 ing her outside with her school, her hospital, the sick 
 mothers and the feeble old men, mere insignificant 
 vestiges of the initial inspiration. ‘“*‘Those poor peo- 
 ple!”? she murmured to herself. 
 
 Below she heard the voice of Martin Decoud in the 
 patio speaking loudly: 
 
 “TI have found Dofia Antonia’s fan, Basilio. Look, 
 here it is!”’ 
 
CHAPTER SEVEN 
 
 Ir was part of what Decoud would have called his 
 sane materialism that he did not believe in the possi- 
 bility of friendship between man and woman. 
 
 The one exception he allowed confirmed, he main- 
 tained, that absolute rule. Friendship was possible 
 between brother and sister, meaning by friendship the 
 frank unreserve, as before another human being, of 
 thoughts and sensations; all the objectless and neces- 
 sary sincerity of one’s innermost life trying to re-act. 
 upon the profound sympathies of another existence. 
 
 His favourite sister, the handsome, slightly arbitrary 
 and resolute angel, ruling the father and mother Decoud 
 in the first-floor apartments of a very fine Parisian 
 house, was the recipient of Martin Decoud’s con- 
 fidences as to his thoughts, actions, purposes, doubts, 
 and even failures. : 
 
 “Prepare our little circle in Paris for the birth of 
 another South American Republic. One more or less, 
 what does it matter? They may come into the world 
 like evil flowers on a hotbed of rotten institutions; but 
 the seed of this one has germinated in your brother’s 
 brain, and that will be enough for your devoted as- 
 sent. I am writing this to you by the light of a single 
 candle, in a sort of inn, near the harbour, kept by an 
 Italian called Viola, a protégé of Mrs. Gould. The 
 whole building, which, for all 1 know, may have been 
 contrived by a Conquistador farmer of the pearl 
 fishery three hundred years ago, is perfectly silent. So 
 is the plain between the town and the harbour; silent. 
 
 223 
 
Q24 NOSTROMO 
 
 but not so dark as the house, because the pickets of 
 Italian workmen guarding the railway have lighted little 
 fires all along the line. It was not so quiet around here 
 yesterday. We had an awful riot—a sudden outbreak 
 of the populace, which was not suppressed till late to- 
 day. Its object, no doubt, was loot, and that was de- 
 feated, as you may have learned already from the 
 cablegram sent via San Francisco and New York last 
 night, when the cables were still open. You have read 
 already there that the energetic action of the Europeans 
 of the railway has saved the town from destruction, and 
 you may believe that. JI wrote out the cable myself. 
 We have no Reuter’s agency man here. I have also 
 fired at the mob from the windows of the club, in com- 
 pany with some other young men of position. Our 
 object was to keep the Calle de la Constitucion clear for 
 the exodus of the ladies and children, who have taken 
 refuge on board a couple of cargo ships now in the har- 
 bour here. That was yesterday. You should also 
 have learned from the cable that the missing President, 
 Ribiera, who had disappeared after the battle of Sta. 
 Marta, has turned up here in Sulaco by one of those 
 strange coincidences that are almost incredible, riding 
 on a lame mule into the very midst of the street fight- | 
 ing. It appears that he had fled, in company of a 
 muleteer called Bonifacio, across the mountains from 
 the threats of Montero into the arms of an enraged 
 mob. . 
 
 “The Capataz of Cargadores, that Italian sailor of 
 whom I have written to you before, has saved him from 
 an ignoble death. That man seems to have a particu- 
 lar talent for being on the spot whenever there is some- 
 thing picturesque to be done. 
 
 ‘He was with me at four o’clock in the morning at the 
 offices of the Porvenir, where he had turned up so early 
 
THE ISABELS 225 
 
 in order to warn me of the coming trouble, and also to 
 assure me that he would keep his Cargadores on the 
 side of order. When the full daylight came we were 
 looking together at the crowd on foot and on horseback, 
 demonstrating on the Plaza and shying stones at the 
 windows of the Intendencia. Nostromo (that is the 
 name they call him by here) was pointing out to me 
 his Cargadores interspersed in the mob. 
 
 “The sun shines late upon Sulaco, for it has first to 
 climb above the mountains. In that clear morning 
 light, brighter than twilight, Nostromo saw right across 
 the vast Plaza, at the end of the street beyond the 
 cathedral, a mounted man apparently in difficulties with 
 a yelling knot of leperos. At once he said to me, “That’s 
 a stranger. What is it they are doing to him?’ Then 
 he took out the silver whistle he is in the habit of using 
 on the wharf (this man seems to disdain the use of any 
 metal less precious than silver) and blew into it twice, 
 evidently a preconcerted signal for his Cargadores. He 
 ran out immediately, and they rallied round him. I 
 ran out, too, but was too late to follow them and help 
 in the rescue of the stranger, whose animal had fallen. 
 I was set upon at once as a hated aristocrat, and was 
 only too glad to get into the club, where Don Jaime 
 Berges (you may remember him visiting at our house 
 in Paris some three years ago) thrust a sporting gun into 
 my hands. ‘They were already firing from the windows. 
 There were little heaps of cartridges lying about on the 
 open card-tables. J remember a couple of overturned 
 chairs, some bottles rolling on the floor amongst the 
 packs of cards scattered suddenly as the caballeros 
 rose from their game to open fire upon the mob. Most 
 of the young men had spent the night at the club in the 
 expectation of some such disturbance. In two of the 
 candelabra, on the consoles, the candles were burning 
 
226 NOSTROMO 
 
 down in their sockets. A large iron nut, probably 
 stolen from the railway workshops, flew in from the 
 street as I entered, and broke one of the large mirrors 
 set in the wall. I noticed also one of the club servants 
 tied up hand and foot with the cords of the curtain and 
 flung in a corner. I have a vague recollection of Don 
 Jaime assuring me hastily that the fellow had been 
 detected putting poison into the dishes at supper. But 
 I remember distinctly he was shrieking for mercy, with- 
 out stopping at all, continuously, and so absolutely 
 disregarded that nobody even took the trouble to gag 
 him. ‘The noise he made was so disagreeable that I had 
 half a mind to do it myself. But there was no time to 
 waste on such trifles. I took my place at one of the 
 windows and began firing. 
 
 *“T didn’t learn till later in the afternoon whom it was 
 that Nostromo, with his Cargadores and some Italian 
 workmen as well, had managed to save from those 
 drunken rascals. That man has a peculiar talent when 
 anything striking to the imagination has to be done. I 
 made that remark to him afterwards when we met after 
 some sort of order had been restored in the town, and 
 the answer he made rather surprised me. He said quite 
 moodily, ‘And how much do I get for that, sefior?’ 
 Then it dawned upon me that perhaps this man’s vanity 
 has been satiated by the adulation of the common 
 people and the confidence of his superiors!” 
 
 Decoud paused to light a cigarette, then, with his 
 head still over his writing, he blew a cloud of smoke, 
 which seemed to rebound from the paper. He took 
 up the pencil again. 
 
 “That was yesterday evening on the Plaza, while he 
 sat on the steps of the cathedral, his hands between his 
 knees, holding the bridle of his famous silver-grey mare. 
 He had led his body of Cargadores splendidly all day 
 
THE ISABELS 227 
 
 long. He looked fatigued. I don’t know how I 
 looked. Very dirty, I suppose. But I suppose I also 
 looked pleased. From the time the fugitive President 
 had been got off to the S. 8S. Minerva, the tide of success 
 had turned against the mob. They had been driven off 
 the harbour, and out of the better streets of the town, in’ 
 to their own maze of ruins and tolderias. You must un- 
 derstand that this riot, whose primary object was un- 
 doubtedly the getting hold of the San Tomé silver 
 stored in the lower rooms of the Custom House (be- 
 sides the general looting of the Ricos), had acquired a 
 political colouring from the fact of two Deputies to the 
 Provincial Assembly, Sefiores Gamacho and Fuentes, 
 both from Bolson, putting themselves at the head of 
 it—late in the afternoon, it is true, when the mob, dis- 
 appointed in their hopes of loot, made a stand in the 
 narrow streets to the cries of “Viva la Libertad! Down 
 with Feudalism! (I wonder what they imagine 
 feudalism to be?) ‘Down with the Goths and Para- 
 lytics.’ I suppose the Sefiores Gamacho and Fuentes 
 knew what they were doing. They are prudent gentle- 
 men. In the Assembly they called themselves Moder- 
 ates, and opposed every energetic measure with philan- 
 thropic pensiveness. At the first rumours of Montero’s 
 victory, they showed a subtle change of the pensive 
 temper, and began to defy poor Don Juste Lopez 
 in his Presidential tribune with an effrontery to which 
 the poor man could only respond by a dazed smooth- 
 ing of his beard and the ringing of the presidential 
 bell. Then, when the downfall of the Ribierist cause 
 became confirmed beyond the shadow of a doubt, 
 they have blossomed into convinced Liberals, acting 
 together as if they were Siamese twins, and ultimately 
 taking charge, as it were, of the riot in the name of 
 Monterist principles. 
 
228 NOSTROMO 
 
 “Their last move of eight o’clock last night was te 
 organize themselves into a Monterist Committee which 
 sits, as far as I know, in a posada kept by a retired 
 Mexican bull-fighter, a great politician, too, whose 
 name I have forgotten. ‘Thence they have issued a 
 communication to us, the Goths and Paralytics of the 
 Amarilla Club (who have our own committee), inviting 
 us to come to some provisional understanding for a 
 truce, in order, they have the impudence to say, that 
 the noble cause of Liberty ‘should not be stained by the 
 criminal excesses of Conservative selfishness! As I 
 came out to sit with Nostromo on the cathedral steps 
 the club was busy considering a proper reply in the 
 principal room, littered with exploded cartridges, with 
 a lot of broken glass, blood smears, candlesticks, and all 
 sorts of wreckage on the floor. But all this is non- 
 sense. Nobody in the town has any real power except 
 the railway engineers, whose men occupy the dismantled 
 houses acquired by the Company for their town station 
 on one side of the Plaza, and Nostromo, whose Carga- 
 dores were sleeping under the arcades along the front of 
 Anzani’s shops. A fire of broken furniture out of the 
 Intendencia saloons, mostly gilt, was burning on the 
 Plaza, in a high flame swaying right upon the statue of 
 Charles IV. The dead body of a man was lying on the 
 steps of the pedestal, his arms thrown wide open, and 
 his sombrero covering his face—the attention of some 
 friend, perhaps. The light of the flames touched the 
 foliage of the first trees on the Alameda, and played on 
 the end of a side street near by, blocked up by a jumble 
 of ox-carts and dead bullocks. Sitting on one of the 
 carcases, a lepero, muffled up, smoked a cigarette. It 
 was a truce, you understand. The only other living 
 being on the Plaza besides ourselves was a Cargador 
 walking to and fro, with a long, bare knife in bis hand. 
 
THE ISABELS 229 
 
 like a sentry before the Arcades, where his friends were 
 sleeping. And the only other spot of light in the dark 
 town were the lighted windows of the club, at the corner 
 of the Calle.” 
 
 After having written so far, Don Martin Decoud, the 
 exotic dandy of the Parisian boulevard, got up and 
 walked across the sanded floor of the café at one end of 
 the Albergo of United Italy, kept by Giorgio Viola, the 
 old companion of Garibaldi. The highly coloured 
 lithograph of the Faithful Hero seemed to look dimly, 
 in the light of one candle, at the man with no faith in 
 anything except the truth of his own sensations. Look- 
 ing out of the window, Decoud was met by a darkness so 
 impenetrable that he could see neither the mountains 
 nor the town, nor yet the buildings near the harbour; 
 and there was not a sound, as if the tremendous ob- 
 scurity of the Placid Gulf, spreading from the waters 
 over the land, had made it dumb as well as blind. 
 Presently Decoud felt a light tremor of the floor and a 
 distant clank of iron. <A bright white light appeared, 
 deep in the darkness, growing bigger with a thundering 
 noise. The rolling stock usually kept on the sidings in 
 Rincon was being run back to the yards for safe keeping. 
 Like a mysterious stirring of the darkness behind the 
 headlight of the engine, the train passed in a gust of 
 hollow uproar, by the end of the house, which seemed to 
 vibrate all over in response. And nothing was clearly 
 visible but, on the end of the last flat car, a negro, in 
 white trousers and naked to the waist, swinging a 
 blazing torch basket incessantly with a circular move- 
 ment of his bare arm. Decoud did not stir. 
 
 Behind him, on the back of the chair from which he 
 had risen, hung his elegant Parisian overcoat, with a 
 pearl-grey silk linmg. But when he turned back to 
 eowe to the table the candlelight fell upon a face that 
 
230 NOSTROMO 
 
 was grimy and scratched. His rosy lips were blackened 
 with heat, the smoke of gun-powder. Dirt and rust 
 tarnished the lustre of his short beard. His shirt collar 
 and cuffs were crumpled; the blue silken tie hung down 
 his breast like a rag; a greasy smudge crossed his white 
 brow. He had not taken off his clothing nor used 
 water, except to snatch a hasty drink greedily, for some 
 forty hours. An awful restlessness had made him its 
 own, had marked him with all the signs of desperate 
 strife, and put a dry, sleepless stare into his eyes. He 
 murmured to himself in a hoarse voice, ““I wonder if 
 there’s any bread here,”’ looked vaguely about him, then 
 dropped into the chair and took the pencil up again. 
 He became aware he had not eaten anything for many 
 hours. 
 
 It occurred to him that no one could understand him 
 so well as his sister. In the most sceptical heart there 
 lurks at such moments, when the chances of existence 
 are involved, a desire to leave a correct impression of 
 the feelings, like a light by which the action may be 
 seen when personality is gone, gone where no light of 
 investigation can ever reach the truth which every 
 death takes out of the world. ‘Therefore, instead of 
 looking for something to eat, or trying to snatch an hour 
 or so of sleep, Decoud was filling the pages of a large 
 pocket-book with a letter to his sister. 
 
 In the intimacy of that intercourse he could not keep 
 out his weariness, his great fatigue, the close touch of his 
 bodily sensations. He began again as if he were talking 
 to her. With almost an illusion of her presence, he 
 wrote the phrase, ““I am very hungry.” 
 
 “TI have the feeling cf a great solitude around me,” 
 he continued. “Is it, perhaps, because I am the only 
 man with a definite idea in his head, in the complete 
 collapse of every resolve, intention, and hope about me? 
 
THE ISABELS 231 
 
 But the solitude is also very real. All the engineers are 
 cut, and have been for two days, looking after the 
 property of the National Central Railway, of that 
 great Costaguana undertaking which is to put money 
 into the pockets of Englishmen, Frenchmen, Americans, 
 Germans, and God knows who else. ‘The silence about 
 me is ominous. ‘There is above the middle part of this 
 house a sort of first floor, with narrow openings like 
 loopholes for windows, probably used in old times for 
 the better defence against the savages, when the per- 
 sistent barbarism of our native continent did not wear the 
 black coats of politicians, but went about yelling, half- 
 naked, with bows and arrows in its hands. The woman 
 of the house is dying up there, I believe, all alone with 
 her old husband. There is a narrow staircase, the sort 
 of staircase one man could easily defend against a mob, 
 leading up there, and I have just heard, through the 
 thickness of the wall, the old fellow going down into 
 ‘their kitchen for something or other. It was a sort of 
 noise a mouse might make behind the plaster of a wall. 
 All the servants they had ran away yesterday and have 
 not returned yet, if ever they do. For the rest, there 
 are only two children here, two girls. The father has 
 sent them downstairs, and they have crept into this 
 café, perhaps because [am here. ‘They huddle together 
 in a corner, in each other’s arms; I just noticed them a 
 few minutes ago, and I feel more lonely than ever.”’ 
 
 Decoud turned half round in his chair, and asked, 
 “Ts there any bread here?” 
 
 Linda’s dark head was shaken negatively in response, 
 above the fair head of her sister nestling on her breast. 
 
 “You couldn’t get me some bread?”’ insisted Decoud. 
 The child did not move; he saw her large eyes stare at 
 him very dark from the corner. “You're not afraid 
 of me?” he said. 
 
232 NOSTROMO 
 
 “No,” said Linda, “we are not afraid of you. You 
 came here with Gian’ Battista.”’ 
 
 “You mean Nostromo?” said Decoud. 
 
 “The English call him so, but that is no name either 
 for man or beast,”’ said the girl, passing her hand gently 
 over her sister’s hair. 
 
 “But he lets people call him so,” remarked Decoud. 
 
 *“Not in this house,’’ retorted the child. 
 
 “Ah! well, I shall call him the Capataz then.” 
 
 Decoud gave up the point, and after writing steadily © 
 for a while turned round again. 
 
 “When do you expect him back?” he asked. 
 
 ‘After he brought you here he rode off to fetch the 
 Sefior Doctor from the town for mother. He will be 
 back soon.” 
 
 “He stands a good chance of getting shot somewhere 
 on the road,’’ Decoud murmured to himself audibly; and 
 Linda declared in her high-pitched voice— 
 
 “Nobody would dare to fire a shot at Gian’ Battista.” 
 
 “You believe that,’ asked Decoud, “do you?” 
 
 “T know it,”’ said the child, with conviction. “‘There 
 is no one in this place brave enough to attack Gian’ 
 Battista.” 
 
 “It doesn’t require much bravery to pull a trigger 
 behind a bush,’’ muttered Decoud to himself. “*Fortu- 
 nately, the night is dark, or there would be but little 
 chance of saving the silver of the mine.” 
 
 He turned again to his pocket-book, glanced back 
 through the pages, and again started his pencil. 
 
 “That was the position yesterday, after the Minerva 
 with the fugitive President had gone out of harbour, and 
 the rioters had been driven back into the side lanes of 
 the town. I sat on the steps of the cathedral with 
 Nostromo, after sending out the cable message for 
 the information of a more or less attentive world. — 
 
THE ISABELS 233 
 
 Strangely enough, though the offices of the Cable 
 Company are in the same building as the Porvenir, the 
 mob, which has thrown my presses out of the window 
 and scattered the type all over the Plaza, has been kept 
 from interfering with the instruments on the other side 
 of the courtyard. As I sat talking with Nostromo, 
 Bernhardt, the telegraphist, came out from under the 
 Arcades with a piece of paper in his hand. ‘The little 
 man had tied himself up to an enormous sword and 
 was hung all over with revolvers. He is ridiculous, but 
 the bravest German of his size that ever tapped the 
 key of a Morse transmitter. He had received the 
 message from Cayta reporting the transports with 
 Barrios’s army just entering the port, and ending with 
 the words, “The greatest enthusiasm prevails.’ I 
 walked off to drink some water at the fountain, and I 
 was shot at from the Alameda by somebody hiding 
 behind a tree. But I drank, and didn’t care; with 
 Barrios in Cayta and the great Cordillera between us 
 and Montero’s victorious army I seemed, notwith- 
 standing Messrs. Gamacho and Fuentes, to hold my 
 new State in the hollow of my hand. I was ready to 
 sleep, but when I got as far as the Casa Gould I found 
 the patio full of wounded laid out on straw. Lights 
 were burning, and in that enclosed courtyard on that 
 hot night a faint odour of chloroform and blood hung 
 about. At one end Doctor Monygham, the doctor of 
 the mine, was dressing the wounds; at the other, near 
 the stairs, Father Corbelan, kneeling, listened to the 
 confession of a dying Cargador. Mrs. Gould was 
 walking about through these shambles with a large 
 bottle in one hand and a lot of cotton wool in the 
 other. She just looked at me and never even winked. 
 Her camerista was following her, also holding a bottle, 
 and sobbing gently to herself. 
 
234 NOSTROMO 
 
 “T busied myself for some time in fetching water 
 from the cistern for the wounded. Afterwards I 
 wandered upstairs, meeting some of the first ladies of 
 Sulaco, paler than I had ever seen them before, with 
 bandages over their arms. Not all of them had fled to 
 the ships. A good many had taken refuge for the day 
 in the Casa Gould. On the landing a girl, with her hair 
 half down, was kneeling against the wall under the niche 
 where stands a Madonna in blue robes and a gilt crown 
 on her head. I think it was the eldest Miss Lopez; 
 I couldn’t see her face, but I remember looking at the 
 high French heel of her little shoe. She did not make a 
 sound, she did not stir, she was not sobbing; she re- 
 mained there, perfectly still, all black against the 
 white wall, a silent figure of passionate piety. I am 
 sure she was no more frightened than the other white- 
 faced ladies I met carrying bandages. One was sitting 
 on the top step tearing a piece of linen hastily into strips 
 —the young wife of an elderly man of fortune here. 
 She interrupted herself to wave her hand to my bow, as 
 though she were in her carriage on the Alameda. The 
 women of our country are worth looking at during a 
 revolution. The rouge and pearl powder fall off, to- 
 gether with that passive attitude towards the outer 
 world which education, tradition, custom impose upon 
 them from the earliest infancy. I thought of your face, 
 which from your infancy had the stamp of intelligence 
 instead of that patient and resigned cast which appears 
 when some political commotion tears down the veil of 
 cosmetics and usage. 
 
 “In the great sala upstairs a sort of Junta of Notables 
 was sitting, the remnant of the vanished Provincial 
 Assembly. Don Juste Lopez had had half his beard 
 singed off at the muzzle of a trabuco loaded with slugs, 
 of which every one missed him, providentially. And as 
 
THE ISABELS 235 
 
 he turned his head from side to side it was exactly 
 as if there had been two men inside his frock-coat, one 
 nobly whiskered and solemn, the other untidy and 
 scared. 
 
 “They raised a cry of ‘Decoud! Don Martin!’ at 
 my entrance. I asked them, ‘What are you deliberating 
 upon, gentlemen?’ There did not seem to be any 
 president, though Don José Avellanos sat at the head of 
 the table. They all answered together, “On the preser- 
 vation of life and property.’ “Till the new officials 
 arrive, Don Juste explained: to me, with the solemn 
 side of his face offered to my view. It was as if a 
 stream of water had been poured upon my glowing idea 
 of a new State. There was a hissing sound in my ears, 
 and the room grew dim, as if suddenly filled with va- 
 pour. 
 
 “T walked up to the table blindly, as though I had 
 been drunk. ‘You are deliberating upon surrender,” 
 I said. They all sat still, with their noses over the 
 sheet of paper each had before him, God only knows 
 why. Only Don José hid his face in his hands, mut- 
 tering, ‘Never, never! But as I looked at him, it 
 seemed to me that I could have blown him away with 
 my breath, he looked so frail, so weak, so worn out. 
 Whatever happens, he will not survive. The deception 
 -is too great for a man of his age; and hasn’t he seen the 
 sheets of ‘Fifty Years of Misrule,’ which we have begun 
 printing on the presses of the Porvenir, littering the 
 Plaza, floating in the gutters, fired out as wads for 
 trabucos loaded with handfuls of type, blown in the 
 wind, trampled in the mud? I have seen pages float- 
 ing upon the very waters of the harbour. It would be 
 unreasonable to expect him to survive. It would be 
 cruel. 
 
 *“Do you know,’ I cried, ‘what surrender means 
 
236 NOSTROMO 
 
 to you, to your women, to your children, to your 
 property ?’ 
 
 “I declaimed for five minutes without drawing 
 breath, it seems to me, harping on our best chances, on 
 the ferocity of Montero, whom I made out to be as 
 great a beast as I have no doubt he would like to be if he 
 had intelligence enough to conceive a systematic reign 
 of terror. And then for another five minutes or more 
 I poured out an impassioned appeal to their courage 
 and manliness, with all the passion of my love for 
 Antonia. For if ever man spoke well, it would be from 
 a personal feeling, denouncing an enemy, defending him- 
 self, or pleading for what really may be dearer than 
 life. My dear girl, I absolutely thundered at them. It 
 seemed as if my voice would burst the walls asunder, 
 and when I stopped I saw all their scared eyes looking 
 at me dubiously. And that was all the effect I had 
 produced! Only Don José’s head had sunk lower and 
 lower on his breast. I bent my ear to his withered lips, 
 and made out his whisper, something like, ‘In God’s 
 name, then, Martin, my son! I don’t know exactly. 
 There was the name of God in it, I am certain. It 
 seems to me I have caught his last breath—the breath 
 of his departing soul on his lips. / 
 
 “He lives yet, it is true. I have seen him since; but 
 it was only a senile body, lying on its back, covered to 
 the chin, with open eyes, and so still that you might 
 have said it was breathing no longer. I left him thus, 
 with Antonia kneeling by the side of the bed, just be- 
 fore I came to this Italian’s posada, where the ubiqui- 
 tous death is also waiting. But I know that Don José 
 has really died there, in the Casa Gould, with that 
 whisper urging me to attempt what no doubt his soul, 
 wrapped up in the sanctity of diplomatic treaties and 
 solemn declarations, must have abhorred. I had ex- 
 
THE ISABELS 237 
 
 claimed very loud, ‘There is never any God in a country 
 where men will not help themselves.’ ) 
 
 “Meanwhile, Don Juste had begun a pondered ora- 
 tion whose solemn effect was spoiled by the ridiculous 
 disaster to his beard. I did not wait to make it out. 
 He seemed to argue that Montero’s (he called him The 
 General) intentions were probably not evil, though, he 
 went on, ‘that distinguished man’ (only a week ago we 
 used to call him a gran’ bestia) “was perhaps mistaken 
 as to the true means.’ As you may imagine, I didn’t 
 stay to hear the rest. I know the intentions of Mon- 
 tero’s brother, Pedrito, the guerrillero, whom I ex- 
 posed in Paris, some years ago, in a café frequented by 
 South American students, where he tried to pass himself 
 off for a Secretary of Legation. He used to come in 
 and talk for hours, twisting his felt hat in his hairy 
 paws, and his ambition seemed to become a sort of 
 Duc de Morny to a sort of Napoleon. Already, then, 
 he used to talk of his brother in inflated terms. He 
 seemed fairly safe from being found out, because the 
 students, all of the Blanco families, did not, as you may 
 imagine, frequent the Legation. It was only Decoud, 
 a man without faith and principles, as they used to say, 
 that went in there sometimes for the sake of the fun, as 
 it were to an assembly of trained monkeys. I know his 
 intentions. I have seen him change the plates at table. 
 Whoever is allowed to live on in terror, I must die the 
 death. } 
 
 *“No, I didn’t stay to the end to hear Don Juste Lopez 
 trying to persuade himself in a grave oration of the 
 clemency and justice, and honesty, and purity of the 
 brothers Montero. I went out abruptly to seek 
 Antonia. I saw her in the gallery. As I opened the 
 door, she extended to me her clasped hands. 
 
 “What are they doing in there?’ she asked. 
 
238 NOSTROMO 
 
 ***Talking,’ I said, with my eyes looking into hers. 
 
 *“*Yes, yes, but , 
 
 *““Empty speeches,’ I interrupted her. ‘Hiding 
 their fears behind imbecile hopes. They are all great 
 Parliamentarians there—on the English model, as you 
 know.’ I was so furious that I could hardly speak. 
 She made a gesture of despair. 
 
 ‘Through the door I held a little ajar behind me, we 
 heard Don Juste’s measured mouthing monotone go on 
 from phrase to phrase, like a sort of awful and solemn 
 madness. 
 
 ** “After all, the Democratic aspirations have, perhaps, 
 their legitimacy. The ways of human progress are 
 inscrutable, and if the fate of the country is in the hand 
 of Montero, we ought—— 
 
 **T crashed the door to on that; it was enough; it was 
 too much. There was never a beautiful face expressing 
 more horror and despair than the face of Antonia. I 
 couldn’t bear it; I seized her wrists. 
 
 ***Have they killed my father in there?’ she asked. 
 
 “Her eyes blazed with indignation, but as I looked 
 on, fascinated, the light in them went out. 
 
 ***Tt is a surrender,’ I said. And I remember I was 
 shaking her wrists I held apart in my hands. ‘But it’s | 
 more than talk. Your father told me to go on in God’s 
 name.’ 
 
 “My dear girl, there is that in Antonia which would 
 make me believe in the feasibility of anything. One 
 look at her face is enough to set my brain on fire. And 
 yet I love her as any other man would—with the heart, 
 and with that alone. She is more to me than his Church 
 to Father Corbelan (the Grand Vicar disappeared last 
 night from the town; perhaps gone to join the band 
 of Hernandez). She is more to me than his precious 
 wine to that sentimental Englishman. I won’t speak 
 
THE ISABELS 239 
 
 of his wife. She may have been sentimental once. 
 The San Tomé mine stands now between those two peo- 
 ple. ‘Your father himself, Antonia,’ I repeated; ‘your 
 father, do you understand? has told me to go on.’ 
 
 “She averted her face, and in a pained voice— 
 
 “He has?’ she cried. “Then, indeed, I fear he will 
 never speak again.’ 
 
 “She freed her wrists from my clutch and began to 
 ery in her handkerchief. I disregarded her sorrow; I 
 would rather see her miserable than not see her at all, 
 never any more; for whether I escaped or stayed to die, 
 there was for us no coming together, no future. And 
 that being so, I had no pity to waste upon the passing 
 moments of her sorrow. I sent her off in tears to fetch 
 Dofia Emilia and Don Carlos, too. Their sentiment 
 was necessary to the very life of my plan; the senti- 
 mentalism of the people that will never do anything for 
 the sake of their passionate desire, unless it comes to 
 them clothed in the fair robes of an idea. 
 
 “Late at night we formed a small junta of four—the 
 two women, Don Carlos, and myself—in Mrs. Gould’s 
 blue-and-white boudoir. 
 
 *“El Rey de Sulaco thinks himself, no doubt, a very 
 honest man. And so he is, if one could look behind his 
 taciturnity. Perhaps he thinks that this alone makes 
 his honesty unstained. Those Englishmen live on 
 illusions which somehow or other help them to get a 
 firm hold of the substance. When he speaks it is by 
 a rare ‘yes’ or ‘no’ that seems as impersonal as the 
 words of an oracle. But he could not impose on me by 
 his dumb reserve. I knew what he had in his head; he 
 has his mine in his head; and his wife had nothing in her 
 head but his precious person, which he has bound up 
 with the Gould Concession and tied up to that little 
 woman’s neck. No matter. The thing was to make 
 
240 NOSTROMO 
 
 him present the affair to Holroyd (the Steel and Silver 
 King) in such a manner as to secure his financial sup- 
 port. At that time last night, just twenty-four hours 
 ago, we thought the silver of the mine safe in the 
 Custom House vaults till the north-bound steamer 
 came to take it away. And as long as the treasure 
 flowed north, without a break, that utter sentimentalist, 
 Holroyd, would not drop his idea of introducing, not 
 only justice, industry, peace, to the benighted con- 
 tinents, but also that pet dream of his of a purer form of 
 Christianity. Later on, the principal European really 
 in Sulaco, the engineer-in-chief of the railway, came 
 riding up the Calle, from the harbour, and was admitted 
 to our conclave. Meantime, the Junta of the Notables 
 in the great sala was still deliberating; only, one of them 
 had run out in the corredor to ask the servant whether 
 something to eat couldn’t be sent in. . The first words 
 the engineer-in-chief said as he came into the boudoir 
 were, ‘What is your house, dear Mrs. Gould? A war 
 hospital below, and apparently a restaurant above. I 
 saw them carrying trays full of good things into the 
 sala.’ | 
 
 “And here, in this boudoir,’ I said, “you behold the 
 inner cabinet of the Occidental Republic that is to be.’ — 
 
 “‘He was so preoccupied that he didn’t smile at that, 
 he didn’t even look surprised. 
 
 “He told us that he was attending to the general 
 dispositions for the defence of the railway property at 
 the railway yards when he was sent for to go into the 
 railway telegraph office. The engineer of the railhead, 
 at the foot of the mountains, wanted to talk to him from 
 his end of the wire. There was nobody in the office 
 but himself and the operator of the railway telegraph, 
 who read off the clicks aloud as the tape coiled its 
 length upon the floor. And the purport of that talk, 
 
THE ISABELS 244 
 
 clicked nervously from a wooden shed in the depths of 
 the forests, had informed the chief that President 
 Ribiera had been, or was being, pursued. ‘This was 
 news, indeed, to all of us in Sulaco. Ribiera himself, 
 when rescued, revived, and seothed by us, had been in- 
 clined to think that he had not been pursued. 
 
 *“Ribiera had yielded to the urgent solicitations of 
 his friends, and had left the headquarters of his dis- 
 comfited army alone, under the guidance of Bonifacio, 
 the muleteer, who had been willing to take the re- 
 sponsibility with the risk. He had departed at day- 
 break of the third day. His remaining forces had 
 melted away during the night. Bonifacio and he rode 
 hard on horses towards the Cordillera; then they ob- 
 tained mules, entered the passes, and crossed the 
 Paramo of Ivie just before a freezing blast swept over 
 that stony plateau, burying in a drift of snow the little 
 shelter-hut of stones in which they had spent the night. 
 Afterwards poor Ribiera had many adventures, got 
 separated from his guide, lost his mount, struggled down 
 to the Campo on foot, and if he had not thrown himself 
 on the mercy of a ranchero would have perished a long 
 way from Sulaco. That man, who, as a matter of fact, 
 recognized him at once, let him have a fresh mule, which 
 the fugitive, heavy and unskilful, had ridden to death. 
 And it was true he had been pursued by a party com- 
 manded by no less a person than Pedro Montero, the 
 brother of the general. The cold wind of the Paramo 
 luckily caught the pursuers on the top of the pass. 
 Some few men, and all the animals, perished in the icy 
 blast. The stragglers died, but the main body kept on. 
 They found poor Bonifacio lying half-dead at the foot 
 of a snow slope, and bayoneted him promptly in the 
 true Civil War style. They would have had Ribiera, 
 too, if they had not, for some reason or other. turned off 
 
Q42 NOSTROMO 
 
 the track of the old Camino Real, only to lose their way 
 in the forests at the foot of the lower slopes. And 
 there they were at last, having stumbled in unex- 
 pectedly upon the construction camp. The engineer at 
 the railhead told his chief by wire that he had Pedro 
 Montero absolutely there, in the very office, listening 
 to the clicks. He was going to take possession of Suiaco 
 in the name of the Democracy. He was very overbear- 
 ing. His men slaughtered some of the Railway Com- 
 pany’s cattle without asking leave, and went to work 
 broiling the meat on the embers. Pedrito made many 
 pointed inquiries as to the silver mine, and what had 
 become of the product of the last six months’ working. 
 He had said peremptorily, “‘Ask your chief up there by 
 wire, he ought to know; tell him that Don Pedre 
 Montero, Chief of the Campo and Minister of the 
 Interior of the new Government, desires to be correctly 
 informed.’ 
 
 ‘He had his feet wrapped up in blood-stained rags, a 
 lean, haggard face, ragged beard and hair, and had 
 walked in limping, with a crooked branch of a tree for 
 a staff. His followers were perhaps in a worse plight, 
 but apparently they had not thrown away their arms, 
 and, at any rate, not all their ammunition. ‘Their lean — 
 faces filled the door and the windows of the telegraph 
 hut. As it was at the same time the bedroom of the 
 engineer-in-charge there, Montero had thrown himself 
 on his clean blankets and lay there shivering and dic- 
 tating requisitions to be transmitted by wire to Sulaco. 
 He demanded a train of cars to be sent down at once to 
 transport his men up. 
 
 “To this I answered from my end,’ the engineer-in- 
 chief related to us, ‘that I dared not risk the rolling- 
 stock in the interior, as there had been attempts to 
 wreck trains all along the line several times. I did that 
 
THE ISABELS 243 
 
 foryoursake, Gould,’ saidthechiefengineer. “Theanswer 
 to this was, in the words of my subordinate, “The filthy 
 brute on my bed said, ‘Suppose I were to have you 
 shot?’”? ‘To which my subordinate, who, tt appears, 
 was himself operating, remarked that it would not 
 bring the cars up. Upon that, the other, yawning, 
 said, “‘Never mind, there is no lack of horses on the 
 Campo.” And, turning over, went to sleep on Harris’s 
 bed.’ 
 
 “This is why, my dear girl, I am a fugitive to-night. 
 The last wire from railhead says that Pedro Montero 
 and his men left at daybreak, after feeding on asado 
 beef all night. They took all the horses; they will find 
 more on the road; they’ll be here in less than thirty 
 hours, and thus Sulaco is no place either for me or the 
 great store of silver belonging to the Gould Concession. 
 
 “But that is not the worst. The garrison of Esmer- 
 alda has gone over to the victorious party. We have 
 heard this by means of the telegraphist of the Cable 
 Company, who came to the Casa Gould in the early 
 morning with the news. In fact, it was so early that 
 the day had not yet quite broken over Sulaco. His 
 colleague in Esmeralda had called him up to say that 
 the garrison, after shooting some of their officers, had 
 taken possession of a Government steamer laid up in 
 the harbour. It is really a heavy blow for me. I 
 thought I could depend on every man in this province. 
 It was a mistake. It was a Monterist Revolution in 
 Esmeralda, just such as was attempted in Sulaco, only 
 that that one came off. The telegraphist was signalling 
 to Bernhardt all the time, and his last transmitted 
 words were, “They are bursting in the door, and taking 
 possession of the cable office. You are cut off. Can 
 do no more.’ 
 
 “But, as a‘matter of fact, he managed somehow te 
 
244 NOSTROMO 
 
 escape the vigilance of his captors, who had tried to 
 stop the communication with the outer world. He did 
 manage it. How it was done I don’t know, but a few 
 hours afterwards he called up Sulaco again, and what 
 he said was, “Ihe insurgent army has taken possession 
 of the Government transport in the bay and are filling 
 her with troops, with the intention of going round the 
 coast to Sulaco. Therefore look out for yourselves. 
 They will be ready to start in a few hours, and may be 
 upon you before daybreak.’ 
 
 “This is all he could say. They drove him away from 
 his instrument this time for good, because Bernhardt 
 has been calling up Esmeralda ever since without get- 
 ting an answer.” 
 
 After setting these words down in the pocket-book 
 which he wasfilling up for the benefit of his sister, Decoud 
 lifted his head to listen. But there were no sounds, 
 neither in the room nor in the house, except the drip of 
 the water from the filter into the vast earthenware jar 
 under the wooden stand. And outside the house there 
 was a great silence. Decoud lowered his head again 
 over the pocket-book. 
 
 “T am not running away, you understand,” he wrote 
 on. “Iam simply going away with that great treasure 
 of silver which must be saved at all costs. Pedro 
 Montero from the Campo and the revolted garrison of 
 Esmeralda from the sea are converging upon it. That 
 it is there lying ready for them is only an accident. The 
 real objective is the San Tomé mine itself, as you may 
 well imagine; otherwise the Occidental Province would 
 have been, no doubt, left alone for many weeks, to be 
 gathered at leisure into the arms of the victorious party. 
 Don Carlos Gould will have enough to do to save his 
 mine, with its organization and its people; this “Im- 
 perium in Imperio,’ this wealth-producing thing, to 
 
THE ISABELS 245 
 
 which his sentimentalism attaches a strange idea of 
 justice. He holds to it as some men hold to the idea of 
 love or revenge. Unless I am much mistaken in the 
 man, it must remain inviolate or perish by an act of his 
 will alone. A passion has crept into his cold and 
 idealistic life. A passion which I can only comprehend 
 intellectually. A passion that is not like the passions 
 we know, we men of another blood. But it is as 
 dangerous as any of ours. 
 
 “ His wife has understood it, too. That is why she is 
 such a good ally of mine. She seizes upon all my sug- 
 gestions with a sure instinct that in the end they make 
 for the safety of the Gould Concession. And he defers 
 to her because he trusts her perhaps, but I fancy 
 rather as if he wished to make up for some subtle wrong, 
 for that sentimental unfaithfulness which surrenders 
 her happiness, her life, to the seduction of an idea. The 
 little woman has discovered that he lives for the mine 
 rather than for her. But let them be. To each his 
 fate, shaped by passion or sentiment. The principal 
 thing is that she has backed up my advice to get the 
 silver out of the town, out of the country, at once, at 
 any cost, at any risk. Don Carlos’ mission is to pre- 
 serve unstained the fair fame of his mine; Mrs. Gould’s 
 mission is to save him from the effects of that cold and 
 overmastering passion, which she dreads more than if it 
 were an infatuation for another woman. Nostromo’s 
 mission is to save the silver. ‘The plan is to load it into 
 the largest of the Company’s lighters, and send it across 
 the gulf to a small port out of Costaguana territory just 
 on the other side the Azuera, where the first north- 
 bound steamer will get orders to pick it up. The 
 waters here are calm. We shall slip away into the dark- 
 ness of the gulf before the Esmeralda rebels arrive; and 
 by the time the day breaks over the ocean we shall be 
 
246 NOSTROMO 
 
 out of sight, invisible, hidden by Azuera, which itself 
 looks from the Sulaco shore like a faint blue cloud on the 
 horizon. 
 
 ‘The incorruptible Capataz de Cargadores is the man 
 for that work; and I, the man with a passion, but with- 
 out a mission, I go with him to return—to play my part 
 in the farce to the end, and, if successful, to receive my 
 reward, which no one but Antonia can give me. 
 
 “T shall not see her again now before I depart. I 
 left her, as I have said, by Don José’s bedside. The 
 street was dark, the houses shut up, and I walked out 
 of the town in the night. Not a single street-lamp had 
 been lit for two days, and the archway of the gate was 
 only a mass of darkness in the vague form of a tower, in 
 which I heard low, dismal groans, that seemed to answer 
 the murmurs of a man’s voice. 
 
 “T recognized something impassive and careless in its 
 tone, characteristic of that Genoese sailor who, like me, 
 has come casually here to be drawn into the events for 
 which his scepticism as well as mine seems to entertain 
 a sort of passive contempt. The only thing he seems to 
 care for, as far as I have been able to discover, is to be 
 well spoken of. An ambition fit for noble souls, but 
 also a profitable one for an exceptionally intelligent 
 scoundrel. Yes. His very words, “To be well spoken 
 of. Si, sefior.” He does not seem to make any dif- 
 ference between speaking and thinking. Is it sheer 
 naiveness or the practical point of view, I wonder? 
 Exceptional individualities always interest me, because 
 _ they are true to the general formula expressing the 
 moral state of humanity. 
 
 “He joined me on the harbour road after I had 
 passed them under the dark archway without stopping. 
 It was a woman in trouble he had been talking to. 
 Through discretion I kept silent while he walked by my 
 
THE ISABELS 247 
 
 side. After a time he began to talk himself. It was 
 not what I expected. It was only an old woman, an 
 old lace-maker, in search of her son, one of the street- 
 sweepers employed by the municipality. Friends had 
 come the day before at daybreak to the door of their 
 hovel calling him out. He had gone with them, and 
 she had not seen him since; so she had left the food she 
 had been preparing half-cooked on the extinct embers 
 and had crawled out as far as the harbour, where she 
 had heard that some town mozos had been killed on the 
 morning of the riot. One of the Cargadores guarding 
 the Custom House had brought out a lantern, and had 
 helped her to look at the few dead left lying about there. 
 Now she was creeping back, having failed in her search. 
 So she sat down on the stone seat under the arch, moan- 
 ing, because she was very tired. The Capataz had 
 questioned her, and after hearing her broken and groan- 
 ing tale had advised her to go and look amongst the 
 wounded in the patio of the Casa Gould. He had also 
 given her a quarter dollar, he mentioned carelessly. 
 
 “Why did you do that?’ I asked. ‘Do you know 
 her?’ 
 
 **No, sefior. I don’t suppose I have ever seen her 
 before. How should I? She has not probably been 
 out in the streets for years. She is one of those old 
 women that you find in this country at the back of huts, 
 crouching over fireplaces, with a stick on the ground by 
 their side, and almost too feeble to drive away the 
 stray dogs from their cooking-pots. Caramba! I 
 could tell by her voice that death had forgotten her. 
 But, old or young, they like money, and will speak well 
 of the man who gives it to them.’ He laughed a little. 
 ‘Sefior, you should have felt the clutch of her paw as I 
 put the piece in her palm.’ Hepaused. “My last, too,’ 
 he added. 
 
248 NOSTROMO 
 
 “T made no comment. He’s known for his liberality 
 and his bad luck at the game of monte, which keeps him 
 as poor as when he first came here. 
 
 **T suppose, Don Martin,’ he began, in a thoughtful, 
 speculative tone, ‘that the Sefior Administrador of San 
 Tomé will reward me some day if I save his silver?’ 
 
 “IT said that it could not be otherwise, surely. He 
 walked on, muttering to himself. ‘Si, si, without doubt, 
 without doubt; and, look you, Sefior Martin, what it is 
 to be well spoken of! There is not another man that 
 could have been even thought of for such a thing. I 
 shall get something great for it some day. And let it 
 come soon,’ he mumbled. “Time passes in this country 
 as quick as anywhere else.’ 
 
 “This, swur chérie, is my companion in the great 
 escape for the sake of the great cause. He is more naive 
 than shrewd, more masterful than crafty, more generous 
 with his personality than the people who make use of 
 him are with their money. At least, that is what he 
 thinks himself with more pride than sentiment. I am 
 glad I have made friends with him. Asa companion 
 he acquires more importance than he ever had as a sort 
 of minor genius in his way—as an original Italian sailor 
 whom I allowed to come in in the small hours and talk 
 familiarly to the editor of the Porvenir while the paper 
 was going through the press. And it is curious to have 
 met a man for whom the value of life seems to consist 
 in personal prestige. 
 
 “IT am waiting for him here now. On arriving at 
 the posada kept by Viola we found the children alone 
 down below, and the old Genoese shouted to his 
 countryman to go and fetch the doctor. Otherwise we 
 would have gone on to the wharf, where it appears 
 Captain Mitchell with some volunteer Europeans and a 
 few picked Cargadores are loading the lighter with the 
 
THE ISABELS 249 
 
 silver that must be saved from Montero’s clutches in 
 order to be used for Montero’s defeat. Nostromo 
 galloped furiously back towards the town. He has 
 been long gone already. This delay gives me time to 
 talk to you. By the time this pocket-book reaches 
 your hands much will have happened. But now it is a 
 pause under the hovering wing of death in this silent 
 house buried in the black night, with this dying woman, 
 the two children crouching without a sound, and that 
 old man whom I can hear through the thickness of the 
 wall passing up and down with a light rubbing noise 
 no louder than a mouse. And I, the only other with 
 them, don’t really know whether to count myself with 
 the living or with the dead. “Quzen sabe?’ as the people 
 here are prone to say in answer to every question. But 
 no! feeling for you is certainly not dead, and the whole 
 thing, the house, the dark night, the silent children in 
 this dim room, my very presence here—all this is life, 
 must be life, since it is so much like a dream.” 
 
 With the writing of the last line there came upon 
 Decoud a moment of sudden and complete oblivion. 
 He swayed over the table as if struck by a bullet. The 
 next moment he sat up, confused, with the idea that he 
 had heard his pencil roll on the floor. The low door of 
 the café, wide open, was filled with the glare of a torch in 
 which was visible half of a horse, switching its tail 
 against the leg of a rider with a long iron spur strapped 
 to the naked heel. The two girls were gone, and 
 Nostromo, standing in the middle of the room, looked 
 at him from under the round brim of the sombrero low 
 down over his brow. 
 
 “TI have brought that sour-faced English doctor in 
 Sefiora Gould’s carriage,’ said Nostromo. “I doubt if, 
 with all his wisdom, he can save the Padrona this time. 
 They have sent for the children. <A bad sign that.” 
 
250 NOSTROMO 
 
 He sat down on the end of a bench. “She wants to 
 give them her blessing, I suppose.”’ 
 
 Dazedly Decoud observed that he must have fallen 
 sound asleep, and Nostromo said, with a vague smile, 
 that he had looked in at the window and had seen him 
 lying still across the table with his head on his arms. 
 The English sefiora had also come in the carriage, and 
 went upstairs at once with the doctor. She had told 
 him not to wake up Don Martin yet; but when they sent 
 for the children he had come into the café. 
 
 The half of the horse with its half of the rider swung 
 round outside the door; the torch of tow and resin in the 
 iron basket which was carried on a stick at the saddle- 
 bow flared right into the room for a moment, and Mrs. 
 Gould entered hastily with a very white, tired face. 
 The hood of her dark, blue cloak had fallen back. Both 
 men rose. 
 
 ‘Teresa wants to see you, Nostromo,”’ she said. 
 
 The Capataz did not move. Decoud, with his back 
 to the table, began to button up his coat. 
 
 “The silver, Mrs. Gould, the silver,’’ he murmured in 
 English. “Don’t forget that the Esmeralda garrison 
 have got a steamer. They may appear at any moment 
 at the harbour entrance.”’ 
 
 “The doctor says there is no hope,’ Mrs. Gould spoke 
 rapidly, also in English. “I shall take you down to the 
 wharf in my carriage and then come back to fetch away 
 the girls.”” She changed swiftly into Spanish to address 
 Nostromo. ‘“‘Why are you wasting time? Old Gior- 
 gio’s wife wishes to see you.” 
 
 *“T am going to her, sefiora,’’ muttered the Capataz. 
 
 Dr. Monygham now showed himself, bringing back 
 the children. To Mrs. Gould’s inquiring glance he only 
 shook his head and went outside at once, followed by 
 Nostromo. 
 
THE ISABELS 251 
 
 The horse of the torch-bearer, motionless, hung his 
 head low, and the rider had dropped the reins to light 
 a cigarette. The glare of the torch played on the front 
 of the house crossed by the big black letters of its in- 
 scription in which only the word Irata was lighted 
 fully. The patch of wavering glare reached as far as 
 Mrs. Gould’s carriage waiting on the road, with the 
 yellow-faced, portly Ignacio apparently dozing on the 
 box. By his side Basilio, dark and skinny, held a 
 Winchester carbine in front of him, with both hands, 
 and peered fearfully into the darkness. Nostromo 
 touched lightly the doctor’s shoulder. 
 
 “Is she really dying, sefior doctor?” 
 
 “Yes,”’ said the doctor, with a strange twitch of his 
 scarred cheek. ““And why she wants to see you I can- 
 not imagine.” 
 
 “She has been like that before,” suggested Nostromo, 
 looking away. 
 
 “Well, Capataz, I can assure you she will never be 
 like that again,” snarled Dr. Monygham. “You may 
 go to her or stay away. ‘There is very little to be got 
 from talking to the dying. But she told Dofia Emilia 
 in my hearing that she has been like a mother to you 
 ever since you first set foot ashore here.”’ 
 
 “Si! And she never had a good word to say for me 
 to anybody. It is more as if she could not forgive me 
 for being alive, and such a man, too, as she would have 
 liked her son to be.” 
 
 “Maybe!”’ exclaimed a mournful deep voice near 
 them. ‘‘Women have their own ways of tormenting 
 themselves.” Giorgio Viola had come out of the house. 
 He threw a heavy black shadow in the torchlight, and 
 the glare fell on his big face, on the great bushy head of 
 white hair. He motioned the Capataz indoors with 
 his extended arm. 
 
252 NOSTROMO 
 
 Dr. Monygham, after busying himself with a little 
 medicament box of polished wood on the seat of the 
 landau, turned to old Giorgio and thrust into his big, 
 trembling hand one of the glass-stoppered bottles out 
 of the case. 
 
 “Give her a spoonful of this now and then, in water,” 
 he said. “It will make her easier.”’ 
 
 “And there is nothing more for her?”’ asked the old 
 man, patiently. 
 
 “No. Not on earth,” said the doctor, with his back 
 to him, clicking the lock of the medicine case. 
 
 Nostromo slowly crossed the large kitchen, all dark 
 but for the glow of a heap of charcoal under the heavy 
 mantel of the cooking-range, where water was boiling in 
 an iron pot with a loud bubbling sound. Between the 
 two walls of a narrow staircase a bright light -streamed 
 from the sick-room above; and the magnificent Capataz 
 de Cargadores stepping noiselessly in soft leather 
 sandals, bushy whiskered, his muscular neck and 
 bronzed chest bare in the open check shirt, resembled 
 a Mediterranean sailor just come ashore from some 
 wine or fruit-laden felucca. At the top he paused, 
 broad shouldered, narrow hipped and supple, looking 
 at the large bed, like a white couch of state, with a 
 profusion of snowy linen, amongst which the Padrona 
 sat unpropped and bowed, her handsome, black-browed 
 face bent over her chest. A mass of raven hair with 
 only a few white threads in it covered her shoulders; 
 one thick strand fallen forward half veiled her cheek. 
 Perfectly motionless in that pose, expressing physical 
 anxiety and unrest, she turned her eyes alone towards 
 Nostromo. 
 
 The Capataz had a red sash wound many times round 
 his waist, and a heavy silver ring on the forefinger of the 
 hand he raised to give a twist to his moustache. 
 
THE ISABELS 253 
 
 “Their revolutions, their revolutions,” gasped Sefiora 
 Teresa. “Look, Gian’ Battista, it has killed me at 
 last!”’ 
 
 Nostromo said nothing, and the sick woman with an 
 upward glance insisted. ‘“‘Look, this one has killed 
 me, while you were away fighting for what did not 
 concern you, foolish man.’ 
 
 “Why talk like this?’’? mumbled the Capataz Benreen 
 his teeth. “Will you never believe in my good sense? 
 It concerns me to keep on being what I am: every day 
 alike.” 
 
 “You never change, indeed,” she said, bitterly. “*Al- 
 ways thinking of yourself and taking your pay out in 
 fine words from those who care nothing for you.” 
 
 There was between them an intimacy of antagonism 
 as close in its way as the intimacy of accord and af- 
 fection. He had not walked along the way of Teresa’s 
 expectations. It was she who had encouraged him to 
 leave his ship, in the hope of securing a friend and de- 
 fender for the girls. The wife of old Giorgio was aware 
 of her precarious health, and was haunted by the fear 
 of her aged husband’s loneliness and the unprotected 
 state of the children. She had wanted to annex that ap- 
 parently quiet and steady young man, affectionate and 
 pliable, an orphan from his tenderest age, as he had 
 told her, with no ties in Italy except an uncle, owner 
 and master of a felucca, from whose ill-usage he had 
 run away before he was fourteen. He had seemed to 
 her courageous, a hard worker, determined to make his 
 way in the world. From gratitude and the ties of 
 habit he would become like a son to herself and Giorgio; 
 and then, who knows, when Linda had grown up. ; 
 Ten years’ difference between husband and wife was Bot 
 so much. Her own great man was nearly twenty years 
 older than herself. Gian’ Battista was an attractive 
 
254 -NOSTROMO 
 
 young fellow, besides; attractive to men, women, and 
 children, just by that profound quietness of personality 
 which, like a serene twilight, rendered more seductive 
 the promise of his vigorous form and the resolution of 
 his conduct. 
 
 Old Giorgio, in profound ignorance of his wife’s views 
 and hopes, had a great regard for his young countryman. 
 *“A man ought not to be tame,” he used to tell her, 
 quoting the Spanish proverb in defence of the splendid 
 Capataz. She was growing jealous of his success. He 
 was escaping from her, she feared. She was practical, 
 and he seemed to her to be an absurd spendthrift | 
 of these qualities which made him so valuable. He got 
 too little for them. He scattered them with both 
 hands amongst too many people, she thought. He laid 
 no money by. She railed at his poverty, his exploits, 
 his adventures, his loves and his reputation; but in her 
 heart she had never given him up, as though, indeed, he 
 had been her son. 
 
 Even now, ill as she was, ill enough to feel the chill, 
 black breath of the approaching end, she had wished to 
 see him. It was like putting out her benumbed hand to 
 regain her hold. But she had presumed too much on 
 her strength. She could not command her thoughts; 
 they had become dim, like her vision. ‘The words fal- 
 tered on her lips, and only the paramount anxiety and 
 desire of her life seemed to be too strong for death. 
 
 The Capataz said, “I have heard these things many 
 times. You are unjust, but it does not hurtme. Only 
 now you do not seem to have much strength to talk, and 
 I have but little time to listen. I am engaged in a work © 
 of very great moment.” 
 
 She made an effort to ask him whether it was true that 
 he had found time to go and fetch a doctor for her. 
 Nostromo nodded affirmatively. 
 
THE ISABELS 255 
 
 She was pleased: it relieved her sufferings to know 
 that the man had condescended to do so much for those 
 who really wanted his help. It was a proof of his 
 friendship. Her voice become stronger. 
 
 “T want a priest more than a doctor,” she said, 
 pathetically. She did not move her head; only her 
 eyes ran into the corners to watch the Capataz 
 standing by the side of her bed. “‘Would you go to 
 fetch a priest for me now? Think! A dying woman 
 asks you!” 
 
 Nostromo shook his head resolutely. He did not 
 believe in priests in their sacerdotal character. A 
 doctor was an efficacious person; but a priest, as priest, 
 was nothing, incapable of doing either good or harm. 
 Nostromo did not even dislike the sight of them as old 
 Giorgio did. The utter uselessness of the errand was 
 what struck him most. 
 
 ‘“*Padrona,”’ he said, “‘ you have been like this before, 
 and got better after a few days. I have given you 
 already the very last moments I can spare. Ask 
 Sefiora Gould to send you one.” 
 
 He was feeling uneasy at the impiety of this refusal. 
 The Padrong believed in priests, and confessed herself 
 to them. But all women did that. It could not be of 
 much consequence. And yet his heart felt oppressed 
 for a moment—at the thought what absolution would 
 mean to her if she believed in it only ever so little. No 
 matter. It was quite true that he had given her already 
 the very last moment he could spare. | 
 
 “You refuse to go?” she gasped. “Ah! you are 
 always yourself, indeed.”’ 
 
 “Listen to reason, Padrona,” he said. “I am needed 
 to save the silver of the mine. Do you hear? A 
 greater treasure than the one which they say is guarded 
 by ghosts and devJs on Azuera. It is true. I am re- 
 
256 NOSTROMO 
 
 solved to make this the most desperate affair I was 
 ever engaged on in my whole life.” 
 
 She felt a despairing indignation. ‘The supreme test 
 had failed. Standing above her, Nostromo did not 
 see the distorted features of her face, distorted by a 
 paroxysm of pain and anger. Only she began to 
 tremble all over. Her bowed head shook. The broad 
 shoulders quivered. 
 
 “Then God, perhaps, will have mercy upon me! 
 But do you look to it, man, that you get something for 
 yourself out of it, besides the remorse that shall over- 
 take you some day.” 
 
 She laughed feebly. “Get riches at least for once, 
 you indispensable, admired Gian’ Battista, to whom 
 the peace of a dymg woman is less than the praise of 
 people who have given you a silly name—and nothing 
 besides—in exchange for your soul and body.” 
 
 The Capataz de Cargadores swore to himself under 
 his breath. 
 
 “Leave my soul alone, Padrona, and I shall know 
 how to take care of my body. Where is the harm of 
 people having need of me? What are you envying me 
 that I haverobbed you and the children of? ‘Those 
 very people you are throwing in my teeth have done 
 more for old Giorgio than they ever thought of doing 
 for me.” 
 
 He struck his breast with his open palm; his 
 voice had remained low though he had spoken in a 
 forcible tone. He twisted his moustaches one after 
 another, and his eyes wandered a little about the 
 room. 
 
 “Is it my fault that I am the only man for their pur- 
 poses? What angry nonsense are you talking, mother? 
 Would you rather have me timid and foolish, selling 
 water-melons on the market-place or rowing a boat for 
 
THE ISABELS 257 
 
 passengers along the harbour, like a soft Neapolitan with- 
 out courage or reputation? Would you have a young 
 man live likea monk? Ido not believe it. Would you 
 want a monk for your eldest girl? Let her grow. What 
 are you afraid of? You have been angry with me for 
 everything I did for years; ever since you first spoke to 
 me, in secret from old Giorgio, about your Linda. Hus- 
 band to one and brother to the other, did you say? 
 Well, why not! I like the little ones, and a man must 
 marry some time. But ever since that time you have 
 been making little of me to everyone. Why? Did you 
 think you could put a collar and chain on me as if I were 
 one of the watch-dogs they keep over there in the rail- 
 way yards? Look here, Padrona, I am the same man 
 who came ashore one evening and sat down in the 
 thatched ranche you lived in at that time on the other 
 side of the town and told you all about himself. You 
 were not unjust to me then. What has happened since? 
 I am no longer an insignificant youth. A good name, 
 Giorgio says, is a treasure, Padrona.” 
 
 “They have turned your head with their praises,” 
 gasped the sick woman. “They have been paying you 
 with words. Your folly shall betray you into poverty, 
 misery, starvation. The very leperos shall laugh at 
 you—the great Capataz.” 
 
 Nostromo stood for a time as if struck dumb. She 
 never looked at him. A self-confident, mirthless smile 
 passed quickly from his lips, and then he backed away. 
 His disregarded figure sank down beyond the doorway. 
 He descended the stairs backwards, with the usual sense 
 of having been somehow baffled by this woman’s dis- 
 paragement of this reputation he had obtained and 
 desired to keep. 
 
 Downstairs in the big kitchen a candle was burning, 
 surrounded by the shadows of the walls, of the ceiling, 
 
258 NOSTROMO 
 
 but no ruddy glare filled the open square of the outer 
 door. The carriage with Mrs. Gould and Don Martin, 
 preceded by the horseman bearing the torch, had gone 
 on to the jetty. Dr. Monygham, who had remained, 
 sat on the corner of a hard wood table near the candle- 
 stick, his seamed, shaven face inclined sideways, his 
 arms crossed on his breast, his lips pursed up, and his 
 prominent eyes glaring stonily upon the floor of black 
 earth. Near the overhanging mantel of the fireplace, 
 where the pot of water was still boiling violently, old 
 Giorgio held his chin in his hand, one foot advanced, as 
 if arrested by a sudden thought. 
 
 *“‘Advos, viejo,” said Nostromo, feeling the handle of 
 his revolver in the belt and loosening his knife in its 
 sheath. He picked up a blue poncho lined with red 
 from the table, and put it over his head. “Adios, look 
 after the things in my sleeping-room, and if you hear 
 from me no more, give up the box to Paquita. There 
 is not much of value there, except my new serape from 
 Mexico, and a few silver buttons on my best jacket. 
 No matter! The things will look well enough on the 
 next lover she gets, and the man need not be afraid I 
 shall linger on earth after I am dead, like those Gringos 
 that haunt the Azuera.”’ 
 
 Dr. Monygham twisted his lips into a bitter smile. 
 After old Giorgio, with an almost imperceptible nod and 
 without a word, had gone up the narrow stairs, he 
 said— 
 
 “Why, Capataz! I thought you could never fail in 
 anything.” 
 
 Nostromo, glancing contemptuously at the doctor, 
 lingered in the doorway rolling a cigarette, then struck a 
 match, and, after lighting it, held the burning piece of 
 wood above his head till the flame nearly touched his 
 fingers. 
 
THE ISABELS 259 
 
 “No wind!’’ he muttered to himself. “Look here, 
 sefior—do you know the nature of my undertaking?’’ 
 
 Dr. Monygham nodded sourly. 
 
 “It is as if I were taking up a curse upon me, sefior 
 doctor. A man with a treasure on this coast will have 
 every knife raised against him in every place upon the 
 shore. You see that, sefior doctor? I shall float 
 along with a spell upon my life till 1 meet somewhere the 
 north-bound steamer of the Company, and then indeed 
 they will talk about the Capataz of the Sulaco Carga- 
 dores from one end of America to another.”’ 
 
 Dr. Monygham laughed his short, throaty laugh. 
 Nostromo turned round in the doorway. 
 
 “But if your worship can find any other man ready 
 and fit for such business I will stand back. I am not 
 exactly tired of my life, though I am so poor that I can 
 carry all I have with myself on my horse’s back.” 
 
 “You gamble too much, and never say ‘no’ to a pretty 
 face, Capataz,” said Dr. Monygham, with sly sim- 
 plicity. ‘That’s not the way to make a fortune. But 
 nobody that I know ever suspected you of being poor. 
 I hope you have made a good bargain in case you come 
 back safe from this adventure.” 
 
 “What bargain would your worship have made?” 
 asked Nostromo, blowing the smoke out of his lips 
 through the doorway. 
 
 Dr. Monygham listened up the staircase for a mo- 
 ment before he answered, with another of his short, 
 abrupt laughs— 
 
 “Illustrious Capataz, for taking the curse of death 
 upon my back, as you call it, nothing else but the whole 
 treasure would do.”’ 
 
 Nostromo vanished out of the doorway with a grunt 
 of discontent at this jeering answer. Dr. Monygham 
 heard him gallop away. Nostromo rode furiously in 
 
260 NOSTROMO 
 
 the dark. There were lights in the buildings of the 
 O.S.N. Company near the wharf, but before he got 
 there he met the Gould carriage. The horseman pre- 
 ceded it with the torch, whose light showed the white 
 mules trotting, the portly Ignacio driving, and Basilio 
 with the carbine on the box. From the dark body of 
 the landau Mrs. Gould’s voice cried, “They are waiting 
 for you, Capataz!”’ She was returning, chilly and ex- 
 cited, with Decoud’s pocket-book still held in her hand. 
 He had confided it to her to send to his sister. “Per- 
 haps my last words to her,” he had said, pressing Mrs. 
 Gould’s hand. 
 
 The Capataz never checked his speed. At the head 
 of the wharf vague figures with rifles leapt to the head of 
 his horse; others closed upon him—cargadores of the 
 company posted by Captain Mitchell on the watch. At — 
 a word from him they fell back with subservient mur- 
 murs, recognizing his voice. At the other end of the 
 jetty, near a cargo crane, in a dark group with glowing 
 cigars, his name was pronounced in a tone of relief. 
 Most of the Europeans in Sulaco were there, rallied 
 round Charles Gould, as if the silver of the mine had 
 been the emblem of a common cause, the symbol of the 
 supreme importance of material interests. They had 
 loaded it into the lighter with their own hands. WNos- 
 tromo recognized Don Carlos Gould, a thin, tall shape. 
 standing a little apart and silent, to whom another tall 
 shape, the engineer-in-chief, said aloud, “Ti it must be 
 lost, it is a million times better that it should go to the 
 bottom of the sea.” 
 
 Martin Decoud called out from the lighter, “Au 
 revoir, messieurs, till we clasp hands again over the 
 new-born Occidental Republic.”’ Only a subdued mur- 
 mur responded to his clear, ringing tones; and then it 
 seemed to him that the wharf was floating away into the 
 
THE ISABELS 261 
 
 night; but it was Nostromo, who was already pushing 
 against a pile with one of the heavy sweeps. Decoud 
 did not move; the effect was that of being launched into 
 space. After a splash or two there was not a sound but 
 the thud of Nostromo’s feet leaping about the boat. 
 He hoisted the big sail; a breath of wind fanned 
 Decoud’s cheek. Everything had vanished but the light 
 of the lantern Captain Mitchell had hoisted upon the 
 post at the end of the jetty to guide Nostromo out of 
 the harbour. 
 
 The two men, unable to see each other, kept silent till 
 the lighter, slipping before the fitful breeze, passed out 
 between almost invisible headlands into the still deeper 
 darkness of the gulf. For a time the lantern on the 
 jetty shone after them. ‘The wind failed, then fanned 
 up again, but so faintly that the big, half-decked boat 
 slipped along with no more noise than if she had been 
 suspended in the air. 
 
 “We are out in the gulf now,” said the calm voice of 
 Nostromo. A moment after he added, ““Sefior Mitchell 
 has lowered the light.” 
 
 “Yes,” said Decoud; “nobody can find us now.” 
 
 A great recrudescence of obscurity embraced the 
 boat. The sea in the gulf was as black as the clouds 
 above. Nostromo, after striking a couple of matches 
 to get a glimpse of the boat-compass he had with 
 him in the lighter, steered by the feel of the wind on his 
 cheek. 
 
 It was a new experience for Decoud, this mystericus- 
 ness of the great waters spread out strangely smooth, as 
 if their restlessness had been crushed by the weight of 
 that dense night. The Placido was sleeping profoundly 
 under its black poncho. 
 
 The main thing now for success was to get away from 
 the: coast and gain the middle of the gulf before day 
 
262 NOSTROMO 
 
 broke. ‘The Isabels were somewhere at hand. “On 
 your left as you look forward, sefior,’”’ said Nostromo, 
 suddenly. When his voice ceased, the enormous still- 
 ness, without light or sound, seemed to affect Decoud’s 
 senses like a powerful drug. He didn’t even know at 
 times whether he were asleep or awake. Like a man 
 lost in slumber, he heard nothing, he saw nothing. 
 Even his hand held before his face did not exist for his 
 eyes. ‘The change from the agitation, the passions and 
 the dangers, from the sights and sounds of the shore, 
 was so complete that it would have resembled death 
 had it not been for the survival of his thoughts. In this 
 foretaste of eternal peace they floated vivid and light, 
 like unearthly clear dreams of earthly things that may 
 haunt the souls freed by death from the misty at- 
 mosphere of regrets and hopes. Decoud shook himself, 
 shuddered a bit, though the air that drifted past him 
 was warm. He had the strangest sensation of his soul 
 having just returned into his body from the circumam- 
 bient darkness in which land, sea, sky, the mountains, 
 and the rocks were as if they had not been. . 
 
 Nostromo’s voice was speaking, though he, at the 
 tiller, was also as if he were not. “Have you been 
 asleep, Don Martin? Caramba! If it were possible I 
 would think that I, too, have dozed off. I have a 
 strange notion somehow of having dreamt that there 
 was a sound of blubbering, a sound a sorrowing man 
 could make, somewhere near this boat. Something 
 between a sigh and a sob.”’ 
 
 “Strange!’? muttered Decoud, stretched upon the 
 pile of treasure boxes covered by many tarpaulins. 
 “Could it be that there is another boat near us in the 
 gulf? We could not see it, you know.” 
 
 Nostromo laughed a little at the absurdity of the idea. 
 They dismissed it from their minds. The solitude 
 
THE ISABELS 263 
 
 could almost be felt. And when the breeze ceased, the 
 blackness seemed to weigh upon Decoud like a stone. 
 
 “This is overpowering,’ he muttered. “Do we 
 move at all, Capataz?”’ 
 
 “Not so fast as a crawling beetle tangled in the 
 grass,” answered Nostromo, and his voice seemed 
 deadened by the thick veil of obscurity that felt 
 warm and hopeless all about them. ‘There were long 
 periods when he made no sound, invisible and inaudible 
 as if he had mysteriously stepped out of the lighter. 
 
 In the featureless night Nostromo was not even cer- 
 tain which way the lighter headed after the wind had 
 completely died out. He peered for the islands. There 
 was not a hint of them to be seen, as if they had sunk to 
 the bottom of the gulf. He threw himself down by the 
 side of Decoud at last, and whispered into his ear that 
 if daylight caught them near the Sulaco shore through 
 want of wind, it would be possible to sweep the lighter 
 behind the cliff at the high end of the Great Isabel, 
 where she would lie concealed. Decoud was surprised 
 at the grimness of his anxiety. To him the removal 
 of the treasure was a political move. It was necessary 
 for several reasons that it should not fall into the hands 
 of Montero, but here was a man who took another 
 view of this enterprise. The Caballeros over there did 
 not seem to have the slightest idea of what they had 
 given him todo. Nostromo, as ii affected by the gloom 
 around, seemed nervously resentful. Decoud was 
 surprised. ‘The Capataz, indifferent to those dangers 
 that seemed obvious to his companion, allowed himself 
 to become scornfully exasperated by the deadly nature 
 of the trust put, as a matter of course, into his hands. 
 It was more dangerous, Nostromo said, with a laugh 
 and a curse, than sending a man to get the treasure 
 that people said was guarded by devils and ghosts in the 
 
264 NOSTROMO 
 
 deep ravines of Azuera. ‘“‘Sefior,’’ he said, ““we must 
 catch the steamer at sea. We must keep out in the 
 open looking for her till we have eaten and drunk all 
 that has been put on board here. And if we miss her by 
 some mischance, we must keep away from the land till 
 we grow weak, and perhaps mad, and die, and drift 
 dead, until one or another of the steamers of the 
 Compania comes upon the boat with the two dead men 
 who have saved the treasure. That, sefior, is the only 
 way to save it; for, don’t you see? for us to come to the 
 land anywhere in a hundred miles along this coast with 
 this silver in our possession is to run the naked breast 
 against the point of a knife. This thing has been given 
 to me like a deadly disease. If men discover it I am 
 dead, and you, too, sefior, since you would come with 
 me. There is enough silver to make a whole province 
 rich, let alone a seaboard pueblo inhabited by thieves 
 and vagabonds. Sefior, they would think that heaven 
 itself sent these riches into their hands, and would cut 
 our throats without hesitation. I would trust no fair 
 words from the best man around the shores of this wild 
 gulf. Reflect that, even by giving up the treasure at 
 the first demand, we would not be able to save our lives. 
 Do you understand this, or must I explain?”’ 
 
 “No, you needn’t explain,” said Decoud, a little 
 listlessly. “I can see it well enough myself, that the 
 possession of this treasure is very much like a deadly 
 disease for men situated as we are. But it had to be re- 
 moved from Sulaco, and you were the man for the task.” 
 
 “I was; but I cannot believe,” said Nostromo, “that 
 its loss would have impoverished Don Carlos Gould 
 very much. ‘There is more wealth in the mountain. I 
 have heard it rolling down the shoots on quiet nights 
 when I used to ride to Rincon to see a certain girl, 
 after my work at the harbour was done. For years 
 
THE ISABELS 265 
 
 the rich rocks have been pouring down with a noise like 
 thunder, and the miners say that there is enough at the 
 heart of the mountain to thunder on for years and years 
 to come. And yet, the day before yesterday, we have 
 been fighting to save it from the mob, and to-night I 
 am sent out with it into this darkness, where there is 
 no wind to get away with; as if it were the last lot of 
 silver on earth to get bread for the hungry with. Ha! 
 ha! Well, I am going to make it the most famous and 
 desperate affair of my life—wind er no wind. It shall 
 be talked about when the little children are grown up 
 and the grown men are old. Aha! the Monterists must 
 not get hold of it, I am told, whatever happens to Nos- 
 tromo the Capataz; and they shall not have it, I tell 
 you, since it has been tied for safety round Nostromo’s 
 neck.”’ 
 
 “IT see it,’ murmured Decoud. He saw, indeed, that 
 his companion had his own peculiar view of this enter- 
 prise. 
 
 Nostromo interrupted his reflections upon the way 
 men’s qualities are made use of, without any fun- 
 damental knowledge of their nature, by the proposal 
 they should slip the long oars out and sweep the 
 lighter in the direction of the Isabels. It wouldn’t 
 do for daylight to reveal the treasure floating within a 
 mile or so of the harbour entrance. ‘The denser the 
 darkness generally, the smarter were the puffs of wind 
 on which he had reckoned to make his way; but to- 
 night the gulf, under its poncho of clouds, remained 
 breathless, as if dead rather than asleep. 
 
 Don Martin’s soft hands suffered cruelly, tugging 
 at the thick handle of the enormous oar. He stuck 
 to it manfully, setting his teeth. He, too, was in the 
 toils of an imaginative existence, and that strange work 
 of pulling a lighter seemed to belong naturally to the 
 
266 NOSTROMO 
 
 inception of a new state, acquired an ideal meaning 
 from his love for Antonia. For all their efforts, the 
 heavily laden lighter hardly moved. Nostromo could 
 be heard swearing to himself between the regular 
 splashes of the sweeps. ‘‘We are making a crooked 
 path,” he muttered to himself. ‘I wish I could see the 
 islands.” 
 
 In his unskilfulness Don Martin over-exerted himself. 
 Now and then a sort of muscular faintness would run 
 from the tips of his aching fingers through every fibre 
 of his body, and pass off in a flush of heat. He had 
 fought, talked, suffered mentally and_ physically, 
 exerting his mind and body for the last forty-eight hours 
 without intermission. He had had no rest, very little 
 food, no pause in the stress of his thoughts and his 
 feelings. Even his love for Antonia, whence he drew 
 his strength and his inspiration, had reached the point 
 of tragic tension during their hurried interview by Don 
 José’s bedside. And now, suddenly, he was thrown 
 out of all this into a dark gulf, whose very gloom, si- 
 Jence, and breathless peace added a torment to the 
 necessity for physical exertion. He imagined the 
 lighter sinking to the bottom with an extraordinary 
 shudder of delight. ‘I am on the verge of delirium,” 
 he thought. He mastered the trembling of all his 
 limbs, of his breast, the inward trembling of all his 
 body exhausted of its nervous force. 
 
 “Shall we rest, Capataz?’’ he proposed in a careless 
 tone. “There are many hours of night yet before us.” 
 
 “True. It is but a mile or so, I suppose. Rest your 
 arms, sefior, if that is what you mean. You will find 
 no other sort of rest, I can promise you, since you let 
 yourself be bound to this treasure whose lass would 
 make no poor man poorer. No, sefior; there is no rest 
 till we find a north-bound steamer, or else some ship 
 
THE ISABELS 267 
 
 finds us drifting about stretched out dead upon the 
 Englishman’s silver. Or rather—no; por Dios! I shall 
 cut down the gunwale with the axe right to the water’s 
 edge before thirst and hunger rob me of my strength. 
 By all the saints and devils I shall let the sea have the 
 treasure rather than give it up to any stranger. Since 
 it was the good pleasure of the Caballeros to send me off 
 on such an errand, they shall learn I am just the man 
 they take me for.” 
 
 Decoud lay on the silver boxes panting. All his 
 active sensations and feelings from as far back as he 
 could remember seemed to him the maddest of dreams. 
 Even his passionate devotion to Antonia into which he 
 had worked himself up out of the depths of his scepti- 
 cism had lost all appearance of reality. For a moment 
 he was the prey of an extremely languid but not un- 
 pleasant indifference. 
 
 “T am sure they didn’t mean you to take such a 
 desperate view of this affair,” he said. 
 
 “What was it, then? A joke?” snarled the man, who 
 on the pay-sheets of the O.S.N. Company’s estab- 
 lishment in Sulaco was described as “Foreman of the 
 wharf” against the figure of his wages. “Was it for a 
 joke they woke me up from my sleep after two days of 
 street fighting to make me stake my life upon a bad 
 ecard? Everybody knows, too, that I am not a lucky 
 gambler.” 
 
 “Yes, everybody knows of your good luck with 
 women, Capataz,’’ Decoud propitiated his companion 
 in a weary drawl. 
 
 “Look here, sefior,’” Nostromo went on. “I never 
 even remonstrated about this affair. Directly I heard 
 what was wanted I saw what a desperate affair it must 
 be, and I made up my mind to see it out. Every 
 minute was of importance. I had to wait for you first. 
 
268 NOSTROMO 
 
 Then, when we arrived at the Italia Una, old Giorgia 
 shouted to me to go for the English doctor. Later on, 
 that poor dying woman wanted to see me, as you know. 
 Sefior, I was reluctant to go. I felt already this cursed 
 silver growing heavy upon my back, and I was afraid 
 that, knowing herself to be dying, she would ask me to 
 ride off again for a priest. Father Corbelan, who is 
 fearless, would have come at a word; but Father Cor- 
 belan is far away, safe with the band of Her- 
 nandez, and the populace, that would have liked to 
 tear him to pieces, are much incensed against the 
 priests. Not a single fat padre would have consented 
 to put his head out of his hiding-place to-night to save a 
 Christian soul, except, perhaps, under my protection. 
 That was in her mind. JI pretended I did not believe 
 she was going to die. Sefior, I refused to fetch a priest 
 for a dying woman As 
 
 Decoud was heard to stir. 
 
 “You did, Capataz!” he exclaimed. His tone 
 changed. “Well, you know—it was rather fine.” 
 
 “You do not believe in priests, Don Martin? Neither 
 do I. What was the use of wasting time? But she— 
 she believes in them. ‘The thing sticks in my throat. 
 She may be dead already, and here we are floating help- 
 less with no wind at all. Curse on all superstition. 
 She died thinking I deprived her of Paradise, Isuppose. 
 It snall be the most desperate affair of my life.” 
 
 Decoud remained lost in reflection. He tried to 
 analyze the sensations awaked by what he had been 
 told. The voice of the Capataz was heard again: 
 
 “Now, Don Martin, let us take up the sweeps and try 
 to find the Isabels. It is either that or sinking the 
 lighter if the day overtakes us. We must not forget 
 that the steamer from Esmeralda with the soldiers may 
 be coming along. Wewill pull straight onnow. Ihave 
 
THE ISABELS 269 
 
 discovered a bit of a candle here, and we must take the 
 risk of a small light to make a course by the boat com- 
 pass. ‘There is not enough wind to blow it out—may 
 the curse of Heaven fall upon this blind gulf!” 
 
 A small flame appeared burning quite straight. It 
 showed fragmentarily the stout ribs and planking in the 
 hollow, empty part of the lighter. Decoud could see 
 Nostromo standing up to pull. He saw him as high as 
 the red sash on his waist, with a gleam of a white- 
 handled revolver and the wooden haft of a long knife 
 protruding on his left side. Decoud nerved himself for 
 the effort of rowing. Certainly there was not enough 
 wind to blow the candle out, but its flame swayed a 
 little to the slow movement of the heavy boat. It was 
 so big that with their utmost efforts they could not 
 move it quicker than about a mile an hour. ‘This was 
 sufficient, however, to sweep them amongst the Isabels 
 long before daylight came. There was a good six hours 
 of darkness before them, and the distance from the 
 harbour to the Great Isabel did not exceed two miles. 
 Decoud put this heavy toil to the account of the 
 Capataz’s impatience. Sometimes they paused, and 
 then strained their ears to hear the boat from Es- 
 meralda. In this perfect quietness a steamer moving 
 would have been heard from far off. As to seeing any- 
 thing it was out of the question. They could not see 
 each other. Even the lighter’s sail, which remained 
 set, was invisible. Very often they rested. 
 
 “Caramba!”’ said Nostromo, suddenly, during one of 
 those intervals when they lolled idly against the heavy 
 handles of the sweeps. “What is it? Are you dis- 
 tressed, Don Martin?”’ 
 
 Decoud assured him that he was not distressed in the 
 least. Nostromo for a time kept perfectly still, and 
 then in a whisper invited Martin to come aft. 
 
270 NOSTROMO 
 
 With his lips touching Decoud’s ear he declared his 
 belief that there was somebody else besides themselves 
 upon the lighter. Twice now he had heard the sound of 
 stifled sobbing. 
 
 “Sefior,” he whispered with awed wonder, “I am 
 certain that there is somebody weeping in this lighter.” 
 
 Decoud had heard nothing. He expressed his in- 
 credulity. However, it was easy to ascertain the truth 
 of the matter. 
 
 “It is most amazing,’ muttered Nostromo. “Could 
 anybody have concealed himself on board while the 
 lighter was lying alongside the wharf?” 
 
 “And you say it was like sobbing?”’ asked Decoud, 
 lowering his voice, too. “If he is weeping, whoever he 
 is he cannot be very dangerous.” 
 
 Clambering over the precious pile in the middle, they 
 crouched low on the foreside of the mast and groped 
 under the half-deck. Right forward, in the narrowest 
 part, their hands came upon the limbs of a man, who 
 remained as silent as death. ‘Too startled themselves 
 to make a sound, they dragged him aft by one arm and 
 the collar of his coat. He was limp—lifeless. 
 
 The light of the bit of candle fell upon a round, 
 hook-nosed face with black moustaches and little side- 
 whiskers. He was extremely dirty. A greasy growth of 
 beard was sprouting on the shaven parts of the cheeks. 
 The thick lips were slightly parted, but the eyes re- 
 mained closed. Decoud, to his immense astonishment, 
 recognized Sefior Hirsch, the hide merchant from 
 Esmeralda. Nostromo, too, had recognized him. And 
 they gazed at each other across the body, lying with its 
 naked feet higher than its head, in an absurd pretence of 
 sleep, faintness, or death. 
 
CHAPTER EIGHT 
 
 For a moment, before this extraordinary find, they 
 forgot their own concerns and sensations. Sefior 
 Hirsch’s sensations as he lay there must have been those 
 of extreme terror. For a long time he refused to give a 
 sign of life, till at last Decoud’s objurgations, and, per- 
 haps more, Nostromo’s impatient suggestion that -he 
 should be thrown overboard, as he seemed to be dead, 
 induced him to raise one eyelid first, and then the other. 
 
 It appeared that he had never found a safe oppor- 
 tunity to leave Sulaco. He lodged with Anzani, the 
 universal storekeeper, on the Plaza Mayor. But when 
 the riot broke out he had made his escape from his 
 host’s house before daylight, and in such a hurry that 
 he had forgotten to put on his shoes. He had run out 
 impulsively in his socks, and with his hat in his hand, 
 into the garden of Anzani’s house. Fear gave him the 
 necessary agility to climb over several low walls, and 
 afterwards he blundered into the overgrown cloisters of 
 the ruined Franciscan convent in one of the by-streets. 
 He forced himself into the midst of matted bushes with 
 the recklessness of desperation, and this accounted for 
 his scratched body and his torn clothing. He lay hid- 
 den there all day, his tongue cleaving to the roof of his 
 mouth with all the intensity of thirst engendered by 
 heat and fear. Three times different bands of men in- 
 vaded the place with shouts and imprecations, looking 
 for Father Corbelan; but towards the evening, still lying 
 on his face in the bushes, he thought he would die from > 
 the fear of silence. He was not very clear as to what 
 
 271 ‘ 
 
272 NOSTROMO 
 
 had induced him to leave the place, but evidently he had 
 got out and slunk successfully out of town along the 
 deserted back lanes. He wandered in the darkness near 
 the railway, so maddened by apprehension that he dared 
 not even approach the fires of the pickets of Italian 
 workmen guarding the line. He had a vague idea 
 evidently of finding refuge in the railway yards, but the 
 dogs rushed upon him, barking; men began to shout; 
 a shot was fired at random. He fled away from the 
 gates. By the merest accident, as it happened, he 
 took the direction of the O.5.N. Company’s offices. 
 Twice he stumbled upon the bodies of men killed during 
 the day. But everything living frightened him much 
 more. He crouched, crept, crawled, made dashes, 
 guided by a sort of animal instinct, keeping away from 
 every light and from every sound of voices. His idea 
 was to throw himself at the feet of Captain Mitchell 
 and beg for shelter in the Company’s offices. It was 
 all dark there as he approached on his hands and knees, 
 but suddenly someone on guard challenged loudly, 
 “Quien vive?”’? There were more dead men lying about, 
 and he flattened himself down at once by the side of a 
 cold corpse. He heard a voice saying, “‘Here is one of 
 those wounded rascals crawling about. Shall I go and 
 finish him?”’ And another voice objected that it was 
 not safe to go out without a lantern upon such an er- 
 rand; perhaps it was only some negro Liberal looking 
 for a chance to stick a knife into the stomach of an 
 honest man. Hirsch didn’t stay to hear any more, but 
 crawling away to the end of the wharf, hid himself 
 amongst a lot of empty casks. After a while some 
 people came along, talking, and with glowing cigarettes. 
 He did not stop to ask himself whether they would 
 be likely to do him any harm, but bolted incontinently 
 along the jetty, saw a lighter lying moored at the end, 
 
THE ISABELS 273 
 
 and threw himself into it. In his desire to find cover 
 he crept right forward under the half-deck, and he had 
 remained there more dead than alive, suffering agonies 
 of hunger and thirst, and almost fainting with terror, 
 when he heard numerous footsteps and the voices of 
 the Europeans who came in a body escorting the wagon- 
 load of treasure, pushed along the rails by a squad of 
 Cargadores. He understood perfectly what was being 
 done from the talk, but did not disclose’ his presence 
 from the fear that he would not be allowed to remain. 
 His only idea at the time, overpowering and masterful, 
 was to get away from this terrible Sulaco. And now 
 he regretted it very much. He had heard Nostromo 
 talk to Decoud, and wished himself back on shore. 
 He did not desire to be involved in any desperate affair 
 —in a situation where one could not run away. ‘The 
 involuntary groans of his anguished spirit had betrayed 
 him to the sharp ears of the Capataz. 
 
 They had propped him up in a sitting posture against 
 the side of the lighter, and he went on with the moaning 
 account of his adventures till his voice broke, his head 
 fell forward. “Water,” he whispered, with difficulty. 
 Decoud held one of the cans to his lips. He revived 
 after an extraordinarily short time, and scrambled up to 
 his feet wildly. Nostromo, in an angry and threatening 
 voice, ordered him forward. Hirsch was one of those 
 men whom fear lashes like a whip, and he must have had 
 an appalling idea of the Capataz’s ferocity. He dis- 
 played an extraordinary agility in disappearing forward 
 into the darkness. They heard him getting over the 
 tarpaulin; then there was the sound of a heavy fall, 
 followed by a weary sigh. Afterwards all was still in 
 the fore-part of the lighter, as though he had killed him- 
 self in his headlong tumble. Nostromo shouted in a 
 menacing voice— 
 
Q74 NOSTROMO 
 
 “Lie still there! Do not move a limb. If I hear 
 as much as a loud breath from you I shall come over 
 there and put a bullet through your head.” 
 
 The mere presence of a coward, however passive, 
 brings an element of treachery into a dangerous situa- 
 tion. Nostromo’s nervous impatience passed into 
 gloomy thoughtfulness. Decoud, in an undertone, as 
 if speaking to himself, remarked that, after all, this 
 bizarre event made no great difference. He could 
 not conceive what harm the man could do. At most 
 he would be in the way, like an inanimate and useless 
 object—like a block of wood, for instance. 
 
 “I would think twice before getting rid of a piece of 
 wood,” said Nostromo, calmly. “Something may 
 happen unexpectedly where you could make use of it. 
 But in an affair like ours a man like this ought to be 
 thrown overboard. Even if he were as brave as a lion 
 we would not want him here. We are not running 
 away for our lives. Sefior, there is no harm in a brave 
 man trying to save himself with ingenuity and courage; 
 Dut you have heard his tale, Don Martin. His being 
 here is a miracle of fear > Nostromo paused. 
 “There is no room for fear in this lighter,” he added 
 through his teeth. 
 
 Decoud had no answer to make. It was not a posi- 
 tion for argument, for a display of scruples or feelings. 
 There were a thousand ways in which a panic-stricken 
 man could make himself dangerous. It was evident 
 that Hirsch could not be spoken to, reasoned with, or 
 persuaded into a rational line of conduct. The story 
 of his own escape demonstrated that clearly enough. 
 Decoud thought that it was a thousand pities the 
 wretch had not died of fright. Nature, who had made 
 him what he was, seemed to have calculated cruelly 
 bow much he could bear in the way of atrocious anguish 
 
THE ISABELS Q75 
 
 without actually expiring. Some compassion was due 
 to so much terror. Decoud, though imaginative enough 
 for sympathy, resolved not to interfere with any action 
 that Nostromo would take. But Nostromo did noth- 
 ing. And the fate of Sefior Hirsch remained sus- 
 pended in the darkness of the gulf at the mercy of 
 events which could not be foreseen. 
 
 The Capataz, extending his hand, put out the candle 
 suddenly. It was to Decoud as if his companion had 
 destroyed, by a single touch, the world of affairs, of 
 loves, of revolution, where his complacent superiority 
 analyzed fearlessly all motives and all passions, in- 
 cluding his own. 
 
 He gasped a little. Decoud was affected by the 
 novelty of his position. Intellectually self-confident, 
 he suffered from being deprived of the only weapon he 
 could use with effect. No intelligence could penetrate 
 the darkness of the Placid Gulf. There remained only 
 one thing he was certain of, and that was the over- 
 weening vanity of his companion. It was direct, un- 
 complicated, naive, and effectual. Decoud, who had 
 been making use of him, had tried to understand his 
 man thoroughly. He had discovered a complete 
 singleness of motive behind the varied manifestations 
 of a consistent character. This was why the man re- 
 mained so astonishingly simple in the jealous greatness 
 of his conceit. And now there was a complication. It 
 was evident that he resented having been given a task 
 in which there were so many chances of failure. “I 
 wonder,” thought Decoud, “‘how he would behave if I 
 were not here.” 
 
 He heard Nostromo mutter again, “No! there is no 
 room for fear on this lighter. Courage itself does not 
 seem good enough. I have a good eye and a steady 
 hand; no man can say he ever saw me tired or uncer: 
 
276 NOSTROMO 
 
 tain what to do; but por Dios, Don Martin, I have been 
 sent out into this black calm on a business where neither 
 a good eye, nor a steady hand, nor judgment are any 
 use. . . . He swore a string of oaths in Spanish 
 and Italian under his breath. “Nothing but sheer 
 desperation will do for this affair.” 
 
 These words were in strange contrast to the pre- 
 vailing peace—to this almost solid stillness of the gulf. 
 A shower fell with an abrupt whispering sound all 
 round the boat, and Decoud took off his hat, and, letting 
 his head get wet, felt greatly refreshed. Presently a 
 steady little draught of air caressed his cheek. The 
 lighter began to move, but the shower distanced it. The 
 drops ceased to fall upon his head and hands, the whis- 
 pering died out in the distance. Nostromo emitted a 
 grunt of satisfaction, and grasping the tiller, chirruped 
 softly, as sailors do, to encourage the wind. Never for 
 the last three days had Decoud felt less the need for 
 what the Capataz would call desperation. 
 
 “I fancy I hear another shower on the water,”’ he ob- 
 served in a tone of quiet content. “I hope it will catch 
 us up.” 
 
 Nostromo ceased chirruping at once. “You hear 
 another shower?”’ he said, doubtfully. <A sort of thin- 
 ning of the darkness seemed to have taken place, and 
 Decoud could see now the outline of his companion’s 
 figure, and even the sail came out of the night like a 
 square block of dense snow. 
 
 The sound which Decoud had detected came along 
 the water harshly. Nostromo recognized that noise 
 partaking of a hiss and a rustle which spreads out on all 
 sides of a steamer making her way through a smooth 
 water on a quiet night. It could be nothing else but 
 the captured transport with troops from Esmeralda. 
 She carried no lights. The noise of her steaming, grow- 
 
THE ISABELS | OT 
 
 ing louder every minute, would stop at times altogether, 
 and then begin again abruptly, and sound startlingly 
 nearer, as if that invisible vessel, whose position could 
 not be precisely guessed, were making straight for the 
 lighter. Meantime, that last kept on sailing slowly and 
 noiselessly before a breeze so faint that it was only by 
 leaning over the side and feeling the water slip through 
 his fingers that Decoud convinced himself they were 
 moving at all. His drowsy feeling had departed. He 
 was glad to know that the lighter was moving. After 
 ‘so much stillness the noise of the steamer seemed up- 
 roarious and distracting. There was a weirdness in not 
 being able to see her. Suddenly all was still. She had 
 stopped, but so close to them that the steam, blowing off, 
 sent its rumbling vibration right over their heads. 
 
 “They are trying to make out where they are,” said 
 Decoud in a whisper. Again he leaned over and put his 
 fingers into the water. “We are moving quite smartly,” 
 he informed Nostromo. 
 
 *“We seem to be crossing her bows,” said the Capataz 
 in a cautious tone. “But this is a blind game with 
 death. Moving on is of no use. We mustn’t be seen 
 or heard.” 
 
 His whisper was hoarse with excitement. Of all his 
 face there was nothing visible but a gleam of white eye- 
 balls. His fingers gripped Decoud’s shoulder. “That 
 is the only way to save this treasure from this steamer 
 full of soldiers. Any other would have carried lights. 
 But you observe there is not a gleam to show us where 
 she is.”’ 
 
 -Decoud stood as if paralyzed; only his thoughts were 
 wildly active. In the space of a second he remembered 
 the desolate glance of Antonia as he left her at the bedside 
 of her father in the gloomy house of Avellanos, with 
 shuttered windows, but all the doors standing open, and 
 
278 NOSTROMO 
 
 deserted by all the servants except an old negro at the 
 gate. Heremembered the Casa Gould on his last visit. 
 the arguments, the tones of his voice, the impenetrable 
 attitude of Charles, Mrs. Gould’s face so blanched with 
 anxiety and fatigue that her eyes seemed to have 
 changed colour, appearing nearly black by contrast. 
 Even whole sentences of the proclamation which he 
 meant to make Barrios issue from his headquarters at 
 Cayta as soon as he got there passed through his mind; 
 the very germ of the new State, the Separationist procla- 
 mation which he had tried before he left to read hur- 
 riedly to Don José, stretched out on his bed under the 
 fixed gaze of his daughter. God knows whether the old 
 statesman had understood it; he was unable to speak, 
 hut he had certainly lifted his arm off the coverlet; his 
 hand had moved as if to make the sign of the cross in the 
 air, a gesture of blessing, of consent. Decoud had that 
 very draft in his pocket, written in pencil on several 
 loose sheets of paper, with the heavily-printed heading, 
 ** Administration of the San Tomé Silver Mine. Sulaco. 
 Republic of Costaguana.”’ He had written it furiously, 
 snatching page after page on Charles Gould’s table. 
 Mrs. Gould had looked several times over his shoulder 
 as he wrote; but the Sefior Administrador, standing 
 straddle-legged, would not even glance at it when it was 
 finished. He had waved it away firmly. It must have 
 been scorn, and not caution, since he never made a 
 remark about the use of the Administration’s paper 
 for such a compromising document. And that showed 
 his disdain, the true English disdain of common pru- 
 dence, as if everything outside the range of their own 
 thoughts and feelings were unworthy of serious recog- 
 nition. Decoud had the time in a second or two to be- 
 come furiously angry with Charles Gould, and even re- 
 sentful against Mrs. Gould, in whose care, tacitly it 
 
THE ISABELS 279 
 
 is true, he had left the safety of Antonia. Better 
 perish a thousand times than owe your preservation to 
 such people, he exclaimed mentally. The grip of 
 Nostromo’s fingers never removed from his shoulder, 
 tightening fiercely, recalled him to himself. 
 
 “The darkness is our friend,’ the Capataz murmured 
 into his ear. “I am going to lower the sail, and trust 
 our escape to this black gulf. No eyes could make us 
 out lying silent with a naked mast. I will do it now, be- 
 fore this steamer closes still more upon us. ‘The faint 
 creak of a block would betray us and the San Tomé 
 treasure into the hands of those thieves.” 
 
 He moved about as warily as a cat. Decoud heard 
 no sound; and it was only by the disappearance of the 
 square blotch of darkness that he knew the yard had 
 come down, lowered as carefully as if it had been made 
 of glass. Next moment he heard Nostromo’s quiet 
 breathing by his side. 
 
 “You had better not move at all from where you are, 
 Don Martin,” advised the Capataz, earnestly. “You 
 might stumble or displace something which would make 
 a noise. ‘The sweeps and the punting poles are lying 
 about. Move not for your life. Por Dios, Don Martin,” 
 he went on in a keen but friendly whisper, “I am so 
 desperate that if I didn’t know your worship to be a 
 man of courage, capable of standing stock still whatever 
 happens, I would drive my knife into your heart.”’ 
 
 A deathlike stillness surrounded the lighter. It was 
 difficult to believe that there was near a steamer full of 
 men with many pairs of eyes peering from her bridge for 
 some hint of land in the night. Her steam had ceased 
 blowing off, and she remained stopped too far off ap- 
 parently for any other sound to reach the lighter. 
 
 “Perhaps you would, Capataz,” Decoud began in a 
 whisper. ‘However, you need not trouble. There 
 
280 NOSTROMO 
 
 are other things than the fear of your knife to keep my 
 heart steady. It shall not betray you. Only, have you 
 forgotten i 
 
 “TI spoke to you openly as to a man as desperate as 
 myself,” explained the Capataz. “The silver must be 
 saved from the Monterists. I told Captain Mitchell 
 three times that I preferred to go alone. I told Don 
 Carlos Gould, too. It was in the Casa Gould. They 
 had sent for me. ‘The ladies were there; and when I 
 tried to explain why I did not wish to have you with me, 
 they promised me, both of them, great rewards for your 
 safety. A strange way to talk to a man you are sending 
 out to an almost certain death. Those gentlefolk do not 
 seem to have sense enough to understand what they 
 are giving one to do. I told them I could do nothing 
 for you. You would have been safer with the bandit 
 Hernandez. It would have been possible to ride out of 
 the town with no greater risk than a chance shot sent 
 after you in the dark. But it was as if they had been 
 deaf. I had to promise I would wait for you under the 
 harbour gate. J did wait. And now because you are a 
 brave man you are as safe as the silver. Neither more 
 nor less.”’ 
 
 At that moment, as if by way of comment upon Nos- 
 tromo’s words, the invisible steamer went ahead at half 
 speed only, as could be judged by the leisurely beat of 
 her propeller. The sound shifted its place markedly, 
 but without coming nearer. It even grew a little more 
 distant right abeam of the lighter, and then ceased 
 again. 
 
 “They are trying for a sight of the Isabels,”’ muttered 
 Nostromo, “in order to make for the harbour in a 
 straight line and seize the Custom House with the 
 treasure in it. Have you ever seen the Commandant of 
 Esmeralda, Sotillo? A handsome fellow, with a soft 
 
THE ISABELS 281 
 
 voice. When I first came here I used to see him in the 
 Calle talking to the sefioritas at the windows of the 
 houses, and showing his white teeth all the time. But 
 one of my Cargadores, who had been a soldier, told me 
 that he had once ordered a man to be flayed alive in the 
 remote Campo, where he was sent recruiting amongst 
 the people of the Estancias. It has never entered his 
 head that the Compania had a man capable of baffling 
 his game.” 
 
 The murmuring loquacity of the Capataz disturbed 
 Decoud like a hint of weakness. And yet, talkative 
 resolution may be as genuine as grim silence. 
 
 *“Sotillo is not baffled so far,’ he said. “‘Have you 
 forgotten that crazy man forward?” 
 
 Nostromo had not forgotten Sefior Hirsch. He re- 
 proached himself bitterly for not having visited the 
 lighter carefully before leaving the wharf. He re- 
 proached himself for not having stabbed and flung 
 Hirsch overboard at the very moment of discovery with- 
 out even looking at his face. That would have been 
 consistent with the desperate character of the affair. 
 Whatever happened, Sotillo was already baffled. Even 
 if that wretch, now as silent as death, did anything to 
 betray the nearness of the lighter, Sotillo—if Sotillo 
 it was in command of the troops on board—would be 
 still baffled of his plunder. 
 
 “I have an axe in my hand,’ Nostromo whispered, 
 wrathfully, “that in three strokes would cut through 
 the side down to the water’s edge. Moreover, each 
 lighter has a plug in the stern, and I know exactly where 
 it is. I feel it under the sole of my foot.” 
 
 Decoud recognized the ring of genuine determination 
 in the nervous murmurs, the vindictive excitement of 
 the famous Capataz. Before the steamer, guided by a 
 shriek or two (for there could be no more than that. 
 
es 
 oy 
 
 282 NOSTROMO 
 
 Nostromo said, gnashing his teeth audibly), could find 
 the lighter there would be plenty of time to sink this 
 treasure tied up round his neck. 
 
 The last words he hissed into Decoud’s ear. Decoud 
 said nothing. He was perfectly convinced. The 
 usual characteristic quietness of the man was gone. 
 It was not equal to the situation as he conceived it. 
 Something deeper, something unsuspected by everyone, 
 had come to the surface. Decoud, with careful move- 
 ments, slipped off his overcoat and divested himself of 
 his boots; he did not consider himself bound in honour 
 to sink with the treasure. His object was to get down 
 to Barrios, in Cayta, as the Capataz knew very well; and 
 he, too, meant, in his own way, to put into that attempt 
 all the desperation of which he was capable. Nostrome 
 muttered, “True, true! You are a politician, sefior. 
 Rejoin the army, and start another revolution.” He 
 pointed out, however, that there was a little boat be- 
 longing to every lighter fit to carry two men, if not more. 
 Theirs was towing behind. 
 
 Of that Decoud had not been aware. Of course, it 
 was too dark to see, and it was only when Nostromo 
 put his hand upon its painter fastened to a cleat in the 
 stern that he experienced a full measure of relief. The 
 prospect of finding himself in the water and swimming, 
 overwhelmed by ignorance and darkness, probably in a 
 circle, till he sank from exhaustion, was revolting. The 
 barren and cruel futility of such an end intimidated his 
 affectation of careless pessimism. In comparison to it, 
 the chance of being left floating in a boat, exposed 
 to thirst, hunger, discovery, imprisonment, execution, 
 presented itself with an aspect of amenity worth secur- 
 ing even at the cost of some self-contempt. He did not 
 accept Nostromo’s proposal that he should get into the 
 
 boat at once. “Something sudden may overwhelm us, 
 
THE ISABELS 283 
 
 sefior,’ the Capataz remarked promising faithfully, at 
 the same time, to let go the painter at the moment 
 when the necessity became manifest. 
 
 But Decoud assured him lightly that he did not mean 
 to take to the boat till the very last moment, and that 
 then he meant the Capataz to come along, too. The 
 darkness of the gulf was no longer for him the end of all 
 things. It was part of a living world since, pervading 
 it, failure and death could be felt at your elbow. And 
 at the same time it was a shelter. He exulted in its 
 impenetrable obscurity. “Like a wall, like a wall,” he 
 muttered to himself. 
 
 The only thing which checked his confidence was the 
 thought of Sefior Hirsch. Not to have bound and 
 gagged him seemed to Decoud now the height of im- 
 provident folly. As long as the miserable creature had 
 the power to raise a yell he was a constant danger. His 
 abject terror was mute now, but there was no saying 
 from what cause it might suddenly find vent in shrieks. 
 
 This very madness of fear which both Decoud and 
 Nostromo had seen in the wild and irrational glances, 
 and in the continuous twitchings of his mouth, protected 
 Sefior Hirsch from the cruel necessities of this desperate 
 affair. The moment of silencing him for ever had 
 passed. As Nostromo remarked, in answer to Decoud’s 
 regrets, it was too late! It could not be done without 
 noise, especially in the ignorance of the man’s exact 
 position. Wherever he had elected to crouch and 
 tremble, it was too hazardous to go near him. He 
 would begin probably to yell for mercy. It was much 
 better to leave him quite alone since he was keeping so 
 still. But to trust to his silence became every moment 
 a greater strain upon Decoud’s composure. 
 
 “T wish, Capataz, you had not let the right moment 
 pass,” he murmured. 
 
284 NOSTROMO 
 
 “What! To silence him for ever? I thought it good. 
 -to hear first how he came to be here. It was too 
 strange. Who could imagine that it was all an accident? 
 Afterwards, sefior, when I saw you giving him water to 
 drink, I could not do it. Not after I had seen you 
 holding up the can to his lips as though he were your 
 brother. Sefior, that sort of necessity must not be 
 thought of too long. And yet it would have been no 
 cruelty to take away from him his wretched life. It is 
 nothing but fear. Your compassion saved him then, 
 Don Martin, and now it is too late. It couldn’t be 
 done without noise.” 
 
 In the steamer they were keeping a perfect silence, 
 and the stillness was so profound that Decoud felt as if 
 the slightest sound conceivable must travel unchecked 
 and audible to the end of the world. What if Hirsch 
 coughed or sneezed? ‘To feel himself at the mercy of 
 such an idiotic contingency was too exasperating to be 
 looked upon with irony. Nostromo, too, seemed to be 
 getting restless. Was it possible, he asked himself, that 
 the steamer, finding the night too dark altogether, m- 
 tended to remain stopped where she was till daylight? 
 He began to think that this, after all, was the real dan- 
 ger. He was afraid that the darkness, which was his. 
 protection, would, in the end, cause his undoing. 
 
 Sotillo, as Nostromo had surmised, was in command 
 on board the transport. The events of the last forty- 
 eight hours in Sulaco were not known to him; neither 
 was he aware that the telegraphist in Esmeralda had 
 managed to warn his colleague in Sulaco. Like a good 
 many officers of the troops garrisoning the province, 
 Sotillo had been influenced in his adoption of the Ri- °* 
 bierist cause by the belief that it had the enormous 
 wealth of the Gould Concession on its side. He had 
 been one of the frequenters of the Casa Gould, where he 
 
THE ISABELS 285 
 
 had aired his Blanco convictions and his ardour for re- 
 form before Don José Avellanos, casting frank, honest 
 glances towards Mrs. Gould and Antonia the while. He 
 was known to belong to a good family persecuted and 
 impoverished during the tyranny of Guzman Bento. 
 The opinions he expressed appeared eminently natural 
 and proper in a man of his parentage and antecedents. 
 And he was not a deceiver; it was perfectly natural for 
 him to express elevated sentiments while his whole 
 faculties were taken up with what seemed then a solid 
 and practical notion—the notion that the husband of 
 Antonia Avellanos would be, naturally, the intimate 
 friend of the Gould Concession. He even pointed this 
 out to Anzani once, when negotiating the sixth or. 
 seventh small loan in the gloomy, damp apartment 
 with enormous iron bars, behind the principal shop in 
 the whole row under the Arcades. He hinted to the 
 universal shopkeeper at the excellent terms he was on 
 with the emancipated sefiorita, who was like a sister 
 to the Englishwoman. He would advance one leg and 
 put his arms akimbo, posing for Anzani’s inspection, and 
 fixing him with a haughty stare. 
 
 “Look, miserable shopkeeper! How can a man like 
 me fail with any woman, let alone an emancipated girl 
 living in scandalous freedom?” he seemed to say. 
 
 His manner in the Casa Gould was, of course, very 
 different—devoid of all truculence, and even slightly 
 mournful. Like most of his countrymen, he was carried 
 away by the sound of fine words, especially if uttered 
 by himself. He had no convictions of any sort upon 
 anything except as to the irresistible power of his 
 personal advantages. But that was so firm that even 
 Decoud’s appearance in Sulaco, and his intimacy with 
 the Goulds and the Avellanos, did not disquiet him. 
 On the contrary, he tried to make friends with that 
 
286 NOSTROMO 
 
 rich Costaguanero from Europe in the hope of borrow- 
 ing a large sum by-and-by. The only guiding motive 
 of his life was to get money for the satisfaction of his 
 expensive tastes, which he indulged recklessly, having 
 no self-control. He imagined himself a master of 
 intrigue, but his corruption was as simple as an animal 
 instinct. At times, in solitude, he had his moments of 
 ferocity, and also on such occasions as, for instance, 
 when alone in a room with Anzani trying to get a loan. 
 He had talked himself into the command of the 
 Esmeralda garrison. ‘That small seaport had its impor- 
 tance as the station of the main submarine cable con- 
 necting the Occidental Provinces with the outer world, 
 and the junction with it of the Sulaco branch. Don 
 José Avellanos proposed him, and Barrios, with a rude 
 and jeering guffaw, had said, “Oh, let Sotillo go. Heis 
 a very good man to keep guard over the cable, and the 
 ladies of Esmeralda ought to have their turn.” Barrios, 
 an indubitably brave man, had no great opinion of So- 
 tillo. 3 
 It was through the Esmeralda cable alone that the 
 San Tomé mine could be kept in constant touch with 
 the great financier, whose tacit approval made the 
 strength of the Ribierist movement. This movement 
 had its adversaries even there. Sotillo governed 
 Esmeralda with repressive severity till the adverse 
 course of events upon the distant theatre of civil war 
 forced upon him the reflection that, after all, the great 
 silver mine was fated to become the spoil of the victors. 
 But caution was necessary. He began by assuming 
 a dark and mysterious attitude towards the faithful 
 Ribierist municipality of Esmeralda. Later on, the 
 information that the commandant was holding as- 
 semblies of officers in the dead of night (which had 
 leaked out somehow) caused those gentlemen to neglect 
 
THE ISABELS 287 
 
 their civil duties altogether, and remain shut up in their 
 houses. Suddenly one day all the letters from Sulaco 
 by the overland courier were carried off by a file of 
 soldiers from the post office to the Commandancia, 
 without disguise, concealment, or apology. Sotillo had 
 heard through Cayta of the final defeat of Ribiera. 
 
 This was the first open sign of the change in his con- 
 victions. Presently notorious democrats, who had been 
 living till then in constant fear of arrest, leg irons, and 
 even floggings, could be observed going in and out at 
 the great door of the Commandancia, where the horses 
 of the orderlies doze under their heavy saddles, while 
 the men, in ragged uniforms and pointed straw hats, 
 lounge on a bench, with their naked feet stuck out 
 beyond the strip of shade; and a sentry, in a red baize 
 coat with holes at the elbows, stands at the top of the 
 steps glaring haughtily at the common people, who un- 
 cover their heads to him as they pass. 
 
 Sotillo’s ideas did not soar above the care for his 
 personal safety and the chance of plundering the town 
 in his charge, but he feared that such a late adhesion 
 would earn but scant gratitude from the victors. He 
 had believed just a little too long in the power of the 
 San Tomé mine. ‘The seized correspondence had con- 
 firmed his previous information of a large amount of 
 silver ingots lying in the Sulaco Custom House. To 
 gain possession of it would be a clear Monterist move; a 
 sort of service that would have to be rewarded. With 
 the silver in his hands he could make terms for himself 
 and his soldiers. He was aware neither of the riots, nor 
 of the President’s escape to Sulaco and the close pursuit 
 led by Montero’s brother, the guerrillero. The game 
 seemed in his own hands. The initial moves were the 
 seizure of the cable telegraph office and the securing 
 of the Government steamer lying in the narrow creek 
 
288 NOSTROMO 
 
 which is the harbour of Esmeralda. The last was ef- 
 fected without difficulty by a company of soldiers 
 swarming with a rush over the gangways as she lay 
 alongside the quay; but the lieutenant charged with the 
 duty of arresting the telegraphist halted on the way be: 
 fore the only café in Esmeralda, where he distributed 
 some brandy to his men, and refreshed himself at the 
 expense of the owner, a known Ribierist. The whole 
 party became intoxicated, and proceeded on their 
 mission up the street yelling and firing random shots at 
 the windows. ‘This little festivity, which might have 
 turned out dangerous to the telegraphist’s life, enabled 
 him in the end to send his warning to Sulaco. The 
 lieutenant, staggering upstairs with a drawn sabre, was 
 before long kissing him on both cheeks in one of those 
 swift changes of mood peculiar to a state of drunken- 
 ness. He clasped the telegraphist close round the neck, 
 assuring him that all the officers of the Esmeralda 
 garrison were going to be made colonels, while tears of 
 happiness streamed down his sodden face. ‘Thus it 
 came about that the town major, coming along later, 
 found the whole party sleeping on the stairs and in 
 passages, and the telegraphist (who scorned this chance 
 of escape) very busy clicking the key of the transmitter. 
 The major led him away bareheaded, with his hands tied 
 behind his back, but concealed the truth from Sotillo, 
 who remained in ignorance of the warning despatched 
 to Sulaco. 
 
 The colonel was not the man to let any sort of dark- 
 ness stand in the way of the planned surprise. It ap- 
 peared to hima dead certainty; his heart was set upon 
 his object with an ungovernable, childlike impatience. 
 Ever since the steamer had rounded Punta Mala, te 
 enter the deeper shadow of the gulf, he had remained on 
 the bridge in a group of officers as excited as himself. 
 
THE ISABELS 289 
 
 Distracted between the coaxings and menaces of Sotillo 
 and his Staff, the miserable commander of the steamer 
 kept her moving with as much prudence as they would 
 let him exercise. Some of them had been drinking 
 heavily, no doubt; but the prospect of laying hands 
 on so much wealth made them absurdly foolhardy, and, 
 at the same time, extremely anxious. The old major 
 of the battalion, a stupid, suspicious man, who had 
 never been afloat in his life, distinguished himself by 
 putting out suddenly the binnacle light, the only one 
 allowed on board for the necessities of navigation. He 
 could not understand of what use it could be for finding 
 the way. ‘lo the vehement protestations of the ship’s 
 captain, he stamped his foot and tapped the handle of 
 his sword. “Aha! I have unmasked you,” he cried, 
 triumphantly. “You are tearing your hair from 
 despair at my acuteness. Am [I a child to believe that 
 a light in that brass box can show you where the har- 
 bour is? I am an old soldier, I am. I can smell a 
 traitor a league off. You wanted that gleam to betray 
 our approach to your friend the Englishman. A thing 
 like.that show you the way! What a miserable lie! 
 Que picardia! You Sulaco people are all in the pay of 
 those foreigners. You deserve to be run through the 
 body with my sword.’ Other officers, crowding round, 
 tried to calm his indignation, repeating persuasively, 
 “No, no! This is an appliance of the mariners, major. 
 This is no treachery.” The captain of the transport 
 flung himself face downwards on the bridge, and re- 
 fused to rise. “Put an end to me at once,” he repeated 
 in a stifled voice. Sotillo had to interfere. 
 
 The uproar and confusion on the bridge became so 
 great that the helmsman fled from the wheel. He took 
 refuge in the engine-room, and alarmed the engineers, 
 who, disregarding the threats of the soldiers set on 
 
290 NOSTROMO 
 
 guard over them, stopped the engines, protesting that 
 they would rather be shot than run the risk of being 
 drowned down below. 
 
 This was the first time Nostromo and Decoud heard 
 the steamer stop. After order had been restored, and 
 the binnacle lamp relighted, she went ahead again, pass- 
 ing wide of the lighter in her search for the Isabels. The 
 group could not be made out, and, at the pitiful en- 
 treaties of the captain, Sotillo allowed the engines to 
 be stopped again to wait for one of those periodical 
 -lightenings of darkness caused by the shifting of the 
 cloud canopy spread above the waters of the gulf. 
 
 Sotillo, on the bridge, muttered from time to time 
 angrily to the captain. The other, in an apologetic 
 and cringing tone, begged su merced the colonel to take 
 into consideration the limitations put upon human 
 ' faculties by the darkness of the night. Sotillo swelled 
 with rage and impatience. It was the chance of a 
 lifetime. 
 
 “lf your eyes are of no more use to you than this, I 
 shall have them put out,”’ he yelled. 
 
 The captain of the steamer made no answer, for just 
 then the mass of the Great Isabel loomed up darkly 
 after a passing shower, then vanished, as if swept away 
 by a wave of greater obscurity preceding another down- 
 pour. This was enough for him. In the voice of a man 
 come back to hfe again, he informed Sotillo that in an 
 hour he would be alongside the Sulaco wharf. The 
 ship was put then full speed on the course, and a great: 
 bustle of preparation for landing arose among the 
 soldiers on her deck. 
 
 It was heard distinctly by Decoud and Nostromo. 
 The Capataz understood its meaning. They had made 
 out the Isabels, and were going on now in a straight line 
 for Sulaco. He judged that they would pass close; but 
 
THE ISABELS 291 
 
 believed that lying still like this, with the sail lowered, 
 the lighter could not be seen. ‘No, not even if they 
 rubbed sides with us,’ he muttered. 
 
 The rain began to fall again; first like a wet mist, then 
 with a heavier touch, thickening into a smart, perpen- 
 dicular downpour; and the hiss and thump of the 
 approaching steamer was coming extremely near. De- 
 coud, with his eyes full of water, and lowered head, 
 asked himself how long it would be before she drew 
 past, when unexpectedly he felt a lurch. An inrush of 
 foam broke swishing over the stern, simultaneously with 
 a crack of timbers and a staggering shock. He had the 
 impression of an angry hand laying hold of the lighter 
 and dragging it along to destruction. The shock, of 
 course, had knocked him down, and he found himself 
 rolling in a lot of water at the bottom of the lighter. A 
 violent churning went on alongside; a strange and 
 amazed voice cried out something above him in the 
 night. He heard a piercing shriek for help from Sefior 
 Hirsch. He kept his teeth hard set all the time. It 
 was a collision! 
 
 The steamer had struck the lighter obliquely, heeling 
 her over till she was half swamped, starting some of her 
 timbers, and swinging her head parallel to her own 
 course with the force of the blow. The shock of it on 
 board of her was hardly perceptible. All the violence 
 of that collision was, as usual, felt only on board the 
 smaller craft. Even Nostromo himself thought that 
 this was perhaps the end of his desperate adventure. 
 He, too, had been flung away from the long tiller, which 
 took charge in the lurch. Next moment the steamer 
 would have passed on, leaving the lighter to sink or 
 swim after having shouldered her thus out of her way, 
 and without even getting a glimpse of her form, had it 
 not been that, being deeply laden with stores and the 
 
992 NOSTROMO 
 
 great number of people on board, her anchor was low 
 enough to hook itself into one of the wire shrouds of the 
 lighter’s mast. For the space of two or three gasping 
 breaths that new rope held against the sudden strain. 
 It was this that gave Decoud the sensation of the 
 snatching pull, dragging the lighter away to destruction. 
 The cause of it, of course, was inexplicable to him. ‘The 
 whole thing was so sudden that he had no time to think. 
 But all his sensations were perfectly clear; he had kept 
 complete possession of himself; in fact, he was even 
 pleasantly aware of that calmness at the very moment 
 of being pitched head first over the transom, to struggle 
 on his back in a lot of water. Sefior Hirsch’s shriek he 
 had heard and recognized while he was regaining his feet, 
 always with that mysterious sensation of being dragged 
 headlong through the darkness. Not a word, not a 
 cry escaped him; he had no time to see anything; and 
 following upon the despairing screams for help, the 
 dragging motion ceased so suddenly that he staggered 
 forward with open arms and fell against the pile of the 
 treasure boxes. He clung to them instinctively, in the 
 vague apprehension of being flung about.again; and 
 immediately he heard another lot of shrieks for help, 
 prolonged and despairing, not near him at all, but 
 unaccountably in the distance, away from the lighter 
 altogether, as if some spirit in the night were mocking at 
 Sefior Hirsch’s terror and despair. 
 
 Then all was still—as still as when you wake up in 
 your bed in a dark room from a bizarre and agitated 
 dream. The lighter rocked slightly; the rain was still 
 fallng. Two groping hands took hold of his bruised 
 sides from behind, and the Capataz’s voice whispered, 
 in his ear, “Silence, for your life! Silence! The 
 steamer has stopped.” 
 
 Decoud listened. The gulf was dumb. He felt the 
 
THE ISABELS 293 
 
 water nearly up to his knees. “Are we sinking?’’ he 
 asked in a faint breath. 
 
 “1 don’t know,’’ Nostromo breathed back to him. 
 ‘*Sefior, make not the slightest sound.” 
 
 Hirsch, when ordered forward by Nostromo, had not. 
 returned into his first hiding-place. He had fallen near 
 the mast, and had no strength to rise; moreover, he 
 feared to move. He had given himself up for dead, but. 
 not on any rational grounds. It was simply a cruel and 
 terrifying feeling. Whenever he tried to think what 
 would become of him his teeth would start chattering 
 violently. He was too absorbed in the utter misery 
 of his fear to take notice of anything. 
 
 Though he was stifling under the-lighter’s sail which 
 Nostromo had unwittingly lowered on top of him, he 
 did not even dare to put out his head till the very 
 moment of the steamer striking. ‘Then, indeed, he 
 leaped right out, spurred on to new miracles of bodily 
 vigour by this new shape of danger. The inrush of 
 water when the lighter heeled over unsealed his lips. 
 His shriek, “Save me!” was the first distinct warning of 
 the collision for the people on board the steamer. Next 
 moment the wire shroud parted, and the released anchor 
 swept over the lighter’s forecastle. It came against the 
 breast of Sefior Hirsch, who simply seized hold of it, 
 without in the least knowing what it was, but curling 
 his arms and legs upon the part above the fluke with an 
 invincible, unreasonable tenacity. The lighter yawed 
 off wide, and the steamer, moving on, carried him away, 
 clinging hard, and shouting for help. It was some 
 time, however, after the steamer had stopped that his 
 position was discovered. His sustained yelping for 
 help seemed to come from somebody swimming in the 
 water. At last a couple of men went over the bows and 
 hauled him on board. He was carried straight off to 
 
294 NOSTROMO 
 
 Sotillo on the bridge. His examination confirmed the 
 impression that some craft had been run over and sunk, 
 but it was impracticable on such a dark night to look for 
 the positive proof of floating wreckage. Sotillo was 
 more anxious than ever now to enter the harbour with- 
 out loss of time; the idea that he had destroyed the 
 principal object of his expedition was too intolerable to 
 be accepted. This feeling made the story he had heard 
 appear the more incredible. Sefior Hirsch, after being 
 beaten a little for telling lies, was thrust into the chart- 
 room. But he was beaten only a little. His tale had 
 taken the heart out of Sotillo’s Staff, though they all 
 repeated round their chief, “Impossible! impossible!” 
 with the exception of the old major, who triumphed 
 gloomily. 
 
 “TI told you; I told you,’ he mumbled. “I could 
 smell some treachery, some diableria a league off.” 
 
 Meantime, the steamer had kept on her way towards 
 Sulaco, where only the truth of that matter could be 
 ascertained. Decoud and Nostromo heard the loud 
 churning of her propeller diminish and die out; and 
 then, with no useless words, busied themselves in mak- 
 ing for the Isabels. The last shower had brought with 
 it a gentle but steady breeze. The danger was not 
 over yet, and there was no time for talk. The lighter 
 was leaking like a sieve. They splashed in the water 
 at every step. The Capataz put into Decoud’s hands 
 the handle of the pump which was fitted at the side 
 ait, and at ence, without question or remark, De- 
 coud began to pump in utter forgetfulness of every 
 desire but that of keeping the treasure afloat. Nos- 
 tromo hoisted the sail, flew back to the tiller, pulled 
 at the sheet like mad. The short flare of a match 
 (they had been kept dry in a tight tin box, though 
 the man himself was completely wet), disclosed to 
 
THE ISABELS 295 
 
 the toiling Decoud the eagerness of his face, bent low 
 over the box of the compass, and the attentive stare 
 of his eyes. He knew now where he was, and he hoped 
 to run the sinking lighter ashore in the shallow cove 
 where the high, cliff-like end of the Great Isabel is 
 divided in two equal parts by a deep and overgrown 
 ravine. 
 
 Decoud pumped without intermission. Nostromo 
 steered without relaxing for a second the intense, peer- 
 ing effort of his stare. Each of them was as if utterly 
 alone with his task. It did not occur to them to speak. 
 There was nothing in common between them but the 
 knowledge that the damaged lighter must be slowly 
 but surely sinking. In that knowledge, which was like 
 the crucial test of their desires, they seemed to have 
 become completely estranged, as if they had discovered 
 ix: the very shock of the collision that the loss of the 
 lighter would not mean the same thing to them both. 
 This common danger brought their differences in aim, in 
 view, in character, and in position, into absolute promi- 
 nence in the private vision of each. There was no bond 
 of conviction, of common idea; they were merely two 
 adventurers pursuing each his own adventure, involved 
 in the same imminence of deadly peril. Therefore they 
 had nothing to say to each other. But this peril, this 
 only incontrovertible truth in which they shared, 
 seemed to act as an inspiration to their mental and 
 bodily powers. 
 
 There was certainly something almost miraculous in 
 the way the Capataz made the cove with nothing but 
 the shadowy hint of the island’s shape and the vague 
 gleam of a small sandy strip for a guide. Where the 
 ravine opens between the cliffs, and a slender, shallow 
 rivulet meanders out of the bushes to lose itself in the 
 sea, the lighter was run ashore; and the two men, with 
 
296 NOSTROMO 
 
 a taciturn, undaunted energy, began to discharge her 
 precious freight, carrying each ox-hide box up the bed 
 of the rivulet beyond the bushes to a hollow place which 
 the caving in of the soil had made below the roots of a 
 large tree. Its big smooth trunk leaned lke a falling 
 column far over the trickle of water running amongst 
 the loose stones. 
 
 A couple of years before Nostromo had spent a whole 
 Sunday, all alone, exploring the island. He explained 
 this to Decoud after their task was done, and they sat, 
 weary in every limb, with their legs hanging down the 
 low bank, and their backs against the tree, like a pair 
 of blind men aware of each other and their surroundings 
 by some indefinable sixth sense. 
 
 “Yes, Nostromo repeated, “I never forget a place 
 I have carefully looked at once.’ He spoke slowly, al- 
 most lazily, as if there had been a whole leisurely life 
 before him, instead of the scanty two hours before day- 
 light. The existence of the treasure, barely concealed. 
 in this improbable spot, laid a burden of secrecy upor 
 every contemplated step, upon every intention and plan 
 of future conduct. He felt the partial failure of this 
 desperate affair entrusted to the great reputation he had 
 known how to make for himself. However, it was also 
 a partial success. His vanity was half appeased. His 
 nervous irritation had subsided. 
 
 “You never know what may be of use,” he pursued 
 with his usual quietness of tone and manner. “I spent 
 a whole miserable Sunday in exploring this crumb of 
 land.”’ 
 
 ‘“*A misanthropic sort of occupation,’ muttered De- 
 coud, viciously. “You had no money, I suppose, to 
 gamble with, and to fling about amongst the girls in 
 your usual haunts, Capataz.”’ 
 
 “FE vero!’ exclaimed the Capataz, surprised into the 
 
THE ISABELS 297 
 
 use of his native tongue by so much perspicacity. “I 
 had not! Therefore I did not want to go amongst those 
 beggarly people accustomed to my generosity. It is 
 looked for from the Capataz of the Cargadores, who 
 are the rich men, and, as it were, the Caballeros amongst 
 the common people. I don’t care for cards but as a 
 pastime; and as to those girls that boast of having 
 opened their doors to my knock, you know I wouldn’t 
 look at any one of them twice except for what the 
 people would say. They are queer, the good people of 
 Sulaco, and I have got much useful information simply 
 by listening patiently to the talk of the women that 
 everybody believed I was in love with. Poor Teresa 
 could never understand that. On that particular Sun- 
 day, sefior, she scolded so that I went out of the house 
 swearing that I would never darken their door again un- 
 less to fetch away my hammock and my chest of clothes. 
 Sefior, there is nothing more exasperating than to hear 
 a woman you respect rail against your good reputation 
 when you have not a single brass coin in your pocket. 
 I untied one of the small boats and pulled myself out 
 of the harbour with nothing but three cigars in my 
 pocket to help me spend the day on this island. But 
 the water of this rivulet you hear under your feet is cool 
 and sweet and good, sefior, both before and after a 
 smoke.” He was silent for a while, then added re- 
 flectively, “That was the first Sunday after I brought 
 down the white-whiskered English rico all the way 
 down the mountains from the Paramo on the top of the 
 Entrada Pass—and in the coach, too! No coach had 
 gone up or down that mountain road within the memory 
 of man, sefior, till I brought this one down in charge of 
 fifty peons working like one man with ropes, pickaxes, 
 and poles under my direction. That was the rich 
 Englishman who, as people say, pays for the making of 
 
298 NOSTROMO 
 
 this railway. He was very pleased with me. But my 
 wages were not due till the end of the month.” 
 
 He slid down the bank suddenly. Decoud heard the 
 splash of his feet in the brook and followed his footsteps 
 down the ravine. His form was lost among the bushes 
 till he had reached the strip of sand under the cliff. 
 As often happens in the gulf when the showers 
 during the first part of the night had been frequent and 
 heavy, the darkness had thinned considerably towards 
 the morning though there were no signs of daylight 
 as yet. 
 
 The cargo-lighter, relieved of its precious burden, 
 rocked feebly, half-afloat, with her fore-foot on the sand. 
 A long rope stretched away like a black cotton thread 
 across the strip of white beach to the grapnel Nostromo 
 had carried ashore and hooked to the stem of a tree-like 
 shrub in the very opening of the ravine. 
 
 There was nothing for Decoud but to remain on ile 
 island. He received from Nostromo’s hands whatever — 
 food the foresight of Captain Mitchell had put on 
 board the lighter and deposited it temporarily in the 
 little dinghy which on their arrival they had hauled up 
 out of sight amongst the bushes. It was to be left with 
 him. The island was to be a hiding-place, not a prison; 
 he could pull out to a passing ship. The O.S.N.Com- 
 pany’s mail boats passed close to the islands when going 
 into Sulaco from the north. But the Minerva, carrying 
 off the ex-president, had taken the news up north of the 
 disturbances in Sulaco. It was possible that the next 
 steamer down would get instructions to miss the port 
 altogether since the town, as far as the Muinerva’s 
 officers knew, was for the time being in the hands of the 
 rabble. This would mean that there would he no 
 steamer for a month, as far as the mail service went; but 
 Decoud had to take his chance of that. The island was 
 
THE ISABELS 299 
 
 his only shelter from the proscription hanging over his 
 head. The Capataz was, of course, going back. The 
 unloaded lighter leaked much less, and he thought that 
 she would keep afloat as far as the harbour. 
 
 He passed to Decoud, standing knee-deep alongside, 
 one of the two spades which belonged to the equipment 
 of each lighter for use when ballasting ships. By work- 
 ing with it carefully as soon as there was daylight 
 enough to see, Decoud could loosen a mass of earth and 
 stones overhanging the cavity in which they had 
 deposited the treasure, so that it would look as if it had 
 fallen naturally. It would cover up not only the cavity, 
 but even all traces of their work, the footsteps, the dis- 
 placed stones, and even the broken bushes. 
 
 “Besides, who would think of looking either for you 
 or the treasure here?’’ Nostromo continued, as if he 
 could not tear himself away from the spot. ‘“‘ Nobody 
 is ever likely to come here. What could any man want 
 with this piece of earth as long as there is room for his 
 feet on the mainland! The people in this country are 
 not curious. ‘There are even no fishermen here to in- 
 trude upon your worship. All the fishing that is done 
 in the gulf goes on near Zapiga, over there. Sefior, if 
 you are forced to leave this island before anything can 
 be arranged for you, do not try to make for Zapiga. It 
 is a settlement of thieves and matreros, where they 
 would cut your throat promptly for the sake of your 
 gold watch and chain. And, sefior, think twice before 
 confiding in any one whatever; even in the officers of 
 the Company’s steamers, if you ever get on board one. 
 Honesty alone is not enough for security. You must 
 Jook to discretion and prudence in a man. And always 
 remember, sefior, before you open your lips for a con- 
 fidence, that this treasure may be left safely here for 
 hundreds of years. Time is on its side, sefior. And 
 
300 - NOSTROMO 
 
 silver is an incorruptible metal that can be trusted to 
 keep its value for ever. . . . An incorruptible 
 metal,” he repeated, as if the idea had given him a pro- 
 found pleasure. 
 
 *“As some men are said to be,’? Decoud pronounced, 
 inscrutably, while the Capataz, who busied himself in 
 baling out the lighter with a wooden bucket, went on 
 throwing the water over the side with a regular splash. 
 Decoud, incorrigible in his scepticism, reflected, not 
 cynically, but with general satisfaction, that this man 
 was made incorruptible by his enormous vanity, that 
 finest form of egoism which can take on the aspect of 
 every virtue. 3 
 
 Nostromo ceased baling, and, as if struck with a 
 sudden thought, dropped the bucket with a clatter into 
 the lighter. 
 
 ““Have you any message?”’ he asked in a lowered 
 voice. ‘‘Remember, I shall be asked questions.”’ 
 
 “You must find the hopeful words that ought to be 
 spoken to the people in town. I trust for that your 
 intelligence and your experience, Capataz. You under- 
 stand?” . 
 
 “Si, sefiors/o/.) t/a For. the ladies.’ 
 
 “Yes, yes,” said Decoud, hastily. ‘‘ Your wonderful 
 reputation will make them attach great value to your 
 words; therefore be careful what you say. I am look- 
 ing forward,” he continued, feeling the fatal touch of 
 contempt for himself to which his complex nature was 
 subject, “I am looking forward to a glorious and suc- 
 cessful ending to my mission. Do you hear, Capataz? 
 Use the words glorious and successful when you speak 
 to the sefierita. Your own mission is accomplished 
 gloriously and successfully. You have indubitably 
 saved the silver of the mine. Not only this silver, but 
 probably all the silver that shall ever come out of it.” 
 
THE ISABELS 301 
 
 Nostromo detected the ironic tone. “I dare say, 
 Sefior Don Martin,” he said, moodily. “There are very 
 few things that I am not equal to. Ask the foreign 
 signori. I, a man of the people, who cannot always 
 understand what you mean. But as to this lot 
 which I must leave here, let me tell you that I would 
 believe it in greater safety if you had not been with 
 me at all.” 
 
 An exclamation escaped Decoud, and a short pause 
 followed. “Shall I go back with you to Sulaco?’’ he 
 asked in an angry tone. 
 
 “Shall I strike you dead with my knife where you 
 stand?” retorted Nostromo, contemptuously. “It 
 would be the same thing as taking you to Sulaco. 
 Come, sefior. Your reputation is in your politics, and 
 mine is bound up with the fate of this silver. Do you 
 wonder I wish there had been no other man to share my 
 knowledge? I wanted no one with me, sefior.”’ 
 
 “You could not have kept the lighter afloat without 
 me,” Decoud almost shouted. “You would have gone 
 to the bottom with her.” 
 
 “Yes,” uttered Nostromo, slowly; “alone.” 
 
 Here was a man, Decoud reflected, that seemed as 
 though he would have preferred to die rather than de- 
 face the perfect form of his egoism. Such a man was 
 safe. In silence he helped the Capataz to get the grap- 
 nel on board. Nostromo cleared the shelving shore 
 with one push of the heavy oar, and Decoud found him- 
 self solitary on the beach like a man in a dream. A 
 sudden desire to hear a human voice once more seized 
 upon his heart. The lighter was hardly distinguishable 
 from the black water upon which she floated. | 
 
 “What do you think has become of Hirsch?” he 
 shouted. 
 
 “Knocked overboard and drowned,” cried Nos- 
 
302 NOSTROMO 
 
 tromo’s voice confidently out of the black wastes of sky 
 and sea around the islet. “Keep close in the ravine, 
 sefior. I shall try to come out to you in a night or 
 two.” 
 
 A slight swishing rustle showed that Nostromo was 
 setting the sail. It filled all at once with a sound as of 
 a single loud drum-tap. Decoud went back to the 
 ravine. Nostromo, at the tiller, looked back from 
 time to time at the vanishing mass of the Great Isabel, 
 which, little by little, merged into the uniform texture 
 of the night. At last, when he turned his head 
 again, he saw nothing but a smooth darkness, like a 
 solid wall. 
 
 Then he, too, experienced that feeling of solitude 
 which had weighed heavily on Decoud after the lighter 
 had slipped off the shore. But while the man on the 
 island was oppressed by a bizarre sense of unreality 
 affecting the very ground upon which he walked, the 
 mind of the Capataz of the Cargadores turned alertly 
 to the problem of future conduct. Nostromo’s faculties, 
 working on parallel lines, enabled him to steer straight, 
 to keep a look-out for Hermosa, near which he had to 
 pass, and to try to imagine what would happen to- 
 morrow in Sulaco. To-morrow, or, as a matter of fact, 
 to-day, since the dawn was not very far, Sotillo would 
 find out in what way the treasure had gone. A gang of 
 Cargadores had been employed in loading it into a rail- 
 way truck from the Custom House store-rooms, and 
 running the truck on to the wharf. There would be 
 arrests made, and certainly before noon Sotillo would 
 know in what manner the silver had left Sulaco, and 
 who it was that took it out. 
 
 Nostromo’s intention had been to sail right into the 
 harbour; but at this thought by a sudden touch of the 
 tiller he threw the lighter into the wind and checked 
 
THE ISABELS 303 
 
 her rapid way. His re-appearance with the very boat 
 would raise suspicions, would cause surmises, would 
 absolutely put Sotillo on the track. He himself would 
 be arrested; and once in the Calabozo there was no 
 saying what they would do to him to make him speak. 
 He trusted himself, but he stood up to look round. 
 Near by, Hermosa showed low its white surface as flat 
 as a table, with the slight run of the sea raised by the 
 breeze washing over its edges noisily. The lighter 
 must be sunk at once. 
 
 He allowed her to drift with her sail aback. There 
 was already a good deal of water in her. He allowed 
 her to drift towards the harbour entrance, and, letting 
 the tiller swing about, squatted down and busied himself 
 in loosening the plug. With that out she would fill 
 very quickly, and every lighter carried a little iron 
 ballast—enough to make her go down when full of 
 water. When he stood up again the noisy wash about 
 the Hermosa sounded far away, almost inaudible; and 
 already he could make out the shape of land about. the 
 harbour entrance. ‘This was a desperate affair, and he 
 was a good swimmer. A mile was nothing to him, and 
 he knew of an easy place for landing just below the 
 earthworks of the old abandoned fort. It occurred to 
 him with a peculiar fascination that this fort was a good 
 place in which to sleep the day through after so many 
 sleepless nights. 
 
 With one blow of the tiller he unshipped for the pur- 
 pose, he knocked the plug out, but did not take the 
 trouble to lower the sail. He felt the water welling up 
 heavily about his legs before he leaped on to the taffrail. 
 There, upright and motionless, in his shirt and trousers 
 only, he stood waiting. When he had felt her settle he 
 sprang far away with a mighty splash. 
 
 _ At once he turned his head. The gloomy, clouded 
 
304: NOSTROMO 
 
 dawn from behind the mountains showed him on the 
 smooth waters the upper corner of the sail, a dark wet 
 triangle of canvas waving slightly to and fro. He saw 
 it vanish, as if jerked under, and then struck out for the 
 shore. 
 
PART THIRD 
 
 THE LIGHTHOUSE 
 
CHAPTER ONE 
 
 Direct ty the cargo boat had slipped away from the 
 wharf and got lost in the darkness of the harbour the 
 Europeans of Sulaco separated, to prepare for the com- 
 ing of the Monterist régime, which was approaching 
 Sulaco from the mountains, as well as from the sea. | 
 
 This bit of manual work in loading the silver was 
 their last concerted action. It ended the three days of 
 danger, during which, according to the newspaper press 
 of Europe, their energy had preserved the town from the 
 calamities of popular disorder. At the shore end of the, 
 jetty, Captain Mitchell said good-night and turned 
 back. His intention was to walk the planks of the 
 wharf till the steamer from Esmeralda turned up. The 
 engineers of the railway staff, collecting their Basque 
 and Italian workmen, marched them away to the rail- 
 way yards, leaving the Custom House, so well defended 
 on the first day of the riot, standing open to the four 
 winds of heaven. Their men had conducted themselves 
 bravely and faithfully during the famous “three days” 
 of Sulaco. In a great part this faithfulness and that 
 courage had been exercised in self-defence rather than 
 in the cause of those material interests to which Charles 
 Gould had pinned his faith. Amongst the cries of the 
 mob not the least loud had been the cry of death to 
 foreigners. It was, indeed, a lucky circumstance for 
 Sulaco that the relations of those imported workmen 
 with the people of the country had been uniformly bad 
 from the first. 
 
 Doctor Monygham, going to the door of Viola’s 
 
 307 
 
308 NOSTROMO 
 
 kitchen, observed this retreat marking the end of the 
 foreign interference, this withdrawal of the army of 
 material. progress from the field of Costaguana revolu- 
 tions. 
 
 Algarrobe torches carried on the outskirts of the 
 moving body sent their penetrating aroma into his 
 nostrils. Their light, sweeping along the front of the 
 house, made the letters of the inscription, “Albergo 
 d’Italia Una,”’ leap out black from end to end of the 
 long wall. “His eyes blinked in the clear blaze. Several 
 young men, mostly fair and tall, shepherding this mob 
 of dark bronzed heads, surmounted by the glint of 
 slanting rifle barrels, nodded to him familiarly as they 
 went by. The doctor was a well-known character. 
 Some of them wondered what he was doing there. 
 Then, on the flank of their workmen they tramped on, 
 following the line of rails. 
 
 “Withdrawing your people from the harbour?” 
 said the doctor, addressing himself to the chief engineer 
 of the railway, who had accompanied Charles Gould so 
 far on his way to the town, walking by the side of the 
 horse, with his hand on the saddle-bow. They had 
 stopped just outside the open door to let the workmen 
 cross the road. 
 
 “As quick as I can. We are not a political faction,” 
 answered the engineer, meaningly. ‘And we are not 
 going to give our new rulers a handle against the rail- 
 way. You approve me, Gould?” 
 
 ** Absolutely,” said Charles Gould’s impassive voice, 
 high up and outside the dim parallelogram of light fall- 
 ing on the road through the open door. 
 
 With Sotillo expected from one side, and Pedro 
 Montero from the other, the engineer-in-chief’s only 
 anxiety now was to avoid a collision with either. Sulaco, 
 for him, was a railway station, a terminus, workshops, 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 309 
 
 a great accumulation of stores. As against the mob 
 the railway defended its property, but politically the 
 railway was neutral. He was a brave man; and in that 
 spirit of neutrality he had carried proposals of truce to 
 the self-appointed chiefs of the popular party, the 
 deputies Fuentes and Gamacho. Bullets were still 
 flying about when he had crossed the Plaza on that 
 mission, waving above his head a white napkin belong- 
 ing to the table linen of the Amarilla Club. 
 
 He was rather proud of this exploit; and reflecting 
 that the doctor, busy all day with the wounded in the 
 patio of the Casa Gould, had not had time to hear the 
 news, he began a succinct narrative. He had communi- 
 cated to them the intelligence from the Construction 
 Camp as to Pedro Montero. The brother of the vic- 
 torious general, he had assured them, could be expected 
 at Sulaco at any time now. ‘This news (as he antici- 
 pated), when shouted out of the window by Sefior 
 Gamacho, induced a rush of the mob along the Campo 
 Road towards Rincon. The two deputies also, after 
 shaking hands with him effusively, mounted and 
 galloped off to meet the great man. “I have misled 
 them a little as to the time,” the chief engineer con- 
 fessed. ““However hard he rides, he can scarcely get 
 here before the morning. But my object is attained. 
 I’ve secured several hours’ peace for the losing party. 
 But I did not tell them anything about Sotillo, for fear 
 they would take it into their heads to try to get hold 
 of the harbour again, either to oppose him or welcome 
 him—there’s no saying which. There was Gould’s 
 silver, on which rests the remnant of our hopes. De- 
 coud’s retreat had to be thought of, too. I think the 
 railway has done pretty well by its friends without com- 
 promising itself hopelessly. Now the parties must be 
 left to themselves.” 
 
ae 
 
 310 | NOSTROMO 
 
 ““Costaguana for the Costaguaneros,”’ interjected the 
 doctor, sardonically. “It is a fine country, and they 
 have raised a fine ¢rop of hates, vengeance, murder, 
 and rapine—those sons of the country.” 
 
 “Well, I am one of them,’’ Charles Gould’s voice 
 sounded, calmly, “and I must be going on to see to my 
 own crop of trouble. My wife has driven straight on, 
 doctor?”’ | 
 
 “Yes. All was quiet on this side. Mrs. Gould has 
 taken the two girls with her.” 
 
 Charles Gould rode on, and the engineer-in-chief 
 followed the doctor indoors. 
 
 “That man is calmness personified,”’ he said, appre- 
 ciatively, dropping on a bench, and stretching his well- 
 shaped legs in cycling stockings nearly across the door- 
 way. “He must be extremely sure of himself.”’ 
 
 “Tf that’s all he is sure of, then he is sure of nothing,” 
 said the doctor. He had perched himself again on the 
 end of the table. He nursed his cheek in the palm of 
 one hand, while the other sustained the elbow. ‘“‘It is 
 the last thing a man ought to be sure of.” The candle, 
 half-consumed and burning dimly with a long wick, 
 lighted up from below his inclined face, whose expression 
 affected by the drawn-in cicatrices in the cheeks, had 
 something vaguely unnatural, an exaggerated remorse- 
 ful bitterness. As he sat there he had the air of medi- 
 tating upon sinister things. The engineer-in-chief 
 gazed at him for a time before he protested. 
 ~“T really don’t see that. For me there seems to be 
 nothing else. However he 
 
 He was a wise man, but he could not Gute conceal 
 his contempt for that sort of paradox; in fact, Dr. 
 Monygham was not liked by the Europeans of Sulaco. 
 His outward aspect of an outcast, which he preserved 
 even in Mrs. Gould’s drawing-room, provoked un: 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 311 
 
 favourable criticism. ‘There could be no doubt of his 
 intelligence; and as he had lived for over twenty years 
 in the country, the pessimism of his outlook could not be 
 altogether ignored. But instinctively, in self-defence 
 of their activities and hopes, his hearers put it to the 
 account of some hidden imperfection in the man’s 
 character. It was known that many years before, 
 when quite young, he had been made by Guzman Bento 
 chief medical officer of the -army. Not one of the 
 Europeans then in the service of Costaguana had been 
 so much liked and trusted by the fierce old Dictator. 
 Afterwards his story was not so clear. It lost itself 
 amongst the innumerable tales of conspiracies and 
 plots against the tyrant as a stream is lost in an arid 
 belt of sandy country before it emerges, diminished and 
 troubled, perhaps, on the other side. The doctor made 
 no secret of it that he had lived for years in the wildest 
 parts of the Republic, wandering with almost unknown 
 Indian tribes in the great forests of the far interior where 
 the great rivers have their sources. But it was mere 
 aimless wandering; he had written nothing, collected 
 nothing, brought nothing for science out of the twilight 
 of the forests, which seemed to cling to his battered 
 personality limping about Sulaco, where it had drifted in 
 casually, only to get stranded on the shores of the sea. 
 It was also known that he had lived in a state of 
 destitution till the arrival of the Goulds from Europe. 
 Don Carlos and Dofia Emilia had taken up the mad 
 English doctor, when it became apparent that for all 
 his savage independence he could be tamed by kindness. 
 Perhaps it was only hunger that had tamed him. In 
 years gone by he had certainly been acquainted with 
 Charles Gould’s father in Sta. Marta; and now, no 
 matter what were the dark passages of his history, as the 
 medical officer of the San Tomé mine he became a recog- 
 
312 NOSTROMO 
 
 nized personality. He was recognized, but not unre- 
 servedly accepted. So much defiant eccentricity and 
 such an outspoken scorn for mankind seemed to point to 
 mere recklessness of judgment, the bravado of guilt. 
 Besides, since he had become again of some account, 
 vague whispers had been heard that years ago, when 
 fallen into disgrace and thrown into prison by Guzman 
 Bento at the time of the so-called Great Conspiracy, he 
 had betrayed some of his best friends amongst the 
 conspirators. Nobody pretended to believe that whis- 
 per; the whole story of the Great Conspiracy was 
 hopelessly involved and obscure; it is admitted in Costa- 
 guana that there never had been a conspiracy except in 
 the diseased imagination of the Tyrant; and, therefore, 
 nothing and no one to betray; though the most dis- 
 tinguished Costaguaneros had been imprisoned and 
 executed upon that accusation. The procedure had 
 dragged on for years, decimating the better class like 
 a pestilence. The mere expression of sorrow for the 
 fate of executed kinsmen had been punished with death. 
 Don Jose Avellanos was perhaps the only one living who 
 knew the whole story of those unspeakable cruelties. 
 He had suffered from them himself, and he, with a 
 shrug of the shoulders and a nervous, jerky gesture of © 
 the arm, was wont to put away from him, as it were, 
 every allusion to it. But whatever the reason, Dr. 
 Monygham, a personage in the administration of the 
 Gould Concession, treated with reverent awe by the 
 miners, and indulged in his peculiarities by Mrs. 
 Gould, remained somehow outside the pale. 
 
 It was not from any liking for the doctor that the 
 engineer-in-chief had lingered in the inn upon the plain. 
 He liked old Viola much better. He had come to look 
 upon the Albergo d’Italia Una as a dependence of the 
 railway. Many of his subordinates had their quarters 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 313 
 
 there. Mrs. Gould’s interest in the family conferred 
 upon it a sort of distinction. The engineer-in-chief, 
 with an army of workers under his orders, appreciated 
 the moral influence of the old Garibaldino upon his 
 countrymen. His austere, old-world Republicanism 
 had a severe, soldier-like standard of faithfulness and 
 duty, as if the world were a battlefield where men had 
 to fight for the sake of universal love and brotherhood, 
 instead of a more or less large share of booty. 
 
 “Poor old chap!”’ he said, after he had heard the 
 doctor’s account of Teresa. “He'll never be able to 
 keep the place going by himself. I shall be sorry.”’ 
 
 *“He’s quite alone up there,” grunted Doctor Monyg- 
 ham, with a toss of his heavy head towards the narrow 
 staircase. “Every living soul has cleared out, and Mrs. 
 Gould took the girls away just now. It might not be 
 over-safe for them out here before very long. Of 
 course, as a doctor I can do nothing more here; but she 
 has asked me to stay with old Viola, and as I have no 
 horse to get back to the mine, where I ought to be, I 
 made no difficulty to stay. They can do without me in 
 the town.” 
 
 “TI have a good mind to remain with you, doctor, till 
 we see whether anything happens to-night at the 
 harbour,” declared the engineer-in-chief. ““He must 
 not be molested by Sotillo’s soldiery, who may push on 
 as far as this at once. Sotillo used to be very cordial 
 to me at the Goulds’ and at the club. How that man’ll 
 ever dare to look any of his friends here in the face I 
 can’t imagine.” 
 
 “He'll no doubt begin by shooting some of them to 
 get over the first awkwardness,” said the doctor. 
 “Nothing in this country serves better your military 
 man who has changed sides than a few summary 
 executions.” He spoke with a gloomy positiveness 
 
314 NOSTROMO 
 
 that left no room for protest. The engineer-in-chief 
 did not attempt any. He simply nodded several 
 times regretfully, then said— 
 
 “J think we shall be able to mount you in the morn- 
 ing, doctor. Our peons have recovered some of our 
 stampeded horses. By riding hard and taking a wide 
 circuit by Los Hatos and along the edge of the forest, 
 clear of Rincon altogether, you may hope to reach the 
 San Tomé bridge without being interfered with. The 
 mine is just now, to my mind, the safest place for any- 
 body at all compromised. I only wish the railway was 
 as difficult to touch.” 
 
 ““Am I compromised?’’ Doctor Monygham brought 
 out slowly after a short silence. 
 
 “The whole Gould Concession is compromised. It 
 could not have remained for ever outside the political 
 life of the country—if those convulsions may be called 
 life. The thing is—can it be touched? The moment 
 was bound to come when neutrality would become im- 
 possible, and Charles Gould understood this well. I 
 believe he is prepared for every extremity. A man of 
 his sort has never contemplated remaining indefinitely 
 at the mercy of 1 ignorance and corruption. It was like 
 being a prisoner in a cavern of banditti with the price of 
 your ransom in your pocket, and buying your life from 
 day today. Your mere safety, not your liberty, mind, 
 doctor. I know what I am talking about. The image 
 at which you shrug your shoulders is perfectly correct, 
 especially if you conceive such a prisoner endowed with 
 the power of replenishing his pocket by means as remote 
 from the faculties of his captors as if they were magic. 
 You must have understood that as well as I do, doctor. 
 He was in the position of the goose with the golden 
 eggs. I broached this matter to him as far back as Sir 
 John’s visit here. The prisoner of stupid and greedy 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 315 
 
 banditti is always at the mercy of the first imbecile 
 ruffian, who may blow out his brains in a fit of temper or 
 for some prospect of an immediate big haul. The tale of 
 killing the goose with the golden eggs has not been 
 evolved for nothing out of the wisdom of mankind. It 
 is a story that will never grow old. That is why 
 Charles Gould in his deep, dumb way has countenanced 
 the Ribierist Mandate, the first public act that promised 
 him safety on other than venal grounds. Ribierism has 
 failed, as everything merely rational fails in this 
 country. But Gould remains logical in wishing to save 
 this big lot of silver. Decoud’s plan of a counter- 
 revolution may be practicable or not, it may have a 
 chance, or it may not have a chance. With all my 
 experience of this revolutionary: continent, I can hardly 
 yet look at their methods seriously. Decoud has been 
 reading to us his draft of a proclamation, and talking 
 very well for two hours about his plan of action. He 
 had arguments which should have appeared solid 
 enough if we, members of old, stable political and 
 national organizations, were not startled by the mere 
 idea of a new State evolved like this out of the head of a 
 scofiing young man fleeing for his life, with a proclama- 
 tion in his pocket, to a rough, jeering, half-bred swash- 
 buckler, who in this part of the world is called a general. 
 It sounds like a comic fairy tale—and behold, it may 
 come off; because it is true to the very spirit of the 
 country.” 
 
 “Is the silver gone off, then?” asked the doctor, 
 moodily. 
 
 The chief engineer pulled out his watch. “By 
 Captain Mitchell’s reckoning—and he ought to know— 
 it has been gone long enough now to be some three or 
 four miles outside the harbour; and, as Mitchell says, 
 Nostromo is the sort of seaman to make the best of his 
 
316 NOSTROMO 
 
 opportunities.” Here the doctor grunted so heavily that 
 the other changed his tone. 
 
 “You have a poor opinion of that move, doctor? But 
 why? Charles Gould has got to play his game out, 
 though he is not the man to formulate his conduct even 
 to himself, perhaps, let alone to others. It may be that 
 the game has been partly suggested to him by Holroyd; 
 but it accords with his character, too; and that is why it 
 has been so successful. Haven’t they come to calling 
 him ‘El Rey de Sulaco’ in Sta. Marta? A nickname 
 may be the best record of a success. ‘That’s what I call 
 putting the face of a joke upon the body of a truth. My 
 dear sir, when I first arrived in Sta. Marta I was struck 
 by the way all those journalists, demagogues, members 
 of Congress, and all those generals and judges cringed 
 before a sleepy-eyed advocate without practice simply 
 because he was the plenipotentiary of the Gould Conces- 
 sion. Sir John when he came out was impressed, too.” 
 
 “A new State, with that plump dandy, Decoud, for 
 the first President,’’ mused Dr. Monygham, nursing his 
 cheek and swinging his legs all the time. 
 
 “Upon my word, and why not?”’ the chief engineer 
 retorted in an unexpectedly earnest and confidential 
 voice. It was as if something subtle in the air of 
 Costaguana had inoculated him with the local faith in 
 *pronunciamientos.” All at once he began to talk, like 
 an expert revolutionist, of the instrument ready to hand 
 in the intact army at Cayta, which could be brought 
 back in a few days to Sulaco if only Decoud managed to 
 make his way at once down the coast. For the military 
 chief there was Barrios, who had nothing but a bullet to 
 expect from Montero, his former professional rival and 
 bitter enemy. Barrios’s concurrence was assured. As 
 to his army, it had nothing to expect from Moniero 
 either; not even a month’s pay. From that point of 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 317 
 
 view the existence of the treasure was of enormous 
 importance. The mere knowledge that it had been 
 saved from the Monterists would be a strong induce- 
 ment for the Cayta troops to embrace the cause of the 
 new State. 
 
 The doctor turnéd round and contemplated his com- 
 panion for some time. 
 
 “This Decoud, I see, is a persuasive young beggar,”’ 
 he remarked at last. “And pray is it for this, then, 
 that Charles Gould has let the whole lot of ingots go 
 out to sea in charge of that Nostromo?” 
 
 “Charles Gould,” said the engineer-in-chief, “has 
 said no more about his motive than usual. You know, 
 he doesn’t talk. But we all here know his motive, and 
 he has only one—the safety of the San Tomé mine with 
 the preservation of the Gould Concession in the spirit 
 of his compact with Holroyd. Holroyd is another un- 
 common man. ‘They understand each other’s imagina- 
 tive side. One is thirty, the other nearly sixty, and 
 they have been made for each other. ‘To be a million- 
 aire, and such a millionaire as Holroyd, is like being 
 eternally young. The audacity of youth reckons upon 
 what it fancies an unlimited time at its disposal; but a 
 millionaire has unlimited means in his hand—which is 
 better. One’s time on earth is an uncertain quantity, 
 but about the long reach of millions there is no doubt. 
 he introduction of a pure form of Christianity into this 
 continent is a dream for a youthful enthusiast, and I 
 have been trying to explain to you why Holroyd at 
 fifty-eight is like a man on the threshold of life, and 
 better, too. He’s not a missionary, but the San Tomé 
 mine holds just that for him. I assure you, in sober 
 truth, that he could not manage to keep this out of a 
 strictly business conference upon the finances of Cos- 
 taguana he had with Sir John a couple of years ago. 
 
318 NOSTROMO 
 
 Sir John mentioned it with amazement in a letter he 
 wrote to me here, from San Francisco, when on his way 
 home. Upon my word, doctor, things seem to be worth 
 nothing by what they are in themselves. I begin to 
 believe that the only solid thing about them is the 
 spiritual value which everyone discovers in his own 
 form of activity y 
 
 “Bah!” interrupted the doctor, without stopping for 
 an instant the idle swinging movement of his legs. 
 “Self-flattery. Food for that vanity which makes the 
 world go round. Meantime, what do you think is 
 going to happen to the treasure floating about the gulf 
 with the great Capataz and the great politician?”’ 
 
 “Why are you uneasy about it, doctor?”’ 
 
 “IT uneasy! And what the devil is it to me? I put 
 no spiritual value into my desires, or my opinions, or my 
 actions. ‘They have not enough vastness to give me 
 room for self-flattery. Look, for instance, I should cer- 
 tainly have liked to ease the last moments of that poor 
 woman. AndIcan’t. It’simpossible. Have you met 
 the impossible face to face—or have you, the Napoleon 
 of railways, no such word in your dictionary?” 
 
 “Is she bound to have a very bad time of it?”’ asked 
 the chief engineer, with humane concern. | 
 
 Slow, heavy footsteps moved across the planks above 
 the heavy hard wood beams of the kitchen. Then 
 down the narrow opening of the staircase made in the 
 thickness of the wall, and narrow enough to be defended 
 by one man against twenty enemies, came the murmur 
 of two voices, one faint and broken, the other deep and 
 gentle answering it, and in its graver tone covering the 
 weaker sound. 
 
 The two men remained still and silent till the mur- 
 murs ceased, then the doctor shrugged his shoulders and 
 muttered— | 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 319 
 
 “Yes, she’s bound to. And I could do nothing if I 
 went up now.” 
 
 A long period of silence above and below ensued. 
 
 “T fancy,’ began the engineer, in a subdued voice, 
 “that you mistrust Captain Mitchell’s Capataz.”’ 
 
 **Mistrust him!’’? muttered the doctor through his 
 teeth. “I believe him capable of anything—even of 
 the most absurd fidelity. Iam the last person he spoke 
 to before he left the wharf, you know. The poor 
 woman up there wanted to see him, and I let him go up 
 to her. The dying must not be contradicted, you 
 know. She seemed then fairly calm and resigned, but 
 the scoundrel in those ten minutes or so has done or 
 said something which seems to have driven her into 
 despair. You know,” went on the doctor, hesitatingly, 
 “women are so very unaccountable in every position, 
 and at all times of life, that I thought sometimes she 
 was in a way, don’t you see? in love with him—the 
 Capataz. The rascal has his own charm indubitably, 
 or he would not have made the conquest of all the 
 populace of the town. No, no, I am not absurd. I 
 may have given a wrong name to some strong senti- 
 ment for him on her part, to an unreasonable and 
 simple attitude a woman is apt to take up emotionally 
 towards a man. She used to abuse him to me fre- 
 quently, which, of course, is not inconsistent with my 
 idea. Not at all. It looked to me as if she were al- 
 ways thinking of him. He was something important 
 in her life. You know, I have seen a lot of those people. 
 Whenever I came down from the mine Mrs. Gould used 
 to ask me to keep my eye on them. She likes Italians; 
 she has lived a long time in Italy, I believe, and she took 
 a special fancy to that old Garibaldino. A remarkable 
 chap enough. A rugged and dreamy character, living 
 in the republicanism of his young days as if in a cloud. 
 
320 NOSTROMO 
 
 He has encouraged much of the Capataz’s confounded 
 nonsense—the high-strung, exalted old beggar!” 
 
 “What sort of nonsense?’ wondered the chief engi- 
 neer. “I found the Capataz always a very shrewd 
 and sensible fellow, absolutely fearless, and remarkably 
 useful. A perfect handy man. Sir John was greatly 
 impressed by his resourcefulness and attention when he 
 made that overland journey from Sta. Marta. Later 
 on, as you might have heard, he rendered us a service 
 by disclosing to the then chief of police the presence in 
 the town of some professional thieves, who came from a 
 distance to wreck and rob our monthly pay train. He 
 has certainly organized the lighterage service of the 
 harbour for the O.S.N. Company with great ability. 
 He knows how to make himself obeyed, foreigner though 
 heis. Itis true that the Cargadores are strangers here, 
 too, for the most part—immigrants, Islefios.” 
 
 “His prestige is his fortune,’ muttered the doctor, 
 sourly. . 
 
 “The man has proved his trustworthiness up to the 
 hilt on innumerable occasions and in all sorts of ways,”’ 
 argued the engineer. ‘When this question of the silver 
 arose, Captain Mitchell naturally was very warmly of 
 the opinion that his Capataz was the only man fit for 
 the trust. As a sailor, of course, I suppose so. But as 
 a man, don’t you know, Gould, Decoud, and myself 
 judged that it didn’t matter in the least who went. 
 Any boatman would have done just as well. Pray, 
 what could a thief do with such a lot of ingots? If he 
 ran off with them he would have in the end to land some- 
 where, and how could he conceal his cargo from the 
 knowledge of the people ashore? We dismissed that 
 consideration from our minds. Moreover, Decoud was 
 going. There have been occasions when the Capataz 
 has been more implicitly trusted.” 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 321 
 “He took a slightly different view,” the doctor said. 
 
 “T heard him declare in this very room that it would be: 
 the most desperate affair of his life. He made a sort of 
 verbal will here in my hearing, appointing old Viola his 
 executor; and, by Jove! do you know, he—he’s not 
 grown rich by his fidelity to you good people of the rail- 
 way and the harbour. I suppose he obtains some— 
 how do you say that?—some spiritual value for his 
 labours, or else I don’t know why the devil he should 
 be faithful to you, Gould, Mitchell, or anybody else. 
 He knows this country well. He knows, for instance, 
 that Gamacho, the Deputy from Javira, has been noth- 
 ing else but a ‘tramposo’ of the commonest sort, a petty 
 pedlar of the Campo, till he managed to get enough 
 goods on credit from Anzani to open a little store in the 
 wilds, and got himself elected by the drunken mozos 
 that hang about the Estancias and the poorest sort of 
 rancheros who were in his debt. And Gamacho, who 
 to-morrow will be probably one of our high officials, is a 
 stranger, too—an Islefio. He might have been a 
 Cargador on the O.S. N. wharf had he not (the posadero 
 of Rincon is ready to swear it) murdered a pedlar in the 
 woods and stolen his pack to begin life on. And do you 
 think that Gamacho, then, would have ever become a 
 hero with the democracy of this place, like our Capataz? 
 Of course not. He isn’t half the man. No; decidedly, 
 I think that Nostromo is a fool.” 
 
 The doctor’s talk was distasteful to the builder of 
 railways. “It is impossible to argue that point,” he said, 
 philosophically. “Each man has his gifts. You should 
 have heard Gamacho haranguing his friends in thestreet. 
 He has a howling voice, and he shouted like mad, lifting 
 his clenched fist right above his head, and throwing his 
 body half out of the window. At every pause the 
 rabble below yelled, “Down with the Oligarchs! Viva 
 
322 NOSTROMO 
 
 la Libertad!’ Fuentes inside looked extremely miser- 
 able. You know, he is the brother of Jorge Fuentes, 
 who has been Minister of the Interior for six months or 
 so, some few years back. Of course, he has no con- 
 science; but he is a man of birth and education—at one 
 time the director of the Customs of Cayta. That 
 idiot-brute Gamacho fastened himself upon him with 
 his following of the lowest rabble. His sickly fear of 
 that ruffan was the most rejoicing sight imaginable.”’ 
 
 He got up and went to the door to look out towards 
 the harbour. “All quiet,” he said; “I wonder if Sotillo 
 really means to turn up here?” 
 
CHAPTER TWO 
 
 CapTaIn MiTcHEeLu, pacing the wharf, was asking 
 himself the same question. There was always the doubt 
 whether the warning of the Esmeralda telegraphist— 
 a fragmentary and interrupted message—had been 
 properly understood. However, the good man had 
 made up his mind not to go to bed till daylight, if even 
 then. He imagined himself to have rendered an enor- 
 mous service to Charles Gould. When he thought of 
 the saved silver he rubbed his hands together with 
 satisfaction. In his simple way he was proud at being 
 a party to this extremely clever expedient. It was he 
 who had given it a practical shape by suggesting the 
 possibility of intercepting at sea the north-bound 
 steamer. And it was advantageous to his Company, 
 too, which would have lost a valuable freight if the 
 treasure had been left ashore to be confiscated. The 
 pleasure of disappointing the Monterists was also very 
 great. Authoritative by temperament and the long 
 habit of command, Captain Mitchell was no democrat. 
 He even went so far as to profess a contempt for 
 parliamentarism itself. “‘His Excellency Don Vincente 
 Ribiera,” he used to say, ““whom I and that fellow of 
 mine, Nostromo, had the honour, sir, and the pleasure 
 of saving from a cruel death, deferred too much to his 
 Congress. It was a mistake—a distinct mistake, sir.” _ 
 
 The guileless old seaman superintending the O.5S.N. 
 service imagined that the last three days had exhausted 
 every startling surprise the political life of Costaguana 
 could offer. He used to confess afterwards that the 
 
 823 
 
324 NOSTROMO 
 
 events which followed surpassed his imagination. To 
 begin with, Sulaco (because of the seizure of the cables 
 and the disorganization of the steam service) remained 
 for a whole fortnight cut off from the rest of the world 
 like a besieged city. 
 
 “One would not have believed it possible; but so it 
 was, sir. A full fortnight.” 
 
 The account of the extraordinary things that hap- 
 pened during that time, and the powerful emotions he 
 experienced, acquired a comic impressiveness from the 
 pompous manner of his personal narrative. He opened 
 it always by assuring his hearer that he was “in the 
 thick of things from first to last.” Then he would be- 
 gin by describing the getting away of the silver, and his 
 natural anxiety lest “his fellow” in charge of the lighter 
 should make some mistake. Apart from the loss of 
 so much precious metal, the life of Sefior Martin De- 
 coud, an agreeable, wealthy, and well-informed young 
 gentleman, would have been jeopardized through his 
 falling into the hands of his political enemies. Cap- 
 tain Mitchell also admitted that in his solitary vigil on 
 the wharf he had felt a certain measure of concern for 
 the future of the whole country. 
 
 “A feeling, sir,” he explained, “perfectly com- — 
 prehensible in a man properly grateful for the many 
 kindnesses received from the best families of merchants 
 and other native gentlemen of independent means, who, 
 barely saved by us from the excesses of the mob, seemed, 
 to my mind’s eye, destined to become the prey in person 
 and fortune of the native soldiery, which, as is well 
 known, behave with regrettable barbarity to the in- 
 habitants during their civil commotions. And then, 
 sir, there were the Goulds, for both of whom, man and 
 wife, I could not but entertain the warmest feelings 
 deserved by their hospitality and kindness. I felt, too, 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 325 
 
 the dangers of the gentlemen of the Amarilla Club, who 
 had made me honorary member, and had treated me 
 with uniform regard and civility, both in my capacity 
 of Consular Agent and as Superintendent of an im- 
 portant Steam Service. Miss Antonia Avellanos, 
 the most beautiful and accomplished young lady whom 
 it had ever been my privilege to speak to, was not a 
 little in my mind, I confess. How the interests of my 
 Company would be affected by the impending change 
 of officials claimed a large share of my attention, too. 
 In short, sir, I was extremely anxious and very tired, as 
 you may suppose, by the exciting and memorable events 
 in which I had taken my little part. The Company’s 
 building containing my residence was within five 
 minutes’ walk, with the attraction of some supper and of 
 my hammock (I always take my nightly rest in a ham- 
 mock, as the most suitable to the climate); but some- 
 how, sir, though evidently I could do nothing for any 
 one by remaining about, I could not tear myself away 
 from that wharf, where the fatigue made me stumble 
 painfully at times. The night was excessively dark— 
 the darkest I remember in my life; so that I began to 
 think that the arrival of the transport from Esmeralda. 
 could not possibly take place before daylight, owing 
 to the difficulty of navigating the gulf. The mosquitoes 
 bit like fury. We have been infested here with mos- 
 quitoes before the late improvements; a peculiar har- 
 bour brand, sir, renowned for its ferocity. They were 
 like a cloud about my head, and I shouldn’t wonder 
 that but for their attacks I would have dozed off as I 
 walked up and down, and got a heavy fall. I kept on 
 smoking cigar after cigar, more to protect myself from 
 being eaten up alive than from any real relish for the 
 weed. Then, sir, when perhaps for the twentieth time 
 I. was approaching my watch to the lighted end in order 
 
326 NOSTROMO 
 
 to see the time, and observing with surprise that it 
 wanted yet ten minutes to midnight, I heard the splash 
 of a ship’s propeller—an unmistakable sound to a 
 sailor’s ear on such a calm night. It was faint indeed, 
 because they were advancing with precaution and dead 
 slow, both on account of the darkness and from their 
 desire of not revealmg too soon their presence: a very 
 unnecessary care, because, I verily believe, im all the 
 enormous extent of this harbour I was the only living 
 soul about. Even the usual staff of watchmen and 
 others had been absent from their posts for several 
 nights owing to the disturbances. I stood stock sul, 
 after dropping and stamping out my cigar—a circum- 
 stance highly agreeable, I should think, to the mosqui- 
 toes, if I may judge from the state of my face next morn- 
 ing. But that was a inflmg inconvenience m com- 
 parison with the brutal proceedings I became victim of 
 on the part of Sotillo. Something utterly inconceiy- 
 able, sir; more like the proceedings of a maniac than the 
 action of a sane man, however lost to all sense of honour 
 and decency. But Sotillo was furious at the failure of 
 his thievish scheme.” 
 
 In this Captain Mitchell was right. Sotillo was in- 
 deed infuriated. Captain Mitchell, however, had not 
 been arrested at once; a vivid curiosity induced him to 
 remain on the wharf (which is nearly four hundred feet 
 long) to see, or rather hear, the whole process of dis- 
 embarkation. Concealed by the railway truck used 
 for the silver, which had been run back afterwards to 
 the shore end of the jetty, Captain Mitchell saw the 
 small detachment thrown forward, pass by, taking 
 different directions upon the plain. Meantime, the 
 troops were being landed and formed into a column, 
 whose head crept up gradually so close to him that he 
 made it out, barring nearly the whole width of the 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 327 
 
 wharf, only a very few yards from him. Then the low, 
 shuffling, murmuring, clinking sounds ceased, and the 
 whole mass remained for about an hour motionless and 
 silent, awaiting the return of the scouts. On land 
 nothing was to be heard except the deep baying of the 
 mastiffs at the railway yards, answered by the faint 
 barking of the curs infesting the outer limits of the 
 town. A detached knot of dark shapes stood in front of 
 the head of the column. 
 
 Presently the picket at the end of the wharf began to 
 challenge in undertones single figures approaching from 
 the plain. Those messengers sent back from the scout- 
 ing parties flung to their comrades brief sentences and 
 passed on rapidly, becoming lost in the great motionless 
 mass, to make their report to the Staff. It occurred to 
 Captain Mitchell that his position could become dis- 
 agreeable and perhaps dangerous, when suddenly, at 
 the head of the jetty, there was a shout of command, a 
 bugle call, followed by a stir and a rattling of arms, and a 
 murmuring noise that ran right up the column. Near 
 by a loud voice directed hurriedly, “Push that railway 
 car out of the way!” At the rush of bare feet to exe- 
 cute the order Captain Mitchell skipped back a pace or 
 two; the car, suddenly impelled by many hands, fiew 
 away from him along the rails, and before he knew what 
 had happened he found himself surrounded and seized 
 by his arms and the collar of his coat. 
 
 “We have caught a man hiding here, mi tentente !”’ 
 cried one of his captors. 
 
 “Hold him on one side till the rearguard comes 
 along,” answered the voice. The whole column 
 streamed past Captain Mitchell at a run, the thunder- 
 ing noise of their feet dying away suddenly on the shore. 
 His captors held him tightly, disregarding his declara- 
 tion that he was an Englishman and his loud demands to 
 
328 NOSTROMO 
 
 be taken at once before their commanding officer. 
 Finally he lapsed into dignified silence. With a hollow 
 rumble of wheels on the planks a couple of field guns, 
 dragged by hand, rolled by. Then, after a small body 
 of men had marched past escorting four or five figures 
 which walked in advance, with a jingle of steel scab- 
 bards, he felt a tug at his arms, and was ordered to come 
 along. During the passage from the wharf to the 
 Custom House it is to be feared that Captain Mitchell 
 was subjected to certain indignities at the hands of the 
 soldiers—such as jerks, thumps on the neck, forcible 
 application of the butt of a rifle to the small of his back. 
 Their ideas of speed were not in accord with his notion 
 of his dignity. He became flustered, flushed, and help- 
 less. It was as if the world were coming to an end, 
 The long building was surrounded by troops, which 
 were already piling arms by companies and preparing 
 to pass the night lying on the ground in their ponchos 
 with their sacks under their heads. Corporals moved 
 with swinging lanterns posting sentries all round the 
 walls wherever there was a door or an opening. Sotillo 
 was taking his measures to protect his conquest as if 
 it had indeed contained the treasure. His desire to 
 make his fortune at one audacious stroke of genius had 
 overmastered his reasoning faculties. He would not 
 believe in the possibility of failure; the mere hint of 
 such a thing made his brain reel with rage. Every 
 circumstance pointing to it appeared incredible. The 
 statement of Hirsch, which was so absolutely fatal to his 
 hopes, could by no means be admitted. It is true, too, 
 that Hirsch’s story had been told so incoherently, with 
 such excessive signs of distraction, that it really looked 
 improbable. It was extremely difficult, as the saying 
 is, to make head or tail of it. On the bridge of the 
 steamer, directly after his rescue, Sotillo and his officers, 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 329 
 
 in their impatience and excitement, would not give 
 the wretched man time to collect such few wits as re-, 
 mained to him. He ought to have been quieted, 
 soothed, and reassured, whereas he had been roughly 
 handled, cuffed, shaken, and addressed in menacing 
 tones. His struggles, his wriggles, his attempts to get, 
 down on his knees, followed by the most violent efforts 
 to break away, as if he meant incontinently to jump 
 overboard, his shrieks and shrinkings and cowering 
 wild glances had filled them first with amazement, then 
 with a doubt of his genuineness, as men are wont to sus- 
 pect the sincerity of every great passion. His Spanish, 
 too, became so mixed up with German that the better 
 half of his statements remained incomprehensible. He 
 tried to propitiate them by calling them hochwohlge- 
 boren herren, which in itself sounded suspicious. When 
 admonished sternly not to trifle he repeated his en- 
 treaties and protestations of loyalty and innocence again 
 in German, obstinately, because he was not aware in 
 what language he was speaking. His identity, of 
 course, was perfectly known as an inhabitant of Es- 
 meralda, but this made the matter no clearer. As he 
 kept on forgetting Decoud’s name, mixing him up with 
 several other people he had seen in the Casa Gould, it 
 looked as if they all had been in the lighter together; 
 and for a moment Sotillo thought that he had drowned 
 every prominent Ribierist of Sulaco. The improb- 
 ability of such a thing threw a doubt upon the whole 
 statement. Hirsch was either mad or playing a part— 
 pretending fear and distraction on the spur of the mo- 
 ment to cover the truth. Sotillo’s rapacity, excited to 
 the highest pitch by the prospect of an immense booty, 
 could believe in nothing adverse. This Jew might have 
 been very much frightened by the accident, but he 
 knew where the silver was concealed, and had invented 
 
eno" * NOSTROMO 
 
 this story, with his Jewish cunning, to put him entirely 
 off the track as to what had been done. 
 
 Sotillo had taken up his quarters on the upper floor 
 in a vast apartment with heavy black beams. But 
 there was no ceiling, and the eye lost itself in the dark- 
 ness under the high pitch of the roof. The thick shut- 
 ters stood open. On a long table could be seen a large 
 inkstand, some stumpy, inky quill pens, and two 
 Square wooden boxes, each holding half a hundred- 
 weight of sand. Sheets of grey coarse official paper 
 bestrewed the floor. It must have been a room oc- 
 cupied by some higher official of the Customs, because 
 a large leathern armchair stood behind the table, 
 with other high-backed chairs scattered about. A net 
 hammock was swung under one of the beams—for the 
 official’s afternoon siesta, no doubt. A couple of 
 candles stuck into tall iron candlesticks gave a dim 
 reddish light. The colonel’s hat, sword, and revolver 
 lay between them, and a couple of his more trusty 
 officers lounged gloomily against the table. The 
 colonel threw himself into the armchair, and a big 
 negro with a sergeant’s stripes on his ragged sleeve, 
 kneeling down, pulled off his boots. Sotillo’s ebony 
 moustache contrasted violently with the livid colouring 
 of his cheeks. His eyes were sombre and as if sunk very 
 far into his head. He seemed exhausted by his per- 
 plexities, languid with disappointment; but when the 
 sentry on the landing thrust his head in to announce the 
 arrival of a prisoner, he revived at once. 
 
 ‘Let him be brought in,”’ he shouted, fiercely. 
 
 The door flew open, and Captain Mitchell, bare- 
 headed, his waistcoat open, the bow of his tie under his 
 ear, was hustled into the room. 
 
 Sotillo recognized him at once. He could not have 
 hoped for a more precious capture; here was a man who 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE S51 
 
 could tell him, if he chose, everything he wished to 
 know—and directly the problem of how best to make 
 him talk to the point presented itself to his mind. The 
 resentment of a foreign nation had no terrors for Sotillo. 
 The might of the whole armed Europe would not have 
 protected Captain Mitchell from insults and ill-usage, so 
 well as the quick reflection of Sotillo that this was an 
 Englishman who would most likely turn obstinate under 
 bad treatment, and become quite unmanageable. At 
 all events, the colonel smoothed the scowl on his brow. 
 
 “What! The excellent Sefior Mitchell!” he cried, 
 in affected dismay. ‘The pretended anger of his swift 
 advance and of his shout, “‘Release the caballero at 
 once,” was so effective that the astounded soldiers 
 positively sprang away from their prisoner. Thus 
 suddenly deprived of forcible support, Captain Mit- 
 chell reeled as though about to fall. Sotillo took him 
 familiarly under the arm, led him to a chair, waved his 
 hand at the room. “Go out, all of you,” he com- 
 manded. 
 
 When they had been left alone he stood looking down, 
 irresolute and silent, watching till Captain Mitchel! 
 had recovered his power of speech. 
 
 Here in his very grasp was one of the men concerned 
 in the removal of the silver. Sotillo’s temperament was 
 of that sort that he experienced an ardent desire to beat 
 him; just as formerly when negotiating with difficulty 
 a loan from the cautious Anzani, his fingers always 
 itched to take the shopkeeper by the throat. As to 
 Captain Mitchell, the suddenness, unexpectedness, and 
 general inconceivableness of this experience had con- 
 fused his thoughts. Moreover, he was physically out 
 of breath. 
 
 “T’ve been knocked down three times between this 
 and the wharf,” he gasped out at last. “Somebody 
 
332 NOSTROMO 
 
 shall be made to pay for this.” He had certainly 
 stumbled more than once, and had been dragged along 
 for some distance before he could regain his stride. 
 With his recovered breath his indignation seemed to 
 madden him. He jumped up, crimson, all his white 
 hair bristling, his eyes glaring vengefully, and shook 
 violently the flaps of his ruined waistcoat before the 
 disconcerted Sotillo. “Look! Those uniformed thieves 
 of yours downstairs have robbed me of my watch.” 
 
 The old sailor’s aspect was very threatening. Sotillo 
 saw himself cut off from the table on which his sabre and 
 revolver were lying. 
 
 “I demand restitution and apologies,” Mitchell 
 thundered at him, quite beside himself. “From you! 
 Yes, from you!” 
 
 For the space of a second or so the colonel stood with 
 a perfectly stony expression of face; then, as Captain 
 Mitchell flung out an arm towards the table as if to 
 snatch up the revolver, Sotillo, with a yell of alarm, 
 bounded to the door and was gone in a flash, s : 
 it after him. Surprise calmed Captain Mitchell’s fury. 
 Behind the closed door Sotillo shouted on the landing, 
 and there was a great tumult of feet on the wooden 
 staircase. 
 
 “Disarm him! Bind him!” the colonel could be 
 heard vociferating. 
 
 Captain Mitchell had just the time to glance once 
 at the windows, with three perpendicular bars of iron 
 each and some twenty feet from the ground, as he well 
 knew, before the door flew open and the rush upon him 
 took place. In an incredibly short time he found him- 
 self bound with many turns of a hide rope to a high- 
 backed chair, so that his head alone remained free. Not 
 till then did Sotillo, who had been leaning in the door- 
 way trembling visibly, venture again withm. The 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 333 
 
 soldiers, picking up from the floor the rifles they had 
 dropped to grapple with the prisoner, filed out of the 
 room. The officers remained leaning on their swords 
 and looking on. 
 
 “The watch! the watch!” raved the colonel, pacing 
 to and fro like a tiger in a cage. “Give me that man’s 
 watch.” 
 
 It was true, that when searched for arms in the hall 
 downstairs, before being taken into Sotillo’s presence, 
 Captain Mitchell had been relieved of his watch and 
 chain; but at the colonel’s clamour it was produced 
 quickly enough, a corporal bringing it up, carried care- 
 fully in the palms of his joined hands. Sotillo snatched 
 it, and pushed the clenched fist from which it dangled 
 close to Captain Mitchell’s face. 
 
 “Now then! You arrogant Englishman! You dare 
 to call the soldiers of the army thieves! Behold your 
 watch.” 
 
 He flourished his fist as if aiming blows at the priso- 
 ner’s nose. Captain Mitchell, helpless as a swathed 
 infant, looked anxiously at the sixty-guinea gold half- 
 chronometer, presented to him years ago by a Com- 
 mittee of Underwriters for saving a ship from total loss 
 by fire. Sotillo, too, seemed to perceive its valuable 
 appearance. He became silent suddenly, stepped aside 
 to the table, and began a careful examination in the 
 light of the candles. He had never seen anything so 
 fine. His officers closed in and craned their necks be- 
 hind his back. 
 
 He became so interested that for an instant he forgot 
 his precious prisoner. There is always something 
 childish in the rapacity of the passionate, clear-minded, 
 Southern races, wanting in the misty idealism of the 
 Northerners, who at the smallest encouragement dream 
 of nothing less than the conquest of the earth. Sotillo 
 
334 NOSTROMO 
 
 was fond of jewels, gold trinkets, of personal adornment. 
 After a moment he turned about, and with a command- 
 ing gesture made all his officers fall back. He laid 
 down the watch on the table, then, negligently, pushed 
 his hat over it. 
 
 “Ha!” he began, going up very close to the chair. 
 “You dare call my valiant soldiers of the Esmeralda 
 regiment, thieves. You dare! What impudence! You 
 foreigners come here to rob our country of its wealth. 
 You never have enough! Your audacity knows no 
 bounds.” 
 
 He looked towards the officers, amongst whom there 
 was an approving murmur. The older major was 
 
 moved to declare— 
 
 Si, mi colonel. They are all traitors.” 
 
 “T shall say nothing,” continued Sotillo, fixing the 
 motionless and powerless Mitchell with an angry but 
 uneasy stare. “I shall say nothing of your treacherous 
 attempt to get possession of my revolver to shoot 
 me while I was trying to treat you with considera- 
 tion you did not deserve. You have forfeited your 
 life. Your only hope is in my clemency.” 
 
 He watched for the effect of his words, but there was. 
 no obvious sign of fear on Captain Mitchell’s face. His — 
 white hair was full of dust, which covered also the rest 
 of his helpless person. As if he had heard nothing, he 
 twitched an eyebrow to get rid of a bit of straw which 
 hung amongst the hairs. 
 
 Sotillo advanced one leg and put his arms akimbo. 
 “Tt is you, Mitchell,” he said, emphatically, ““who are 
 the thief, not my soldiers!” He pointed at his prisoner 
 a forefinger with a long, almond-shaped nail. ‘Where 
 is the silver of the San Tomé mine? I ask you, Mitchell, 
 where is the silver that was deposited in this Custom 
 House? Answer me that! You stole it. You were a 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 335 
 
 party to stealing it. It was stolen from the Government. 
 Aha! you think I do not know what I say; but Iam up 
 to your foreign tricks. It is gone, the silver! No? 
 Gone in one of your lanchas, you miserable man! How 
 dared you?” 
 
 This time he produced his effect. “How on earth 
 could Sotillo know that?” thought Mitchell. His head, 
 the only part of his body that could move, betrayed his 
 surprise by a sudden jerk. 
 
 “Ha! you tremble,”’ Sotillo shouted, suddenly. “It 
 is a conspiracy. It is a crime against the State. Did 
 you not know that the silver belongs to the Republic till 
 the Government claims are satisfied? Where is it? 
 Where have you hidden it, you miserable thief?”’ 
 
 At this question Captain Mitchell’s sinking spirits re- 
 vived. In whatever incomprehensible manner Sotillo 
 had already got his information about the lighter, he had 
 not captured it. That was clear. In his outraged 
 heart, Captain Mitchell had resolved that nothing 
 would induce him to say a word while he remained so 
 disgracefully bound, but his desire to help the escape of 
 the silver made him depart from this resolution. His 
 wits were very much at work. He detected in Sotillo a 
 certain air of doubt, of irresolution. 
 
 “That man,” he said to himself, “is not certain of 
 what he advances.” For all his pomposity in social 
 intercourse, Captain Mitchell could meet the realities of 
 life in a resolute and ready spirit. Now he had got over 
 the first shock of the abominable treatment he was cool 
 and collected enough. The immense contempt he felt 
 for Sotillo steadied him, and he said oracularly, ““No 
 doubt it is well concealed by this time.” 
 
 Sotillo, too, had time to cool down. “Muy bien, 
 Mitchell,’ he said in a cold and threatening manner. 
 “But can you produce the Government receipt for the 
 
336 NOSTROMO 
 
 royalty and the Custom House permit of embarkation, 
 hey? Can you? No. Then the silver has been re- 
 moved illegally, and the guilty shall be made to suffer, 
 unless it is produced within five days from this.” He 
 gave orders for the prisoner to be unbound and locked 
 up in one of the smaller rooms downstairs. He walked 
 about the room, moody and silent, till Captain Mitchell, 
 with each of his arms held by a couple of men, stood up, 
 shook himself, and stamped his feet. 
 
 ““How did you like to be tied up, Mitchell?”’ he asked, 
 derisively. 
 
 “It is the most incredible, abominable use of power!”’ 
 Captain Mitchell declared in a loud voice. “And 
 whatever your purpose, you shall gain nothing from it, 
 I can promise you.” 
 
 The tall colonel, livid, with his coal-black ringlets and 
 moustache, crouched, as it were, to look into the eyes of 
 the short, thick-set, red-faced prisoner with rumpled 
 white hair. 
 
 “That we shall see. You shall know my power a 
 little better when I tie you up to a potalon outside in the 
 sun for a whole day.” He drew himself up haughtily, 
 and made a sign “for Captain Mitchell to be led away. 
 
 “What about my watch?” cried Captain Mitchell, 
 hanging back from the efforts of the men pulling him 
 towards the door. 
 
 Sotillo turned to his officers. “‘No! But only listen 
 to this picaro, caballeros,’’ he pronounced with affected 
 scorn, and was answered by a chorus of derisive laugh- 
 ter. “He demands his watch!” . . . He ran up 
 again to Captain Mitchell, for the desire to relieve his 
 feelings by inflicting blows and pain upon this English- 
 man was very strong within him. “Your watch! You 
 are a prisoner in war time, Mitchell! In war time! 
 You have no rights and no property! Caramba! The 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 337 
 
 very breath in your body belongs to me. Remember 
 that. 
 
 “Bosh!” said Captain Mitchell, concealing a dis- 
 agreeable impression. 
 
 Down below, in a great hall, with the earthen floor 
 and with a tall mound thrown up by white ants in a 
 corner, the soldiers had kindled a small fire with broken 
 chairs and tables near the arched gateway, through 
 which the faint murmur of the harbour waters on the 
 beach could be heard. While Captain Mitchell was 
 being led down the staircase, an officer passed him, 
 running up to report to Sotillo the capture of more 
 prisoners. A lot of smoke hung about in the vast 
 gloomy place, the fire crackled, and, as if through a 
 haze, Captain Mitchell made out, surrounded by short 
 soldiers with fixed bayonets, the heads of three tall 
 prisoners—the doctor, the engineer-in-chief, and the 
 white leonine mane of old Viola, who stood half-turned 
 away from the others with his chin on his breast and his 
 arms crossed. Mitchell’s astonishment knew no 
 bounds. He cried out; the other two exclaimed also. 
 But he hurried on, diagonally, across the big cavern- 
 like hall. Lots of thoughts, surmises, hints of caution, 
 and so on, crowded his head to distraction. 
 
 “Is he actually keeping you?” shouted the chief 
 engineer, whose single eyeglass glittered in the firelight. 
 
 An officer from the top of the stairs was shouting 
 urgently, “Bring them all up—all three.” 
 
 In the clamour of voices and the rattle of arms, Cap- 
 tain Mitchell made himself heard imperfectly: “By 
 heavens! the fellow has stolen my. watch.” 
 
 The engineer-in-chief on the staircase resisted the 
 pressure long enough to shout, “What? What did you 
 say?” 
 
 “My chronometer!” Captain Mitchell yelled. vio- 
 
338 NOSTROMO 
 
 lently at the very moment of being thrust head fore- 
 most through a small door into a sort of cell, perfectly 
 black, and so narrow that he fetched up against the 
 opposite wall. The door had been instantly slammed. 
 He knew where they had put him. ‘This was the strong 
 room of the Custom House, whence the silver had been 
 removed only a few hours earlier. It was almost as 
 narrow as a corridor, with a small square aperture, 
 barred by a heavy grating, at the distant end. Captain 
 Mitchell staggered for a few steps, then sat down on the 
 earthen floor with his back to the wall. Nothing, not 
 even a gleam of light from anywhere, interfered with 
 Captain Mitchell’s meditation. He did some hard 
 but not very extensive thinking. It was not of a 
 gloomy cast. The old sailor, with all his small weak-_ 
 nesses and absurdities, was constitutionally incapable 
 of entertaining for any length of time a fear of his per- 
 sonal safety. It was not so much firmness of soul as the 
 lack of a certain kind of imagination—the kind whose 
 undue development caused intense suffering to Sefior 
 Hirsch; that sort of imagination which adds the blind 
 terror of bodily suffermg and of death, envisaged as an 
 accident to the body alone, strictly—to all the other 
 apprehensions on which the sense of one’s existence is — 
 based. Unfortunately, Captain Mitchell had not much 
 penetration of any kind; characteristic, illuminating 
 trifles of expression, action, or movement, escaped him 
 completely. He was too pompously and innocently 
 aware of his own existence to observe that of others. 
 For instance, he could not believe that Sotillo had been 
 really afraid of him, and this simply because it would 
 never have entered into his head to shoot any one 
 except in the most pressing case of self-defence. Any- 
 body could see he was not a murdering kind of man, he 
 reflected quite gravely. Then why this preposterous 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 332 
 
 and insulting charge? he asked himself. But his 
 thoughts mainly ching around the astounding and un- 
 answerable question: How the devil the fellow got to 
 know that the silver had gone off in the lighter? It was 
 obvious that he had not captured it. And, obviously, 
 he could not have captured it! In this last conclusion 
 Captain Mitchell was misled by the assumption drawn 
 from his observation of the weather during his long 
 vigil on the wharf. He thought that there had been 
 much more wind than usual that night in the gulf; 
 whereas, as a matter of fact, the reverse was the case. 
 
 “How in the name of all that’s marvellous did that 
 confounded fellow get wind of the affair?” was the first 
 question he asked directly after the bang, clatter, and 
 flash of the open door (which was closed again almost 
 before he could lift his dropped head) informed him that 
 he had a companion of captivity. Dr. Monygham’s 
 voice stopped muttering curses in English and Spanish. 
 
 “Ts that you, Mitchell?” he made answer, surlily. “I 
 struck my forehead against this confounded wall with 
 enough force to fell an ox. Where are you?” 
 
 Captain Mitchell, accustomed to the darkness, could 
 make out the doctor stretching out his hands blindly. 
 
 “T am sitting here on the floor. Don’t fall over my 
 legs,” Captain Mitchell’s voice announced with great 
 dignity of tone. The doctor, entreated not to walk 
 about in the dark, sank down to the ground, too. The 
 two prisoners of Sotillo, with their heads nearly touch- 
 ing, began to exchange confidences. 
 
 “Yes,” the doctor related in a low tone to Captain 
 Mitchell’s vehement curiosity, “we have been nabbed 
 in old Viola’s place. It seems that one of their pickets, 
 commanded by an officer, pushed as far as the town 
 gate. They had orders not to enter, but to bring along 
 every soul they could find on the plain. We had been 
 
340 NOSTROMO 
 
 talking in there with the door open, and no doubt they 
 saw the glimmer of our light. They must have been 
 making their approaches for some time. ‘The engineer 
 laid himself on a bench in a recess by the fire-place, and 
 I went upstairs to have a look. I hadn’t heard any 
 sound from there for a long time. Old Viola, as soon as 
 he saw me come up, lifted his arm for silence. I stole in 
 on tiptoe. By Jove, his wife was lying down and had 
 gone to sleep. ‘The woman had actually dropped off to 
 sleep! ‘“Sefior Doctor,’ Viola whispers to me, ‘it looks 
 as if her oppression was going to get better.’ ‘Yes,’ I 
 said, very much surprised; ‘your wife is a wonderful 
 woman, Giorgio.’ Just then a shot was fired in the 
 kitchen, which made us jump and cower as if at a thun- 
 der-clap. It seems that the party of soldiers had 
 stolen quite close up, and one of them had crept up to 
 the door. He looked in, thought there was no one there, 
 and, holding his rifle ready, entered quietly. The chief 
 told me that he had just closed his eyes for a moment. 
 When he opened them, he saw the man already in the 
 middle of the room peering into the dark corners. ‘The 
 chief was so startled that, without thinking, he made 
 one leap from the recess right out in front of the fire- 
 place. The soldier, no less startled, up with his rifle © 
 and pulls the trigger, deafening and singeing the engi- 
 neer, but in his flurry missing him completely. But, 
 look what happens! At the noise of the report the 
 sleeping woman sat up, as if moved by a spring, with a 
 shriek, “The children, Gian’ Battista! Save the chil- 
 dren!’ I have it in my ears now. It was the truest ery 
 of distress I ever heard. I stood as if paralyzed, but 
 the old husband ran across to the bedside, stretching out 
 his hands. She clung to them! I could see her eyes 
 go glazed; the old fellow lowered her down on the pil- 
 lows and then looked round at me. She was dead! 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 341 
 
 All this took less than five minutes, and then I ran down 
 to see what was the matter. It was no use thinking of 
 any resistance. Nothing we two could say availed with 
 the officer, so I volunteered to go up with a couple of 
 soldiers and fetch down old Viola. He was sitting at 
 the foot of the bed, looking at his wife’s face, and did not 
 seem to hear what I said; but after I had pulled the 
 sheet over her head, he got up and followed us down- 
 stairs quietly, in a sort of thoughtful way. They 
 marched us off along the road, leaving the door open 
 and the candle burning. The chief engineer strode on 
 without a word, but I looked back once or twice at *he 
 feeble gleam. After we had gone some considerable 
 distance, the Garibaldino, who was walking by my side, 
 suddenly said, ‘I have buried many men on battlefe:ds 
 on this continent. ‘The priests talk of consecrated 
 ground! Bah! All the earth made by God is holy; 
 but the sea, which knows nothing of kings and priests 
 and tyrants, is the holiest of all. Doctor! I should like 
 to bury her in the sea. No mummeries, candles, in- 
 cense, no holy water mumbled over by priests. The 
 spirit of liberty is upon the waters.’ . . . Amaz- 
 ing old man. He was saying all this in an undertone 
 as if talking to himself.”’ 
 
 “Yes, yes,” interrupted Captain Mitchell, impa- 
 tiently. “Poor old chap! But have you any idea how 
 that ruffian Sotillo obtained his information? He did not 
 get hold of any of our Cargadores who helped with the 
 truck, did he? But no, it is impossible! These were 
 picked men we’ve had in our boats for these five years, 
 and I paid them myself specially for the job, with in- 
 structions to keep out of the way for twenty-four hours at 
 least. I saw them with my own eyes march on with the 
 Italians to the railway yards. The chief promised to give 
 them rations as long as they wanted to remain there.” 
 
342 NOSTROMO 
 
 *““Well,’”’ said the doctor, slowly, “I can tell you that 
 you may say good-bye for ever to your best lighter, and 
 to the Capataz of Cargadores.”’ 
 
 At this, Captain Mitchell scrambled up to his feet in 
 the excess of his excitement. The doctor, without giv- 
 ing him time to exclaim, stated briefly the part played 
 by Hirsch during the night. 
 
 Captain Mitchell was overcome. “Drowned!” he 
 muttered, in a bewildered and appalled whisper. 
 “Drowned!” Afterwards he kept still, apparently 
 listening, but too absorbed in the news of the catas- 
 trophe to follow the doctor’s narrative with attention. 
 
 The doctor had taken up an attitude of perfect 
 ignorance, till at last Sotillo was induced to have 
 Hirsch brought in to repeat the whole story, which was 
 got out of him again with the greatest difficulty, be- 
 cause every moment he would break out into lamenta- 
 tions. At last, Hirsch was led away, looking more dead 
 than alive, and shut up in one of the upstairs rooms to 
 be close at hand. Then the doctor, keeping up his 
 character of a man not admitted to the inner councils of 
 the San Tomé Administration, remarked that the story 
 sounded incredible. Of course, he said, he couldn’t 
 tell what had been the action of the Europeans, as he 
 had been exclusively occupied with his own work in 
 looking after the wounded, and also in attending Don 
 José Avellanos. He had succeeded in assuming so well 
 a tone of impartial indifference, that Sotillo seemed 
 to be completely deceived. ‘Till then a show of regular 
 inquiry had been kept up; one of the officers sitting at 
 the table wrote down the questions and the answers, the 
 others, lounging about the room, listened attentively, 
 puffing at their long cigars and keeping their eyes on the 
 doctor. But at that point Sotillo ordered everybody 
 out. 
 
CHAPTER THREE 
 
 DrereEcTLy 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 con- 
 fidential. ‘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 Euro- 
 peans led Sotillo on, till, from conjecture to conjecture, 
 he arrived at hinting that in his opinion this was a put- 
 up 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 ap- 
 peared to be something dubious about the doctor’s 
 personality. 
 
 “What on earth made you say t! at to this watch- 
 stealing scoundrel?”’ he asked. “W2at’s the object of 
 an infernal lie of that sort? Thet 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 
 
 348 
 
344 NOSTROMO 
 
 - Jast, 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! Cap- 
 tain 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 reflect- 
 ing, began again, “he believed me right enough. 
 TI thought he would have hugged me. ‘Si, si,’ he 
 said, ‘he will write to that partner of his, the rich 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 345 
 
 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 com- 
 pletely astray. He had helped him only but a little way. 
 
 “IT 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 So- 
 tillo slapped his forehead. ‘Por Duos, 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, 
 “T 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. 
 
 “T 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 per- 
 haps that was your object. Well, I must say I per- 
 sonally 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 
 
346 NOSTROMO 
 
 what that man, whom he had never liked, would say 
 and do. 
 
 “YT 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 under- 
 stand exactly what Sotillo’s position is Kg 
 
 “T don’t see why I should bother my head about it,” 
 snarled Captain Mitchell. 
 
 “No,” assented the doctor, with the same grim com- 
 posure. “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 wtth 
 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 
 
 > 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 347 
 
 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. 
 
348 NOSTROMO 
 
 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 condescend- 
 ing voice— 
 
 “TI have concluded not to detain you, Sefior Mitchell. 
 IT 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, Sefior 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. 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 349 
 
 But as Captain Mitchell was turning away, with- 
 out as much as a nod or a glance, he hastened to 
 say— 
 
 “You may go and wait downstairs for the sefior doc- 
 tor, 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 transgres- 
 sions,’ Sotillo hurried on. “But as for me, you can 
 live free, unguarded, unobserved. Do you hear, Sefior 
 Mitchell? You may depart to your affairs. You are 
 beneath my notice. My attention is claimed by mat- 
 ters 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 under- 
 hand 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, sefior doctor. They do not love you, eh? Why 
 is that, I wonder?”’ 
 
350 NOSTROMO 
 
 The doctor, lifting his head, answered by a long, life- 
 less 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, encourag- 
 ingly. 
 
 “Tf 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! sefior 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 con- 
 ventional, 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 Tomé silver. Sotillo did not 
 despise him for that. The colonel’s want of moral 
 sense was of a profound and imnocent character. It 
 bordered upon stupidity, moral stupidity. Nothing 
 that served his ends could appear to him really repre- 
 hensible. 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. 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 351 
 
 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 con- 
 fronted 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 Sefiores. 
 Fuentes and Gamacho, to Rincon, with their enthusias- 
 tic welcome for Pedro Montero. It was a hasty and 
 risky exodus, and it was said that Hernandez, occupy- 
 ing with his band the woods about Los Hatos, was re- 
 ceiving the fugitives. That a good many people he 
 knew were contemplating such a flight had been well 
 known to the chief engineer. 
 
352 NOSTROMO 
 
 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 Capa- 
 taz, 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 turn- 
 ing a bandit into a general in a memorable last official 
 act of the Ribierist party, whose watchwords were 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE . 353 
 
 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 them- 
 selvesunder his protection. Astrange-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 Con- 
 stitucion. 
 
 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 José, 
 of whose critical state the priest was not aware. An- 
 tonia 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 
 
854 NOSTROMO 
 
 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 hard- 
 ships in the train of a robber band less debasing. An- 
 tonia 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 con- 
 dition 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 re- 
 conquest 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 anew 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 Ilaneros allied to Sefiores Fuentes and 
 Gamacho with their armed rabble. 
 
 All the latter part of the afternoon an animated 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 355 
 
 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 wha 
 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 Pe- 
 drito 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 them- 
 
356 NOSTROMO 
 
 selves in their houses. In the whole dark street there 
 was only one spot of flickering lights and moving figures, . 
 where the Sefior 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 José Avellanos, who, with closed eyes 
 and motionless features, appeared perfectly lifeless. 
 His wife and Antonia walked on each side of the im- 
 provised 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. 
 
 “S72, carefully; st nara,’ he mumbled, chewing his 
 lips, his round leathery cheeks quivering. And the 
 landau rolled slowly out of the light. 
 
 “T will see them as far as the ford,’’ said Charles 
 Gould to his wife. She stood on the edge of the side- 
 walk with her hands clasped lightly, and nodded to him 
 as he followed after the carriage. And now the win- 
 dows 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 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 357 
 
 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 serefio in your service in the San 
 Tomé 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 evi- 
 dently he was communicative with a purpose. He told 
 Charles Gould that he had been a ranchero in one of the 
 
358 NOSTROMO 
 
 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, sefior,’’ 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!” 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 359 
 
 lgnacio 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 appre- 
 hensively. 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 blan- 
 kets. 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, Dofia Emilia?”’ 
 
 At the turn of the road the glare of a big fire filled the 
 short stretch vaulted over by the branches meeting over- 
 head. 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. 
 
 “TIT must leave you here,” said Charles Gould, in the 
 uproar. ‘The flames leaped up sky-high, and in the re- 
 coil 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, 
 
360 NOSTROMO. 
 
 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 Corbe- 
 lan, 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 con- 
 trary directions; the noise of voices seemed to die away 
 with the flame; and the tumult of heads, arms, quarrell- 
 ing, and imprecations passed on fleeing into the dark- 
 ness. 
 
 “TI 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 disen- 
 tangle one’s activity from its debasing contacts. A 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 361 
 
 close-meshed net of crime and corruption lay upon the 
 whole country. An immense and weary discourage- 
 ment sealed his lips for a time. 
 
 “You are a just man,” urged the emissary of Her- 
 nandez. ‘“‘Look at those people who made my com- 
 padre a general and have turned us all into soldiers. 
 Look at those oligarchs fleemg 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, sefior! 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 HERE 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 under- 
 
362 NOSTROMO 
 
 stood it thoroughly as he looked down at Don José 
 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 com- 
 plete 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, m2 amo,” he grum- 
 bled. ‘“‘ You shall never see them againi”’ 
 
CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 CHARLES GovuLp turned towards the town. Before 
 ‘him the jagged peaks of the Sierra came out all black in 
 the clear dawn. Here and there a muffled lepero 
 whisked round the corner of a grass-grown street before 
 the ringing hoofs of his horse. Dogs barked behind the 
 walls of the gardens; and with the colourless light 
 the chill of the snows seemed to fall from the mountains 
 upon the disjointed pavements and the shuttered houses 
 with broken cornices and the plaster peeling in patches 
 between the flat pilasters of the fronts. The daybreak 
 struggled with the gloom under the arcades on the Plaza, 
 with no signs of country people disposing their goods 
 for the day’s market, piles of fruit, bundles of vegetables 
 ornamented with flowers, on low benches under enor- 
 mous mat umbrellas; with no cheery early morning 
 bustle of villagers, women, children, and loaded don- 
 keys. Only a few scattered knots of revolutionists 
 stood in the vast space, all looking one way from under 
 their slouched hats for some sign of news from Rincon. 
 The largest of those groups turned about like one man 
 as Charles Gould passed, and shouted, “Viva la liber- 
 tad !’’ after him in a menacing tone. 
 
 Charles Gould rode on, and turned into the archway 
 of his house. In the patio littered with straw, a practi- 
 cante, one of Dr. Monygham’s native assistants, sat on 
 the ground with his back against the rim of the fountain, 
 fingering a guitar discreetly, while two girls of the lower 
 class, standing up before him, shuffled their feet a little 
 and waved their arms, humming a popular dance tune. 
 
 $63 
 
364 NOSTROMO 
 
 Most of the wounded during the two days of rioting had 
 been taken away already by their friends and relations, 
 but several figures could be seen sitting up balancing 
 their bandaged heads in time to the music. Charles 
 Gould dismounted. A sleepy mozo coming out of the 
 bakery door took hold of the horse’s bridle; the practi- 
 cante endeavoured to conceal his guitar hastily; the 
 girls, unabashed, stepped back smiling; and Charles 
 Gould, on his way to the staircase, glanced into a dark 
 corner of the patio at another group, a mortally 
 wounded Cargador with a woman kneeling by his side; 
 she mumbled prayers rapidly, trying at the same time 
 to force a piece of orange between the stiffening lips 
 of the dying man. 
 
 The cruel futility of things stood unveiled in the levity 
 and sufferings of that incorrigible people; the cruel 
 futility of lives and of deaths thrown away in the vain 
 endeavour to attain an enduring solution of the prob- 
 lem. Unlike Decoud, Charles Gould could not play 
 lightly a part in a tragic farce. It was tragic enough for 
 him in all conscience, but he could see no farcical ele- 
 ment. He suffered too much under a conviction of 
 irremediable folly. He was too severely practical and 
 too idealistic to look upon its terrible humours with 
 amusement, as Martin Decoud, the imaginative ma- 
 terialist, was able to do in the dry light of his scepticism. 
 To him, as to all of us, the compromises with his con- 
 science appeared uglier than ever in the light of failure. 
 His taciturnity, assumed with a purpose, had prevented 
 him from tampering openly with his thoughts; but the 
 Gould Concession had insidiously corrupted his judg- 
 ment. He might have known, he said to himself, lean- 
 ing over the balustrade of the corredor, that Ribierism 
 could never come to anything. The mine had cor- 
 rupted his judgment by making him sick of bribing and 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 365 
 
 intriguing merely to have his work left alone from day 
 to day. Like his father, he did not hke to be robbed. 
 It exasperated him. He had persuaded himself that, 
 apart from higher considerations, the backing up of Don 
 José’s hopes of reform was good business. He had gone 
 forth into the senseless fray as his poor uncle, whose 
 sword hung on the wall of his study, had gone forth—in 
 the defence of the commonest decencies of organized 
 society. Only his weapon was the wealth of the mine, 
 more far-reaching and subtle than an honest blade of 
 steel fitted into a simple brass guard. 
 
 More dangerous to the wielder, too, this weapon of 
 wealth, double-edged with the cupidity and misery of 
 mankind, steeped in all the vices of self-inaulgence as 
 in a concoction of poisonous roots, tainting the very 
 cause for which it is drawn, always ready to turn awk- 
 wardly in the hand. ‘There was nothing for it now but 
 to go on using it. But he promised himself to see it 
 shattered into small bits before he let it be wrenched 
 from his grasp. 
 
 After all, with his English parentage and English 
 upbringing, he perceived that he was an adventurer in 
 Costaguana, the descendant of adventurers enlisted in a 
 foreign legion, of men who had sought fortune in a 
 revolutionary war, who had planned revolutions, who 
 had believed in revolutions. For all the uprightness of 
 his character, he had something of an adventurer’s easy 
 morality which takes count of personal risk in the 
 ethical appraising of his action. He was prepared, if 
 need be, to blow up the whole San Tomé mountain sky 
 high out of the territory of the Republic. This reso- 
 lution expressed the tenacity of his character, the re- 
 morse of that subtle conjugal infidelity through which 
 his wife was no longer the sole mistress of his thoughts, 
 something of his father’s imaginative weakness, and 
 
366 NOSTROMO 
 
 something, too, of the spirit of a buccaneer throwing a 
 lighted match into the magazine rather than surrender 
 his ship. 
 
 Down below in the patio the wounded Cargador had 
 breathed his last. ‘The woman cried out once, and her 
 cry, unexpected and shrill, made all the wounded sit 
 up. The practicante scrambled to his feet, and, gui- 
 tar in hand, gazed steadily in her direction with ele- 
 vated eyebrows. The two girls—sitting now one on 
 each side of their wounded relative, with their knees 
 drawn up and long cigars between their lips—nodded 
 at each other significantly. 
 
 Charles Gould, looking down over the balustrade, saw 
 three men dressed ceremoniously in black frock-coats 
 with white shirts, and wearing European round hats, 
 enter the patio from the street. One of them, head and 
 shoulders taller than the two others, advanced with 
 marked gravity, leading the way. This was Don Juste 
 Lopez, accompanied by two of his friends, members of 
 Assembly, coming to call upon the Administrador of the 
 San Tomé mine at this early hour. They saw him, too, 
 waved their hands to him urgently, walking up the 
 stairs as if in procession. 
 
 Don Juste, astonishingly changed by having shaved 
 off altogether his damaged beard, had lost with it nine- 
 tenths of his outward dignity. Even at that time of 
 serious pre-occupation Charles Gould could not help 
 noting the revealed ineptitude in the aspect of the man. 
 His companions looked crestfallen and sleepy. One 
 kept on passing the tip of his tongue over his parched 
 lips; the other’s eyes strayed dully over the tiled floor of 
 the corredor, while Don Juste, standing a little in ad- 
 vance, harangued the Sefior Administrador of the San 
 Tomé mine. It was his firm opinion that forms had to 
 be observed. A new governor is always visited by 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 367 
 
 deputations from the Cabildo, which is the Municipal 
 Council, from the Consulado, the commercial Board, 
 and it was proper that the Provincial Assembly should 
 send a deputation, too, if only to assert the existence 
 of parliamentary institutions. Don Juste proposed that 
 Don Carlos Gould, as the most prominent citizen of the 
 province, should join the Assembly’s deputation. His 
 position was exceptional, his personality known through 
 the length and breadth of the whole Republic. Official 
 courtesies must not be neglected, if they are gone through 
 with a bleeding heart. The acceptance of accomplished 
 facts may save yet the precious vestiges of parliamentary 
 institutions. Don Juste’s eyes glowed dully; he believed 
 in parliamentary institutions—and the convinced drone 
 of his voice lost itself in the stillness of the house like the 
 deep buzzing of some ponderous insect. 
 
 Charles Gould had turned round to listen patiently, 
 leaning his elbow on the balustrade. He shook his 
 head a little, refusing, almost touched by the anxious 
 gaze of the President of the Provincial Assembly. It 
 was not Charles Gould’s policy to make the San Tomé 
 mine a party to any formal proceedings. 
 
 “My advice, sefiores, is that you should wait for your 
 fate in your houses. ‘There is no necessity for you to 
 give yourselves up formally into Montero’s hands. 
 Svbmission to the inevitable, as Don Juste calls it, is all 
 very well, but when the mevitable is called Pedrito 
 Montero there is no need to exhibit pointedly the whole 
 extent of your surrender. The fault of this country is 
 the want of measure in political life. Flat acquiescence 
 in illegality, followed by sanguinary reaction—that, 
 sefiores, is not the way to a stable and prosperous future.” 
 
 Charles Gould stopped before the sad bewilderment 
 of the faces, the wondering, anxious glances of the eyes. 
 The feeling of pity for those men, putting all their trust 
 
368 NOSTROMO 
 
 into words of some sort, while murder and rapine 
 stalked over the land, had betrayed him into what 
 seemed empty loquacity. Don Juste murmured— 
 
 “You are abandoning us, Don Carlos. . . . And 
 yet, parliamentary institutions os 
 
 He could not finish from grief. For a moment he put 
 his hand over his eyes. Charles Gould, in his fear of 
 empty loquacity, made no answer to the charge. He 
 returned in silence their ceremonious bows. His 
 taciturnity was his refuge. He understood that what 
 they sought was to get the influence of the San Tomé 
 mine on their side. ‘They wanted to go on a conciliating 
 errand to the victor under the wing of the Gould Con- 
 cession. Other public bodies—the Cabildo, the Con- 
 sulado—would be coming, too, presently, seeking the 
 support of the most stable, the most effective force 
 they had ever known to exist in their province. : 
 
 The doctor, arriving with his sharp, jerky walk, found 
 that the master had retired into his own room with 
 orders not to be disturbed on any account. But Dr. 
 Monygham was not anxious to see Charles Gould at 
 once. He spent some time in a rapid examination of 
 his wounded. He gazed down upon each in turn, 
 rubbing his chin between his thumb and forefinger; his — 
 steady stare met without expression their silently in- 
 quisitive look. All these cases were doing well; but 
 when he came to the dead Cargador he stopped a little 
 longer, surveying not the man who had ceased to suffer, 
 but the woman kneeling in silent contemplation of the 
 rigid face, with its pinched nostrils and a white gleam in 
 the imperfectly closed eyes. She lifted her head slowly, 
 and said in a dull voice— 
 
 “Tt is not long since he had become a Cargador—only 
 a few weeks. His worship the Capataz had accepted 
 him after many entreaties.” 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 369 
 
 **T am not responsible for the great Capataz,”’ mut- 
 tered the doctor, moving off. 
 
 Directing his course upstairs towards the door of 
 Charles Gould’s room, the doctor at the last moment 
 hesitated; then, turning away from the handle with a 
 shrug of his uneven shoulders, slunk off hastily along the 
 corredor in search of Mrs. Gould’s camerista. 
 
 Leonarda told him that the sefiora had not risen yet. 
 The sefiora had given into her charge the girls belonging 
 to that Italian posadero. She, Leonarda, had put them 
 to bed in her own room. ‘The fair girl had cried herself 
 to sleep, but the dark one—the bigger—had not closed 
 her eyes yet. She sat up in bed clutching the sheets 
 right up under her chin and staring before her like a 
 little witch. Leonarda did not approve of the Viola 
 children being admitted to the house. She made this 
 feeling clear by the indifferent tone in which she in- 
 quired whether their mother was dead yet. As to the 
 sefiora, she must be asleep. Ever since she had gone 
 into her room after seeing the departure of Dofia 
 Antonia with her dying father, there had been no sound 
 behind her door. 
 
 The doctor, rousing himself out of profound reflection, 
 told her abruptly to call her mistress at once. He 
 hobbled off to wait for Mrs. Gould in the sala. He was 
 very tired, but too excited to sit down. In this great 
 drawing-room, now empty, in which his withered soul 
 had been refreshed after many arid years and his out- 
 cast spirit had accepted silently the toleration of many 
 side-glances, he wandered haphazard amongst the 
 chairs and tables till Mrs. Gould, enveloped in a 
 morning wrapper, came in rapidly. | 
 
 “You know that I never approved of the silver being 
 sent away,” the doctor began at once, as a preliminary 
 to the narrative of his night’s adventurers in association 
 
370 | NOSTROMO 
 
 with Captain Mitchell, the engineer-in-chief, and old 
 Viola, at Sotillo’s headquarters. To the doctor, with 
 his special conception of this political crisis, the removal 
 of the silver had seemed an irrational and ill-omened 
 measure. It was as if a general were sending the best 
 part of his troops away on the eve of battle upon some 
 recondite pretext. The whole lot of ingots might have 
 been concealed somewhere where they could have been 
 got at for the purpose of staving off the dangers which 
 were menacing the security of the Gould Concession. 
 The Administrador had acted as if the immense and 
 powerful prosperity of the mine had been founded on 
 methods of probity, on the sense of usefulness. And it 
 was nothing of the kind. The method followed had 
 been the only one possible. The Gould Concession had 
 ransomed its way through all those years. It was a 
 nauseous process. He quite understood that Charles 
 Gould had got sick of it and had left the old path to 
 back up that hopeless attempt at reform. The doctor 
 did not believe in the reform of Costaguana. And now 
 the mine was back again in its old path, with the dis- 
 advantage that henceforth it had to deal not only with 
 the greed provoked by its wealth, but with the resent- 
 ment awakened by the attempt to free itself from its 
 bondage to moral corruption. That was the penalty of 
 failure. What made him uneasy was that Charles 
 Gould seemed to him to have weakened at the decisive 
 moment when a frank return to the old methods was the 
 only chance. Listening to Decoud’s wild scheme had 
 been a weakness. 
 
 The doctor flung up his arms, exclaiming, “‘Decoud! 
 Decoud!”? He hobbled about the room with slight, 
 angry laughs. Many years ago both his ankles had 
 been seriously damaged in the course of a certain 
 investigation conducted in the castle of Sta. Marta by a 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 371 
 
 commission composed of military men. Their nomina- 
 tion had been signified to them unexpectedly at the dead 
 of night, with scowling brow, flashing eyes, and in a 
 tempestuous voice, by Guzman Bento. The old tyrant, 
 maddened by one of his sudden accesses of suspicion, 
 mingled spluttering appeals to their fidelity with 
 imprecations and horrible menaces. The cells and 
 casements of the castle on the hill had been already 
 filled with prisoners. The commission was charged 
 now with the task of discovering the iniquitous con- 
 spiracy against the Citizen-Saviour of his country. 
 Their dread of the raving tyrant translated itself into 
 a hasty ferocity of procedure. The Citizen-Saviour was 
 not accustomed to wait. A conspiracy had to be dis- 
 covered. ‘The courtyards of the castle resounded with 
 the clanking of leg-irons, sounds of blows, yells of pain; 
 and the commission of high officers laboured feverishly, 
 concealing their distress and apprehensions from each 
 other, and especially from their secretary, Father Beron, 
 an army chaplain, at that time very much in the con- 
 fidence of the Citizen-Saviour. That priest was a big 
 round-shouldered man, with an unclean-looking, over- 
 grown tonsure on the top of his flat head, of a dingy, 
 yellow complexion, softly fat, with greasy stains all 
 down the front of his lieutenant’s uniform, and a small 
 cross embroidered in white cotton on his left breast. He 
 had a heavy nose and a pendant lip. Dr. Monygham 
 remembered him still. He remembered him against all 
 the force of his will striving its utmost to forget. Father 
 Beron had been adjoined to the commission by Guzman 
 Bento expressly for the purpose that his enlightened zeal 
 should assist themin their labours. Dr. Monygham could 
 by no manner of means forget the zeal of Father Beron, 
 or his face, or the pitiless, monotonous voice in which 
 he pronounced the words, “Will you confess now?” _ 
 
S12 NOSTROMO 
 
 This memory did not make him shudder, but it had 
 made of him what he was in the eyes of respectable 
 people, a man careless of common decencies, something 
 between a clever vagabond and a disreputable doctor. 
 But not all respectable people would have had the 
 necessary delicacy of sentiment to understand with 
 what trouble of mind and accuracy of vision Dr. Monyg- 
 ham, medical officer of the San Tomé mine, remembered 
 Father Beron, army chaplain, and once a secretary of 
 a military commission. After all these years Dr. 
 Monygham, in his rooms at the end of the hospital 
 building in the San Tomé gorge, remembered Father 
 Beron as distinctly as ever. He remembered that priest 
 at night, sometimes, in his sleep. On such nights the 
 doctor waited for daylight with a candle lighted, and 
 walking the whole length of his rooms to and fro, 
 staring down at his bare feet, his arms hugging his 
 sides tightly. He would dream of Father Beron 
 sitting at the end of a long black table, behind which, 
 in a row, appeared the heads, shoulders, and epaulettes 
 of the military members, nibbling the feather of a quill 
 pen, and listening with weary and impatient scorn to 
 the protestations of some prisoner calling heaven to 
 witness of his innocence, till he burst out, “‘ What’s the 
 use of wasting time over that miserable nonsense! Let 
 me take him outside for a while.”’ And Father Beron 
 would go outside after the clanking prisoner, led away 
 between two soldiers. Such interludes happened on 
 many days, many times, with many prisoners. When 
 the prisoner returned he was ready to make a full con- 
 fession, Father Beron would declare, leaning forward 
 with that dull, surfeited look which can be seen in the 
 eyes of gluttonous persons after a heavy meal. 
 
 The priest’s inquisitorial instincts suffered but little 
 from the want of classical apparatus of the Inquisition 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 373 
 
 At no time of the world’s history have men been at a 
 loss how to inflict mental and bodily anguish upon 
 their fellow-creatures. This aptitude came to them in 
 the growing complexity of their passions and the early 
 refinement of their ingenuity. But it may safely be said 
 that primeval man did not go to the trouble of inventing 
 tortures. He was indolent and pure of heart. He 
 brained his neighbour ferociously with a stone axe from 
 necessity and without malice. The stupidest mind 
 may invent a rankling phrase or brand the innocent with 
 a cruel aspersion. A piece of string and a ramrod; a 
 few muskets in combination with a length of hide rope; 
 or even a simple mallet of heavy, hard wood applied 
 with a swing to human fingers or to the’joints of a 
 human body is enough for the infliction of the most 
 exquisite torture. The doctor had been a very stubborn 
 prisoner, and, as a natural consequence of that “bad 
 disposition” (so Father Beron called it), his subjugation 
 had been very crushing and very complete. That is 
 why the limp in his walk, the twist of his shoulders, the 
 scars on his cheeks were so pronounced. His con- 
 fessions, when they came at last, were very complete, 
 too. Sometimes on the nights when he walked the 
 floor, he wondered, grinding his teeth with shame and 
 rage, at the fertility of his imagination when stimulated 
 by a sort of pain which makes truth, honour, self- 
 respect, and life itself matters of little moment. 
 
 And he could not forget Father Beron with his mo- 
 notonous phrase, “‘ Will you confess now?” reaching him 
 in an awful iteration and lucidity of meaning through the 
 delirious incoherence of unbearable pain. He could 
 not forget. But that was not the worst. Had he met 
 Father Beron in the street after all these years Dr. 
 Monygham was sure he would have quailed before him. 
 This contingency was not to be feared now. Father 
 
374 NOSTROMO 
 
 Beron was dead; but the sickening certitude prevented 
 Dr. Monygham from looking anybody in the face. 
 
 Dr. Monygham had become, in a manner, the slave of 
 a ghost. It was obviously impossible to take his knowl- 
 edge of Father Beron home to Europe. When making 
 his extorted confessions to the Military Board, Dr. 
 Monygham was not seeking to avoid death. He longed 
 for it. Sitting half-naked for hours on the wet earth 
 of his prison, and so motionless that the spiders, his 
 companions, attached their webs to his matted hair, he 
 consoled the misery of his soul with acute reasonings 
 that he had confessed to crimes enough for a sentence of 
 death—that they had gone too far with him to let him 
 live to tell the tale. 
 
 But, as if by a refinement of cruelty, Dr. Monygham 
 was left for months to decay slowly in the darkness of his 
 grave-like prison. It was no doubt hoped that it would 
 finish him off without the trouble of an execution; but 
 Dr. Monygham had an iron constitution. It was 
 Guzman Bento who died, not by the knife thrust of a 
 conspirator, but from a stroke of apoplexy, and Dr. 
 Monygham was liberated hastily. His fetters were 
 struck off by the light of a candle, which, after months of 
 gloom, hurt his eyes so much that he had to cover his 
 face with his hands. He wasraised up. His heart was 
 beating violently with the fear of this liberty. When 
 he tried to walk the extraordinary lightness of his feet 
 made him giddy, and he fell down. ‘Two sticks were 
 thrust into his hands, and he was pushed out of the 
 passage. It was dusk; candles glimmered already in 
 the windows of the officers’ quarters round the court- 
 yard; but the twilight sky dazed him by its enormous 
 and overwhelming brilliance. A thin poncho hung over 
 his naked, bony shoulders; the rags of his trousers came 
 down no lower than his knees; an eighteen months’ 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 375 
 
 growth of hair fell in dirty grey locks on each side of his 
 sharp cheek-bones. As he dragged himself past the 
 guard-room door, one of the soldiers, lolling outside, 
 moved by some obscure impulse, leaped forward with a 
 strange laugh and rammed a broken old straw hat on 
 his head. And Dr. Monygham, after having tottered, 
 continued on his way. He advanced one stick, then 
 one maimed foot, then the other stick; the other foot 
 followed only a very short distance along the ground, 
 toilfully, as though it were almost too heavy to be 
 moved at all; and yet his legs under the hanging angles 
 of the poncho appeared no thicker than the two sticks in 
 his hands. A ceaseless trembling agitated his bent 
 body, all his wasted limbs, his bony head, the conical, 
 ragged crown of the sombrero, whose ample flat rim 
 rested on his shoulders. 
 
 In such conditions of manner and attire did Dr. 
 Monygham go forth to take possession of his liberty. 
 And these conditions seemed to bind him indissolubly 
 to the land of Costaguana like an awful procedure of 
 naturalization, involving him deep in the national life, 
 far deeper than any amount of success and honour could 
 have done. They did away with his Europeanism; for 
 Dr. Monygham had made himself an ideal conception of 
 his disgrace. It was a conception eminently fit and 
 proper for an officer and a gentleman. Dr. Monygham, 
 before he went out to Costaguana, had been surgeon in 
 one of Her Majesty’s regiments of foot. It was a con- 
 ception which took no account of physiological facts or 
 reasonable arguments; but it was not stupid for all that. 
 It was simple. A rule of conduct resting mainly on 
 severe rejections is necessarily simple. Dr. Monyg- 
 ham’s view of what it behoved him to do was severe; it 
 was an ideal view, in so much that it was the imagina- 
 tive exaggeration of a correct feeling. It was also, in its 
 
376 NOSTROMO 
 
 force, influence, and persistency, the view of an emi- 
 nently loyal nature. 
 
 There was a great fund of loyalty in Dr. Monygham’s 
 nature. He had settled it all on Mrs. Gould’s head. He 
 believed her worthy of every devotion. At the bottom 
 of his heart he felt an angry uneasiness before the pros- 
 perity of the San Tome mine, because its growth was 
 robbing her of all peace of mind. Costaguana was no 
 place for a woman of that kind. What could Charles 
 Gould have been thinking of when he brought her out 
 there! It was outrageous! And the doctor had 
 watched the course of events with a grim and distant 
 reserve which, he imagined, his lamentable history im- 
 posed upon him. 
 
 Loyalty to Mrs. Gould could not, however, leave out 
 of account the safety of her husband. The doctor had 
 contrived to be in town at the critical time because he 
 mistrusted Charles Gould. He considered him hope- 
 lessly infected with the madness of revolutions. That 
 is why he hobbled in distress in the drawing-room of the 
 Casa Gould on that morning, exclaiming, “Decoud, 
 Decoud!”’ in a tone of mournful irritation. 
 
 Mrs. Gould, her colour heightened, and with glisten- 
 ing eyes, looked straight before her at the sudden 
 enormity of that disaster. ‘The finger-tips on one hand 
 rested lightly on a low little table by her side, and the 
 arm trembled right up to the shoulder. The sun, 
 which looks late upon Sulaco, issuing in all the fulness of 
 its power high up on the sky from behind the dazzling 
 snow-edge of Higuerota, had precipitated the delicate, 
 smooth, pearly greyness of light, in which the town lies 
 steeped during the early hours, into sharp-cut masses of 
 black shade and spaces of hot, blinding glare. Three 
 long rectangles of sunshine fell through the windows of 
 the sala; while just across the street the front of the 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 377 
 
 Avellanos’s house appeared very sombre in its own 
 shadow seen through the flood of light. 
 
 A voice said at the door, “What of Deeoud?”’ 
 
 It was Charles Gould. They had not heard him 
 coming along the corredor. His glance just glided over 
 his wife and struck full at the doctor. 
 
 “You have brought some news, doctor?”’ 
 
 Dr. Monygham blurted it all out at once, in the rough. 
 For some time after he had done, the Administrador of 
 the San Tome mine remained looking at him without a- 
 word. Mrs. Gould sank into a low chair with her hands 
 lying on her lap. A silence reigned between those three 
 motionless persons. Then Charles Gould spoke— 
 
 *“You must want some breakfast.”’ 
 
 He stood aside to let his wife pass first. She caught 
 up her husband’s hand and pressed it as she went out, 
 raising her handkerchief to her eyes. The sight of her 
 husband had brought Antonia’s position to her mind, 
 and she could not contain her tears at the thought of the 
 poor girl. When she rejoined the two men in the dining- 
 room after having bathed her face, Charles Gould was 
 saying to the doctor across the table— 
 
 *““No, there does not seem any room for doubt.” 
 
 And the doctor assented. 
 
 “No, I don’t see myself how we could question that 
 wretched Hirsch’s tale. It’s only too true, I fear.’ 
 
 She sat down desolately at the head cf the table and 
 looked from one to the other. ‘The two men, without 
 absolutely turning their heads away, tried to avoid her 
 glance. The doctor even made a show of being hungry; 
 he seized his knife and fork, and began to eat with 
 emphasis, as if on the stage. Charles Gould made no 
 pretence of the sort; with his elbows raised squarely, he 
 twisted both ends of his flaming moustaches—they were 
 so long that his hands were quite away from his face. 
 
378 NOSTROMO 
 
 “T am not surprised,” he muttered, abandoning 
 his moustaches and throwing one arm over the back 
 of his chair. His face was calm with that immobility 
 of expression which betrays the intensity of a mental 
 struggle. He felt that this accident had brought to a 
 point all the consequences involved in his line of con- 
 duct, with its conscious and subconscious intentions. 
 There must be an end now of this silent reserve, of that 
 air of impenetrability behind which he had been safe- 
 guarding his dignity. It was the least ignoble form of 
 dissembling forced upon him by that parody of civilized 
 institutions which offended his intelligence, his up- 
 rightness, and his sense of right. He was like his father. 
 He had no ironic eye. He was not amused at the 
 absurdities that prevail in this world. They hurt him 
 in his innate gravity. He felt that the miserable death of 
 that poor Decoud took from him his inaccessible position 
 of a force in the background. It committed him openly 
 unless he wished to throw up the game—and that was 
 impossible. ‘The material interests required from him 
 the sacrifice of his aloofness—perhaps his own safety 
 too. And he reflected that Decoud’s separationist 
 plan had not gone to the bottom with the lost silver. 
 
 The only thing that was not changed was his position 
 towards Mr. Holroyd. The head of silver and steel 
 interests had entered into Costaguana affairs with a sort 
 of passion. Costaguana had become necessary to his 
 existence; in the San Tomé mine he had found the 
 imaginative satisfaction which other minds would get 
 from drama, from art, or from a risky and fascinating 
 sport. It was a special form of the great man’s ex- 
 travagance, sanctioned by a moral imtention, big 
 enough to flatter his vanity. Even in this aberration of 
 his genius he served the progress of the world. Charles 
 Gould felt sure of being understood with precision and 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 379 
 
 judged with the indulgence of their common passion. 
 Nothing now could surprise or startle this great man. 
 And Charles Gould imagined himself writing a letter to 
 San Francisco in some such words: “. . . . The 
 men at the head of the movement are dead or have 
 fled; the civil organization of the province is at an end 
 for the present; the Blanco party in Sulaco has col- 
 lapsed inexcusably, but in the characteristic manner of 
 this country. But Barrios, untouched in. Cayta, 
 remains still available. I am forced to take up openly 
 the plan of a provincial revolution as the only way of 
 placing the enormous material interests involved in the 
 prosperity and peace of Sulaco in a position of perma- 
 nent safety. ” ‘That was clear. He saw these 
 words as if written in letters of fire upon the wall at 
 which he was gazing abstractedly. 
 
 Mrs Gould watched his abstraction with dread. It 
 was a domestic and frightful phenomenon that dark- 
 ened and chilled the house for her like a thunder- 
 cloud passing over the sun. Charles Gould’s fits of 
 abstraction depicted the energetic concentration of a 
 will haunted by a fixed idea. A man haunted by a> 
 fixed idea is insane. He is dangerous even if that 
 idea is an idea of justice; for may he not bring the 
 heaven down pitilessly upon a loved head? The eyes 
 of Mrs. Gould, watching her husband’s profile, filled 
 with tears again. And again she seemed to see the 
 despair of the unfortunate Antonia. 
 
 “What would I have done if Charley had been 
 drowned while we were engaged?” she exclaimed, men- 
 tally, with horror. Her heart turned to ice, while 
 her cheeks flamed up as if scorched by the blaze of a 
 funeral pyre consuming all her earthly affections. The 
 tears burst out of her eyes. 
 
 ‘Antonia will kill herself!” she cried out, 
 
380 NOSTROMO 
 
 This cry fell into the silence of the room with 
 strangely little effect. Only the doctor, crumbling 
 up a piece of bread, with his head inclined on one side, 
 raised his face, and the few long hairs sticking out of 
 his shaggy eyebrows stirred in a slight frown. Dr. 
 Monygham thought quite sincerely that Decoud was a 
 singularly unworthy object for any woman’s affection. 
 Then he lowered his head again, with a curl of his lip, 
 and his heart full of tender admiration for Mrs. Gould. 
 
 “She thinks of that girl,’ he said to himself; “‘she 
 thinks of the Viola children; she thinks of me; of the 
 wounded; of the miners; she always thinks of everybody 
 who is poor and miserable! But what will she do if 
 Charles gets the worst of it in this infernal scrimmage 
 those confounded Avellanos have drawn him into? No 
 one seems to be thinking of her.” 
 
 Charles Gould, staring at the wall, pursued his re~ 
 flections subtly. 
 
 “TI shall write to Holroyd that the San Tomé mine is 
 big enough to take in hand the making of a new State. 
 It'll please him. It’ll reconcile him to the risk.” 
 
 But was Barrios really available? Perhaps. But he’ 
 was inaccessible. To send off a boat to Cayta was no 
 longer possible, since Sotillo was master of the harbour, 
 and had a steamer at his disposal. And now, with all 
 the democrats in the province up, and every Campo 
 township in a state of disturbance, where could he find 
 a man who would make his way successfully overland to 
 Cayta with a message, a ten days’ ride at least; a man 
 of courage and resolution, who would avoid arrest or- 
 murder, and if arrested would faithfully eat the paper? 
 The Capataz de Cargadores would have been just such 
 aman. But the Capataz of the Cargadores was no 
 more. 
 
 And Charles Gould, withdrawing his eyes from the 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 381 
 
 wall, said gently, “That Hirsch! What an extraor- 
 dinary thing! Saved himself by clinging to the an- 
 chor, did he? I had no idea that he was still in Sulaco. 
 I thought he had gone back overland co Esmeralda 
 more than a week ago. He came here once to talk 
 to me about his hide business and some other things. 
 I made it clear to him that nothing could be done.” 
 
 **He was afraid to start back on account of Hernandez 
 being about,’ remarked the doctor. 
 
 ‘And but for him we might not have known anything 
 of what has happened,” marvelled Charles Gould. 
 
 Mrs. Gould cried out— 
 
 “Antonia must not know! She must not be told. 
 Not now.” 
 
 ““Nobody’s likely to carry the news,’’ remarked the 
 doctor. “It’s no one’s interest. Moreover, the people 
 here are afraid of Hernandez as if he were the devil.” 
 He turned to Charles Gould. ‘“‘It’s even awkward, 
 because if you wanted to communicate with the ref- 
 ugees you could find no messenger. When Hernandez 
 was ranging hundreds of miles away from here the 
 Sulaco populace used to shudder at the tales of him 
 roasting his prisoners alive.” 
 
 “Yes,” murmured Charles Gould; “‘ Captain Mit- 
 chell’s Capataz was the only man in the town who had 
 seen Hernandez eye to eye. Father Corbelan em- 
 ployed him. He opened the communications first. It 
 is a pity tha = 
 
 His voice was covered by the booming of the great 
 bell of the cathedral. Three single strokes, one after 
 another, burst out explosively, dying away in deep and 
 mellow vibrations. And then ali the bells in the tower 
 of every church, convent, or chapel in town, even those 
 that had remained shut up for years, pealed out to- 
 gether with a crash. In this furious flood of metallic 
 
382 NOSTROMO 
 
 uproar there was a power of suggesting images of strife 
 and violence which blanched Mrs. Gould’s cheek. 
 Basilio, who had been waiting at table, shrinking within 
 himself, clung to the sideboard with chattering teeth. 
 It was impossible to hear yourself speak. 
 
 “Shut these windows!”’ Charles Gould yelled at him, 
 angrily. All the other servants, terrified at what they 
 took for the signal of a general massacre, had rushed up- 
 stairs, tumbling over each other, men and women, the 
 obscure and generally invisible population of the ground 
 floor on the four sides of the patio. The women, scream- 
 ing “‘Misericordia!”’ ran right into the room, and, fall- 
 ing on their knees against the walls, began to cross them- 
 selves convulsively. The staring heads of men blocked 
 the doorway in an instant—mozos from the stable, 
 gardeners, nondescript helpers living on the crumbs of 
 the munificent house—and Charles Gould beheld all 
 the extent of his domestic establishment, even to the 
 gatekeeper. This was a half-paralyzed old man, whose 
 long white locks fell down to his shoulders: an heirloom 
 taken up by Charles Gould’s familial piety. He could 
 remember Henry Gould, an Englishman and a Costa- 
 guanero of the second generation, chief of the Sulaco 
 province; he had been his personal mozo years and 
 years ago in peace and war; had been allowed to attend 
 his master in prison; had, on the fatal morning, fol- 
 - lowed the firing squad; and, peeping from behind one 
 of the cypresses growing along the wall of the Franciscan 
 Convent, had seen, with his eyes starting out of his 
 head, Don Enrique throw up his hands and fall with 
 his face in the dust. Charles Gould noted particularly 
 the big patriarchal head of that witness in the rear of the 
 other servants. But he was surprised to see a shrivelled 
 old hag or two, of whose existence within the walls of his 
 house he had not been aware. They must have been the 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 383 
 
 mothers, or even the grandmothers of some of his people. 
 There were a few children, too, more or less naked, cry- 
 ing and clinging to the legs of their elders. He had never 
 before noticed any sign of a child in his patio. Even 
 Leonarda, the camerista, came in a fright, pushing 
 through, with her spoiled, pouting face of a favourite 
 maid, leading the Viola girls by the hand. The crockery 
 rattled on table and sideboard, and the whole house 
 seemed to sway in the deafening wave of sound. 
 
CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 Durinc the night the expectant populace had taken 
 possession of all the belfries in the town in order to wel- 
 come Pedrito Montero, who was making his entry after 
 having slept the night in Rincon. And first came strag- 
 gling 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 Sefior 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 Sefiores Fuentes and Gamacho 
 at the head of his llaneros, who had accomplished the 
 feat of crossing the Paramos of the Higuerota ina 
 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 prov- 
 ‘ince; 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 cam- 
 
 384 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 385 
 
 paigning, 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 char- 
 acterized the expression of all these sun-blacked coun- 
 tenances; they glared down haughtily with their 
 scorched eyes at the crowd, or, blinking upwards in- 
 solently, 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 eques- 
 trian statue of the King dazzlingly white in the sun- 
 shine, 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 vic- 
 torious 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, to- 
 gether with bodily strength, were looked upon, even 
 more than courage, as heroic virtues by primitive man- 
 kind. ‘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; 
 
386 NOSTROMO 
 
 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 Mon- 
 tero 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 
 Tomé 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 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 387 
 
 him to rise from the ranks. Pedrito, the younger, in: 
 corrigibly 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 deter- 
 mined 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 devour- 
 ing 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. No- 
 body 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 indo- 
 lence 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 unpre- 
 
388 NOSTROMO 
 
 ventable. 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 be- 
 come 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 rail- 
 ways, 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 moun- 
 tains with some two hundred lIlaneros, 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 be- 
 trayed him into a rashness of which he was becoming 
 aware. As he rode at the head of his llaneros he re- 
 gretted 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 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 389 
 
 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 con- 
 fidence slipped his hands under the arms of Sefiores 
 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 In- 
 tendencia. 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, dis- 
 mounted into a shouting and perspiring throng of en- 
 thusiasts 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 “PORVENIR” in immense 
 black capitals, alternating with broken windows, stared 
 at him across the vast space; and he thought with de- 
 light 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 hilar- 
 ity. On his right, Sefior 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. After- 
 wards the greater part of the citizens remained fasci- 
 nated 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 
 
390 - NOSTROMO 
 
 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 Sefior Fuentes, advocate and politician and a true 
 friend of the people. The vivas of those nearest to the 
 orator bursting out suddenly propagated themselves ir- 
 regularly to the confines of the crowd, like flames run~ 
 ning 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 dis- 
 appeared from the public gaze and the enormous Ga- 
 macho, left alone, advanced, raising his hat high above 
 his head. Then he covered himself proudly and yelled 
 out, “Ciudadanos!” <A dull roar greeted Sefior Ga- 
 macho, 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, snarl- 
 Ing incessantly— 
 
 “What stupidity! What destruction!” 
 
 Sefior Fuentes, following, would relax his taciturn 
 disposition to murmur— 
 
 “Tt 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 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 391 
 
 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 Géfé 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 am- 
 bushes, charged by his brother at his own demand 
 with the organization of Sulaco on democractic prin- 
 ciples. The night before, during the consultation 
 with his partisans, who had come out to meet him in 
 Rincon, he had opened his intentions to Sefior Fuentes— 
 
 “We shall organize a popular vote, by yes or no, con- 
 fiding the destinies of our beloved country to the wisdom 
 and valiance of my heroic brother, the invincible gen- 
 eral. A plebiscite. Do you understand?” 
 
 And Sefior Fuentes, puffing out his leathery cheeks, 
 had inclined his head slightly to the left, letting a thin, 
 
392 NOSTROMO 
 
 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, étagére 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 Ga- 
 macho by-and-by. And Sefior Gamacho’s oration, de- 
 lectable 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 rob- 
 bing poor people of their lands, and with the help of 
 these Goths and paralytics, the aristocrats would con- 
 vert them into toiling and miserable slaves. And 
 the leperos, flinging about the corners of their dirty 
 white mantas, yelled their approbation. General 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 393 
 
 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 ver- 
 tical sun were drifting away into the streets, where the 
 open doors of pulperias revealed an enticing gloom re- 
 sounding with the gentle tinkling of guitars. The Na- 
 tional 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 meas- 
 ure, no doubt. But the motive of it escaped their 
 unaided intelligence, and their chief and orator, Ga- 
 macho, 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. 
 
CHAPTER SIX 
 
 Tue 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 
 ranchos 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 
 Tomé 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 serefios 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 Pépé, descending the path from 
 
 394 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 395 
 
 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 Pépé’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 serefios strolled 
 back and forth before the bridge, on which they had 
 stopped a horseman holding a large white envelope in 
 his hand. Then Don Pépé, 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 Sefior Gobernador with 
 his boots off, as the saying is. 
 
 At a slight nod from one of the serefios, the man, a 
 messenger from the town, dismounted, and crossed the | 
 bridge, leading his horse by the bridle. 
 
 Don Pépé 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 silver- 
 mounted affair astride his nose, and adjusting it care- 
 fully behind his ears, he opened the envelope, holding 
 ‘it up at about a foot in front of hiseyes. 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 cau- 
 tious 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 in- 
 fantry camped along the shore of the harbour on each 
 
396 NOSTROMO 
 
 side of the Custom House. They had done no damage 
 to the buildings. The foreigners of the railway re- 
 mained 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 Pépé, 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 Pépé 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 Pépé, in a mild and humorous voice, informed 
 Father Roman that Pedrito Montero, by the hand of 
 Sefior 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 Pépé 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 thankful- 
 ness at hearing of the Sefior Administrador’s safety. 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 397 
 
 The hour of oration had gone by in the silvery ring- 
 ing 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 Tomé 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 fore- 
 men 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 maté. 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 belong- 
 
398 ~ NOSTROMO 
 
 ing 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 protect- 
 ing 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 Pépé, bolt upright in the chair, folded his hands 
 peacefully on the hilt of his sword, standing perpendicu- 
 lar 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 popula- 
 tion of the three villages could be starved into submis- 
 sion. Don Pépé 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 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 399 
 
 their fate, not from penetration, but from long ex- 
 perience of political atrocities, which seemed to him 
 fatal and unavoidable in the life of a State. The work- 
 ing 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 Tomé mine with 
 dignity and unction for five years or more; and he be- 
 lieved 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 earn- 
 est 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 incap- 
 able of fanaticism to an almost reprehensible degree. 
 The English sefiora 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 mstance, 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 sefiora 
 presently, he became gradually overcome with dismay. 
 
400 NOSTROMO 
 
 fle voiced it in an agitated murmur. Even Don Pépé 
 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 Sefior 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 path- 
 ways, 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 Pépé the most natural thing in the 
 world. His measures had been taken with judgment. 
 Everything was prepared with a careful completeness. 
 And Don Pépé folded his hands pacifically on his 
 sword hilt, and nodded at the priest. In his excite- 
 ment, 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 Pépé stroked his grey and pendant moustache, 
 whose fine ends hung far below the clean-cut line 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 401 
 
 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 de- 
 struction 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 ama 
 military man. I donot 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 es 
 
 His folded hands twitched on the hilt. The cigar 
 turned faster in the corner of his lips. 
 
 **And who should lead but 1? Unfortunately—ob- 
 serve—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, cf intelligence, of 
 judgment, of courage, to carry out the prepared de-_ 
 struction. Somebody I can trust with my honour as I 
 can trust myself. Another old officer of Paez, for in- 
 stance. Or—or—perhaps one of Paez’s old chaplains 
 would do.” 
 
 He got up, long, lank, upright, hard, with his martial 
 moustacheand 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. 
 
CHAPTER SEVEN 
 
 Ar 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 enter- 
 prise 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 dis- 
 cord 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 
 
 402 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 403 
 
 Interior drew a salary from the San Tomé 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 oc- 
 cupied 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 adminis- 
 trative 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 consterna- 
 tion. He had begun at first to talk loftily of confiscation, 
 but the want of all proper feeling and mobility in the 
 Sefior 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 Tomé 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 Tomé 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 ac- 
 cessible to His Excellency’s intelligence) in a cold- 
 blooded 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 
 
4.04 NOSTROMO 
 
 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 prob- 
 ably 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 imagina- 
 . tion 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 re- 
 peated. Nothing was further from the thoughts of 
 that wise and patriotic hero than ideas of destruction. 
 “T 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 agree- 
 ably, 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 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 405 
 
 expression of democracy was Cesarism: the imperial 
 rule based upon the direct popular vote. Czesarism 
 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. Czesarism 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. Republican- 
 ism 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 recogni- 
 tion 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, eh etanine 
 trol of cavalry rode round and round without penetrat- 
 ing 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 
 
406 NOSTROMO 
 
 darkening blue sky before the windows of the Inten- 
 dencia. 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 Provin- 
 cial 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 Tomé mine as a 
 dignified rebuke of his little faith in that only saving 
 principle. 
 
 The mournful severity of that reproof did not affec* 
 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 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 407 
 
 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 Cluk 
 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. 
 
 “T hope you did not warn Montero of what you mean 
 to do,” the doctor said, anxiously. 
 
 “TI 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 Pépé there. Fuentes must 
 have told him. They know that the old major is per- 
 fectly capable of blowing up the San Tomé mine with- 
 out hesitation or compunction. Had it not been for 
 that I don’t think I'd have left the Intendencia a free 
 
408 NOSTROMO 
 
 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? . . . Ialone can restrain Don Pépé. 
 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 Tomé 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 ex- 
 citement. “Especially if Don Pépé behaves diplomatic- 
 ally. 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 ‘i! . 
 
 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 LIGHTHOUSE 409 
 
 the open rectitude of Don Pépé’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 Pépé let it be supposed 
 that he could be bought over, the Administrador’s 
 personal safety and the safety of his friends would be- 
 come endangered. For there would be then no reason 
 for moderation. The incorruptibility of Don Pépé 
 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 Pépé’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. 
 
 “Tf 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 Mon- 
 terism. 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. 
 
410 NOSTROMO 
 
 1 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. Monyg- 
 ham, 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 in- 
 struments 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 enorm- 
 ity 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 clear- 
 cut 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 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 411 
 
 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 em- 
 braced 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 
 
412 NOSTROMO 
 
 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. 
 
CHAPTER EIGHT 
 
 Arter landing from his swim Nostromo had scram- 
 bled up, all dripping, into the main quadrangle of the 
 old fort; and there, amongst ruined bits of walls and 
 rotting remnants of roofs and sheds, he had slept 
 the day through. He had slept in the shadow of the 
 mountains, in the white blaze of noon, in the stillness 
 and solitude of that overgrown piece of land between 
 the oval of the harbour and the spacious semi-circle 
 of the gulf. He lay asif dead. A rey-zamuro, appear- 
 ing like a tiny black speck in the blue, stocped, circling 
 prudently with a stealthiness of flight startling in a bird 
 of that great size. The shadow of his pearly-white 
 body, of his black-tipped wings, fell on the grass no 
 more silently than he alighted himself on a hillock of 
 rubbish within three yards of that man, lying as still 
 as a corpse. ‘The bird stretched his bare neck, craned 
 his bald head, loathsome in the brilliance of varied 
 colouring, with an air of voracious anxiety towards the 
 promising stillness of that prostrate body. Then, 
 sinking his head deeply into his soft plumage, he settled 
 himself to wait. The first thing upon which Nos- 
 tromo’s eyes fell on waking was this patient watcher for 
 the signs of death and corruption. When the man got 
 up the vulture hopped away in great, side-long, flutter- 
 ing jumps. He lingered for a while, morose and reluct- 
 ant, before he rose, circling noiselessly with a sinister 
 droop of beak and claws. 
 
 Long after he had vanished, Nostromo, lifting his 
 eyes up to the sky, muttered, “I am not dead yet.” 
 
 413 
 
414 NOSTROMO 
 
 The Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores had lived in 
 splendour and publicity up to the very moment, as it 
 were, when he took charge of the lighter containing the 
 treasure of silver ingots. 
 
 The last act he had performed in Sulaco was in com- 
 plete harmony with his vanity, and as such perfectly 
 genuine. He had given his last dollar to an old woman 
 moaning with the grief and fatigue of a dismal search 
 under the arch of the ancient gate. Performed in 
 obscurity and without witnesses, it had still the char- 
 acteristics of splendour and publicity, and was in strict 
 keeping with his reputation. But this awakening in 
 solitude, except for the watchful vulture, amongst 
 the ruins of the fort, had no such characteristics. His 
 first confused feeling was exactly this—that it was not 
 in keeping. It was more like the end of things. The 
 necessity of living concealed somehow, for God knows 
 how long, which assailed him on his return to conscious- 
 ness, made everything that had gone before for years 
 appear vain and foolish, like a flattering dream come 
 suddenly to an end. 
 
 He climbed the crumbling slope of the rampart, and, 
 putting aside the bushes, looked upon the harbour. He 
 saw a couple of ships at anchor upon the sheet of water | 
 reflecting the last gleams of light, and Sotillo’s steamer 
 moored to the jetty. And behind the pale long front of 
 the Custom House, there appeared the extent of the 
 town like a grove of thick timber on the plain with a 
 gateway in front, and the cupolas, towers, and miradors 
 rising above the trees, all dark, as if surrendered already 
 to the night. ‘The thought that it was no longer open 
 to him to ride through the streets, recognized by every- 
 one, great and little, as he used to do every evening 
 on his way to play monte in the posada of the Mexican 
 Domingo; or to sit in the place of honour, listening te 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 415 
 
 songs and looking at dances, made it appear to him as 
 a town that had no existence. 
 
 For a long time he gazed on, then let the parted 
 bushes spring back, and, crossing over to the other side 
 of the fort, surveyed the vaster emptiness of the great 
 gulf. The Isabels stood out heavily upon the narrowing 
 long band of red in the west, which gleamed low between 
 their black shapes, and the Capataz thought of Decoud 
 alone there with the treasure. ‘That man was the only 
 one who cared whether he fell into the hands of the 
 Monterists or not, the Capataz reflected bitterly. And 
 that merely would be an anxiety for his own sake. As 
 to the rest, they neither knew nor cared. What he 
 had heard Giorgio Viola say once was very true. 
 Kings, ministers, aristocrats, the rich in general, kept 
 the people in poverty and subjection; they kept them 
 as they kept dogs, to fight and hunt for their service. 
 
 The darkness of the sky had descended to the line of 
 the horizon, enveloping the whole gulf, the islets, and 
 the lover of Antonia alone with the treasure on the 
 Great Isabel. The Capataz, turning his back on these 
 things invisible and existing, sat down and took his 
 face between his fists. He felt the pinch of poverty 
 for the first time in his life. To find himself without 
 money after a run of bad luck at monte in the low, 
 smoky room of Domingo’s posada, where the fraternity 
 of Cargadores gambled, sang, and danced of an evening; 
 to remain with empty pockets after a burst of public 
 generosity to some peyne doro girl or other (for whom 
 he did not care), had none of the humiliation of destitu- 
 tion. He remained rich in glory and reputation. But 
 since it was no longer possible for him to parade the 
 streets of the town, and be hailed with respect in the 
 usual haunts of his leisure, this sailor felt himself desti- 
 tute indeed. 
 
416 NOSTROMO 
 
 His mouth was dry. It was dry with heavy sleep and 
 extremely anxious thinking, as it had never been dry 
 before. It may be said that Nostromo tasted the dust 
 and ashes of the fruit of life into which he had bitten 
 deeply in his hunger for praise. Without removing 
 his head from between his fists, he tried to spit before 
 him—‘“’T'fui’’—and muttered a curse upon the selfish- 
 ness of all the rich people. 
 
 Since everything seemed lost in Sulaco (and that was 
 the feeling of his waking), the idea of leaving the coun- 
 try altogether had presented itself to Nostromo. At 
 that thought he had seen, like the beginning of another 
 dream, a vision of steep and tideless shores, with dark 
 pines on the heights and white houses low down near 
 a very blue sea. He saw the quays of a big port, 
 where the coasting feluccas, with their lateen sails 
 outspread like motionless wings, enter gliding silently 
 between the end of long moles of squared blocks that 
 project angularly towards each other, hugging a cluster 
 of shipping to the superb bosom of a hill covered with 
 palaces. He remembered these sights not without 
 some filial emotion, though he had been habitually and 
 severely beaten as a boy on one of these feluccas by a 
 short-necked, shaven Genoese, with a deliberate and 
 distrustful manner, who (he firmly believed) had cheated — 
 him out of his orphan’s inheritance. But it is merci- 
 fully decreed that the evils of the past should appear 
 but faintly in retrospect. Under the sense of loneliness, 
 abandonment, and failure, the idea of return to these 
 things appeared tolerable. But, what? Return? With 
 bare feet and head, with one check shirt and a pair of 
 cotton calzoneros for all worldly possessions? 
 
 The renowned Capataz, his elbows on his knees and a 
 fist dug into each cheek, laughed with self-derision, as 
 he had spat with disgust, straight out before him into 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE AI? 
 
 the night. The confused and intimate impressions of 
 universal dissolution which beset a subjective nature at 
 any strong check to its ruling passion had a bitterness 
 approaching that of death itself. He was simple. He 
 was as ready to become the prey of any belief, supersti- 
 tion, or desire as a child. 
 
 The facts of his situation he could appreciate like a 
 man with a distinct experience of the country. He saw 
 them clearly. He was as if sobered after a long bout 
 of intoxication. His fidelity had been taken advantage 
 of. He had persuaded the body of Cargadores to side 
 with the Blancos against the rest of the people; he had 
 had interviews with Don José; he had been made use 
 of by Father Corbelan for negotiating with Hernan- 
 dez; it was known that Don Martin Decoud had ad- 
 mitted him to a sort of intimacy, so that he had been 
 free of the offices of the Porvenir. All these things had 
 flattered him in the usual way. What did he care about 
 their politics? Nothing at all. And at the end of it all 
 —Nostromo here and Nostromo there—where is Nos- 
 tromo? Nostromo can do this and that—work all day 
 and ride all night—behold! he found himself a marked 
 Ribierist for any sort of vengeance Gamacho, for in- 
 stance, would choose to take, now the Montero party, 
 had, after all, mastered the town. The Europeans 
 had given up; the Caballeros had given up. Don 
 Martin had indeed explained it was only temporary— 
 that he was going to bring Barrios to the rescue. Where 
 was that now—with Don Martin (whose ironic manner 
 of talk had always made the Capataz feel vaguely un- 
 easy) stranded on the Great Isabel? Everybody had 
 given up. Even Don Carlos had given up. The 
 hurried removal of the treasure out to sea meant nothing 
 else than that. The Capataz de Cargadores, on a re- 
 vulsion of subjectiveness, exasperated almost to insanity, 
 
418 NOSTROMO. 
 
 beheld all his world without faith and courage. He had 
 been betrayed! 
 
 With the boundless shadows of the sea behind him, 
 out of his silence and immobility, facing the lofty shapes 
 of the lower peaks crowded around the white, misty 
 sheen of Higuerota, Nostromo laughed aloud again, 
 sprang abruptly to his feet, and stood still. He must 
 go. But where? 
 
 “There is no mistake. They keep us and encourage 
 us as if we were dogs born to fight and hunt for them. 
 The vecchio is right,’ he said, slowly and scathingly. 
 He remembered old Giorgio taking his pipe out of his 
 mouth to throw these words over his shoulder at the 
 café, full of engine-drivers and fitters from the railway 
 workshops. This image fixed his wavering purpose. 
 He would try to find old Giorgio if he could. God 
 knows what might have happened to him! He made 
 a few steps, then stopped again and shook his head. 
 To the left and right, in front and behind him, the 
 scrubby bush rustled mysteriously in the darkness. 
 
 “Teresa was right, too,’ he added in a low tone 
 touched with awe. He wondered whether she was 
 dead in her anger with him or still alive. As ifin answer 
 to this thought, half of remorse and half of hope, with a 
 soft flutter and oblique flight, a big owl, whose appalling 
 ery: ““Ya-acabo! Ya-acabo!—it is finished; it is fin- 
 ished ’’—announces calamity and death in the popular 
 belief, drifted vaguely like a large dark ball across his 
 path. In the downfall of all the realities that made his 
 force, he was affected by the superstition, and shuddered 
 slightly. Signora Teresa must have died, then. It 
 could mean nothing else. The cry of the ill-omened 
 bird, the first sound he was to hear on his return, was a 
 fitting welcome for his betrayed individuality. The 
 unseen powers which he had offended by refusing 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 419 
 
 to bring a priest to a dying woman were lifting up 
 their voice against him. She was dead. With admir- 
 able and human consistency he referred everything to 
 himself. She had been a woman of good counsel al- 
 ways. And the bereaved old Giorgio remained stunned 
 by his loss just as he was likely to require the advice 
 of his sagacity. The blow would render the dreamy 
 old man quite stupid for a time. 
 
 As to Captain Mitchell, Nostromo, after the manner 
 of trusted subordinates, considered him as a person 
 fitted by education perhaps to sign papers in an office 
 and to give orders, but otherwise of no use whatever, 
 and something of a fool. The necessity of winding 
 round his little finger, almost daily, the pompous and 
 testy self-importance of the old seaman had grown 
 irksome with use to Nostromo. At first it had given 
 him an inward satisfaction. But the necessity of 
 overcoming small obstacles becomes wearisome to a 
 self-confident personality as much by the certitude 
 of success as by the monotony of effort. He mistrusted 
 his superior’s proneness to fussy action. That old 
 Englishman had no judgment, he said to himself. It 
 was useless to suppose that, acquainted with the true 
 state of the case, he would keep it to himself. He 
 would talk of doing impracticable things. Nostromo 
 feared him as one would fear saddling one’s self 
 with some persistent worry. He had no discretion. 
 He would betray the treasure. And Nostromo had 
 made up his mind that the treasure should not be 
 betrayed. 
 
 The word had fixed itself tenaciously in his intelli- 
 gence. His imagination had seized upon the clear and 
 simple notion of betrayal to account for the dazed feel- 
 ing of enlightenment as to being done for, of having 
 inadvertently gone out of his existence on an issue in 
 
420 NOSTROMO 
 
 which his personality had not been taken into account. 
 A man betrayed is a man destroyed. Signora Teresa 
 (may God have her soul!) had been right. He had 
 never been taken imto account. Destroyed! Her 
 white form sitting up bowed in bed, the falling black 
 hair, the wide-browed suffering face raised to him, the 
 anger of her denunciations appeared to him now ma- 
 jestic with the awfulness of inspiration and of death. 
 For it was not for nothing that the evil bird had uttered 
 its lamentable shriek over his head. She was dead— 
 may God have her soul! 
 
 Sharing in the anti-priestly freethought of the masses, 
 his mind used the pious formula from the superficial 
 force of habit, but with a deep-seated sincerity. ‘The 
 popular mind is incapable of scepticism; and that in- 
 capacity delivers their helpless strength to the wiles of 
 swindlers and to the pitiless enthusiasms of leaders 
 inspired by visions of a high destiny. She was dead. 
 But would God consent to receive her soul? She had 
 died without confession or absolution, because he had 
 not been willing to spare her another moment of his 
 time. His scorn of priests as priests remained; but 
 after all, it was impossible to know whether what they 
 affirmed was not true. Power, punishment, pardon, 
 are simple and credible notions. The magnificent 
 Capataz de Cargadores, deprived of certain simple 
 realities, such as the admiration of women, the adula- 
 tion of men, the admired publicity of his life, was ready 
 to feel the burden of sacrilegious guilt descend upon his 
 shoulders. 
 
 Bareheaded, in a thin shirt and drawers, he felt the 
 lingering warmth of the fine sand under the soles of his 
 feet. The narrow strand gleamed far ahead in a long 
 curve, defining the outline of this wild side of the 
 Harbour. He flitted along the shore like a pursued 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 42} 
 
 shadow between the sombre palm-groves and the sheet 
 of water lying as still as death on his right hand. He 
 strode with headlong haste in the silence and solitude 
 as though he had forgotten all prudence and caution. 
 But he knew that on this side of the water he ran no 
 risk of discovery. ‘The only inhabitant was a lonely, 
 silent, apathetic Indian in charge of the palmarias, 
 who brought sometimes a load of cocoanuts to the town 
 for sale. He lived without a woman in an open shed, 
 with a perpetual fire of dry sticks smouldering near 
 an old canoe lying bottom up on the beach. He could 
 be easily avoided. 
 
 The barking of the dogs about that man’s ranche was 
 the first thing that checked his speed. He had forgotten 
 the dogs. He swerved sharply, and plunged into the 
 palm-grove, as into a wilderness of columns in an im- 
 mense hall, whose dense obscurity seemed to whisper 
 and rustle faintly high above his head. He traversed 
 it, entered a ravine, and climbed to the top of a steep 
 ridge free of trees and bushes. 
 
 From there, open and vague in the starlight, he saw 
 the plain between the town and the harbour. In the 
 woods above some night-bird made a strange drumming 
 noise. Below beyond the palmaria on the beach, the 
 Indian’s dogs continued to bark uproariously. He 
 wondered what had upset them so much, and, peering 
 down from his elevation, was surprised to detect un- 
 accountable movements of the ground below, as if 
 several oblong pieces of the plain had been in motion. 
 Those dark, shifting patches, alternately catching and 
 eluding the eye, altered their place always away from 
 the harbour, with a suggestion of consecutive order 
 and purpose. A light dawned upon him. It was a 
 column of infantry on a night march towards the higher 
 broken country at the foot of the hills. But he was 
 
422 NOSTROMO 
 
 too much in the dark about everything for wonder 
 and speculation. 
 
 The plain had resumed its shadowy immobility. 
 He descended the ridge and found himself in the open 
 solitude, between the harbour and the town. Its spa- 
 ciousness, extended indefinitely by an effect of ob- 
 security, rendered more sensible his profound isolation. 
 His pace became slower. No one waited for him; no 
 one thought of him; no one expected or wished his re- 
 turn. “‘Betrayed! Betrayed!’? he muttered to him- 
 self. No one cared. He might have been drowned 
 by this time. No one would have cared—unless, per- 
 haps, the children, he thought to himself. But they 
 were with the English signora, and not thinking of him 
 at all. 
 
 He wavered in his purpose of making straight for the 
 Casa Viola. To what end? What could he expect 
 there? His life seemed to fail him in all its details, even 
 to the scornful reproaches of Teresa. He was aware 
 painfully of his reluctance. Was it that remorse which 
 she had prophesied with, what he saw now, was her 
 last breath? 
 
 Meantime, he had deviated from the straight course, 
 inclining by a sort of instinct to the right, towards the © 
 jetty and the harbour, the scene of his daily labours. 
 The great length of the Custom House loomed up all at 
 once like the wall of a factory. Not a soul challenged 
 his approach, and his curiosity became excited as he 
 passed cautiously towards the front by the unexpected 
 sight of two lighted windows. 
 
 They had the fascination of a lonely vigil kept by 
 some mysterious watcher up there, those two windows 
 shining dimly upon the harbour in the whole vast extent 
 of the abandoned building. The solitude could almost 
 be felt. A strong smell of wood smoke hung about in 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 423 
 
 a thin haze, which was faintly perceptible to his raised 
 eyes against the glitter of the stars. As he advanced 
 in the profound silence, the shrilling of innumerable 
 cicalas in the dry grass seemed positively deafening to 
 his strained ears. Slowly, step by step, he found him- 
 self in the great hall, sombre and full of acrid smoke. 
 
 A fire built against the staircase had burnt down 
 impotently to a low heap of embers. The hard wood 
 had failed to catch; only a few steps at the bottom 
 smouldered, with a creeping glow of sparks defining 
 their charred edges. At the top he saw a streak of 
 light from an open door. It fell upon the vast landing, 
 all foggy with a slow drift of smoke. That was the 
 room. He climbed the stairs, then checked himself, 
 because he had seen within the shadow of a man cast 
 upon one of the walls. It was a shapeless, high- 
 shouldered shadow of somebody standing still, with 
 lowered head, out of his line of sight. The Capataz, re- 
 membering that he was totally unarmed, stepped aside, 
 and, effacing himself upright in a dark corner, waited 
 with his eyes fixed on the door. 
 
 The whole enormous ruined barrack of a place, un- 
 finished, without ceilings under its lofty roof, was per- 
 vaded by the smoke swaying to and fro in the faint cross 
 draughts playing in the obscurity of many lofty rooms 
 and barnlike passages. Once one of the swinging 
 shutters came against the wall with a single sharp crack, 
 as if pushed by an impatient hand. A piece of paper 
 scurried out from somewhere, rustling along the land- 
 ing. The man, whoever he was, did not darken the 
 lighted doorway. Twice the Capataz, advancing a 
 couple of steps out of his corner, craned his neck in 
 the hope of catching sight of what he could be at, so 
 quietly, in there. But every time he saw only the dis- 
 torted shadow of broad shoulders and bowed head. 
 
AOA NOSTROMO 
 
 He was doing apparently nuwing, and stirred not 
 from the spot, as though he were meditating—or, per- 
 haps, reading a paper. And not a sound issued from 
 the room. 
 
 Once more the Capataz stepped back. He wondered 
 who it was—some Monterist? But he dreaded to show 
 himself. ‘To discover his presence on shore, unless 
 after many days, would, he believed, endanger the 
 treasure. With his own knowledge possessing his whole 
 soul, it seemed impossible that anybody in Sulaco 
 should fail to jump at the right surmise. After a 
 couple of weeks or so it would be different. Who 
 could tell he had not returned overland from some 
 port beyond the limits of the Republic? The existence 
 of the treasure confused his thoughts with a peculiar 
 sort of anxiety, as though his life had become bound 
 up with it. It rendered him timorous for a moment 
 before that enigmatic, lighted door. Devil take the 
 fellow! He did not want to see him. ‘There would be 
 nothing to learn from his face, known or unknown. 
 He was a fool to waste his time there in waiting. 
 
 Less than five minutes after entering the place the 
 Capataz began his retreat. He got away down the 
 stairs with perfect success, gave one upward look over 
 his shoulder at the light on the landing, and ran stealth- 
 ily across the hall. But at the very moment he was turn- 
 ing out of the great door, with his mind fixed upon es- 
 caping the notice of the man upstairs, somebody he had 
 not heard coming briskly along the front ran full into 
 him. Both muttered a stifled exclamation of surprise, 
 and leaped back and stood still, each indistinct to the 
 other. Nostromo was silent. The other man spoke 
 first, in an amazed and deadened tone. 
 
 “Who are you?” 
 
 Already Nostromo had seemed to recognize Dr. 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 425 
 
 Monygham. He had no doubt now. He hesitated 
 the space of a second. The idea of bolting without a 
 word presented itself to his mind. No use! An in- 
 explicable repugnance to pronounce the name by which 
 he was known kept him silent a little longer. At last 
 he said in a low voice— 
 
 “A Cargador.”’ 
 
 He walked up to the other. Dr. Monygham had 
 received a shock. He flung his arms up and cried out 
 his wonder aloud, forgetting himself before the marvel 
 of this meeting. Nostromo angrily warned him to mod- 
 erate his voice. ‘The Custom House was not so deserted 
 as it looked. ‘There was somebody in the lighted room 
 above. 
 
 There is no more evanescent quality in an accom- 
 plished fact than its wonderfulness. Solicited inces- 
 santly by the considerations affecting its fears and 
 desires, the human mind turns naturally away from the 
 marvellous side of events. And it was in the most 
 natural way possible that the doctor asked this man 
 whom only two minutes before he believed to have 
 been drowned in the gulf— 
 
 *“You have seen somebody up there? Have you?” 
 
 **No, I have not seen him.” 
 
 “Then how do you know?” 
 
 *T was running away from his shadow when we 
 met.” 
 
 “His shadow?” 
 
 “Yes. His shadow in the lighted room,” said Nos- 
 tromo, in a contemptuous tone. Leaning back with 
 folded arms at the foot of the immense building, he 
 dropped his head, biting his lips slightly, and not look- 
 ing at the doctor. ‘Now,’ he thought to himself, “‘he 
 will begin asking me about the treasure.” 
 
 But the doctor’s thoughts were concerned with an 
 
426 NOSTROMO > 
 
 event not as marvellous as Nostromo’s appearance, 
 but in itself much less clear. Why had Sotillo taken 
 himself off with his whole command with this sudden- 
 ness and secrecy? What did this move portend? 
 However, it dawned upon the doctor that the man 
 upstairs was one of the officers left behind by the dis- 
 appointed colonel to communicate with him. 
 
 ““I believe he is waiting for me,” he said. 
 
 **It is possible.” 
 
 ““T must see. Do not go away yet, Capataz.” 
 
 ““Go away where?”’ muttered Nostromo. 
 
 Already the doctor had left him. He remained 
 leaning against the wall, staring at the dark water of 
 the harbour; the shrilling of cicalas filled his ears. An 
 invincible vagueness coming over his thoughts took 
 from them all power to determine his will. 
 
 ““Capataz! Capataz!’’ the doctor’s voice called 
 urgently from above. 
 
 The sense of betrayal and ruin floated upon his som- 
 bre indifference as upon a sluggish sea of pitch. But he 
 stepped out from under the wall, and, looking up, saw 
 Dr. Monygham leaning out of a lighted window. 
 
 ““Come up and see what Sotillo has done. You need 
 not fear the man up here.” 
 
 He answered by a slight, bitter laugh. Fear a man! 
 The Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores fear a man! 
 It angered him that anybody should suggest such a 
 thing. It angered him to be disarmed and skulking 
 and in danger because of the accursed treasure, which 
 was of so little account to the people who had tied it 
 round his neck. He could not shake off the worry of 
 it. To Nostromo the doctor represented all these 
 people. . . . And he had never even asked after 
 it. Not a word of inquiry about the most desperate 
 undertaking of his life. 
 
 { 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 427 
 
 Thinking these thoughts, Nostromo passed again 
 through the cavernous hall, where the smoke was con- 
 siderably thinned, and went up the stairs, not so warm 
 to his feet now, towards the streak of light at the top. 
 The doctor appeared in it for a moment, agitated and 
 impatient. 
 
 “Come up! Come up 
 
 At the moment of crossing the doorway the Capataz 
 experienced a shock of surprise. The man had not 
 moved. He saw his shadow in the same place. He 
 started, then stepped in with a feeling of being about to 
 solve a mystery. 
 
 It was very simple. For an infinitesimal fraction of 
 a second, against the light of two flaring and guttering 
 candles, through a blue, pungent, thin haze which made 
 his eyes smart, he saw the man standing, as he had 
 imagined him, with his back to the door, casting an 
 enormous and distorted shadow upon the wall. Swifter 
 than a flash of lightning followed the impression of his 
 constrained, toppling attitude—the shoulders project- 
 ing forward, the head sunk low upon the breast. Then 
 he distinguished the arms behind his back, and wrenched 
 so terribly that the two clenched fists, lashed together, 
 had been forced up higher than the shoulder-blades. 
 From there his eyes traced in one instantaneous glance 
 the hide rope going upwards from the tied wrists over 
 a heavy beam and down to a staple in the wall. He 
 did not want to look at the rigid legs, at the feet hanging 
 down nervelessly, with their bare toes some six inches 
 above the floor, to know that the man had been given 
 the estrapade till he had swooned. His first impulse 
 was to dash forward and sever the rope at one blow. 
 He felt for his knife. He had no knife—not even a 
 knife. He stood quivering, and the doctor, perched 
 on the edge of the table, facing thoughtfully the cruel 
 
 1°? 
 
428 NOSTROMO 
 
 and lamentable sight, his chin in his hand, uttered, 
 without stirring— 
 
 “Tortured—and shot dead through the breast— 
 getting cold.” 
 
 This information calmed the Capataz. One of the 
 candles flickering in the socket went out. ‘“‘Who did 
 this?”’ he asked. 
 
 **Sotillo, I tell you. Whoelse? ‘Tortured—of course. 
 But why shot?” The doctor looked fixedly at Nos- 
 tromo, who shrugged his shoulders slightly. “And 
 mark, shot suddenly, on impulse. It is evident. I 
 wish I had his secret.”’ 
 
 Nostromo had advanced, and stooped slightly to 
 look. “I seem to have seen that face somewhere,’ he 
 muttered. ‘‘Who is he?” 
 
 The doctor turned his eyes upon him again. “I 
 may yet come to envying his fate. What do you 
 think of that, Capataz, eh?” 
 
 But Nostromo did not even hear these words. Seizing 
 the remaining tight, he thrust it under the drooping 
 head. The doctor sat oblivious, with a lost gaze. 
 Then the heavy iron candlestick, as if struck out of 
 Nostromo’s hand, clattered on the floor. 
 
 “Hullo!”’ exciaimed the doctor, looking up with a 
 start. He could hear the Capataz stagger against 
 the table and gasp. In the sudden extinction of the 
 light within, the dead blackness sealing the window- 
 frames became alive with stars to his sight. 
 
 **Of course, of course,”’ the doctor muttered to himself 
 in English. “‘Enoughtomake him jump out of his skin.” 
 
 Nostromo’s heart seemed to force itself into his throat. 
 His head swam. Hirsch! The man was Hirsch! 
 He held on tight to the edge of the table. 
 
 *‘But he was hiding in the lighter,” he almost shouted. 
 His voice fell. ‘‘In the lighter, and—and i 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 4.29 
 
 **And Sotillo brought him in,”’ said the doctor. ‘“‘He 
 is no more startling to you than you were to me. What 
 I want to know is how he induced some compassionate 
 soul to shoot him.”’ 
 
 “So Sotillo knows 
 equable voice. 
 
 *““Everything!”’ interrupted the doctor. 
 
 The Capataz was heard striking the table with his 
 fist. “Everything? What are you saying, there? 
 Everything? Know everything? It is impossible! 
 Everything?” 
 
 “Of course. What do you mean by impossible? I 
 
 tell you I have heard this Hirsch questioned last night, 
 here, in this very room. He knew your name, Decoud’s 
 name, and all about the loading of the silver. 
 The lighter was cut in two. He was grovelling in aie 
 ject terror before Sotillo, but he remembered that much. 
 What do you want more? He knew least about him- 
 self. They found him clinging to their anchor. He 
 must have caught at it just as the lighter went to the 
 bottom.” 
 
 “Went to the bottom?” repeated Nostromo, slowly. 
 *Sotillo believes that? Bueno!’’ 
 
 The doctor, a little impatiently, was unable to 
 imagine what else could anybody believe. Yes, Sotillo 
 believed that the lighter was sunk, and the Capataz 
 de Cargadores, together with Martin Decoud and per- 
 haps one or two other political fugitives, had been 
 drowned. 
 
 “I told you well, sefior doctor,’ remarked Nostromo 
 at that point, “‘that Sotillo did not know everything.”’ 
 
 “Eh? What do you mean?” 
 
 “He did not know I was not dead.” 
 
 “Neither did we.” 
 
 **And you did not care—none of you caballeros on 
 
 * began Nostromo, in a more 
 
430 NOSTROMO 
 
 the wharf—once you got off a man of flesh and blood 
 like yourselves on a fool’s business that could not end 
 well.” 
 
 “You forget, Capataz, I was not on the wharf. And I 
 did not think well of the business. So you need not 
 taunt me. I tell you what, man, we had but little leis- 
 ure to think of the dead. Death stands near behind 
 us all. You were gone.” 
 
 “I went, indeed!”’ broke in Nostromo. ‘‘And for the 
 sake of what—tell me?”’ 
 
 ‘Ah! that is your own affair,’ the doctor said, roughly. 
 **Do not ask me.”’ 
 
 Their flowing murmurs paused in the dark. Perched 
 on the edge of the table with slightly averted faces, 
 they felt their shoulders touch, and their eyes remained 
 directed towards an upright shape nearly lost in the 
 obscurity of the inner part of the room, that with pro- 
 jecting head and shoulders, in ghastly immobility, 
 seemed intent on catching every word. 
 
 “Muy bien!’’? Nostromo muttered at last. “So be it. 
 Teresa was right. It is my own affair.”’ 
 
 “Teresa is dead,’ remarked the doctor, absently, 
 while his mind followed a new line of thought suggested 
 by what might have been called Nostromo’s return to 
 life. ‘She died, the poor woman.” 
 
 “Without a priest?” the Capataz asked, anxiously. 
 
 “What a question! Who could have got a priest for 
 her last night?” 
 
 ““May God keep her soul!’ ejaculated Nostromo, 
 with a gloomy and hopeless fervour which had no time 
 to surprise Dr. Monygham, before, reverting to their 
 previous conversation, he continued in a sinister tone, 
 “Si, sefior doctor. As you were saying, it is my own 
 affair. A very desperate affair.” 
 
 “There are no two men in this part of the world that 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 431 
 
 could have saved themselves by swimming as you have 
 done,” the doctor said, admiringly. 
 
 And again there was silence between those two men. 
 They were both reflecting, and the diversity of their 
 natures made their thoughts born from their meeting 
 swing afar from each other. The doctor, impelled to 
 risky action by his loyalty to the Goulds, wondered 
 with thankfulness at the chain of accident which had 
 brought that man back where he would be of the great- 
 est use in the work of saving the San Tomé mine. The 
 doctor was loyal to the mine. It presented itself to 
 his fifty-years’ old eyes in the shape of a little woman in a 
 soft dress with a long train, with a head attractively 
 overweighted by a great mass of fair hair and the deli- 
 cate preciousness of her inner worth, partaking of a 
 gem and a flower, revealed in every attitude of her 
 person. As the dangers thickened round the San Tomé 
 mine this illusion acquired force, permanency, and 
 authority. It claimed him at last! This claim, ex- 
 alted by a spiritual detachment from the usual sanctions 
 of hope and reward, made Dr. Monygham’s thinking, 
 acting, individuality extremely dangerous to himself 
 and to others, all his scruples vanishing in the proud 
 feeling that his devotion was the only thing that stood 
 between an admirable woman and a frightful disaster. 
 
 It was a sort of intoxication which made him utterly 
 indifferent to Decoud’s fate, but left his wits perfectly 
 clear for the appreciation of Decoud’s political idea. 
 It was a good idea—and Barrios was the only instrument 
 of its realization. The doctor’s soul, withered and 
 shrunk by the shame of a moral disgrace, became im- 
 placable in the expansion of its tenderness. Nostromo’s 
 return was providential. He did not think of him 
 humanely, as of a fellow-creature just escaped from the 
 jaws of death. The Capataz for him was the only 
 
432 NOSTROMO 
 
 possible messenger to Cayta. The very man. The 
 doctor’s misanthropic mistrust of mankind (the bitterer 
 because based on personal failure) did not lift him 
 sufficiently above common weaknesses. He was under 
 the spell of an established reputation. ‘Trumpeted 
 by Captain Mitchell, grown in repetition, and fixed 
 in general assent, Nostromo’s faithfulness had never 
 been questioned by Dr. Monygham as a fact. It was 
 not likely to be questioned now he stood in desperate 
 need of it himself. Dr. Monygham was human; he 
 accepted the popular conception of the Capataz’s 
 incorruptibility simply because no word or fact had 
 ever contradicted a mere affirmation. It seemed to be 
 a part of the man, like his whiskers or his teeth. It 
 was impossible to conceive him otherwise. ‘The ques- 
 tion was whether he would consent to go on such a 
 dangerous and desperate errand. ‘The doctor was ob- 
 servant enough to have become aware from the first 
 of something peculiar in the man’s temper. He was 
 no doubt sore about the loss of the silver. 
 
 “It will be necessary to take him into my fullest con- 
 fidence,’ he said to himself, with a certain acuteness of 
 insight into the nature he had to deal with. 
 
 On Nostromo’s side the silence had been full of black 
 irresolution, anger, and mistrust. He was the first to 
 break it, however. 
 
 “The swimming was no great matter,” he said. “It 
 is what went before—and what comes after that i 
 
 He did not quite finish what he meant to say, break- 
 ing off short, as though his thought had butted against 
 a solid obstacle. The doctor’s mind pursued its own 
 schemes with Machiavellian subtlety. He said as 
 sympathetically as he was able— 
 
 “Tt is unfortunate, Capataz. But no one would 
 think of blaming you. Very unfortunate. To begin 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 433 
 
 with, the treasure ought never to have left the mountain. 
 But it was Decoud who however, he is dead. There 
 is no need to talk of him.” 
 
 “No,” assented Nostromo, as the doctor paused, 
 “‘there is no need to talk of dead men. But I am not 
 dead yet.” 
 
 “You are all right. Only a man of your intrepidity 
 could have saved himself.” 
 
 In this Dr. Monygham was sincere. He esteemed 
 highly the intrepidity of that man, whom he valued 
 but little, being disillusioned as to mankind in general, 
 because of the particular instance in which his own man- 
 hood had failed. Having had to encounter single- 
 handed during his period of eclipse many physical 
 dangers, he was well aware of the most dangerous 
 element common to them all: of the crushing, paralyzing 
 sense of human littleness, which is what really defeats 
 a man struggling with natural forces, alone, far from 
 the eyes of his fellows. He was eminently fit to appre- 
 ciate the mental image he made for himself of the 
 Capataz, after hours of tension and anxiety, precipi- 
 tated suddenly into an abyss of waters and darkness, 
 without earth or sky, and confronting it not only with 
 an undismayed mind, but with sensible success. Of 
 course, the man was an incomparable swimmer, that 
 was known, but the doctor judged that this instance 
 testified to a still greater intrepidity of spirit. It was 
 pleasing to him; he augured well from it for the success 
 of the arduous mission with which he meant to entrust 
 the Capataz so marvellously restored to usefulness. 
 And in a tone vaguely gratified, he observed— 
 
 “It must have been terribly dark!” 
 
 “Tt was the worst darkness of the Golfo,” the Capataz 
 assented, briefly. He was mollified by what seemed a 
 sign of some faint interest in such things as had befallen 
 
‘434 NOSTROMO 
 
 him, and dropped a few descriptive phrases with an 
 affected and curt nonchalance. At that moment he 
 felt communicative. He expected the continuance 
 of that interest which, whether accepted or rejected, 
 would have restored to him his personality—the only 
 thing lost in that desperate affair. But the doctor, 
 engrossed by a desperate adventure of his own, was 
 terrible in the pursuit of his idea. He let an exclama- 
 tion of regret escape him. 
 
 “T could almost wish you had shouted and shown a 
 light.” 
 
 This unexpected utterance astounded the Capataz 
 by its character of cold-blooded atrocity. It was as 
 much as to say, “I wish you had shown yourself a 
 coward; I wish you had had your throat cut for your 
 pains.” Naturally he referred it to himself, whereas it 
 related only to the silver, being uttered simply and with 
 many mental reservations. Surprise and rage rendered 
 him speechless, and the doctor pursued, practically 
 unheard by Nostromo, whose stirred blood was beating 
 violently in his ears. 
 
 “For I am convinced Sotillo in possession of the 
 silver would have turned short round and made for some 
 small port abroad. Economically it would have been 
 wasteful, but still less wasteful than having it sunk. 
 It was the next best thing to having it at hand in some 
 safe place, and using part of it to buy up Sotillo. But 
 I doubt whether Don Carlos would have ever made up 
 his mind to it. He is not fit for Costaguana, and that 
 is a fact, Capataz.”’ 
 
 The Capataz had mastered the fury that was like a 
 tempest in his ears in time to hear the name of Don 
 Carlos. He seemed to have come out of it a changed 
 man—a man who spoke thoughtfully in a soft and even 
 voice. 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 435 
 
 *“And would Don Carlos have been content if I had 
 surrendered this treasure?”’ 
 
 “T should not wonder if they were all of that way of 
 thinking now,” the doctor said, grimly. “I was never 
 consulted. Decoud had it his own way. Their eyes 
 are opened by this time, I should think. I for one 
 know that if that silver turned up this moment miracu- 
 lously ashore I would give it to Sotillo. And, as things 
 stand, I would be approved.” 
 
 “Turned up miraculously,” repeated the Capataz 
 very low; then raised his voice. ‘“‘ That, sefior, would 
 be a greater miracle than any saint could perform.” 
 
 “TI believe you, Capataz,”’ said the doctor, drily. 
 
 He went on to develop his view of Sotillo’s dangerous 
 influence upon the situation. And the Capataz, listen- 
 ing as if in a dream, felt himself of as little account as 
 the indistinct, motionless shape of the dead man whom 
 he saw upright under the beam, with his air of listening 
 also, disregarded, forgotten, like a terrible example of 
 neglect. 
 
 ‘“Was it for an unconsidered and foolish whim that 
 they came to me, then?’ he interrupted suddenly. 
 *‘Had I not done enough for them to be of some account, 
 por Dios ? Is it that the hombres finos—the gentlemen 
 —need not think as long as there is a man of the people 
 ready to risk his body and soul? Or, perhaps, we have 
 no souls—like dogs?”’ 
 
 “There was Decoud, too, with his plan,” the doctor 
 reminded him again. 
 
 “Si! And the rich man in San Francisco who had 
 something to do with that treasure, too—what do I 
 know? No! Ihave heard too many things. It seems 
 to me that everything is permitted to the rich.” 
 
 **T understand, Capataz,”’ the doctor began. 
 
 “What Capataz?” broke in Nostromo, in a forcible 
 
436 NOSTROMO 
 
 but even voice. “The Capataz is undone, destroyed. 
 There is no Capataz. Oh,no! You will find the Capa- 
 taz no more.”’ 
 
 ““Come, this is childish!’’ remonstrated the doctor; 
 and the other calmed down suddenly. 
 
 *T have been indeed like a little child,” he muttered. 
 
 And as his eyes met again the shape of the murdered 
 man suspended in his awful immobility, which seemed 
 the uncomplaining immobility of attention, he asked, 
 wondering gently—. 
 
 “Why did Sotillo give the estrapade to this pitiful 
 wretch? Do you know? No torture could have been 
 worse than his fear. Killing I can understand. His 
 anguish was intolerable to behold. But why should he 
 torment him like this? He could tell no more.”’ 
 
 “No; he could tell nothing more. Any sane man 
 would have seen that. He had told him everything. 
 But I tell you what it is, Capataz. Sotillo would not 
 believe what he was told. Not everything.” 
 
 What is it he would not believe? I cannot under- 
 stand.” 
 
 “I can, because I have seen the man. He refuses to 
 believe that the treasure is lost.” 
 
 “What?” the Capataz cried out in a discomposed 
 tone. 
 
 “That startles you—eh?”’ 
 
 **Am I to understand, sefior,’’ Nostromo went on in a 
 deliberate and, as it were, watchful tone, “that Sotillo 
 thinks the treasure has been saved by some means?” 
 
 “No! no! That would be impossible,’ said the 
 doctor, with conviction; and Nostromo emitted a grunt 
 in the dark. ‘That would be impossible. He thinks 
 that the silver was no longer in the lighter when she was 
 sunk. He has convinced himself that the whole show 
 of getting it away to sea is a mere sham got up to receive 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 437 
 
 Gamacho and his Nationals, Pedrito Montero, Sefior 
 Fuentes, our new-Géfé Politico, and himself, too. Only, 
 he says, he is no such fool.” 
 
 “But he is devoid of sense. He is the greatest im- 
 becile that ever called himself a colonel in this country 
 of evil,” growled Nostromo. 
 
 ““He is no more unreasonable than many sensible 
 men,” said the doctor. ‘“‘He has convinced himself 
 that the treasure can be found because he desires pas- 
 sionately to possess himself of it. And he is also afraid 
 of his officers turning upon him and going over to 
 Pedrito, whom he has not the courage either to fight 
 or trust. Do you see that, Capataz? He need fear no 
 desertion as long as some hope remains of that enormous 
 plunder turning up. I have made it my business to 
 keep this very hope up.” 
 
 *“You have?” the Capataz de Cargadores repeated 
 cautiously. “Well, that is wonderful. And how long 
 do you think you are going to keep it up?” 
 
 **As long as I can.” 
 
 “What does that mean?” 
 
 “I can tell you exactly. As long as I live,” the doc- 
 tor retorted in a stubborn voice. Then, in a few words, 
 he described the story of his arrest and the circumstances 
 of his release. “I was going back to that silly scoundrel 
 when we met,” he concluded. 
 
 Nostromo had listened with profound attention. 
 “You have made up your mind, then, to a speedy 
 death,” he muttered through his clenched teeth. 
 
 “Perhaps, my illustrious Capataz,” the doctor said, 
 testily. “‘ You are not the only one here who can look an 
 ugly death in the face.” 
 
 ““No doubt,”’ mumbled Nostromo, loud enough to be 
 overheard. ‘There may be even more than two fools 
 in this place. Who knows?” 
 
438 NOSTROMO 
 
 “And that is my affair,” said the doctor, curtly. 
 
 “As taking out the accursed silver to sea was my 
 affair,” retorted Nostromo. “I see. Bueno! Each 
 of us has his reasons. But you were the last man I 
 conversed with before I started, and you talked to me 
 as if I were a fool.” 
 
 Nostromo had a great distaste for the doctor’s 
 sardonic treatment of his great reputation. Decoud’s 
 faintly ironic recognition used to make him uneasy; 
 but the familiarity of a man like Don Martin was 
 flattering, whereas the doctor was a nobody. He 
 could remember him a penniless outcast, slinking about 
 the streets of Sulaco, without a single friend or acquaint- 
 ance, till Don Carlos Gould took him into the service 
 of the mine. 
 
 “You may be very wise,” he went on, thoughtfully, 
 staring into the obscurity of the room, pervaded by the 
 gruesome enigma of the tortured and murdered Hirsch. 
 “But I am not such a fool as when I started. I have 
 learned one thing since, and that is that you are a: 
 dangerous man.” 
 
 Dr. Monygham was too startled to do more than 
 exclaim— 
 
 _ “What is it you say?” 
 
 “If he could speak he would say the same thing,” 
 pursued Nostromo, with a nod of his shadowy head sil- 
 houetted against the starlit window. 
 
 -“T do not understand you,” said Dr. Monygham, 
 faintly. 
 
 “No? Perhaps, if you had not confirmed Sotillo in 
 his madness, he would have been in no haste to give the 
 estrapade to that miserable Hirsch.” 
 
 The doctor started at the suggestion. But his de- 
 votion, absorbing all his sensibilities, had left his heart 
 steeled against remorse and pity. Still, for complete 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 439 
 
 relief, he felt the necessity of repelling it loudly and 
 contemptuously. 
 
 “Bah! You dare to tell me that, with a man like 
 Sotillo.: I confess I did not give a thought to Hirsch. 
 If I had it would have been useless. Anybody can see 
 that the luckless wretch was doomed from the moment 
 he caught hold of the anchor. He was doomed, I tell 
 you! Just as I myself am doomed—most probably.”’ 
 
 This is what Dr. Monygham said in answer to Nos- 
 tromo’s remark, which was plausible enough to prick 
 his conscience. He was not a callous man. But the 
 necessity, the magnitude, the importance of the task 
 he had taken upon himself dwarfed all merely humane 
 considerations. He had undertaken it in a fanatical 
 spirit. He did not like it. To lie, to deceive, to cir- 
 cumyent even the basest of mankind was odious to him. 
 It was odious to him hy training, instinct, and tradition. 
 To do these things in the character of a traitor was ab- 
 horrent to his nature and terrible to his feelings. He 
 had made that sacrifice in a spirit of abasement. He 
 had said to himself bitterly, ““I am the only one fit for 
 that dirty work.’ And he believed this. He was not 
 subtle. His simplicity was such that, though he had 
 no sort of heroic idea of seeking death, the risk, deadly 
 enough, to which he exposed himself, had a sustaining 
 and comforting effect. To that spiritual state the 
 fate of Hirsch presented itself as part of the general 
 atrocity of things. He considered that episode prac- 
 tically. What didit mean? Was it a sign of some dan- 
 gerous change in Sotillo’s delusion? That the man 
 should have been killed like this was what the doctor 
 could not understand. 
 
 “Yes. But why shot?” he murmured to himself, 
 
 Nostromo kept very still. 
 
CHAPTER NINE 
 
 DisTRACTED between doubts and hopes, dismayed by 
 the sound of bells pealing out the arrival of Pedrito 
 Montero, Sotillo had spent the morning in battling 
 with his thoughts; a contest to which he was unequal, 
 from the vacuity of his mind and the violence of his 
 passions. Disappointment, greed, anger, and fear 
 made a tumult, in the colonel’s breast louder than the 
 din of bells in the town. Nothing he had planned had 
 come to pass. Neither Sulaco nor the silver of the 
 mine had fallen into his hands. He had performed 
 no military exploit to secure his position, and had ob- 
 tained no enormous booty to make off with. Pedrito 
 Montero, either as friend or foe, filled him with dread. 
 The sound of bells maddened him. 
 
 Imagining at first that he might be attacked at once, 
 he had made his battalion stand to arms on the shore. 
 He walked to and fro all the length of the room, stop- 
 ping sometimes to gnaw the finger-tips of his right hand 
 with a lurid sideways glare fixed on the floor; then, with 
 a sullen, repelling glance all round, he would resume 
 his tramping in savage aloofness. His hat, horsewhip, 
 sword, and revolver were lying on the table. His 
 officers, crowding the window giving the view of the 
 town gate, disputed amongst themselves the use of his 
 field-glass bought last year on long credit from Anzani. 
 It passed from hand to hand, and the possessor for the 
 time being was besieged by anxious inquiries. 
 
 “There is nothing; there is nothing to see!’’ he would 
 repeat impatiently. 
 
 440 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 441 
 
 There was nothing. And when the picket in the 
 bushes near the Casa Viola had been ordered to fall 
 back upon the main body, no stir of life appeared on the 
 stretch of dusty and arid land between the town and 
 the waters of the port. But late in the afternoon a 
 horseman issuing from the gate was made out riding up 
 fearlessly. It was an emissary from Sefior Fuentes. 
 Being all alone he was allowed to come on. Dismount- 
 ing at the great door he greeted the silent bystanders 
 with cheery impudence, and begged to be taken up at 
 once to the “muy valliente”’ colonel. 
 
 Sefior Fuentes, on entering upon his functions of Géfé 
 Politico, had turned his diplomatic abilities to getting 
 hold of the harbour as well as of the mine. The man 
 he pitched upon to negotiate with Sotillo was a Notary 
 Public, whom the revolution had found languishing in 
 the common jail on a charge of forging documents. 
 Liberated by the mob along with the other “victims 
 of Blanco tyranny,” he had hastened to offer his ser- 
 vices to the new Government. 
 
 He set out determined to display much zeal and 
 eloquence in trying to induce Sotillo to come into town 
 alone for a conference with Pedrito Montero. Nothing 
 was further from the colonel’s intentions. The mere 
 fleeting idea of trusting himself into the famous Ped- 
 rito’s hands had made him feel unwell several times. 
 It was out of the question—it was madness. And to 
 put himself in open hostility was madness, too. It 
 would render impossible a systematic search for that 
 treasure, for that wealth of silver which he seemed 
 to feel somewhere about, to scent somewhere near. 
 
 But where? Where? Heavens! Where? Oh! why had 
 he allowed that doctor to go! Imbecile that he was. 
 But no! It was the only right course, he reflected dis- 
 tractedly, while the messenger waited downstairs chat- 
 
44.2 NOSTROMO 
 
 ting agreeably to the officers. It was in that scoundrelly 
 doctor’s true interest to return with positive information. 
 But what if anything stopped him? A general pro- 
 hibition to leave the town, for instance! There would 
 be patrols! 
 
 The colonel, seizing his head in his hands, turned in 
 his tracks as if struck with vertigo. A flash of craven 
 inspiration suggested to him an expedient not unknown 
 to European statesmen when they wish to delay a diffi- 
 cult negotiation. Booted and spurred, he scrambled 
 into the hammock with undignified haste. His hand- 
 some face had turned yellow with the strain of weighty 
 cares. The ridge of his shapely nose had grown sharp; 
 the audacious nostrils appeared mean and pinched. 
 The velvety, caressing glance of his fine eyes seemed 
 dead, and even decomposed; for these almond-shaped, 
 languishing orbs had become inappropriately bloodshot 
 with much sinister sleeplessness. He addressed the 
 surprised envoy of Sefior Fuentes in a deadened, ex- 
 hausted voice. It came pathetically feeble from under 
 a pile of ponchos, which buried his elegant person right 
 up to the black moustaches, uncurled, pendant, in sign 
 of bodily prostration and mental incapacity. Fever, 
 fever—a heavy fever had overtaken the “muy valliente” 
 colonel. A wavering wildness of expression, caused by 
 the passing spasms of a slight colic which had declared 
 itself suddenly, and the rattling teeth of repressed panic, 
 had a genuineness which impressed the envoy. It wasa 
 cold fit. The colonel explained that he was unable 
 to think, to listen, to speak. With an appearance of 
 superhuman effort the colonel gasped out that he was 
 not in a state to return a suitable reply or to execute 
 any of his Excellency’s orders. But to-morrow! 
 To-morrow! Ah! to-morrow! Let his Excellency Don 
 Pedro be without uneasiness. The brave Esmeralda 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 443 
 
 Regiment held the harbour, held And closing his 
 eyes, he rolled his aching head like a half-delirious 
 invalid under the inquisitive stare of the envoy, who 
 was obliged to bend down over the hammock in order 
 to catch the painful and broken accents. Meantime, 
 Colonel Sotillo trusted that his Excellency’s humanity 
 would permit the doctor, the English doctor, to come 
 out of town with his case of foreign remedies to attend 
 upon him. He begged anxiously his worship the 
 caballero now present for the grace of looking in as he 
 passed the Casa Gould, and informing the English 
 doctor, who was probably there, that his services were 
 immediately required by Colonel Sotillo, lying ill of 
 fever in the Custom House. Immediately. Most 
 urgently required. Awaited with extreme impatience. 
 A thousand thanks. He closed his eyes wearily and 
 would not open them again, lying perfectly still, deaf, 
 dumb, insensible, overcome, vanquished, crushed, anni- 
 hilated by the fell disease. 
 
 But as soon as the other had shut after him the door of 
 the landing, the colonel leaped out with a fling of both 
 feet in an avalanche of woollen coverings. His spurs 
 having become entangled in a perfect welter of ponchos 
 he nearly pitched on his head, and did not recover his 
 balance till the middle of the room. Concealed behind 
 the half-closed jalousies he listened to what went on 
 below. 
 
 The envoy had already mounted, and turning to the 
 morose officers occupying the great doorway, took off 
 his hat formally. 
 
 “Caballeros,” he said, in a very loud tone, “allow me 
 to recommend you to take great care of your colonel. It 
 has done me much honour and gratification to have seen 
 you all, a fine body of men exercising the soldierly virtue 
 of patience in this exposed situation, where there is 
 
444 NOSTROMO 
 
 much sun, and no water to speak of, while a town full 
 of wine and feminine charms is ready to embrace you 
 for the brave men you are. Caballeros, I have the 
 honour to salute you. There will be much dancing 
 to-night in Sulaco. Good-bye!” 
 
 But he reined in his horse and inclined his head side- 
 ways on seeing the old major step out, very tall and 
 meagre, in a straight narrow coat coming down to his 
 ankles as it were the casing of the regimental colours 
 rolled round their staff. 
 
 The intelligent old warrior, after enunciating in a 
 dogmatic tone the general proposition that the “‘ world 
 was full of traitors,’’ went on pronouncing deliberately a 
 panegyric upon Sotillo. He ascribed to him with leis- 
 urely emphasis every virtue under heaven, summing 
 it all up in an absurd colloquialism current amongst 
 the lower class of Occidentals (especially about Esmer- 
 alda). ‘“‘And,”’ he concluded, with a sudden rise in the 
 voice, “a man of many teeth—‘hombre de muchos 
 dientes.’ Sit, senor. As to us,” he pursued, portentous 
 and impressive, “‘your worship is beholding the finest 
 body of officers in the Republic, men unequalled for 
 valour and sagacity, “y hombres de muchos dientes.’”’ 
 
 “What? All of them?” inquired the disreputable 
 envoy of Sefior Fuentes, with a faint, derisive smile. 
 
 “Todos. Sv, sefor,’ the major affirmed, gravely, 
 with conviction. “‘Men of many teeth.”’ 
 
 The other wheeled his horse to face the portal re- 
 sembling the high gate of a dismal barn. He raised 
 himself in his stirrups, extended one arm. He was a 
 facetious scoundrel, entertaining for these stupid 
 Occidentals a feeling of great scorn natural in a native 
 from the central provinces. The folly of Esmeral- 
 dians especially aroused his amused contempt. He 
 began an oration upon Pedro Montero, keeping a solemn 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 445 
 
 countenance. He flourished his hand as if introducing 
 him to their notice. And when he saw every face set, 
 all the eyes fixed upon his lips, he began to shout a sort 
 of catalogue of perfections: ‘Generous, valorous, 
 affable, profound ’’—(he snatched off his hat enthusias- 
 tically)—“a statesman, an invincible chief of parti- 
 sans—”’ He dropped his voice startlingly to a deep, 
 hollow note—“‘and a dentist.” 
 
 He was off instantly at a smart walk; the rigid strad- 
 dle of his legs, the turned-out feet, the stiff back, the 
 rakish slant of the sombrero above the square, motion- 
 less set of the shoulders expressing an infinite, awe- 
 inspiring impudence. 
 
 Upstairs, behind the jalousies, Sotillo did not move 
 for a long time. The audacity of the fellow appalled 
 him. What were his officers saying below? They were 
 saying nothing. Complete silence. Hequaked. It was 
 not thus that he had imagined himself at that stage 
 of the expedition. He had seen himself triumphant, 
 unquestioned, appeased, the idol of the soldiers, weigh- 
 ing in secret complacency the agreeable alternatives 
 of power and wealth open to his choice. Alas! How 
 different! Distracted, restless, supine, burning with 
 fury, or frozen with terror, he felt a dread as fathomless 
 as the sea creep upon him from every side. That rogue 
 of a doctor had to come out with his information. 
 That was clear. It would be of no use to him—alone. 
 He could do nothing with it. Malediction! The doc- 
 tor would never come out. He was probably under 
 arrest already, shut up together with Don Carlos. He 
 laughed aloud insanely. Ha! ha! ha! ha! It was 
 Pedrito Montero who would get the information. Ha! 
 ha! ha! ha!—and the silver. Ha! 
 
 All at once, in the midst of the laugh, he became 
 motionless and silent as if turned into stone. He, too, 
 
446 NOSTROMO. 
 
 had a prisoner. A prisoner who must, must know the 
 real truth. He would have to be made to speak. And 
 Sotillo, who all that time had not quite forgotten Hirsch, 
 felt an inexplicable reluctance at the notion of proceed- 
 ing to extremities. 
 
 He felt a reluctance—part of that unfathomable 
 dread that crept on all sides upon him. He remembered 
 reluctantly, too, the dilated eyes of the hide merchant, 
 his contortions, his loud sobs and protestations. It 
 was not compassion or even mere nervous sensibility. 
 The fact was that though Sotillo did never for a mo- 
 ment believe his story—he could not believe it; nobody 
 could believe such nonsense—yet those accents of de- 
 spairing truth impressed him disagreeably. ‘They made 
 him feel sick. And he suspected also that the man might 
 have gone mad with fear. A lunatic is a hopeless sub- 
 ject. Bah! A pretence. Nothing but a pretence. 
 He would know how to deal with that. 
 
 He was working himself up to the right pitch of 
 ferocity. His fine eyes squinted slightly; he clapped 
 his hands; a bare-footed orderly appeared noiselessly, 
 a corporal, with his bayonet hanging on his thigh and a 
 stick in his hand. 
 
 The colonel gave his orders, and presently the miser- 
 able Hirsch, pushed in by several soldiers, found him 
 frowning awfully in a broad armchair, hat on head, 
 knees wide apart, arms akimbo, masterful, imposing, 
 irresistible, haughty, sublime, terrible. 
 
 Hirsch, with his arms tied behind his back, had been 
 bundled violently into one of the smaller rooms. For 
 many hours he remained apparently forgotten, stretched 
 lifelessly on the floor. From that solitude, full of despair 
 and terror, he was torn out brutally, with kicks and 
 blows, passive, sunk in hebetude. He listened to threats 
 and admonitions, and afterwards made his usual an- 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 447 
 
 swers to questions, with his chin sunk on his breast, 
 his hands tied behind his back, swaying a little in front 
 of Sotillo, and never looking up. When he was forced 
 to hold up his head, by means of a bayonet-point prod- 
 ding him under the chin, his eyes had a vacant, trance- 
 like stare, and drops of perspiration as big as peas were 
 seen hailing down the dirt, bruises, and scratches of 
 his white face. Then they stopped suddenly. 
 
 Sotillo looked at him in silence. ‘‘ Will you depart 
 from your obstinacy, you rogue?” he asked. Already 
 a rope, whose one end was fastened to Sefior Hirsch’s 
 wrists, had been thrown over a beam, and three soldiers 
 held the other end, waiting. He made no answer. 
 His heavy lower lip hung stupidly. Sotillo made a 
 sign. Hirsch was jerked up off his feet, and a yell of 
 despair and agony burst out in the room, filled the pass- 
 age of the great buildings, rent the air outside, caused 
 every soldier of the camp along the shore to look up 
 at the windows, started some of the officers in the hall 
 babbling excitedly, with shining eyes; others, setting 
 their lips, looked gloomily at the floor. 
 
 Sotillo, followed by the soldiers, had left the room. 
 The sentry on the landing presented arms. Hirsch went 
 on screaming all alone behind the half-closed jalousies 
 while the sunshine, reflected from the water of the har- 
 bour, made an ever-running ripple of light high up on 
 the wall. He screamed with uplifted eyebrows and a 
 wide-open mouth—incredibly wide, black, enormous, 
 full of teeth—comical. 
 
 In the still burning air of the windless afternoon he 
 made the waves of his agony travel as far as the O.S. N. 
 Company’s offices. Captain Mitchell on the balcony, 
 trying to make out what went on generally, had heard 
 him faintly but distinctly, and the feeble and appalling 
 sound lingered in his ears after he had retreated indoors 
 
448 NOSTROMO 
 with blanched cheeks. He had been driven off the 
 
 balcony several times during that afternoon. 
 
 Sotillo, irritable, moody, walked restlessly about, held 
 consultations with his officers, gave contradictory orders 
 in this shrill clamour pervading the whole empty edifice. 
 Sometimes there would be long and awful silences. 
 Several times he had entered the torture-chamber 
 where his sword, horsewhip, revolver, and field-glass 
 were lying on the table, to ask with forced calmness, 
 “Will you speak the truth now? No? I can wait.” 
 But he could not afford to wait much longer. That 
 was just it. Every time he went in and came out with 
 a slam of the door, the sentry on the landing presented 
 arms, and got in return a black, venomous, unsteady 
 glance, which, in reality, saw nothing at all, being 
 merely the reflection of the soul within—a soul of 
 gloomy hatred, irresolution, avarice, and fury. 
 
 The sun had set when he went in once more. A 
 soldier carried in two lighted candles and slunk out, 
 shutting the door without noise. 
 
 “Speak, thou Jewish child of the devil! The silver! 
 The silver, I say! Where it it? Where have you 
 foreign rogues hidden it? Confess or 2 
 
 A slight quiver passed up the taut rope from the 
 racked limbs, but the body of Sefior Hirsch, enterprising 
 business man from Esmeralda, hung under the heavy 
 beam perpendicular and silent, facing the colonel 
 awiully. The inflow of the night air, cooled by the 
 snows of the Sierra, spread gradually a delicious fresh- 
 ness through the close heat of the room. 
 
 ““Speak—thief—scoundrel—picaro—or 
 
 Sotillo had seized the riding-whip, and stood with his 
 arm lifted up. For a word, for one little word, he felt 
 he would have knelt, cringed, grovelled on the floor 
 before the drowsy, conscious stare of those fixed eye- 
 
 399 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 449 
 
 balls starting out of the grimy, dishevelled head that 
 drooped very still with its mouth closed askew. The 
 colonel ground his teeth with rage and struck. The 
 rope vibrated leisurely to the blow, like the long string 
 of a pendulum starting from a rest. But no swinging 
 motion was imparted to the body of Sefior Hirsch, 
 the well-known hide merchant on the coast. With 
 a convulsive effort of the twisted arms it leaped up a few 
 inches, curling upon itself like a fish on the end of a line. 
 Sefior Hirsch’s head was flung back on his straining 
 throat; his chin trembled. For a moment the rattle 
 of his chattering teeth pervaded the vast, shadowy 
 room, where the candles made a patch of light round 
 the two flames burning side by side. And as Sotillo, 
 staying his raised hand, waited for him to speak, with 
 the sudden flash of a grin and a straining forward of the 
 wrenched shoulders, he spat violently into his face. 
 The uplifted whip fell, and the colonel sprang back 
 with a low cry of dismay, as if aspersed by a jet of 
 deadly venom. Quick as thought he snatched up his 
 revolver, and fired twice. The report and the concus- 
 sion of the shots seemed to throw him at once from 
 ungovernable rage into idiotic stupor. He stood with 
 drooping jaw and stony eyes. What had he done, 
 Sangre de Dios! What had he done? He was basely 
 appalled at his impulsive act, sealing for ever these lips 
 from which so much was to be extorted. What could 
 he say? How could he explain? Ideas of headlong 
 flight somewhere, anywhere, passed through his mind; 
 even the craven and absurd notion of hiding under 
 the table occurred to his cowardice. It was too late; 
 his officers had rushed in tumultuously, in a great clatter 
 of scabbards, clamouring, with astonishment and 
 wonder. But since they did not immediately proceed 
 to plunge their swords into his breast, the brazen side 
 
450 NOSTROMO 
 
 of his character asserted itself. Passing the sleeve 
 of his uniform over his face he pulled himself together, 
 His truculent glance turned slowly here and there, 
 checked the noise where it fell; and the stiff body of the 
 late Sefior Hirsch, merchant, after swaying impercepti- 
 bly, made a half turn, and came to a rest in the midst 
 of awed murmurs and uneasy shuffling. 
 
 A voice remarked loudly, ““Behcld a man who will 
 never speak again.”’ And another, from the back 
 row of faces, timid and pressing, cried out— 
 
 “Why did you kill him, m7 colonel?” 
 
 “Because he has confessed everything,’ answered 
 Sotillo, with the hardihood of desperation. He felt 
 himself cornered. He brazened it out on the strength 
 of his reputation with very fair success. His hearers 
 thought him very capable of such an act. They were 
 disposed to believe his flatterig tale. There is no 
 credulity so eager and blind as the credulity of covet- 
 ousness, which, in its universal extent, measures the 
 moral misery and the intellectual destitution of man- 
 kind. Ah! he had confessed everything, this frac- 
 tious Jew, this bribon. Good! ‘Then he was no longer 
 wanted. A sudden dense guffaw was heard from the 
 senior captain—a big-headed man, with little round 
 eyes and monstrously fat cheeks which never moved. 
 The old major, tall and fantastically ragged like a scare- 
 crow, walked round the body of the late Sefior Hirsch, 
 muttering to himself with ineffable complacency that 
 like this there was no need to guard against any future 
 treacheries of that scoundrel. The others stared, shift- 
 ing from foot to foot, and whispering short remarks 
 to each other. 
 
 Sotillo buckled on his sword and gave curt, peremp- 
 tory orders to hasten the retirement decided upon in the 
 afternoon. Sinister, impressive, his sombrero pulled 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 451 
 
 right down upon his eyebrows, he marched first through 
 the door in such disorder of mind that he forgot utterly 
 to provide for Dr. Monygham’s possible return. As 
 the officers trooped out after him, one or two looked 
 back hastily at the late Sefior Hirsch, merchant from 
 Esmeralda, left swinging rigidly at rest, alone with the 
 two burning candles. In the emptiness of the room 
 the burly shadow of head and shoulders on the wall had 
 an air of life. 
 
 Below, the troops fell in silently and moved off by 
 companies without drum or trumpet. The old scare- 
 crow major commanded the rearguard; but the party 
 he left behind with orders to fire the Custom House 
 (and “burn the carcass of the treacherous Jew where it 
 hung’’) failed somehow in their haste to set the staircase 
 properly alight. The body of the late Seftor Hirsch 
 dwelt alone for a time in the dismal solitude of the un- 
 finished building, resounding weirdly with sudden 
 slams and clicks of doors and latches, with rustling 
 scurries of torn papers, and the tremulous sighs that 
 at each gust of wind passed under the high roof. The 
 light of the two candles burning before the perpendicu- 
 lar and breathless immobility of the late Sefior Hirsch 
 threw a gleam afar over land and water, like a signal 
 in the night. He remained to startle Nostromo by his 
 presence, and to puzzle Dr. Monygham by the mystery 
 of his atrocious end. 
 
 “But why shot?” the doctor again asked himself, 
 audibly. ‘This time he was answered by a dry laugh 
 from Nostromo. | 
 
 “You seem much concerned at a very natural thing, 
 sefior doctor. I wonder why? It is very likely that be- 
 fore long we shall all get shot one after another, if not 
 by Sotillo, then by Pedrito, or Fuentes, or Gamacho. 
 And we may even get the estrapade, too, or worse—quten 
 
4.52 NOSTROMO 
 
 sabe ?—with your pretty tale of the silver you put into 
 Sotillo’s head.” 
 
 “It was in his head already, 
 of only 93 
 
 “Yes. And you only nailed it there so that the devil 
 himself—”’ 
 
 “That is precisely what I meant to do,” caught up 
 the doctor. 
 
 “That is what you meant todo. Bueno. ItisasI 
 say. You are a dangerous man.” 
 
 Their voices, which without rising had been growing 
 quarrelsome, ceased suddenly. The late Sefior Hirsch, 
 erect and shadowy against the stars, seemed to be wait- 
 ing attentive, in impartial silence. 
 
 But Dr. Monygham had no mind to quarrel with Nos- 
 tromo. At this supremely critical point of Sulaco’s 
 fortunes it was borne upon him at last that this man 
 was really indispensable, more indispensable than ever 
 the infatuation of Captain Mitchell, his proud dis- 
 coverer, could conceive; far beyond what Decoud’s 
 best dry raillery about “my illustrious friend, the unique 
 Capataz de Cargadores,” had ever intended. The 
 fellow was unique. He was not “one in a thousand.” 
 He was absolutely the only one. The doctor surren- 
 dered. There was something in the genius of that 
 Genoese seaman which dominated the destinies of great 
 enterprises and of many people, the fortunes of Charles 
 Gould, the fate of an admirable woman. At this last 
 thought the doctor had to clear his throat before he 
 could speak. 
 
 In a completely changed tone he pointed out to the 
 Capataz that, to begin with, he personally ran no great 
 risk. As far as everybody knew he was dead. It was 
 an enormous advantage. He had only to keep out 
 of sight in the Casa Viola, where the old Garibaldino 
 
 33 
 
 the doctor protested. 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 453 
 
 was known to be alone—with his dead wife. The 
 servants had all run away. No one would think of 
 searching for him there, or anywhere else on earth, 
 for that matter. 
 
 “That would be very true,’ Nostromo spoke up, 
 bitterly, “if I had not met you.” 
 
 For a time the doctor kept silent. “‘Do you mean to 
 say that you think I may give you away?” he asked in 
 an unsteady voice. ““Why? Why should I do that?” 
 
 “What do I know? Why not? To gain a day per- 
 haps. It would take Sotillo a day to give me the estra- 
 pade, and try some other things perhaps, before he puts 
 a bullet through my heart—as he did to that poor 
 wretch here. Why not?” 
 
 The doctor swallowed with difficulty. Huis throat 
 had gone dry in a moment. It was not from indigna- 
 tion. The doctor, pathetically enough, believed that 
 he had forfeited the right to be indignant with any one— 
 for anything. It was simple dread. Had the fellow 
 heard his story by some chance? If so, there was an 
 end of his usefulness in that direction. The indispen- 
 sable man escaped his influence, because of that indeli- 
 ble blot which made him fit for dirty work. A feeling 
 as of sickness came upon the doctor. He would have 
 given anything to know, but he dared not clear up the 
 point. The fanaticism of his devotion, fed on the sense 
 of his abasement, hardened his heart in sadness and: 
 scorn. 
 
 “Why not, indeed?” he reéchoed, sardonically. 
 “Then the safe thing for you is to kill me on the spot. 
 I would defend myself. But you may just as well know 
 I am going about unarmed.” 
 
 “Por Dios!” said the Capataz, passionately. “You 
 fine people are all alike. All dangerous. All betrayers 
 of the poor who are your dogs.” | 
 
454 NOSTROMO 
 
 “You do not understand,” began the doctor, slowly. 
 
 “T understand you all!” cried the other with a violent 
 movement, as shadowy to the doctor’s eyes as the per- 
 sistent immobility of the late Sefior Hirsch. “A poor 
 man amongst you has got to look after himself. I say 
 that you do not care for those that serve you. Look 
 at me! After all these years, suddenly, here I find 
 myself like one of these curs that bark outside the walls 
 —without a kennel or a dry bone for my teeth. Ca- 
 ramba!”’ But he relented with a contemptuous fair- 
 ness. “Of course,’ he went on, quietly, “I do not sup- 
 pose that you would hasten to give me up to Sotillo, 
 for example. It is not that. It is that I am nothing! 
 Suddenly > He swung his arm downwards. “‘Noth- 
 ing to any one,” he repeated. 
 
 The doctor breathed freely. “Listen, Capataz,”’ 
 he said, stretching out his arm almost affectionately 
 towards Nostromo’s shoulder. “I am going to tell 
 you a very simple thing. You are safe because you 
 are needed. I would not give you away for any con- 
 ceivable reason, because I want you.’ 
 
 In the dark Nostromo bit his lip. He had hed 
 enough of that. He knew what that meant. No more 
 of that for him. But he had to look after himself now, 
 he thought. And he thought, too, that it would not 
 be prudent to part in anger from his companion. The 
 doctor, admitted to be a great healer, had, amongst 
 the populace of Sulaco, the reputation of being an evil 
 sort of man. It was based solidly on his personal ap- 
 pearance, which was strange, and on his rough ironic 
 manner—proofs visible, sensible, and incontrovertible 
 of the doctor’s malevolent disposition. And Nostromo 
 was of the people. So he only grunted incredulously. 
 
 “You, to speak plainly, are the only man,” the doctor 
 pursued. “It is in your power to save this town and 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 455 
 
 everybody from the destructive rapacity of 
 men who——” 
 
 ‘““No, sefior,” said Nostromo, sullenly. “It is not 
 in my power to get the treasure back for you to give 
 up to Sotillo, or Pedrito, or Gamacho. What do I 
 know?” 
 
 “Nobody expects the impossible,”’ was the answer. 
 
 “You have said it yourself—nobody,” muttered 
 Nostromo, in a gloomy, threatening tone. 
 
 But Dr. Monygham, full of hope, disregarded the 
 enigmatic words and the threatening tone. To their 
 eyes, accustomed to obscurity, the late Sefior Hirsch, 
 growing more distinct, seemed to have come nearer. 
 And the doctor lowered his voice in exposing his scheme 
 as though afraid of being overheard. 
 
 He was taking the indispensable man into his fullest 
 confidence. Its implied flattery and suggestion of great 
 risks came with a familiar sound to the Capataz. His 
 mind, floating in irresolution and discontent, recognized 
 it with bitterness. He understood well that the doctor 
 was anxious to save the San Tomé mine from annihila- 
 tion. He would be nothing without it. It was his 
 interest. Just as it had been the interest of Sefior 
 Decoud, of the Blancos, and of the Europeans to get 
 his Cargadores on their side. His thought became 
 arrested upon Decoud. What would happen to him? 
 
 Nostromo’s prolonged silence made the doctor un- 
 easy. He pointed out, quite unnecessarily, that though 
 for the present he was safe, he could not live concealed 
 forever. The choice was between accepting the mission 
 to Barrios, with all its dangers and difficulties, and leav- 
 ing Sulaco by stealth, ingloriously, in poverty. 
 
 “None of your friends could reward you and protect 
 you just now, Capataz. Not even Don Carlos himself.”’ 
 
 “TI would have none of your protection and none of 
 
456 NOSTROMO 
 
 your rewards. I only wish I could trust your courage 
 and your sense. When [ return in triumph, as you 
 say, with Barrios, I may find you all destroyed. You 
 have the knife at your throat now.’ 
 
 It was the doctor’s turn to remain silent in the con- 
 templation of horrible contingencies. 
 
 “Well, we would trust your courage and your sense. 
 And you, too, have a knife at your throat.” ) 
 
 “Ah! And whom am [ to thank for that? What 
 are your politics and your mines to me—your silver and 
 your constitutions—your Don Carlos this, and Don 
 José that 
 
 “I don’t know,” burst out the exasperated doctor. 
 “There are innocent people in danger whose little 
 finger is worth more than you or I and all the Ribier- 
 ists together. I don’t know. You should have asked 
 yourself before you allowed Decoud to lead you into 
 all this. It was your place to think like a man; but 
 if you did not think then, try to act like a man now. 
 Did you imagine Decoud cared very much for what 
 would happen to you?” 
 
 “No more than you care for what will happen to me,” 
 muttered the other. 
 
 “No; I care for what will happen to you as little as I 
 care for what will happen to myself.” 
 
 “And all this because you are such a devoted Ribier- 
 ist?’ Nostromo said in an incredulous tone. 
 
 **All this because I am such a devoted Ribierist,”’ 
 repeated Dr. Monygham, grimly. 
 
 Again Nostromo, gazing abstractedly at the body of 
 the late Sefior Hirsch, remained silent, thinking that the 
 doctor was a dangerous person in more than one sense. 
 It was impossible to trust him. 
 
 “Do you speak in the name of Don Carlos?” he asked 
 at last. 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 457 
 
 “Yes. Ido,” the doctor said, loudly, without hesita- 
 tion. ““He must come forward now. He must,” he 
 added in a mutter, which Nostromo did not catch. 
 
 “What did you say, sefior?”’ 
 
 The doctor started. “I say that you must be true to 
 yourself, Capataz. It would be worse than folly to fail 
 now.” 
 
 “True to myself,’ repeated Nostromo. “How do 
 you know that I would not be true to myself if I told 
 you to go to the devil with your propositions?”’ 
 
 “TI do not know. Maybe you would,” the doctor 
 said, with a roughness of tone intended to hide the 
 sinking of his heart and the faltering of his voice. “All 
 I know is, that you had better get away from here. 
 Some of Sotillo’s men may turn up here looking for 
 me.” 
 
 He slipped off the table, listening intently. The 
 Capataz, too, stood up. 
 
 “Suppose I went to Cayta, what would you do mean- 
 time?” he asked. 
 
 “I would go to Sotillo directly you had left—in the 
 way I am thinking of.” 
 
 “A very good way—if only that engineer-in-chief 
 consents. Remind hin, sefior, that I looked after the 
 old rich Englishman who pays for the railway, and that 
 I saved the lives of some of his people that time when a 
 gang of thieves came from the south to wreck one of his 
 pay-trains. It was I who discovered it all at the risk 
 of my life, by pretending to enter into their plans. Just 
 as you are doing with Sotillo.”’ 
 
 “Yes. Yes, of course. But I can offer him better 
 arguments,”’ the doctor said, hastily. “‘Leave it to me.” 
 
 “Ah, yes! True. I am nothing.” 
 
 “Not at all. You are everything.” 
 
 They moved a few paces towards the door. Behind 
 
458 NOSTROMO 
 
 them the late Sefior Hirsch presenyed the immobility 
 of a disregarded man. 
 
 “That will be all right. I know what to say to the 
 engineer,’ pursued the doctor, in a low tone. ““My 
 difficulty will be with Sotillo.”’ 
 
 And Dr. Monygham stopped short in the doorway as 
 if intimidated by the difficulty. He had made the sacri- 
 fice of his life. He considered this a fitting opportunity. 
 But he did not want to throw his life away too soon. 
 In his quality of betrayer of Don Carlos’ confidence, 
 he would have ultimately to indicate the hiding-place 
 of the treasure. ‘That would be the end of his deception, 
 and the end of himself as well, at the hands of the infuri- 
 ated colonel. He wanted to delay him to the very last 
 moment; and he had been racking his brains to invent 
 some place of concealment at once plausible and diffi- 
 cult of access. 
 
 He imparted his trouble to Nostromo, and con- 
 cluded— 
 
 “Do you know what, Capataz? I think that when 
 the time comes and some information must be given, 
 I shall indicate the Great Isabel. That is the best. 
 place I can think of. What is the matter?” 
 
 A low exclamation had escaped Nostromo. ‘The 
 doctor waited, surprised, and after a moment of pro- 
 found silence, heard a thick voice stammer out, ““ Utter 
 folly,’ and stop with a gasp. 
 
 “Why folly?” 
 
 “Ah! You do not see it,” began Nostromo, scath- 
 ingly, gathering scorn as he went on. “Three men in 
 half an hour would see that no ground had been dis- 
 turbed anywhere on that island. Do you think that 
 such a treasure can be buried without leaving traces 
 of the work—eh! sefior doctor? Why! you would not 
 gain half a day mere before having your throat cut by 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 459 
 
 Sotillo. The Isabel! What stupidity! What miser- 
 able invention! Ah! you are all alike, you fine men 
 of intelligence. All you are fit for is to betray men of 
 the people into undertaking deadly risks for objects 
 that you are not even sure about. If it comes off you 
 get the benefit. If not, then it does not matter. He 
 is only a dog. Ah! Madre de Dios, I would 
 He shook his fists above his head. 
 
 The doctor was overwhelmed at first by this fierce, 
 hissing vehemence. 
 
 “Well! It seems to me on your own showing that the 
 men of the people are no mean fools, too,” he said, sul- 
 lenly. “No, but come. You are so clever. Have you 
 a better place?”’ 
 
 Nostromo had calmed down as quickly as he had 
 flared up. 
 
 “IT am clever enough for that,” he said, quietly, al- 
 most with indifference. “‘You want to tell him of a 
 hiding-place big enough to take days in ransacking—a 
 place where a treasure of silver ingots can be buried 
 without leaving a sign on the surface.” 
 
 ‘And close at hand,” the doctor put in. 
 
 “Just so, sefior. Tell him it is sunk.” 
 
 “This has the merit of being the truth,” the doctor 
 said, contemptuously. “He will not believe it.” 
 
 “You tell him that it is sunk where he may hope to 
 lay his hands on it, and he will believe you quick enough. 
 Tell him it has been sunk in the harbour in order to be 
 recovered afterwards by divers. Tell him you found out 
 that I had orders from Don Carlos Gould to lower the 
 cases quietly overboard somewhere in a line between 
 the end of the jetty and the entrance. The depth is 
 not too great there. He has no divers, but he has a ship, 
 boats, ropes, chains, sailors—of a sort. Let him fish 
 for the silver. Let him set his fools to drag backwards 
 
46) NOSTROMO 
 
 and forwards and crossways while he sits and watches 
 till his eyes drop out of his head.”’ 
 
 “Really, this is an admirable idea,’’ muttered the 
 doctor. 
 
 “Si. You tell him that, and see whether he will not 
 believe you! He will spend days in rage and torment— 
 and still he will believe. He will have no thought for 
 anything else. He will not give up till he is driven off— 
 why, he may even forget to kill you. He will neither 
 eat nor sleep. He ae 
 
 “The very thing! The very thing!” the doctor 
 repeated in an excited whisper. ‘“‘Capataz, I be- 
 gin to believe that you are a great genius in your 
 way.” 
 
 Nostromo had paused; then began again in a changed 
 tone, sombre, speaking to himself as though he had 
 forgotten the doctor’s existence. 
 
 **’There is something in a treasure that fastens upon a 
 man’s mind. He will pray and blaspheme and still 
 persevere, and will curse the day he ever heard of it, 
 and will let his last hour come upon him unawares, still 
 believing that he missed it only by a foot. He will see 
 it every time he closes his eyes. He will never forget 
 it till he is dead—and even then Doctor, did you 
 ever hear of the miserable gringos on Azuera, that can- 
 not die? Ha! ha! Sailors like myself. ‘There is no 
 getting away from a treasure that once fastens upon 
 your mind.” 
 
 “You are a devil of a man, Capataz. It is the most 
 plausible thing.”’ 
 
 Nostromo pressed his arm. 
 
 “Tt will be worse for him than thirst at sea or hunger 
 in a town full of people. Do you know what that is? 
 He shall suffer greater torments than he inflicted upon 
 that terrified wretch who had no invention. None! 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 46) 
 
 none! Notlkeme. I could have told Sotillo a deadly 
 tale for very little pain.” 
 
 He laughed wildly and turned in the doorway towards 
 the body of the late Sefior Hirsch, an opaque long blotch 
 in the semi-transparent obscurity of the room between 
 the two tall parallelograms of the windows full of stars. 
 
 “You man of fear!” he cried. “‘ You shall be avenged 
 by me—Nostromo. Out of my way, doctor! Stand 
 aside—or, by the suffering soul of a woman dead without 
 confession, I will strangle you with my two hands.”’ 
 
 He bounded downwards into the black, smoky hall. 
 With a grunt of astonishment, Dr. Monygham threw 
 himself recklessly into the pursuit. At the bottom of 
 the charred stairs he had a fall, pitching forward on his 
 face with a force that would have stunned a spirit less 
 intent upon a task of love and devotion. He was up 
 in a moment, jarred, shaken, with a queer impression 
 of the terrestrial globe having been flung at his head in 
 the dark. But it wanted more than that to stop Dr. 
 Monygham’s body, possessed by the exaltation of self- 
 sacrifice; a reasonable exaltation, determined not to lose 
 whatever advantage chance put into its way. He ran 
 with headlong, tottering swiftness, his arms going like a 
 windmill in his effort to keep his balance on his crippled 
 feet. He lost his hat; the tails of his open gaberdine 
 flew behind him. He had no mind to lose sight of the 
 indispensable man. But it was a long time, and a long 
 way from the Custom House, before he managed te 
 seize his arm from behind, roughly, out of breath. 
 
 “Stop! Are you mad?” 
 
 Already Nostromo was walking slowly, his head 
 dropping, as if checked in his pace by the weariness 
 of irresolution. 
 
 “What is that to you? Ah! I forgot you want me 
 for something. Always. Siempre Nostromo.” 
 
462 NOSTROMO 
 
 “What do you mean by talking of strangling me?” 
 panted the doctor. 
 
 “What do I mean? I mean that the king of the 
 devils himself has sent you out of this town of cowards 
 and talkers to meet me to-night of all the nights of my 
 life.”’ 
 
 Under the starry sky the Albergo d’Italia Una 
 emerged, black and low, breaking the dark level of the 
 plain. Nostromo stopped altogether. 
 
 “The priests say he is a tempter, do they not?” he 
 added, through his clenched teeth. 
 
 “My good man, you drivel. The devil has nothing 
 to do with this. Neither has the town, which you may 
 call by what name you please. But Don Carlos Gould 
 is neither a coward nor an empty talker. You will 
 admit that?’? He waited. “Well?” 
 
 “Could I see Don Carlos?” 
 
 “Great heavens! No! Why? What for?” exclaimed 
 the doctor in agitation. “I tell you it is madness. I 
 will not let you go into the town for anything.” 
 
 “T must.” 
 
 “You must not!” hissed the doctor, fiercely, almost 
 beside himself with the fear of the man doing away with 
 his usefulness for an imbecile whim of some sort. “1. 
 tell you you shall not. I would rather-——” 
 
 He stopped at loss for words, feeling fagged out, 
 powerless, holding on to Nostromo’s sleeve, absolutely 
 for support after his run. 
 
 “T am betrayed!” muttered the Capataz to himself; 
 -and the doctor, who overheard the last word, made an 
 effort to speak calmly. 
 
 “That is exactly what would happen to you. You 
 would be betrayed.”’ 
 
 He thought with a sickening dread that the man was 
 so well known that he could not escape recognition. 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 463 
 
 The house of the Sefior Administrador was beset by 
 spies, no doubt. And even the very servants of the 
 casa were not to be trusted. “Reflect, Capataz,”’ he 
 said,impressively. . . . “Whatare you laughing at?” 
 
 *T am laughing to think that if somebody that did not 
 approve of my presence in town, for instance—you 
 understand, sefior doctor—if somebody were to give 
 me up to Pedrito, it would not be beyond my power to 
 make friends even with him. Itis true. What do you 
 think of that?”’ 
 
 “You are a man of infinite resource, Capataz,”’ said 
 Dr. Monygham, dismally. “I recognize that. But 
 the town is full of talk about you; and those few Car- 
 gadores that are not in hiding with the railway people 
 have been shouting ‘Viva Montero’ on the Plaza all 
 day.” 
 
 **My poor Cargadores!’’ muttered Nostromo. “‘Be- 
 trayed! Betrayed!” 
 
 **T understand that on the wharf you were pretty free 
 in laying about you with a stick amongst your poor 
 Cargadores,” the doctor said in a grim tone, which 
 showed that he was recovering from his exertions. 
 *““Make no mistake. Pedrito is furious at Sefior 
 Ribiera’s rescue, and at having lost the pleasure of 
 shooting Decoud. Already there are rumours in the 
 town of the treasure having been spirited away. To 
 have missed that does not please Pedrito either; but 
 let me tell you that if you had all that silver in your 
 hand for ransom it would not save you.” 7 
 
 Turning swiftly, and catching the doctor by the shoul- 
 ders, Nostromo thrust his face close to his. 
 
 **Maladetta! Youfollow mespeaking of the treasure. 
 You have sworn my ruin. You were the last man who 
 looked upon me before I went out with it. And Sidon 
 the engine-driver says you have an evil eye.” 
 
464 NOSTROMO 
 
 “He ought to know. [I saved his broken leg for him 
 last year,”’ the doctor said, stoically. He felt on his 
 shoulders the weight of these hands famed amongst the 
 populace for snapping thick ropes and bending horse- 
 shoes. ‘“‘And to you I offer the best means of saving 
 yourself—let me go—and of retrieving your great reputa- 
 tion. You boasted of making the Capataz de Carga- 
 dores famous from one end of America to the other 
 about this wretched silver. But I bring you a better 
 opportunity—let me go, hombre!” 
 
 Nostromo released him abruptly, and the doctor 
 feared that the indispensable man would run off again. 
 But he did not. He walked on slowly. ‘The doctor 
 hobbled by his side till, within a stone’s throw from the 
 Casa Viola, Nostromo stopped again. 
 
 Silent in inhospitable darkness, the Casa Viola seemed 
 to have changed its nature; his home appeared to repel 
 him with an air of hopeless and inimical mystery. The 
 doctor said— 
 
 “You will be safe there. Go in, Capataz.”’ 
 
 “How can I go in?”’ Nostromo seemed to ask himself 
 in a low, inward tone. “She cannot unsay what she 
 said, and I cannot undo what I have done.” 
 
 **T tell you it is all right. Viola is all alone in there. 
 I looked in as I came out of the town. You will be 
 perfectly safe in that house till you leave it to make your 
 name famous on the Campo. I am going now to ar- 
 range for your departure with the engineer-in-chief, 
 and I shall bring you news here long before daybreak.” 
 
 Dr. Monygham, disregarding, or perhaps fearing to 
 penetrate the meaning of Nostromo’s silence, clapped him 
 lightly on the shoulder, and starting off with his smart, 
 lame walk, vanished utterly at the third or fourth hop 
 in the direction of the railway track. Arrested between 
 the two wooden posts for people to fasten their horses to, 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 465 
 
 Nostromo did not move, as if he, too, had been planted 
 solidly in the ground. At the end of half an hour he 
 lifted his head to the deep baying of the dogs at the rail- 
 way yards, which had burst out suddenly, tumultuous 
 and deadened as if coming from under the plain. That 
 Jame doctor with the evil eye had got there pretty fast. 
 
 Step by step Nostromo approached the Albergo 
 d’Italia Una, which he had never known so lightless, so 
 silent, before. ‘The door, all black in the pale wall, 
 stood open as he had left it twenty-four hours before, 
 when he had nothing to hide from the world. He re- 
 mained before it, irresolute, like a fugitive, like a man 
 betrayed. Poverty, misery, starvation! Where had 
 he heard these words? ‘The anger of a dying woman 
 had prophesied that fate for his folly. It looked as if 
 it would come true very quickly. And the leperos 
 would laugh—she had said. Yes, they would laugh 
 if they knew that the Capataz de Cargadores was at 
 the mercy of the mad doctor whom they could remem- 
 ber, only a few years ago, buying cooked food from a 
 stall on the Plaza for a copper coin—like one of them- 
 selves. 
 
 At that moment the notion of seeking Captain Mit- 
 chell passed through his mind. He glanced in the direc- 
 tion of the jetty and saw a small gleam of light in the 
 O.S.N. Company’s building. The thought of lighted 
 windows was not attractive. Two lighted windows 
 had decoyed him into the empty Custom House, only 
 to fall into the clutches of that doctor. No! He would 
 not go near lighted windows again on that night. 
 Captain Mitchell was there. And what could he be 
 told? That doctor would worm it all out of him as if 
 he were a child. 
 
 On the threshold he called out ‘‘Giorgio!”” in an 
 undertone. Nobody answered. He stepped in. “Ola? 
 
466 NOSTROMO 
 
 viejo! Are you there? . . .’?In the impenetrable 
 darkness his head swam with the illusion that the ob- 
 scurity of the kitchen was as vast as the Placid Gulf, 
 and that the floor dipped forward like a sinking lighter. 
 “Ola! viejo!’ he repeated, falteringly, swaying where he 
 stood. His hand, extended to steady himself, fell 
 upon the table. Moving a step forward, he shifted 
 it, and felt a box of matches under his fingers. He 
 fancied he had heard a quiet sigh. He listened for a 
 moment, holding his breath; then, with trembling hands, 
 tried to strike a light. 
 
 The tiny piece of wood flamed up quite blindingly 
 at the end of his fingers, raised above his blinking eyes. 
 A concentrated glare fell upon the leonine white head 
 of old Giorgio against the black fire-place—showed him 
 leaning forward in a chair in staring immobility, sur- 
 rounded, overhung, by great masses of shadow, his 
 legs crossed, his cheek in his hand, an empty pipe in 
 the corner of his mouth. It seemed hours before he at- 
 tempted to turn his face; at the very moment the match 
 went out, and he disappeared, overwhelmed by the 
 shadows, as if the walls and roof of the desolate house 
 had collapsed upon his white head in ghostly silence. 
 
 Nostromo heard him stir and utter dispassionately 
 the words— 
 
 “It may have been a vision.” 
 
 *“No,” he said, softly. “It is no vision, old man.” 
 
 A strong chest voice asked in the dark— 
 
 “Is that you I hear, Giovann’ Battista?” 
 
 “Sz, viejo. Steady. Not so loud.” 
 
 After his release by Sotillo, Giorgio Viola, attended to 
 the very door by the good-natured engineer-in-chief, 
 had reéntered his house, which he had been made to 
 Jeave almost at the very moment of his wife’s death. 
 All was still. The lamp above was burning. He nearly 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 467 
 
 called out to her by name; and the thought that no call 
 from him would ever again evoke the answer of her 
 voice, made him drop heavily into the chair with a 
 loud groan, wrung out by the pain as of a keen blade 
 piercing his breast. 
 
 The rest of the night he made no sound. The dark- 
 ness turned to grey, and on the colourless, clear, glassy 
 dawn the jagged sierra stood out flat and opaque, as if 
 cut out of paper. 
 
 The enthusiastic and severe soul of Giorgio Viola, 
 sailor, champion of oppressed humanity, enemy of kings, 
 and, by the grace of Mrs. Gould, hotel-keeper of the 
 Sulaco harbour, had descended into the open abyss of 
 desolation amongst the shattered vestiges of his past. 
 He remembered his wooing between two campaigns,. 
 a single short week in the season of gathering olives. 
 Nothing approached the grave passion of that time but 
 the deep, passionate sense of his bereavement. He dis- 
 covered all the extent of his dependence upon the si- 
 lenced voice of that woman. It was her voice that he 
 missed. Abstracted, busy, lost in inward contempla- 
 tion, he seldom looked at his wife in those later years. 
 The thought of his girls was a matter of concern, not 
 of consolation. It was her voice that he would miss. 
 And he remembered the other child—the little boy who 
 died at sea. Ah! a man would have been something to 
 lean upon. And, alas! even Gian’ Battista—he of whom, 
 and of Linda, his wife had spoken to him so anxiously 
 before she dropped off into her last sleep on earth, he on 
 whom she had called aloud to save the children, just 
 before she died—even he was dead! 
 
 And the old man, bent forward, his head in his hand, 
 sat through the day in immobility and solitude. He 
 never heard the brazen roar of the bells in town. When 
 it ceased the earthenware filter in the corner of the 
 
468 NOSTROMO 
 
 kitchen kept on its swift musical drip, drip into the 
 great porous jar below. 
 
 Towards sunset he got up, and with slow movements 
 disappeared up the narrow staircase. His bulk filled it; 
 and the rubbing of his shoulders made a small noise as of 
 a mouse running behind the plaster of a wall. While 
 he remained up there the house was as dumb as a grave. 
 ‘Then, with the same faint rubbing noise, he descended. 
 He had to catch at the chairs and tables to regain his 
 seat. He seized his pipe off the high mantel of the 
 fire-place—but made no attempt to reach the tobacco— 
 thrust it empty into the corner of his mouth, and sat 
 down again in the same staring pose. The sun of Pe- 
 drito’s entry into Sulaco, the last sun of Sefior Hirsch’s 
 life, the first of Decoud’s solitude on the Great Isabel, 
 passed over the Albergo d’Italia Una on its way to the 
 west. The tinkling drip, drip of the filter had ceased, 
 the lamp upstairs had burnt itself out, and the night 
 beset Giorgio Viola and his dead wife with its ob- 
 scurity and silence that seemed invincible till the 
 Capataz de Cargadores, returning from the dead, put 
 them to flight with the splutter and flare of a match. 
 
 “51, viejo.’ Itis me. Wait.” 
 
 Nostromo, after barricading the door and closing the 
 shutters carefully, groped upon a shelf for a candle, and 
 lit it. 
 
 Old Viola had risen. He followed with his eyes in the 
 dark the sounds made by Nostromo. The light dis- 
 closed him standing without support, as if the mere 
 presence of that man who was loyal, brave, incorrupti- 
 ble, who was all his son would have been, were enough 
 for the support of his decaying strength. 
 
 He extended his hand grasping the briar-wood pipe, 
 whose bowl was cnarred on the edge, and knitted his 
 bushy eyebrows heavily at the light. 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 469 
 
 “You have returned,” he said, with shaky dignity. 
 “Ah! Very well! I 
 
 He broke off. Nostromo, leaning back against the 
 table, his arms folded on his breast, nodded at him 
 slightly. 
 
 “You thought I was drowned! No! The best dog 
 of the rich, of the aristocrats, of these fine men who 
 can only talk and betray the people, is not dead yet.” 
 
 The Garibaldino, motionless, seemed to drink in the 
 sound of the well-known voice. His head moved 
 slightly once as if in sign of approval; but Nostromo saw 
 clearly that the old man understood nothing of the 
 words. ‘There was no one to understand; no one he 
 could take into the confidence of Decoud’s fate, of his 
 own, into the secret of the silver. That doctor was an 
 enemy of the people—a tempter. . 
 
 Old Giorgio’s heavy frame shook orn ead to foot 
 with the effort to overcome his emotion at the sight of 
 that man, who had shared the intimacies of his domestic 
 life as though he had been a grown-up son. 
 
 “She believed you would return,” he said, solemnly. 
 
 Nostromo raised his head. 
 
 “She was a wise woman. How could I fail to come 
 back a 
 
 He finished the thought mentally: “Since she has 
 prophesied for me an end of poverty, misery, and starva- 
 tion.” These words of Teresa’s anger, from the cir- 
 cumstances in which they had been uttered, like the 
 cry of a soul prevented from making its peace with 
 God, stirred the obscure superstition of personal 
 fortune from which even the greatest genius amongst 
 men of adventure and action is seldom free. ‘They 
 reigned over Nostromo’s mind with the force of a potent 
 malediction. And what a curse it was that which her 
 words had laid upon him! He had been orphaned so 
 
470 NOSTROMO 
 
 young that he could remember no other woman whom 
 he called mother. Henceforth there would be no enter- 
 prise in which he would not fail. The spell was working 
 already. Death itself would elude him now. 
 
 He said violently— 
 
 “Come, viejo! Get me something to eat. I am 
 hungry! Sangre de Dios! 'The emptiness of my belly 
 makes me lightheaded.” 
 
 With his chin dropped again upon his bare breast 
 above his folded arms, barefooted, watching from under 
 a gloomy brow the movements of old Viola foraging 
 amongst the cupboards, he seemed as if indeed fallen 
 under a curse—a ruined and sinister Capataz. 
 
 Old Viola walked out of a dark corner, and, without a 
 word, emptied upon the table out of his hollowed palms 
 a few dry crusts of bread and half a raw onion. 
 
 While the Capataz began to devour this beggar’s 
 fare, taking up with stony-eyed voracity piece after - 
 piece lying by his side, the Garibaldino went off, and 
 squatting down in another corner filled an earthenware 
 mug with red wine out of a wicker-covered demijohn. 
 With a familiar gesture, as when serving customers in 
 the cafe, he had thrust his pipe between his teeth to 
 have his hands free. 
 
 The Capataz drank greedily. A slight flush deepened 
 the bronze of his cheek. Before him, Viola, with a 
 turn of his white and massive head towards the stair- 
 case, took his empty pipe out of his mouth, and pro- 
 nounced slowly— 
 
 “* After the shot was fired down here, which killed her 
 as surely as if the bullet had struck her oppressed heart, 
 she called upon you to save the children. Upon you, 
 Gian’ Battista.” 
 
 The Capataz looked up. 
 
 ‘“Did she do that, Padrone? To save the children! 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 471 
 
 They are with the English sefiora, their rich benefac- 
 tress. Hey! old man of the people. Thy benefac- 
 LressTe ea grin n 
 
 “TI am old,” muttered Giorgio Viola. “An English- 
 woman was allowed to give a bed to Garibaldi lying 
 wounded in prison. ‘The greatest man that ever lived. 
 A man of the people, too—a sailor. I may let another 
 keep a roof over my head. Sz . . . ITamold. I 
 may let her. Life lasts too long sometimes.” 
 
 “And she herself may not have a roof over her head 
 before many days are out, unless I . . . What do 
 you say? Am [I to keep a roof over her head? Am I 
 to try—and save all the Blancos together with her?” 
 
 “You shall do it,” said old Viola in a strong voice. 
 “You shall do it as my son would have. rig 
 
 “Thy son, viejo! . . . . There never has been a 
 man like thy son. Ha,I musttry. . . . But what 
 if it were only a part of the curse to lure me on? 
 
 And so she called upon me to save—and then——?”’ 
 
 “She spoke no more.” The heroic follower of Gari- 
 baldi, at the thought of the eternal stillness and silence 
 fallen upon the shrouded form stretched out on the bed 
 upstairs, averted his face and raised his hand to his 
 furrowed brow. “She was dead before I could seize 
 her hands,”’ he stammered out, pitifully. 
 
 Before the wide eyes of the Capataz, staring at the 
 doorway of the dark staircase, floated the shape of the 
 Great Isabel, like a strange ship in distress, freighted 
 with enormous wealth and the solitary life of a man. 
 It was impossible for him to do anything. He could 
 only hold his tongue, since there was no one to trust. 
 The treasure would be lost, probably—unless Decoud. 
 
 And his thought came abruptly to an end. 
 He perceived that he could not imagine in the least 
 what Decoud was likely to do. 
 
472 NOSTROMO 
 
 Old Viola had not stirred. And the motionless Capa- 
 taz dropped his long, soft eyelashes, which gave to the 
 upper part of his fierce, black-whiskered face a touch of 
 feminine ingenuousness. The silence had lasted for a 
 long time. 
 
 “God rest her soul!” he murmured, gloomily. 
 
CHAPTER TEN 
 
 THE next day was quiet in the morning, except for the 
 faint sound of firing to the northward, in the direction of 
 Los Hatos. Captain Mitchell had listened to it from 
 his baleony anxiously. The phrase, “In my delicate 
 position as the only consular agent then in the port, 
 everything, sir, everything was a just cause for anxiety,” 
 had its place in the more or less stereotyped relation of 
 the ‘‘historical events”’ which for the next few years was 
 at the service of distinguished strangers visiting Sulaco. 
 The mention of the dignity and neutrality of the flag, 
 so difficult to preserve in his position, “‘right in the thick 
 of these events between the lawlessness of that pirati- 
 eal villain Sotillo and the more regularly established 
 but scarcely less atrocious tyranny of his Excellency 
 Don Pedro Montero,’’~came next in order. Captain 
 Mitchell was not the man to enlarge upon mere dangers 
 much. But he insisted that it was a memorable day. 
 On that day, towards dusk, he had seen “‘that poor 
 fellow of mine—Nostromo. The sailor whom I discov- 
 ered, and, I may say, made, sir. The man of the fa- 
 mous ride to Cayta, sir. An historical event, sir!” 
 
 Regarded by the O. S. N. Company as an old and 
 faithful servant, Captain Mitchell was allowed to attain 
 the term of his usefulness in ease and dignity at the head 
 of the enormously extended service. The augmenta- 
 tion of the establishment, with its crowds of clerks, an 
 office in town, the old office in the harbour, the division 
 into departments—passenger, cargo, lighterage, and 
 so on—secured a greater leisure for his last years in the 
 
 473 
 
474 NOSTROMO 
 
 regenerated Sulaco, the capital of the Occidental Re- 
 public. Liked by the natives for his good nature and 
 the formality of his manner, self-important and simple, 
 known for years as a “friend of our country,” he felt 
 himself a personality of mark in the town. Getting 
 up early for a turn in the market-place while the gigan- 
 tic shadow of Higuerota was still lying upon the fruit 
 and flower stalls piled up with masses of gorgeous colour- 
 ing, attending easily to current affairs, welcomed in 
 houses, greeted by ladies on the Alameda, with his 
 entry into all the clubs and a footing in the Casa Gould, 
 he led his privileged old bachelor, man-about-town 
 existence with great comfort and solemnity. But on 
 mail-boat days he was down at the Harbour Office at 
 an early hour, with his own gig, manned by a smart 
 crew in white and blue, ready to dash off and board 
 the ship directly she showed her bows between the 
 harbour heads. 
 
 It would be into the Harbour Office that he would 
 lead some privileged passenger he had brought off in his 
 own boat, and invite him to take a seat for a moment 
 while he signed a few papers. And Captain Mitchell, 
 seating himself at his desk, would keep on talking hos- 
 pitably— 
 
 “There isn’t much time if you are to see everything 
 in a day. We shall be off in a moment. We'll have 
 lunch at the Amarilla Club—though I belong also to 
 the Anglo-American—mining engineers and business 
 men, don’t you know—and to the Mirliflores as well, 
 a new club—English, French, Italians, all sorts—lively 
 young fellows mostly, who wanted to pay a compliment 
 to an old resident, sir. But we’ll lunch at the Amarilla. 
 Interest you, I fancy. Real thing of the country. Men 
 of the first families. The President of the Occidental 
 Republic himself belongs to it, sir. Fine old bishop 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE ATS 
 
 with a broken nose in the patio. Remarkable piece 
 of statuary, I believe. Cavaliere Parrochetti—you 
 know Parrochetti, the famous Italian sculptor—was 
 working here for two years—thought very highly of 
 our old bishop. . . . There! I am very much at 
 your service now.” 
 
 Proud of his experience, penetrated by the sense of 
 historical importance of men, events, and buildings, he 
 talked pompously in jerky periods, with slight sweeps 
 of his short, thick arm, letting nothing “escape the 
 attention”’ of his privileged captive. 
 
 “Lot of building going on, as you observe. Before 
 the Separation it was a plain of burnt grass smothered 
 in clouds of dust, with an ox-cart track to our Jetty. 
 Nothing more. This is the Harbour Gate. Picturesque, 
 is it not? Formerly the town stopped short there. 
 We enter now the Calle de la Constitucion. Observe 
 the old Spanish houses. Great dignity. Eh? I sup- 
 pose it’s just as it was in the time of the Viceroys, ex- 
 cept for the pavement. Wood blocks now. Sulaco 
 National Bank there, with the sentry boxes each side 
 of the gate. Casa Avellanos this side, with all the 
 ground-floor windows shuttered. A wonderful woman 
 lives there—Miss Avellanos—the beautiful Antonia. 
 A character, sir! A_ historical woman! Opposite 
 —Casa Gould. Noble gateway. Yes, the Goulds 
 of the original Gould Concession, that all the world 
 knows of now. I hold seventeen of the thousand-dollar 
 shares in the Consolidated San Tomé mines. All the 
 poor savings of my lifetime, sir, and it will be enough 
 to keep me in comfort to the end of my days at home 
 when I retire. I got in on the ground-floor, you see. 
 Don Carlos, great friend of mine. Seventeen shares— 
 quite a little fortune to leave behind one, too. I have 
 a niece—married a parson—most worthy man, incum- 
 
A76 NOSTROMO 
 
 bent of a small parish in Sussex; no end of children. I 
 was never married myself. A sailor should exercise 
 self-denial. Standing under that very gateway, sir, 
 with some young engineer-fellows, ready to defend 
 that house where we had received so much kindness 
 and hospitality, I saw the first and last charge of 
 Pedrito’s horsemen upon Barrios’s troops, who had just 
 taken the Harbour Gate. They could not stand the 
 new rifles brought out by that poor Decoud. It was a 
 murderous fire. In a moment the street became 
 blocked with a mass of dead men and horses. They 
 never came on again.” 
 
 And all day Captain Mitchell would talk like this 
 to his more or less willing victim— 
 
 “The Plaza. I call it magnificent. Twice the area 
 of Trafalgar Square.” 
 
 From the very centre, in the blazing sunshine, he 
 pointed out the buildings— 
 
 “The Intendencia, now President’s Palace—Cabildo, 
 where the Lower Chamber of Parliament sits. You 
 notice the new houses on that side of the Plaza? Com- 
 pafiia Anzani, a great general store, like those codpera- 
 tive things at home. Old Anzani was murdered by the 
 National Guards in front of his safe. It was even for 
 that specific crime that the deputy Gamacho, com- 
 manding the Nationals, a bloodthirsty and savage 
 brute, was executed publicly by garrotte upon the sen- 
 tence of a court-martial ordered by Barrios. Anzani’s 
 nephews converted the business into a company. 
 All that side of the Plaza had been burnt; used to be 
 colonnaded before. A terrible fire, by the light of which 
 I saw the last of the fighting, the llaneros flying, the 
 Nationals throwing their arms down, and the miners of 
 San Tomé, all Indians from the Sierra, rolling by like a 
 torrent to the sound of pipes and cymbals, green fiags 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 477 
 
 flying, a wild mass of men in white ponchos and green 
 hats, on foot, on mules, on donkeys. Such a sight, sir, 
 will never be seen again. ‘The miners, sir, had marched 
 upon the town, Don Pépé leading on his black horse, 
 and their very wives in the rear on burros, screaming 
 encouragement, sir, and beating tambourines. I re- 
 member one of these women had a green parrot seated 
 on her shoulder, as calm as a bird of stone. They had 
 just saved their Sefior Administrador; for Barrios, 
 though he ordered the assault at once, at night, too, 
 would have been too late. Pedrito Montero had Don 
 Carlos led out to be shot—like his uncle many years ago 
 —and then, as Barrios said afterwards, ‘Sulaco would 
 not have been worth fighting for.’ Sulaco without the 
 Concession was nothing; and there were tons and tons 
 of dynamite distributed all over the mountain with 
 detonators arranged, and an old priest, Father Roman, 
 standing by to annihilate the San Tomé mine at the 
 first news of failure. Don Carlos had made up his 
 mind not to leave it behind, and he had the right 
 men to see to it, too.” 
 
 Thus Captain Mitchell would talk in the middle of 
 the Plaza, holding over his head a white umbrella with a 
 green lining; but inside the cathedral, in the dim light, 
 with a faint scent of incense floating in the cool at- 
 mosphere, and here and there a kneeling female figure, 
 black or all white, with a veiled head, his lowered voice 
 became solemn and impressive. 
 
 “Here,” he would say, pointing to a niche in the wall 
 of the dusky aisle, ““you see the bust of Don José Avel- 
 lanos, ‘Patriot and Statesman,’ as the inscription says, 
 ‘Minister to Courts of England and Spain, etc., etc., 
 died in the woods of Los Hatos worn out with his life- 
 long struggle for Right and Justice at the dawn of the 
 New Era.’ A fair likeness. Parrochetti’s work from 
 
478 NOSTROMO 
 
 some old photographs and a pencil sketch by Mrs. 
 Gould. I was well acquainted with that distinguished 
 Spanish-American of the old school, a true Hidalgo, 
 beloved by everybody who knew him. ‘The marble 
 medallion in the wall, in the antique style, representing 
 a veiled woman seated with her hands clasped loosely 
 over her knees, commemorates that unfortunate young 
 gentleman who sailed out with Nostromo on that fatal 
 night, sir. See, ‘To the memory of Martin Decoud, 
 his betrothed Antonia Avellanos.’ Frank, simple, 
 noble. There you have that lady, sir, as she is. An 
 exceptional woman. ‘Those who thought she would 
 give way to despair were mistaken, sir. She has been 
 blamed in many quarters for not having taken the veil. 
 It was expected of her. But Dofia Antonia is not the 
 stuff they make nuns of. Bishop Corbelan, her uncle, 
 lives with her in the Corbelan town house. He is a 
 fierce sort of priest, everlastingly worrying the Govern- — 
 ment about the old Church lands and convents. I be- 
 lieve they think a lot of him in Rome. Now let us go 
 to the Amarilla Club, just across the Plaza, to get some 
 lunch.”’ 
 
 Directly outside the cathedral on the very top of the 
 noble flight of steps, his voice rose pompously, his arm 
 found again its sweeping gesture. 
 
 ** Porvenir, over there on that first floor, above those 
 French plate-glass shop-fronts; our biggest daily. Con- 
 servative, or, rather, I should say, Parliamentary. We 
 have the Parliamentary party here of which the actual 
 Chief of the State, Don Juste Lopez, is the head; a very 
 sagacious man, think. A first-rate intellect, sir. The 
 Democratic party in opposition rests mostly, I am sorry 
 to say, on these socialistic Italians, sir, with their secret 
 societies, camorras, and such-like. There are lots of 
 Italians settled here on the railway lands, dismissed 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 479 
 
 navvies, mechanics, and so on, all along the trunk line. 
 There are whole villages of Italians on the Campo. 
 And the natives, too, are being drawn into these ways 
 , Lie American bar? Yes. And over there you can 
 see another. New Yorkers mostly frequent that 
 one—— Here we are at the Amarilla. Observe the 
 bishop at the foot of the stairs to the right as we go in.”’ 
 
 And the lunch would begin and terminate its lavish 
 and leisurely course at a little table in the gallery, Cap- 
 tain Mitchell nodding, bowing, getting up to speak for a 
 moment to different officials in black clothes, merchants. 
 in jackets, officers in uniform, middle-aged caballeros 
 from the Campo—sallow, little, nervous men, and fat, 
 placid, swarthy men, and Europeans or North Ameri- 
 cans of superior standing, whose faces looked very white 
 amongst the majority of dark complexions and black, 
 glistening eyes. 
 
 Captain Mitchell would lie back in the chair, casting 
 around looks of satisfaction, and tender over the table a 
 case full of thick cigars. 
 
 “Try a weed with your coffee. Local tobacco. The 
 black coffee you get at the Amarilla, sir, you don’t meet 
 anywhere in the world. We get the bean from a famous 
 cafeterva in the foot-hills, whose owner sends three sacks. 
 every year as a present to his fellow members in remem- 
 brance of the fight against Gamacho’s Nationals, carried 
 on from these very windows by the caballeros. He was 
 in town at the time, and took part, sir, to the bitter end. 
 It arrives on three mules—not in the common way, by 
 rail; no fear!—right into the patio, escorted by mounted 
 peons, in charge of the Mayoral of his estate, who walks 
 upstairs, booted and spurred, and delivers it to our 
 committee formally with the words, ‘For the sake of 
 those fallen on the third of May.’ We call it Tres de 
 Mayo coffee. Taste it.” 
 
480 NOSTROMO 
 
 Captain Mitchell, with an expression as though mak- 
 ing ready to hear a sermon in a church, would lift the 
 tiny cup to his lips. And the nectar would be sipped 
 to the bottom during a restful silence in a cloud of cigar 
 smoke. 
 
 “Look at this man in black just going out,’ he would 
 begin, leaning forward hastily. “This is the famous 
 Hernandez, Minister of War. The Times’ special 
 correspondent, who wrote that striking series of letters 
 calling the Occidental Republic the ‘Treasure House of 
 the World,’ gave a whole article to him and the force 
 he has organized—the renowned Carabineers of the 
 Campo.” 
 
 Captain Mitchell’s guest, staring curiously, would see 
 a figure in a long-tailed black coat walking gravely, 
 with downcast eyelids in a long, composed face, a 
 brow furrowed horizontally, a pointed head, whose 
 grey hair, thin at the top, combed down carefully on 
 all sides and rolled at the ends, fell low on the neck 
 and shoulders. ‘This, then, was the famous bandit of 
 whom Europe had heard with interest. He put on a 
 high-crowned sombrero with a wide flat brim; a rosary 
 of wooden beads was twisted about his right wrist. 
 And Captain Mitchell would proceed— 
 
 “The protector of the Sulaco refugees from the rage of 
 Pedrito. As general of cavalry with Barrios he distin- 
 guished himself at the storming of Tonoro, where Sefior 
 Fuentes was killed with the last remnant of the Mon- 
 terists. He is the friend and humble servant of Bishop 
 Corbelan. Hears three Masses every day. I bet 
 you he will step into the cathedral to say a prayer or two 
 on his way home to his siesta.”’ 
 
 He took several puffs at his cigar in silence; then, in 
 his most important manner, pronounced: 
 
 “The Spanish race, sir, is prolific of remarkable char: 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 481 
 
 acters in every rank of life. . . . I propose we go 
 now into the billiard-room, which is cool, for a quiet 
 chat. There’s never anybody there till after five. I 
 could tell you episodes of the Separationist revolution 
 that would astonish you. When the great heat’s over, 
 we'll take a turn on the Alameda.” 
 
 The programme went on relentless, like a law of 
 Nature. The turn on the Alameda was taken with 
 slow steps and stately remarks. 
 
 ‘All the great world of Sulaco here, sir.” Captain 
 Mitchell bowed right and left with no end of formality; 
 then with animation, “‘Dofia Emilia, Mrs. Gould’s 
 carriage. Look. Always white mules. The kindest, 
 most gracious woman the sun ever shone upon. A 
 great position, sir. A great position. First lady in 
 Sulaco—far before the President’s wife. And worthy 
 of it.” He took off his hat; then, with a studied 
 change of tone, added, negligently, that the man in 
 black by her side, with a high white collar and a scarred, 
 snarly face, was Dr. Monygham, Inspector of State 
 Hospitals, chief medical officer of the Consolidated San 
 Tomé mines. “A familiar of the house. Everlast- 
 ingly there. No wonder. The Goulds made him. 
 Very clever man and all that, but I never liked him. 
 Nobody does. I can recollect him limping about the 
 streets in a check shirt and native sandals with a water- 
 melon under his arm—all he would get to eat for the 
 day. A big-wig now, sir, and as nasty as ever. How- 
 ever . . . There’s no doubt he played his part 
 fairly well at the time. He saved us all from the deadly 
 incubus of Sotillo, where a more particular man might 
 have failed a 
 
 His arm went up. 
 
 “The equestrian statue that used to stand on the 
 pedestal over there has been removed. It was an 
 
482 NOSTROMO 
 
 anachronism,’ Captain Mitchell commented, obscurely. 
 ‘There is some talk of replacing it by a marble shaft 
 commemorative of Separation, with angels of peace at 
 the four corners, and bronze Justice holding an even 
 balance, all gilt, on the top. Cavaliere Parrochetti 
 was asked to make a design, which you can see framed 
 under glass in the Municipal Sala. Names are to be 
 engraved all round the base. Well! ‘They could do 
 no better than begin with the name of Nostromo. He 
 has done for Separation as much as anybody else, and,” 
 added Captain Mitchell, “has got less than many others 
 by 1t—when it comes to that.’’ He dropped on to a 
 stone seat under a tree, and tapped invitingly at the 
 place by his side. ‘‘He carried to Barrios the letters 
 from Sulaco which decided the General to abandon 
 Cayta for a time, and come back to our help here by sea. 
 The transports were still in harbour fortunately. Sir, 
 I did not even know that my Capataz de Cargadores 
 was alive. I had no idea. It was Dr. Monygham 
 who came upon him, by chance, in the Custom House, 
 evacuated an hour or two before by the wretched Sotillo. 
 I was never told; never given a hint, nothing—as if 
 I were unworthy of confidence. Monygham arranged 
 it all. He went to the railway yards, and got admission 
 to the engineer-in-chief, who, for the sake of the Goulds 
 as much as for anything else, consented to let an engine 
 make a dash down the line, one hundred and eighty 
 miles, with Nostromo aboard. It was the only way to 
 get him off. In the Construction Camp at the rail- 
 head, he obtained a horse, arms, some clothing, and 
 started alone on that marvellous ride—four hundred 
 miles in six days, through a disturbed country, ending 
 by the feat of passing through the Monterist lines out- 
 side Cayta. The history of that ride, sir, would make a 
 most exciting book. He carried all our lives in his 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 483 
 
 pocket. Devotion, courage, fidelity, intelligence were 
 not enough. Of course, he was perfectly fearless and 
 incorruptible. But a man was wanted that would 
 know how to succeed. He was that man, sir. On the 
 fifth of May, being practically a prisoner in the Har- 
 bour Office of my Company, I suddenly heard the whis- 
 tle of an engine in the railway yards, a quarter of a 
 mile away. I could not believe my ears. I made one 
 jump on to the balcony, and beheld a locomotive under 
 a great head of steam run out of the yard gates, screech- 
 ing like mad, enveloped in a white cloud, and then, just 
 abreast of old Viola’s inn, check almost to a standstill. 
 I made out, sir, a man—I couldn’t tell who—dash out 
 of the Albergo d’Italia Una, climb into the cab, and 
 then, sir, that engine seemed positively to leap clear of 
 the house, and was gone in the twinkling of an eye. 
 As you blow a candle out, sir! There was a first-rate 
 driver on the foot-plate, sir, I can tell you. They were 
 fired heavily upon by the National Guards in Rincon 
 and one other place. Fortunately the line had not 
 been torn up. In four hours they reached the Construc- 
 tion Camp. Nostromo had his start. . . . The 
 rest you know. You’ve got only to look round you. 
 There are people on this Alameda that ride in their 
 carriages, or even are alive at all to-day, because years 
 ago I engaged a runaway Italian sailor for a foreman of 
 our wharf simply on the strength of his looks. And 
 that’s afact. You can’t get over it, sir. .On the seven- 
 teenth of May, just twelve days after I saw the man 
 from the Casa Viola get on the engine, and wondered 
 what it meant, Barrios’s transports were entering this 
 harbour, and the ‘Treasure House of the World,’ as 
 The Times man calls Sulaco in his book, was saved in- 
 tact for civilization—for a great future, sir. Pedrito, 
 with Hernandez on the west, and the San Tomé miners | 
 
484 NOSTROMO 
 
 pressing on the land gate, was not able to oppose the 
 landing. He had been sending messages to Sotillo 
 for a week to join him. Had Sotillo done so there 
 would have been massacres and proscription that would 
 have left no man or woman of position alive. But 
 that’s where Dr. Monygham comes in. Sotillo, blind 
 and deaf to everything, stuck on board his steamer 
 watching the dragging for silver, which he believed to 
 be sunk at the bottom of the harbour. They say that 
 for the last three days he was out of his mind raving 
 and foaming with disappointment at getting nothing, 
 flying about the deck, and yelling curses at the boats 
 with the drags, ordering them in, and then suddenly 
 stamping his foot and crying out, ‘And yet it is there! 
 I see it! I feel it! 
 
 “He was preparing to hang Dr. Monygham (whom he 
 had on board) at the end of the after-derrick, when the 
 first of Barrios’s transports, one of our own ships at 
 that, steamed right im, and ranging close alongside 
 opened a small-arm fire without as much preliminaries 
 as a hail. It was the completest surprise in the world, 
 sir. They were too astounded at first to bolt below. 
 Men were falling right and left like ninepins. It’s a 
 miracle that Monygham, standing on the after-hatch 
 with the rope already round his neck, escaped being 
 riddled through and through like a sieve. He told me 
 since that he had given himself up for lost, and kept on 
 yelling with all the strength of his lungs: ‘Hoist a white 
 flag! Hoist a white flag!’ Suddenly an old major 
 of the Esmeralda regiment, standing by, unsheathed 
 his sword with a shriek: “Die, perjured traitor!’ and ran 
 Sotillo clean through the body, just before he fell him- 
 self shot through the head.”’ 
 
 Captain Mitchell stopped for a while. 
 
 “Begad, sir! I could spin you a yarn for hours. 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 485 
 
 But it’s time we started off to Rincon. It would not do 
 for you to pass through Sulaco and not see the lights of 
 the San Tomé mine, a whole mountain ablaze like a 
 lighted palace above the dark Campo. It’s a fash- 
 lonable drive. . . . But let me tell you one little 
 anecdote, sir; just to show you. A fortnight or more 
 later, when Barrios, declared Generalissimo, was gone 
 in pursuit of Pedrito away south, when the Provisional 
 Junta, with Don Juste Lopez at its head, had promul- 
 gated the new Constitution, and our Don Carlos 
 Gould was packing up his trunks bound on a mission to 
 San Francisco and Washington (the United States, sir, 
 were the first great power to recognize the Occidental 
 Republic)—a fortnight later, I say, when we were 
 beginning to feel that our heads were safe on our 
 shoulders, if I may express myself so, a prominent man, 
 a large shipper by our line, came to see me on business, 
 and, says he, the first thing: ‘I say, Captain Mitchell, 
 is that fellow’ (meaning Nostromo) ‘still the Capataz of 
 your Cargadores or not?’ ‘What’s the matter?’ says I. 
 ‘Because, if he is, then I don’t mind; I send and receive 
 a good lot of cargo by your ships; but I have observed 
 him several days loafing about the wharf, and just now 
 he stopped me as cool as you please, with a request for 
 a cigar. Now, you know, my cigars are rather special, 
 and I can’t get them so easily as all that.’ ‘I hope 
 you stretched a point,’ I said, very gently. ‘Why, yes. 
 But it’s a confounded nuisance. The fellow’s ever- 
 lastingly cadging for smokes.’ Sir, I turned my eyes 
 away, and then asked, ‘Weren’t you one of the prisoners 
 in the Cabildo?’ ‘You know very well I was, and in 
 chains, too,’ says he. ‘And under a fine of fifteen 
 thousand dollars?’ He coloured, sir, because it got 
 about that he fainted from fright when they came to 
 arrest him, and then behaved before Fuentes in a man- 
 
486 NOSTROMO 
 
 ner to make the very policianos, who had dragged him 
 there by the hair of his head, smile at his cringing. 
 ‘Yes,’ he says, in a sort of shy way. ‘Why?’ ‘Oh, 
 nothing. You stood to lose a tidy bit,’ says I, “even 
 if you saved your life. . . . But what can I do 
 for you?’ He never even saw the point. Not he. 
 And that’s how the world wags, sir.’ 
 
 He rose a little stiffly, and the drive to ‘Rincon would 
 be taken with only one philosophical remark, uttered 
 by the merciless cicerone, with his eyes fixed upon the 
 lights of San Tomé, that seemed suspended in the dark 
 night between earth and heaven. 
 
 “A great power, this, for good and evil, sir. A great 
 power.” 
 
 And the dinner of the Mirliflores would be eaten, 
 excellent as to cooking, and leaving upon the traveller’s 
 mind an impression that there were in Sulaco many 
 pleasant, able young men with salaries apparently 
 too large for their discretion, and amongst them a few, 
 a Anglo-Saxon, skilled in the art of, as the saying 
 
 “taking a rise’’ out of his kind host. 
 
 With a rapid, jingling drive to the harbour in a two- 
 wheeled machine (which Captain Mitchell called a cur- 
 ricle) behind a fleet and scraggy mule beaten all the © 
 time by an obviously Neapolitan driver, the cycle 
 would be nearly closed before the lighted-up offices of 
 the O. 5. N. Company, remaining open so late because 
 of the steamer. Nearly—but not quite. 
 
 *’Ten o’clock. Your ship won’t be ready to leave till 
 half-past twelve, if by then. Come in for a brandy- 
 and-soda and one more cigar.” 
 
 And in the superintendent’s private room the privi- 
 leged passenger by the Ceres, or Jano, or Pallas, stunned 
 and as it were annihilated mentally by a sudden surfeit 
 of sights, sounds, names, facts, and complicated infor- 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 487 
 
 mation imperfectly apprehended, would listen like a 
 tired child to a fairy tale; would hear a voice, familiar 
 and surprising in its pompousness, tell him, as if from 
 another world, how there was “in this very harbour”’ 
 4n international naval demonstration, which put an 
 end to the Costaguana-Sulaco War. How the United 
 States cruiser, Powhattan, was the first to salute the 
 Occidental flag—white, with a wreath of green laurel 
 in the middle encircling a yellow amarilla flower. Would 
 hear how General Montero, in less than a month after 
 proclaiming himself Emperor of Costaguana, was shot 
 dead (during a solemn and public distribution of orders 
 and crosses) by a young artillery officer, the brother of 
 his then mistress. 
 
 “'The abominable Pedrito, sir, fled the country,” the 
 voice would say. And it would continue: “A captain 
 of one of our ships told me lately that he recognized 
 Pedrito the Guerrillero, arrayed in purple slippers and a 
 velvet smoking-cap with a gold tassel, keeping a dis- 
 orderly house in one of the southern ports.” 
 
 “Abominable Pedrito! Who the devil was he?”’ 
 would wonder the distinguished bird of passage 
 hovering on the confines of waking and sleep with reso- 
 lutely open eyes and a faint but amiable curl upon his 
 lips, from between which stuck out the eighteenth or 
 twentieth cigar of that memorable day. 
 
 **He appeared to me in this very room like a haunting 
 ghost, sir’—Captain Mitchell was talking of his Nos- 
 tromo with true warmth of feeling and a touch of wist- 
 ful pride. ““You may imagine, sir, what an effect it 
 produced on me. He had come round by sea with 
 Barrios, cf course. And the first thing he told me after 
 I became fit to hear him was that he had picked up 
 the lighter’s boat floating in the gulf! He seemed quite 
 overcome by the circumstance. And a remarkable 
 
488 NOSTROMO 
 
 enough circumstance it was, when you remember that 
 it was then sixteen days since the sinking of the silver. 
 At once I could see he was another man. He stared 
 at the wall, sir, as if there had been a spider or some- 
 thing running about there. The loss of the silver 
 preyed on his mind. The first thing he asked me about 
 was whether Dofia Antonia had heard yet of Decoud’s 
 death. His voice trembled. I had to tell him that 
 Dofia Antonia, as a matter of fact, was not back — 
 in town yet. Poor girl! And just as I was making 
 ready to ask him a thousand questions, with a sudden, 
 ‘Pardon me, sefior,’ he cleared out of the office alto- 
 gether. I did not see him again for three days. I was 
 terribly busy, you know. It seems that he wandered 
 about in and out of the town, and on two nights turned 
 up to sleep in the baracoons of the railway people. 
 He seemed absolutely indifferent to what went on. I 
 asked him on the wharf, ‘When are you going to take 
 hold again, Nostromo? There will be plenty of work 
 for the Cargadores presently.’ 
 
 ““‘Sefior,’ says he, looking at me in a slow, inquisitive 
 manner, ‘would it surprise you to hear that I am too 
 tired to work just yet? And what work could I do now? 
 How can I look my Cargadores in the face after losing a 
 lighter?’ 
 
 “T begged him not to think any more about the silver, 
 and he smiled. A smile that went to my heart, sir. ‘It 
 was no mistake,’ I told him. ‘It was a fatality. A 
 thing that could not be helped.’ ‘Sz, si/’ he said, and 
 turned away. I thought it best to leave him alone for a 
 bit to get over it. Sir, it took him years really, to get 
 over it. I was present at his interview with Don Car- 
 los. I must say that Gould is rather a cold man. He 
 had to keep a tight hand on his feelings, dealing with 
 thieves and rascals, in constant danger of ruin for him- 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 489 
 
 self and wife for so many years, that it had become a 
 second nature. They looked at each other for a long 
 time. Don Carlos asked what he could do for him, in 
 his quiet, reserved way. 
 
 ***My name is known from one end of Sulaco to the 
 other,’ he said, as quiet as the other. ‘What more can 
 you do for me?’ That was all that passed on that occa- 
 sion. Later, however. there was a very fine coasting 
 schooner for sale, and Mrs. Gould and I put our heads 
 together to get her bought and presented to him. 
 It was done, but he paid all the price back within the 
 next three years. Business was booming all along this 
 seaboard, sir. Moreover, that man always succeeded 
 in everything except in saving the silver. Poor Dofia 
 Antonia, fresh from her terrible experiences in the 
 woods of Los Hatos, had an interview with him, too. 
 Wanted to hear about Decoud: what they said, what 
 they did, what they thought up to the last on that fatal 
 night. Mrs. Gould told me his manner was perfect 
 for quietness and sympathy. Miss Avellanos burst 
 into tears only when he told her how Decoud had hap- 
 pened to say that his plan would be a glorious success. 
 
 And there’s no doubt, sir, that itis. Itisa 
 success.” 
 
 The cycle was about to close at last. And while 
 the priviieged passenger, shivering with the pleasant 
 anticipations of his berth, forgot to ask himself, 
 “What on earth Decoud’s plan could be?” Captain 
 Mitchell was saying, “Sorry we must part so soon. 
 Your intelligent interest made this a pleasant day to 
 me. I shall see you now on board. You had a 
 glimpse of the ‘Treasure House of the World.’ A 
 very good name that.” And the coxswain’s voice at 
 the door, announcing that the gig was ready, closed the 
 eycle. 
 
490 NOSTROMO 
 
 Nostromo had, indeed, found the lighter’s boat, 
 which he had left on the Great Isabel with Decoud, 
 floating empty far out in the gulf. He was then on 
 the bridge of the first of Barrios’s transports, and within 
 an hour’s steaming from Sulaco. Barrios, always de- 
 lighted with a feat of daring and a good judge of cour- 
 age, had taken a great liking to the Capataz. During 
 the passage round the coast the General kept Nostromo 
 near his person, addressing him frequently in that 
 abrupt and boisterous manner which was the sign of his 
 high favour. 
 
 Nostromo’s eyes were the first to catch, broad on the 
 bow, the tiny, elusive dark speck, which, alone with the 
 forms of the Three Isabels right ahead, appeared on 
 the flat, shimmering emptiness of the gulf. There are 
 times when no fact should be neglected as insignificant; 
 a small boat so far from the land might have had some 
 meaning worth finding out. At a nod of consent from 
 Barrios the transport swept out of her course, passing 
 near enough to ascertain that no one manned the little 
 cockle-shell. It was merely a common small boat gone 
 adrift with her oars in her. But Nostromo, to whose 
 mind Decoud had been insistently present for days, had 
 long before recognized with excitement the dinghy of — 
 the lighter. 
 
 There could be no question of topes to pick up that 
 thing. Every minute of time was momentous with the 
 lives and futures of a whole town. The head of thelead- 
 ing ship, with the General on board, fell off to her 
 course. Behind her, the fleet of transports, scattered 
 haphazard over a mile or so in the offing, like the finish 
 of an ocean race, pressed on, all black and smoking on 
 the western sky. 
 
 *“Mi General,’’ Nostromo’s voice rang out loud, but 
 quiet, from behind a group of officers, “I should like te 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 491 
 
 save that little boat. Por Dios, I know her. She 
 belongs to my Company.” 
 
 “And, por Dios,” guffawed Barrios, in a noisy, good- 
 humoured voice, ““you belong to me. I am going to 
 make you a captain of cavalry directly we get within 
 sight of a horse again.” 
 
 **I can swim far better than I can ride, mi General,” 
 cried Nostromo, pushing through to the rail with a set 
 stare in his eyes. “‘Let me——”’ 
 
 “Let you? What a conceited fellow that is,” ban- 
 tered the General, jovially, without even looking at him. 
 “Let him go! Ha! ha! ha! He wants me to admit 
 that we cannot take Sulaco without him! Ha! ha! 
 ha! Would you like to swim off to her, my son?” 
 
 A tremendous shout from one end of the ship to the 
 other stopped his guffaw. Nostromo had leaped over- 
 board; and his black head bobbed up far away already 
 from the ship. The General muttered an appalled 
 “Crelo! Sinner that I am!” in a thunderstruck tone. 
 One anxious glance was enough to show him that Nos- 
 tromo was swimming with perfect ease; and then he 
 thundered terribly, ““No! no! We shall not stop to 
 pick up this impertinent fellow. Let him drown— 
 that mad Capataz.”’ 
 
 Nothing short of main force would have kept Nos- 
 tromo from leaping overboard. That empty boat, 
 coming out to meet him mysteriously, as if rowed by 
 an invisible spectre, exercised the fascination of some 
 sign, of some warning, seemed to answer in a startling 
 and enigmatic way the persistent thought of a treasure 
 and of a man’s fate. He would have leaped if there 
 had been death in that half-mile of water. It was as 
 smooth as a pond, and for some reason sharks are un- 
 known in the Placid Gulf, though on the other side of 
 the Punta Mala the coastline swarms with them. 
 
492 NOSTROMO 
 
 The Capataz seized hold of the stern and blew with 
 force. A queer, faint feeling had come over him while 
 he swam. He had got rid of his boots and coat in the 
 water. He hung on for a time, regaining his breath. In 
 the distance the transports, more in a bunch now, held 
 on straight for Sulaco, with their air of friendly contest, 
 of nautical sport, of a regatta; and the united smoke of 
 their funnels drove like a thin, sulphurous fogbank 
 right over his head. It was his daring, his courage, his 
 act that had set these ships in motion upon the sea, 
 hurrying on to save the lives and fortunes of the Blan- 
 cos, the taskmasters of the people; to save the San 
 Tomé mine; to save the children. 
 
 With a vigorous and skilful effort he clambered over 
 the stern. The very boat! No doubt of it; no doubt 
 whatever. It was the dinghy of the lighter No. 3— 
 the dinghy left with Martin Decoud on the Great Isabel 
 so that he should have some means to help himself if 
 nothing could be done for him from the shore. And 
 here she had come out to meet him empty and imexpli- 
 cable. What had become of Decoud? The Capataz 
 made a minute examination. He looked for some 
 scratch, for some mark, for some sign. All he discov- 
 ered was a brown stain on the gunwale abreast of the 
 thwart. He bent his face over it and rubbed hard 
 with his finger. Then he sat down in the stern sheets, 
 passive, with his knees close together and legs aslant. 
 
 Streaming from head to foot, with his hair and whisk- 
 ers hanging lank and dripping and a lustreless stare 
 fixed upon the bottom boards, the Capataz of the Su- 
 laco Cargadores resembled a drowned corpse come up 
 from the bottom to idle away the sunset hour in a small 
 boat. The excitement of his adventurous ride, the 
 excitement of the return in time, of achievement, of 
 success, all this excitement centred round the asso 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 493 
 
 ciated ideas of the great treasure and of the only other 
 man who knew of its existence, had departed from him. 
 To the very last moment he had been cudgelling his 
 brains as to how he could manage to visit the Great 
 Isabel without loss of time and undetected. For the 
 idea of secrecy had come to be connected with the 
 treasure so closely that even to Barrios himself he had 
 refrained from mentioning the existence of Decoud 
 and of the silver on the island. The letters he carried 
 to the General, however, made brief mention of the 
 loss of the lighter, as having its bearing upon the sit- 
 uation in Sulaco. In the circumstances, the one- 
 eyed tiger-slayer, scenting battle from afar, had not 
 wasted his time in making inquiries from the messenger. 
 In fact, Barrios, talking with Nostromo, assumed that 
 both Don Martin Decoud and the ingots of San Tomé 
 were lost together, and Nostromo, not questioned di- 
 rectly, had kept silent, under the influence of some in- 
 definable form of resentment and distrust. Let Don 
 Martin speak of everything with his own lips—was 
 what he told himself mentally. 
 
 And now, with the means of gaining the Great Isabel 
 thrown thus in his way at the earliest possible moment, 
 his excitement had departed, as when the soul takes 
 flight leaving the body inert upon an earth it knows no 
 more. Nostromo did not seem to know the gulf. 
 For a long time even his eyelids did not flutter once 
 upon the glazed emptiness of his stare. Then slowly, 
 without a limb having stirred, without a twitch of 
 muscle or quiver of an eyelash, an expression, a living 
 expression came upon the still features, deep thought 
 crept into the empty stare—as if an outcast soul, a 
 quiet, brooding soul, finding that untenanted body in 
 its way, had come in stealthily to take possession. 
 
 The Capataz frowned: and in the immense stillness 
 
494 NOSTROMO 
 
 of sea, islands, and coast, of cloud forms on the sky and 
 trails of light upon the water, the knitting of that brow 
 had the emphasis of a powerful gesture. Nothing 
 else budged for a long time; then the Capataz shook 
 his head and again surrendered himself to the universal 
 repose of all visible things. Suddenly he seized the 
 oars, and with one movement made the dinghy spin 
 round, head-on to the Great Isabel. But before he 
 began to pull he bent once more over the brown stain 
 on the gunwale. 
 
 “T know that thing,” he muttered to himself, with a 
 sagacious jerk of the head. “That’s blood.” 
 
 His stroke was long, vigorous, and steady. Now and 
 then he looked over his shoulder at the Great Isabel, 
 presenting its low cliff to his anxious gaze like an im- 
 penetrable face. At last the stem touched the strand. 
 He flung rather than dragged the boat up the little 
 beach. At once, turning his back upon the sunset, he 
 plunged with long strides into the ravine, making the 
 water of the stream spurt and fly upwards at every 
 step, as if spurning its shallow, clear, murmuring spirit 
 with his feet. He wanted to save every moment of day- 
 hight. 
 
 A mass of earth, grass, and smashed bushes had fallen’ 
 down very naturally from above upon the cavity under | 
 the leaning tree. Decoud had attended to the conceal- | 
 ment of the silver as instructed, using the spade with 
 some intelligence. But Nostromo’s half-smile of ap- 
 proval changed into a scornful curl of the lip by the 
 sight of the spade itself flung there in full view, as if in 
 utter carelessness or sudden panic, giving away the 
 whole thing. Ah! They were all alike in their folly, 
 these hombres finos that invented laws and governments 
 and barren tasks for the people. 
 
 The Capataz picked up the spade, and with the feel of 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 495 
 
 the handle in his palm the desire of having a look at the 
 horse-hide boxes of treasure came upon him suddenly- 
 In a very few strokes he uncovered the edges and cor- 
 ners of several; then, clearing away more earth, became 
 aware that one of them had been slashed with a knife. 
 
 He exclaimed at that discovery in a stifled voice, and 
 dropped on his knees with a look of irrational appre- 
 hension over one shoulder, then over the other. The 
 stiff hide had closed, and he hesitated before he pushed 
 his hand through the long slit and felt the ingots inside. 
 There they were. One, two, three. Yes, four gone. 
 Taken away. Four ingots. But who? Decoud? No- 
 body else. And why? For what purpose? For what 
 cursed fancy? Let him explain. Four ingots carried 
 off in a boat, and—blood! 
 
 In the face of the open gulf, the sun, clear, unclouded, 
 unaltered, plunged into the waters in a grave and un- 
 troubled mystery of self-immolation consummated far 
 from all mortal eyes, with an infinite majesty of silence 
 and peace. Four ingots short!—and blood! 
 
 The Capataz got up slowly. 
 
 “He might simply have cut his hand,” he muttered. 
 “But, then ig 
 
 He sat down on the soft earth, unresisting, as if he 
 had been chained to the treasure, his drawn-up legs 
 clasped in his hands with an air of hopeless submission, 
 like a slave set on guard. Once only he lifted his head 
 smartly: the rattle of hot musketry fire had reached his 
 ears, like pouring from on high a stream of dry peas 
 upon a drum. After listening for a while, he said, 
 half aloud— 
 
 “He will never come back to explain.” 
 
 And he lowered his head again. 
 
 “Impossible!” he muttered, gloomily. 
 
 The sounds of firing died out. The loom of a great 
 
496 NOSTROMO 
 
 confiagration in Sulaco flashed up red above the coast, 
 played on the clouds at the head of the gulf, seemed to. 
 touch with a ruddy and sinister reflection the forms of 
 the Three Isabels. He never saw it, though he raised 
 his head. ! 
 
 “But, then, I cannot know,” he pronounced, dis- 
 tinctly, and remained silent and staring for hours. 
 
 He could not know. Nobody was to know. As 
 might have been supposed, the end of Don Martin 
 Decoud never became a subject of speculation for any 
 one except Nostromo. Had the truth of the facts 
 been known, there would always have remained the 
 question, Why? Whereas the version of his death 
 at the sinking of the lighter had no uncertainty of 
 motive. The young apostle of Separation had died 
 striving for his idea by an ever-lamented accident. 
 But the truth was that he died from solitude, the enemy 
 known but to few on this earth, and whom only the 
 simplest of us are fit to withstand. ‘The brilliant Cos- 
 taguanero of the boulevards had died from solitude and 
 want of faith in himself and others. 
 
 For some good and valid reasons beyond mere human 
 comprehension, the sea-birds of the gulf shun the Isa~ 
 bels. The rocky head of Azuera is their haunt, whose | 
 stony levels and chasms resound with. their wild and 
 tumultuous clamour as if they were for ever quarrelling 
 over the legendary treasure. 
 
 At the end of his first day on the Greet Isabel, 
 Decoud, turning in his lair of coarse grass, under the 
 shade of a tree, said to himself— 
 
 **T have not seen as much as one single bird all day.”’ 
 
 And he had not heard a sound, either, all day but that 
 one now of his own muttering voice. It had been a 
 day of absolute silence—the first he had known in his 
 life. And he had not slept a wink. Not for all these 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 497 
 
 wakeful nights and the days of fighting, planning, talk- 
 ing; not for all that last night of danger and hard physi- 
 cal toil upon the gulf, had he been able to close his eyes 
 fora moment. And yet from sunrise to sunset he had 
 been lying prone on the ground, either on his back or on 
 his face. 
 
 He stretched himself, and with slow steps descended 
 into the gully to spend the night by the side of the sil- 
 ver. If Nostromo returned—as he might have done at 
 any moment—it was there that he would look first; 
 and night would, of course, be the proper time for an at- 
 tempt to communicate. He remembered with profound 
 indifference that he had not eaten anything yet since 
 he had been left alone on the island. 
 
 He spent the night open-eyed, and when ‘he day 
 broke he ate koldsthing with the same indifference, 
 The brilliant “Son Decoud,” the spoiled darling of the 
 family, the lover of Antonia and journalist of Sulaco, 
 was not fit to grapple with himself single-handed. 
 Solitude from mere outward condition of existence be- 
 comes very swiftly a state of soul in which the affecta- 
 tions of irony and scepticism have no place. It takes 
 possession of the mind, and drives forth the thought 
 into the exile of utter unbelief. After three days of 
 waiting for the sight of some human face, Decoud 
 caught himself entertaining a doubt of his own in- 
 dividuality. It had merged into the world of cloud 
 and water, of natural forces and forms of nature. In 
 our activity alone do we find the sustaining illusion 
 of an independent existence as against the whole 
 scheme of things of which we form a helpless part. 
 Decoud lost all belief in the reality of his action past 
 and to come. On the fifth day an immense melan- 
 choly descended upon him palpably. He resolved 
 not to give himself up to these people in Sulaco, who 
 
498 NOSTROMO 
 
 had beset him, unreal and terrible, like jibbering and 
 obscene spectres. He saw himself struggling feebly in 
 their midst, and Antonia, gigantic and lovely like an 
 allegorical statue, looking on with scornful eyes at his 
 weakness. 
 
 Not a living being, not a speck of distant sail, ap- 
 peared within the range of his vision; and, as if to es- 
 cape from this solitude, he absorbed himself in his 
 melancholy. The vague consciousness of a misdirected 
 life given up to impulses whose memory left a bitter 
 taste in his mouth was the first moral sentiment of his 
 manhood. But at the same time he felt no remorse. 
 What should he regret? He had recognized no other 
 virtue than intelligence, and had erected passions into 
 duties. Both his intelligence and his passion were 
 swallowed up easily in this great unbroken solitude of 
 waiting without faith. Sleeplessness had robbed his 
 will of all energy, for he had not slept seven hours in 
 the seven days. His sadness was the sadness of a scep- 
 tical mind. He beheld the universe as a succession of 
 incomprehensible images. Nostromo was dead. Every- 
 thing had failed ignominiously. He no longer dared to 
 think of Antonia. She had not survived. But if-she 
 survived he could not face her. And all exertion 
 seemed senseless. 
 
 On the tenth day, after a night spent without even 
 dozing off once (it had occurred to him that Antonia 
 could not possibly have ever loved a being so impal- 
 pable as himself), the solitude appeared like a great 
 void, and the silence of the gulf like a tense, thin cord 
 to which he hung suspended by both hands, without 
 fear, without surprise, without any sort of emotion 
 whatever. Only towards the evening, in the compara- 
 ‘tive relief of coolness, he began to wish that this cord 
 would snap. He imagined it snapping with a report as 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 499 
 
 of a pistol—a sharp, full crack. And that would be 
 the end of him. He contemplated that eventuality 
 with pleasure, because he dreaded the sleepless nights 
 in which the silence, remaining unbroken in the 
 shape of a cord to which he hung with both hands, 
 vibrated with senseless phrases, always the same but 
 utterly incomprehensible, about Nostromo, Antonia, 
 Barrios, and proclamations mingled into an ironical 
 and senseless buzzing. In the daytime he could look 
 at the silence like a still cord stretched to breaking- 
 point, with his life, his vain life, suspended to it like a 
 weight. | 
 
 “T wonder whether I would hear it snap before I 
 fell,’ he asked himself. 
 
 The sun was two hours above the horizon when he got 
 up, gaunt, dirty, white-faced, and looked at it with his 
 red-rimmed eyes. His limbs obeyed him slowly, as if 
 full of lead, yet without tremor; and the effect of that 
 physical condition gave te his movements an unhesi- 
 tating, deliberate dignity. He acted as if accomplish- 
 ing some sort of rite. He descended into the gully; 
 for the fascination of all that silver, with its potential 
 power, survived alone outside of himself. He picked 
 up the belt with the revolver, that was lying there, and 
 buckled it round his waist. The cord of silence could 
 never snap on the island. It must let him fall and 
 sink into the sea, he thought. And sink! He was look- 
 ing at the loose earth covering the treasure. In the sea! 
 His aspect was that of a somnambulist. He lowered 
 himself down on his knees slowly and went on grubbing 
 with his fingers with industrious patience till he uncoy- 
 ered one of the boxes. Without a pause, as if doing 
 some work done many times before, he slit it open and 
 took four ingots, which he put in his peckets. He 
 covered up the exposed box again and step by step 
 
500 NOSTROMO 
 
 came out of the gully. The bushes closed after him 
 with a swish. 
 
 It was on the third day of his solitude that he had 
 dragged the dinghy near the water with an idea of row- 
 ing away somewhere, but had desisted partly at the 
 whisper of lingering hope that Nostromo would return, 
 partly from conviction of utter uselessness of all effort. 
 Now she wanted only a slight shove to be set afloat. 
 He had eaten a little every day after the first, and 
 had some muscular strength left yet. Taking up the 
 oars slowly, he pulled away from the cliff of the Great 
 Isabel, that stood behind him warm with sunshine, 
 as if with the heat of life, bathed in a rich light from 
 head to foot as if in a radiance of hope and joy. He 
 pulled straight towards the setting sun. When the gulf 
 had grown dark, he ceased rowing and flung the sculls 
 in. ‘The hollow clatter they made in falling was the 
 loudest noise he had ever heard in his life. It was a 
 revelation. It seemed to recall him from far away, 
 Actually the thought, “Perhaps I may sleep to-night,” 
 passed through his mind. But he did not believe it. 
 He believed in nothing; and he remained sitting on the 
 thwart. 
 
 The dawn from behind the mountains put a gleam 
 into his unwinking eyes. After a clear daybreak the 
 sun appeared splendidly above the peaks of the range. 
 The great gulf burst into a glitter all around the boat; 
 and in this glory of merciless solitude the silence ap- 
 peared again before him, stretched taut like a dark, 
 thin string. 
 
 His eyes looked at it while, without haste, he shifted 
 his seat from the thwart to the gunwale. They looked 
 at it fixedly, while his hand, feeling about his waist, 
 unbuttoned the flap of the leather case, drew the re- 
 volver, cocked it, brought it forward pointing at his 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 501 
 
 breast, pulled the trigger, and, with convulsive force, 
 sent the still-smoking weapon hurtling through the air. 
 His eyes looked at it while he fell forward and hung 
 with his breast on the gunwale and the fingers of his 
 right hand hooked under the thwart. They looked 
 
 “Tt is done,’ he stammered out, in a sudden fiow of 
 blood. His last thought was: ‘I wonder how that 
 Capataz died.” The stiffness of the fingers relaxed, 
 and the lover of Antonia Avellanos rolled overboard 
 without having heard the cord of silence snap in the 
 solitude of the Placid Gulf, whose glittering surfacc 
 remained untroubled by the fall of his body. 
 
 A victim of the disillusioned weariness which is the 
 retribution meted out to intellectual audacity, the bril- 
 liant Don Martin Decoud, weighted by the bars of San 
 Tomé silver, disappeared without a trace, swallowed 
 up in the immense indifference of things. His sleep~ 
 less, crouching figure was gone from the side of the 
 San Tomé silver; and for a time the spirits of good and 
 evil that hover near every concealed treasure of th: 
 earth might have thought that this one had been for- 
 gotten by all mankind. Then, after a few days, an- 
 other form appeared striding away from the setting 
 sun to sit motionless and awake in the narrow black 
 gully all through the night, in nearly the same pose, in 
 the same place in which had sat that other sleepless man 
 who had gone away for ever so quietly in a small boat, 
 about the time of sunset. And the spirits cf good and 
 evil that hover about a forbidden treasure understood 
 well that the silver of San Tomé was provided now with 
 a faithful and lifelong slave. 
 
 The magnificent Capataz de Cargadores, victim cf 
 the disenchanted vanity which is the reward of auda- 
 cious action, sat in the weary pose cf a hunted outcast 
 through a night of sleeplessness as tormenting cs any 
 
502 NOSTROMO 
 
 known to Decoud, his companion in the most desperate 
 affair of his life. And he wondered how Decoud had 
 died. But he knew the part he had played himself. 
 First a woman, then a man, abandoned both in their 
 last extremity, for the sake of this accursed treasure. 
 It was paid for by a soul lost and by a vanished life. 
 The blank stillness of awe was succeeded by a gust of 
 immense pride. There was no one in the world but 
 Gian’ Battista Fidanza, Capataz de Cargadores, the 
 incorruptible and faithful Nostromo, to pay such a 
 price. 
 
 He had made up his mind that nothing should be 
 allowed now to rob him of his bargain. Nothing. De- 
 coud had died. But how? ‘That he was dead he had 
 not a shadow of a doubt. But four ingots? 
 
 What for? Did he mean to come for more—some 
 other time? 
 
 The treasure was putting forth its latent power. 
 It troubled the clear mind of the man who had paid 
 the price. He was sure that Decoud was dead. The 
 island seemed full of that whisper. Dead! Gone! 
 And he caught himself listening for the swish of bushes 
 and the splash of the footfalls in the bed of the brook. 
 Dead! The talker, the novio of Dofia Antonia! | 
 
 *Ha!’’ he murmured, with his head on his knees, 
 under the livid clouded dawn breaking over the liber- 
 ated Sulaco and upon the gulf as gray as ashes. “It 
 is to her that he will fly. To her that he will fly!” 
 
 And four ingots! Did he take them in revenge, to 
 cast a spell, like the angry woman who had prophesied 
 remorse and failure, and yet had laid upon him the 
 task of saving the children? Well, he had saved the 
 children. He had defeated the spell of poverty and 
 starvation. He had done it all alone—or perhaps 
 neiped by the devil. Who cared? He had done it, 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 503 
 
 betrayed as he was, and saving by the same stroke the 
 San Tomé mine, which appeared to him hateful and 
 immense, lording it by its vast wealth over the valour, 
 the toil, the fidelity of the poor, over war and peace, 
 over the labours of the town, the sea, and the Campo. 
 
 The sun lit up the sky behind the peaks of the Cor- 
 dillera. ‘The Capataz looked down for a time upon the 
 fall of loose earth, stones, and smashed bushes, conceal- 
 ing the hiding-place of the silver. 
 
 “TI must grow rich very slowly,” he meditated, aloud. 
 
CHAPTER ELEVEN 
 
 SULACO outstripped Nostromo’s prudence, growing 
 rich swiftly on the hidden treasures of the earth, hovered 
 over by the anxious spirits of good and evil, torn out 
 by the labouring hands of the people. It was like a 
 second youth, like a new life, full of promise, of unrest, 
 of toil, scattering lavishly 1ts wealth to the four corners 
 of an excited world. Material changes swept along 
 in the train of material interests. And other changes 
 more subtle, outwardly unmarked, affected the minds 
 and hearts of the workers. Captain Mitchell had gone 
 home to live on his savings invested in the San Tomé 
 mine; and Dr. Monygham had grown older, with his 
 head steel-grey and the unchanged expression of his 
 face, living on the inexhaustible treasure of his devo- 
 tion drawn upon in the secret of his heart like a store — 
 of unlawful wealth. 
 
 The Inspector-General of State Hospitals oe 
 maintenance is a charge upon the Gould Concession), 
 Official Adviser on Sanitation to the Municipality, 
 Chief Medical Officer of the San Tomé Consolidated 
 Mines (whose territory, containing gold, silver, copper, 
 lead, cobalt, extends for miles along the foot-hills of 
 the Cordillera), had felt poverty-stricken, miserable, 
 and starved during the prolonged, second visit the 
 Goulds paid to Europe and the United States of Amer- 
 ica. Intimate of the casa, proved friend, a bachelor 
 without ties and without establishment (except of 
 the professional sort), he had been asked to take up his 
 quarters in the Gould house. In the eleven months 
 
 504 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 505 
 
 of their absence the familiar rooms, recalling at every 
 glance the woman to whom he had given all his loyalty, 
 had grown intolerable. As the day approached for 
 the arrival of the mail boat Hermes (the latest addition 
 to the O.S. N. Co.’s splendid fleet), the doctor hobbled 
 about more vivaciously, snapped more sardonically 
 at simple and gentle out of sheer nervousness. 
 
 He packed up his modest trunk with speed, with 
 fury, with enthusiasm, and saw it carried out past the 
 old porter at the gate of the Casa Gould with delight, 
 with intoxication; then, as the hour approached, sitting 
 alone in the great landau behind the white mules, a 
 little sideways, his drawn-in face positively venomous 
 with the effort of self-control, and holding a pair of new 
 gloves in his left hand, he drove to the harbour. 
 
 His heart dilated within him so, when he saw the 
 Goulds on the deck of the Hermes, that his greetings 
 were reduced to a casual mutter. Driving back to 
 town, all three were silent. And in the patio the doctor, 
 in a more natural manner, said— 
 
 “T’ll leave you now to yourselves. I'll call to-morrow 
 if I may?” 
 
 “Come to lunch, dear Dr. Monygham, and come 
 early,”’ said Mrs. Gould, in her travelling dress and her 
 veil down, turning to look at him at the foot of the 
 stairs; while at the top of the flight the Madonna, in 
 blue robes and the Child on her arm, seemed to welcome 
 her with an aspect of pitying tenderness. 
 
 “Don’t expect to find me at home,” Charles Gould 
 warned him. “I'll be off early to the mine.” 
 
 After lunch, Dofia Emilia and the sefior doctor came 
 slowly through the inner gateway of the patio. The 
 large gardens of the Casa Gould, surrounded by high 
 walls, and the red-tile slopes of neighbouring roofs, lay 
 open before them, with masses of shade under the trees 
 
506 NOSTROMO 
 
 and level surfaces of sunlight upon the lawns. A triple 
 row of old orange trees surrounded the whole. Bare- 
 footed, brown gardeners, in snowy white shirts and wide 
 calzoneras, dotted the grounds, squatting over flower- 
 beds, passing between the trees, dragging slender india- 
 rubber tubes across the gravel of the paths; and the 
 fine jets of water crossed each other in graceful curves, 
 sparkling in the sunshine with a slight pattering noise 
 upon the bushes, and an effect of showered diamonds 
 upon the grass. 
 
 Dojfia Emilia, holding up the train of a clear dress, 
 walked by the side of Dr. Monygham, in a longish 
 black coat and severe black bow on an immaculate shirt- 
 front. Under a shady clump of trees, where stood scat- 
 tered little tables and wicker easy-chairs, Mrs. Gould 
 sat down in a low and ample seat. 
 
 “Don’t go yet,” she said to Dr. Monygham, who was 
 unable to tear himself away from the spot. His chin 
 nestling within the points of his collar, he devoured her 
 stealthily with his eyes, which, luckily, were round and 
 hard like clouded marbles, and incapable of disclosing 
 his sentiments. His pitying emotion at the marks of 
 time upon the face of that woman, the air of frailty 
 and weary fatigue that had settled upon the eyes and | 
 temples of the “‘Never-tired Sefiora”’ (as Don Pépé 
 years ago used to call her with admiration), touched 
 him almost to tears. “Don’t go yet. To-day is all 
 my own,” Mrs. Gould urged, gently. ‘We are not back 
 yet officially. No one will come. It’s only to-morrow 
 that the windows of the Casa Gould are to be lit up for 
 a reception.” 
 
 The doctor dropped into a chair. 
 
 “Giving a tertulia?”’’ he said, with a detached air. 
 
 “A simple greeting for all the kind friends who care to 
 come.” 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 507 
 
 **And only to-morrow?”’ 
 
 “Yes. Charles would be tired out after a day at the 
 mine, and so I It would be good to have him to 
 myself for one evening on our return to this house I love. 
 It has seen all my life.” 
 
 “Ah, yes!” snarled the doctor, suddenly. ‘Women 
 count time from the marriage feast. Didn’t you live a 
 little before? ”’ 
 
 “Yes; but what is there to remember? There were no 
 cares.” 
 
 Mrs. Gould sighed. And as two friends, after a long 
 separation, will revert to the most agitated period of 
 their lives, they began to talk of the Sulaco Revolution. 
 It seemed strange to Mrs. Gould that people who had 
 taken part in it seemed to forget its memory and its 
 lesson. 
 
 “And yet,” struck in the doctor, “we who played our 
 part in it had our reward. Don Pépé, though super. 
 annuated, still can sit a horse. Barrios is drinking him- 
 self to death in jovial company away somewhere on his 
 fundacion beyond the Bolson de Tonoro. And the heroic 
 Father Roman—I imagine the old padre blowing up 
 systematically the San Tomé mine, uttering a pious 
 exclamation at every bang, and taking handfuls of snuff 
 between the explosions—the heroic Padre Roman says 
 that he is not afraid of the harm Holroyd’s missionaries 
 can do to his flock, as long as he is alive.”’ 
 
 Mrs. Gould shuddered a little at the allusion to the 
 destruction that had come so near to the San Tomé mine. 
 
 **Ah, but you, dear friend?” 
 
 “I did the work I was fit for.” 
 
 “You faced the most cruel dangers of all. Something 
 more than death.” 
 
 ““No, Mrs. Gould! Only death—by hanging. And 
 I am rewarded beyond my deserts.” 
 
508 NOSTROMO 
 
 Noticing Mrs. Gould’s gaze fixed upon him, he drop- 
 ped his eyes. 
 
 ““T’ve made my career—as you see,” said the In- 
 spector-General of State Hospitals, taking up lightly 
 the lapels of his superfine black coat. The doctor’s 
 self-respect marked inwardly by the almost complete 
 disappearance from his dreams of Father Beron, ap- 
 peared visibly in what, by contrast with former care- 
 lessness, seemed an immoderate cult of personal appear- 
 ance. Carried out within severe limits of form and 
 colour, and in perpetual freshness, this change of ap- 
 parel gave to Dr. Monygham an air at the same time 
 professional and festive; while his gait and the un- 
 changed crabbed character of his face acquired from it a 
 startling force of incongruity. 
 
 ““Yes,’’ he went on. “We all had our rewards—the 
 engineer-in-chief, Captain Mitchell (5 
 
 “We saw him,” interrupted Mrs. Gould, in her 
 charming voice. “The poor dear man came up from 
 the country on purpose to call on us in our hotel in 
 London. He comported himself with great dignity. 
 but I fancy he regrets Sulaco. He rambled feebly 
 about ‘historical events’ till I felt I could have a cry.” 
 
 “Hm,” grunted the doctor; “getting old, I suppose. 
 Even Nostromo is getting older—though he is not 
 changed. And, speaking of that fellow, I wanted to 
 tell you something e 
 
 For some time the house had been full of murmurs, of 
 agitation. Suddenly the two gardeners, busy with rose 
 trees at the side of the garden arch, fell upon their knees 
 with bowed heads on the passage of Antonia Avellanos, 
 who appeared walking beside her uncle. 
 
 Invested with the red hat after a short visit to Rome, 
 where he had been invited by the Propaganda, Father 
 Corbelan, missionary to the wild Indians, conspirator, 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 509 
 
 friend and patron of Hernandez the robber, advanced 
 with big, slow strides, gaunt and leaning forward, with 
 his powerful hands clasped behind his back. The first 
 Cardinal-Archbishop of Sulaco had preserved his fa- 
 natical and morose air; the aspect of a chaplain of bandits. 
 It was believed that his unexpected elevation to the 
 purple was a counter-move to the Protestant invasion 
 of Sulaco organized by the Holroyd Missionary Fund. 
 Antonia, the beauty of her face as if a little blurred, 
 her figure slightly fuller, advanced with her light walk 
 and her high serenity, smiling from a distance at Mrs. 
 Gould. She had brought her uncle over to see dear 
 Emilia, without ceremony, just for a moment before the 
 siesta. 
 
 When all were seated again, Dr. Monygham, who had 
 come to dislike heartily everybody who approached 
 Mrs. Gould with any intimacy, kept aside, pretending 
 to be lost in profound meditation. A louder phrase 
 of Antonia made him lift his head. | 
 
 “How can we abandon, groaning under oppression, 
 those who have been our countrymen only a few years 
 ago, who are our countrymen now?” Miss Avellanos 
 was saying. “‘How can we remain blind, and deat 
 without pity to the cruel wrongs suffered by our 
 brothers? ‘There is a remedy.” 
 
 ** Annex the rest of Costaguana to the order and pros- 
 ‘yerity of Sulaco,” snapped the doctor. “There is no 
 other remedy.” 
 
 “T am convinced, sefior doctor,’ Antonia said, with 
 the earnest calm of invincible resolution, “‘that this 
 was from the first poor Martin’s intention.” 
 
 “Yes, but the material interests will not let you 
 jeopardize their development for a mere idea of pity 
 and justice,” the doctor muttered. grumpily. “And 
 jf is just as well perhaps.”’ 
 
A en 
 
 510 NOSTROMO 
 
 The Cardinal-Archbishop straightened up his gaunt, 
 bony frame. 
 
 “We have worked for them; we have made them, 
 these material interests of the foreigners,” the last of 
 the Corbelins uttered in a deep, denunciatory tone. 
 
 “And without them you are nothing,” cried the doc- 
 tor from the distance. “They will not let you.” 
 
 “Tet them beware, then, lest the people, prevented 
 from their aspirations, should rise and claim their share 
 of the wealth and their share of the power,” the popular 
 Cardinal-Archbishop of Sulaco declared, significantly, 
 menacingly. 
 
 A silence ensued, during which his Eminence stared, 
 frowning at the ground, and Antonia, graceful and rigid 
 in her chair, breathed calmly in the strength of her con- 
 victions. ‘Then the conversation took a social turn, 
 touching on the visit of the Goulds to Europe. The 
 Cardinal-Archbishop, when in Rome, had suffered from 
 neuralgia in the head all the time. It was the climate 
 —the bad air. 
 
 When uncle and niece had gone away, with the ser- 
 vants again falling on their knees, and the old porter, 
 who had known Henry Gould, almost totally blind 
 and impotent now, creeping up to kiss his Eminence’s 
 extended hand, Dr. Monygham, looking after them, 
 pronounced the one word— 
 
 “Incorrigible!”’ | 
 
 Mrs. Gould, with a look upwards, dropped wearily 
 on her lap her white hands flashing with the gold and 
 stones of many rings. 
 
 “Conspiring. Yes!’ said the doctor. “The last of 
 the Avellanos and the last of the Corbelans are con- 
 spiring with the refugees from Sta. Marta that flock 
 here after every revolution. The Café Lambroso at 
 the corner of the Plaza is full of them; you can hear 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 511 
 
 their chatter across the street like the noise of a parrot- 
 house. They are conspiring for the invasion of Costa- 
 guana. And do you know where they go for strength, 
 for the necessary force? To the secret societies amongst 
 immigrants and natives, where Nostromo—lI should 
 say Captain Fidanza—is the great man. What gives 
 him that position? Who can say? Genius? He has 
 genius. He is greater with the populace than ever 
 he was before. It is as if he had some secret power; 
 some mysterious means to keep up his influence. He 
 holds conferences with the Archbishop, as in those old 
 days which you and I remember. Barrios is useless. 
 But for a military head they have the pious Hernandez. 
 And they may raise the country with the new cry of 
 the wealth for the people.” 
 
 “Will there be never any peace? Will there be no 
 rest?”? Mrs. Gould whispered. “I thought that 
 we 33 
 
 “No!” interrupted the doctor. “There is no peace 
 and no rest in the development of material interests. 
 They have their law, and their justice. But it is founded 
 on expediency, and is inhuman; it is without rectitude, 
 without the continuity and the force that can be found 
 only in a moral principle. Mrs. Gould, the time ap- 
 proaches when all that the Gould Concession stands 
 for shall weigh as heavily upon the people as the bar- 
 barism, cruelty, and misrule of a few years back.”’ 
 
 *“How can you say that, Dr. Monygham?”’ she cried 
 out, as if hurt in the most sensitive place of her soul. 
 
 “TI can say what is true,” the doctor insisted, obsti- 
 nately. “It'll weigh as heavily, and provoke resent- 
 ment, bloodshed, and vengeance, because the men have 
 grown different. Do you think that now the mine 
 would march upon the town to save their Sefior Ad- 
 ministrador? Do you think that?” 7 
 
512 NOSTROMO 
 
 She pressed the backs of her entwined hands on her 
 eyes and murmured hopelessly— 
 
 “Is it this we have worked for, then?”’ 
 
 The doctor lowered his head. He could follow her 
 silent thought. Was it for this that her life had been 
 robbed of all the intimate felicities of daily affection 
 which her tenderness needed as the human body needs 
 air to breathe? And the doctor, indignant with Charles 
 Gould’s blindness, hastened to change the conversation. 
 
 “It is about Nostromo that I wanted to talk to you, 
 Ah! that fellow has some continuity and force. Noth. 
 ing will put an end to him. But never mind that. 
 There’s something inexplicable going on—or perhaps 
 only too easy to explain. You know, Linda is prac- 
 tically the lighthouse keeper of the Great Isabel light. 
 The Garibaldino is too old now. His part is to clean 
 the lamps and to cook in the house; but he can’t get 
 up the stairs any longer. The black-eyed Linda sleeps 
 all day and watches the light all night. Not all day, 
 though. She is up towards five in the afternoon, when 
 our Nostromo, whenever he is in harbour with his 
 schooner, comes out on his courting visit, pulling in a 
 small boat.”’ 
 
 “Aren’t they married yet?’? Mrs. Gould asked. 
 “The mother wished it, as far as I can understand, 
 while Linda was yet quite a child. When I had the 
 girls with me for a year or so during the War of Separa- 
 tion, that extraordinary Linda used to declare quite 
 simply that she was going to be Gian’ Battista’s wife.” 
 
 “They are not married yet,” said the doctor, curtly. 
 “IT have looked after them a little.” 
 
 “Thank you, dear Dr. Monygham,” said Mrs. 
 Gould; and under the shade of the big trees her little, 
 even teeth gleamed in a youthful smile of gentle malice. 
 “People don’t know how really good you are. You 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 513 
 
 will not let them know, as if on purpose to annoy me, 
 who have put my faith in your good heart long ago.” 
 
 The doctor, with a lifting up cf his upper lip, as 
 though he were longing to bite, bowed stiffly in his chair. 
 With the utter absorption of a man to whom love 
 comes late, not as the most splendid of illusions, but 
 like an enlightening and priceless misfortune, the sight 
 of that woman (of whom he had been deprived for 
 nearly a year) suggested ideas of adoration, of kissing 
 the hem of her robe. And this excess of feeling trans- 
 lated itself naturally into an augmented grimness of 
 speech. 
 
 “I am afraid of being overwhelmed by too much 
 gratitude. However, these people interest me. I 
 went out several times to the Great Isabel light to look 
 after old Giorgio.” 
 
 He did not tell Mrs. Gould that it was because he 
 found there, in her absence, the relief of an atmosphere 
 of congenial sentiment in old Giorgio’s austere admira- 
 tion for the “English signora—the benefactress”’; 
 in black-eyed Linda’s voluble, torrential, passionate 
 affection for “our Dofia Emilia—that angel’’; in the 
 white-throated, fair Giselle’s adoring upward turn of 
 the eyes, which then glided towards him with a sidelong, 
 half-arch, half-candid glance, which made the doctor 
 exclaim to himself mentally, “If I weren’t what I am, 
 old and ugly, I would think the minx is making eyes 
 at me. And perhaps she is. I dare say she would 
 make eyes at anybody.” Dr. Monygham said nothing 
 of this to Mrs. Gould, the providence of the Viola 
 family, but reverted to what he called “our great 
 Nostromo.”’ 
 
 “What I wanted to tell you is this: Our great Nos- 
 tromo did not take much notice of the old man and 
 the children for some years. It’s true, too, that he 
 
514 NOSTROMO 
 
 was away on his coasting voyages certainly ten months 
 out of the twelve. He was making his fortune, as he 
 told Captain Mitchell once. He seems to have done 
 uncommonly well. It was only to be expected. He is 
 a man full of resource, full of confidence in himself, 
 ready to take chances and risks of every sort. I re- 
 member being in Mitchell’s office one day, when he 
 came in with that calm, grave air he always carries 
 everywhere. He had been away trading in the Gulf of 
 California, he said, looking straight past us at the wall, 
 as his manner is, and was glad to see on his return 
 that a lighthouse was being built on the cliff of the 
 Great Isabel. Very glad, he repeated. Mitchell ex- 
 plained that it was the O. S. N. Co. who was building 
 it, for the convenience of the mail service, on his own 
 advice. Captain Fidanza was good enough to say that 
 it was excellent advice. J remember him twisting up 
 his moustaches and looking all round the cornice of the 
 room before he proposed that old Giorgio should be 
 made the keeper of that light.” | 
 
 “I heard of this. I was consulted at the time,” Mrs. 
 Gould said. “I doubted whether it would be good for 
 these girls to be shut up on that island as if in a prison.” 
 
 “The proposal fell in with the old Garibaldino’s 
 humour. As to Linda, any place was lovely and delight- 
 ful enough for her as long as it was Nostromo’s sugges- 
 tion. She could wait for her Gian’ Battista’s good 
 pleasure there as well as anywhere else. My opinion 
 is that she was always in love with that incorruptible 
 Capataz. Moreover, both father and sister were 
 anxious to get Giselle away from the attentions of a 
 certain Ramirez.” 
 
 “Ah!” said Mrs. Gould, interested. ‘“‘Ramirez? 
 What sort of man is that?” 
 
 Just a mozo of the town. His father was a Car- 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 515 
 
 gador. Asa lanky boy he ran about the wharf in rags, 
 till Nostromo took him up and made a man of him. 
 When he got a little older, he put him into a lighter 
 and very soon gave him charge of the No. 3 boat—the 
 boat which took the silver away, Mrs. Gould. Nos- 
 tromo selected that lighter for the work because she was 
 the best sailing and the strongest boat of all the Com- 
 pany’s fleet. Young Ramirez was one of the five Car- 
 gadores entrusted with the removal of the treasure 
 from the Custom House on that famous night. As the 
 boat he had charge of was sunk, Nostromo, on leaving 
 the Company’s service, recommended him to Captain 
 Mitchell for his successor. He had trained him in the 
 routine of work perfectly, and thus Mr. Ramirez, from 
 a starving waif, becomes a man and the Capataz of the 
 Sulaco Cargadores.”’ 
 
 “Thanks to Nostromo,” said Mrs. Gould, with warm 
 approval. 
 
 “Thanks to Nostromo,” repeated Dr. Monygham. 
 “Upon my word, the fellow’s power frightens me when 
 I think of it. That our poor old Mitchell was only too 
 glad to appoint somebody trained to the work, who 
 saved him trouble, is not surprising. What is wonder- 
 ful is the fact that the Sulaco Cargadores accepted 
 Ramirez for their chief, simply because such was Nos- 
 tromo’s good pleasure. Of course, he is not a second 
 Nostromo, as he fondly imagined he would be; but still, 
 the position was brilliant enough. It emboldened him 
 to make up to Giselle Viola, who, you know, is the 
 recognized beauty of the town. The old Garibaldino, 
 however, took a violent dislike to him. I don’t know 
 why. Perhaps because he was not a model of perfec- 
 tion like his Gian’ Battista, the incarnation of the 
 courage, the fidelity, the honour of ‘the people.’ Signor 
 Viola does not think much of Sulaco natives. Both of 
 
516 NOSTROMO 
 
 them, the old Spartan and that white-faced Linda, 
 with her red mouth and coal-black eyes, were looking 
 rather fiercely after the fair one. Ramirez was warned 
 off. Father Viola, I am told, threatened him with his 
 gun once.” 
 
 “But what of Giselle herself?’ asked Mrs. Gould. 
 
 **She’s a bit of a flirt, I believe,”’ said the doctor. “I 
 don’t think she cared much one way or another. Of 
 course she likes men’s attentions. Ramirez was not 
 the only one, let me tell you, Mrs. Gould. There was 
 one engineer, at least, on the railway staff who got 
 warned off with a gun, too. Old Viola does not allow 
 any trifling with his honour. He has grown uneasy 
 and suspicious since his wife died. He was very pleased 
 to remove his youngest girl away from the town. But 
 look what happens, Mrs. Gould. Ramirez, the honest, 
 lovelorn swain, is forbidden the island. Very well. 
 He respects the prohibition, but naturally turns his 
 eyes frequently towards the Great Isabel. It seems as 
 though he had been in the habit of gazing late at night 
 upon the light. And during these sentimental vigils 
 he discovers that Nostromo, Captain Fidanza that is, 
 returns very late from his visits to the Violas. As 
 late as midnight at times.” 
 
 The doctor paused and stared meaningly at Mrs. 
 Gould. 
 
 “Yes. But I don’t understand,” she began, looking 
 
 puzzled. 
 ‘““Now comes the strange part,” went on Dr. Monyg- 
 ham. “Viola, who is king on his island, will allow no 
 
 visitor on it after dark. Even Captain Fidanza has 
 got to leave after sunset, when Linda has gone up to 
 tend the light. And Nostromo goes away obediently. 
 But what happens afterwards? What does he do in the 
 gulf between half-past six and midnight? He has been 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE te ae 
 
 seen more than once at that late hour pulling quietly 
 into the harbour. Ramirez is devoured by jealousy. 
 He dared not approach old Viola; but he plucked up 
 courage to rail at Linda about it on Sunday morning as 
 she came on the mainland to hear mass and visit her 
 mother’s grave. There was a scene on the wharf, which, 
 as a matter of fact, I witnessed. It was early morning. 
 He must have been waiting for her on purpose. I was 
 there by the merest chance, having been called to an 
 urgent consultation by the doctor of the German gun- 
 boat in the harbour. She poured wrath, scorn, and 
 flame upon Ramirez, who seemed out of his mind. It 
 was a strange sight, Mrs. Gould: the long jetty, with 
 this raving Cargador in his crimson sash and the girl 
 all in black, at the end; the early Sunday morning 
 quiet of the harbour in the shade of the mountains; 
 nothing but a canoe or two moving between the ships 
 at anchor, and the German gunboat’s gig coming to 
 take me off. Linda passed me within a foot. I noticed 
 her wild eyes. I called out to her. She never heard 
 me. She never saw me. But I looked at her face. It 
 was awiul in its anger and wretchedness.”’ 
 
 Mrs. Gould sat up, opening her eyes very wide. 
 
 “What do you mean, Dr. Monygham? Do you 
 mean to say that you suspect the younger sister?” 
 
 “Quien sabe! Who can tell?” said the doctor, 
 shrugging his shoulders like a born Costaguanero. 
 **Ramirez came up to me on.the wharf. He reeled—he 
 looked insane. He took his head into his hands. He 
 had to talk to someone—simply had to. Of course 
 for all his mad state he recognized me. People know 
 me well here. I have lived too long amongst them to 
 be anything else but the evil-eyed doctor, who can cure 
 all the ills of the flesh, and bring bad luck by a glance. 
 He came up to me. He tried to be calm. He tried 
 
518 NOSTROMO 
 
 to make it out that he wanted merely to warn me 
 against Nostromo. It seems that Captain Fidanza at 
 some secret meeting or other had mentioned me as the 
 worst despiser of all the poor—of the people. It’s very 
 possible. He honours me with his undying dislike. 
 And a word from the great Fidanza may be quite enough 
 to send some fool’s knife into my back. ‘The Sanitary 
 Commission I preside over is not in favour with the 
 populace. ‘Beware of him, sefior doctor. Destroy 
 him, sefior doctor,’ Ramirez hissed right into my face. 
 And then he broke out. ‘That man,’ he spluttered, 
 ‘has cast a spell upon both these girls.’ As to himself, 
 he had said too much. He must run away now—run 
 away and hide somewhere. He moaned tenderly about 
 Giselle, and then called her names that cannot be re- 
 peated. If he thought she could be made to love him 
 by any means, he would carry her off from the island. 
 Off into the woods. But it wasno good. . . . He 
 strode away, flourishing his arms above his head. Then 
 I noticed an old negro, who had been sitting behind a 
 pile of cases, fishing fram the wharf. He wound up his 
 lines and slunk away at once. But he must have heard 
 something, and must have talked, too, because same of 
 the old Garibaldino’s railway friends, | suppose, warned 
 him against Ramirez. At any rate, the father has been 
 warned. But Ramirez has disappeared from the town.”’ 
 
 “T feel I have a duty towards these girls,”’ said Mrs. 
 Gould, uneasily. “Is Nostromo in Sulaco now?” 
 
 **He is, since last Sunday.” 
 
 “He ought to be spoken to—at once.”’ 
 
 “Who will dare speak to him? Even the love-mad 
 Ramirez runs away from the mere shadow of Captain 
 Fidanza.”’ 
 
 “T can. I will,’ Mrs. Gould declared. “A word 
 will be enough for a man like Nostromo.” 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 519 
 
 The doctor smiled sourly. 
 
 ‘He must end this situation which lends itself to—— 
 I can’t believe it of that child,’ pursued Mrs. Gould. 
 
 ““He’s very attractive,’ muttered the doctor, 
 gloomily. 
 
 ‘He'll see it, Iam sure. He must put an end to all 
 this by marrying Linda at once,” pronounced the first 
 lady of Sulaco with immense decision. 
 
 Through the garden gate emerged Basilio, grown fat 
 and sleek, with an elderly hairless face, wrinkles at the 
 corners of his eyes, and his jet-black, coarse hair plas- 
 tered down smoothly. Stooping carefully behind an 
 ornamental clump of bushes, he put down with pre- 
 caution a small child he had been carrying on his shou!- 
 der—his own and Leonarda’s last born. ‘The pouting, 
 spoiled Camerista and the head mozo of the Casa Gould 
 had been married for some years now. 
 
 He remained squatting on his heels for a time, gazing 
 fondly at his offspring, which returned his stare with 
 imperturbable gravity; then, solemn and respectable, 
 walked down the path. 
 
 *“What is it, Basilio?’’ asked Mrs. Gould. 
 
 “A telephone came through from the office of the 
 mine. The master remains to sleep at the mountain 
 to-night.” 
 
 Dr. Monygham had got up and stood looking away. 
 A profound silence reigned for a time under the shade 
 of the biggest trees in the lovely gardens of the Casa 
 Gould. 
 
 “Very well, Basilio,” said Mrs. Gould. She watched 
 him walk away along the path, step aside behind the 
 flowering bush, and reappear with the child seated on 
 his shoulder. He passed through the gateway between 
 the garden and the patio with measured steps, careful 
 of his light burden. 
 
520 NOSTROMO 
 
 The doctor, with his back to Mrs. Gould, contem- 
 plated a flower-bed away in the sunshine. People 
 believed him scornful and soured. ‘The truth of his 
 nature consisted in his capacity for passion and in the 
 sensitiveness of his temperament. What he lacked 
 was the polished callousness of men of the world, the 
 callousness from which springs an easy tolerance for 
 oneself and others; the tolerance wide as poles asunder 
 from true sympathy and human compassion. This 
 want of callousness accounted for his sardonic turn 
 of mind and his biting speeches. 
 
 In profound silence, and glaring viciously at the bril- 
 Nant flower-bed, Dr. Monygham poured mental im- 
 precations on Charles Gould’s head. Behind him the 
 immobility of Mrs. Gould added to the grace of her 
 seated figure the charm of art, of an attitude caught 
 and interpreted for ever. Turning abruptly, the doctor 
 took his leave. 
 
 Mrs. Gould leaned back in the shade of the big trees 
 planted in a circle. She leaned back with her eyes 
 closed and her white hands lying idle on the arms of 
 her seat. The half-light under the thick mass of leaves 
 brought out the youthful prettiness of her face; made 
 the clear, light fabrics and white lace of her dress appear | 
 luminous. Small and dainty, as if radiating a light 
 of her own in the deep shade of the interlaced boughs, 
 she resembled a good fairy, weary with a long career 
 of well-doing, touched by the withering suspicion of 
 the uselessness of her labours, the powerlessness of her 
 magic. ? 
 
 Had anybody asked her of what she was thinking, 
 alone in the garden of the Casa, with her husband at the 
 mine and the house closed to the street like an empty 
 dwelling, her frankness would have had to evade the 
 question. It had come into her mind that for life to 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 521 
 
 be Jarge and full, it must contain the care of the past 
 and of the future in every passing moment of the pres- 
 ent. Our daily work must be done to the glory of the 
 dead, and for the good of those who come after. She 
 thought that, and sighed without opening her eyes— 
 without moving at all. Mrs. Gould’s face became set and 
 rigid for a second, as if to receive, without flinching, a 
 great wave of loneliness that swept over her head. And 
 it came into her mind, too, that no one would ever ask 
 her with solicitude what she was thinking of. No one. 
 No one, but perhaps the man who had just gone away. 
 No; no one who could be answered with careless sin- 
 cerity in the ideal perfection of confidence. 
 
 The word “incorrigible’”—a word lately pronounced 
 by Dr. Monygham—floated into her still and sad im- 
 mobility. Incorrigible in his devotion to the great 
 silver mine was the Sefior Administrador! Incorrigible 
 in his hard, determined service of the material interests 
 to which he had pinned his faith in the triumph of order 
 and justice. Poor boy! She had a clear vision of the 
 grey hairs on his temples. He was perfect—perfect. 
 What more could she have expected? It was a colos- 
 sal and lasting success; and love was only a short mo- 
 ment of forgetfulness, a short intoxication, whose de- 
 light one remembered with a sense of sadness, as if it 
 had been a deep grief lived through. There was some- 
 thing inherent in the necessities of successful action 
 which carried with it the moral degradation of the idea. 
 She saw the San Tomé mountain hanging over the 
 Campo, over the whole land, feared, hated, wealthy; 
 more soulless than any tyrant, more pitiless and auto- 
 cratic than the worst Government; ready to crush 
 innumerable lives in the expansion of its greatness. 
 He did not see it. He could not see it. It was not his 
 fault. He was perfect, perfect; but she would never 
 
522 NOSTROMO 
 
 have him to herself. Never; not for one short hour 
 altogether to herself in this old Spanish house she loved 
 so well! Incorrigible, the last of the Corbelans, the 
 last of the Avellanos, the doctor had said; but she saw 
 clearly the San Tomé mine possessing, consuming, 
 burning up the life of the last of the Costaguana Goulds;. 
 mastering the energetic spirit of the son as it had mas- 
 tered the lamentable weakness of the father. A terrible 
 success for the last of the Goulds. The last! She had 
 hoped for a long, long time, that perhaps But no! 
 There were to be no more. An immense desolation, the 
 dread of her own continued life, descended upon the first 
 lady of Sulaco. With a prophetic vision she saw herself 
 surviving alone the degradation of her young ideal of 
 life, of love, of work—all alone in the Treasure House 
 of the World. ‘The profound, blind, suffering expression. 
 of a painful dream settled on her face with its closed 
 eyes. In the indistinct voice of an unlucky sleeper, 
 lying passive in the grip of a merciless nightmare, she 
 stammered out aimlessly the words— 
 _ “Material interest.” 
 
CHAPTER TWELVE 
 
 Nostromo had been growing rich very slowly. It was 
 an effect of his prudence. He could command himself 
 even when thrown off his balance. And to become the 
 slave of a treasure with full self-knowledge is an occur- 
 rence rare and mentally disturbing. But it was also 
 in a great part because of the difficulty of converting 
 it into a form in which it could become available. The 
 mere act of getting it away from the island piecemeal, 
 little by little, was surrounded by difficulties, by the 
 dangers of imminent detection. He had to visit the 
 Great Isabei in secret, between his voyages along the 
 eoast, which were the ostensible source of his fortune. 
 The crew of his own schooner were to be feared as if 
 they had been spies upon their dreaded captain. He 
 did not dare stay too long in port. When his coaster 
 was unloaded, he hurried away on another trip, for he 
 feared arousing suspicion even by a day’s delay. 
 Sometimes during a week’s stay, or more, he could only 
 manage one visit to the treasure. And that wasall. A 
 couple of ingots. He suffered through his fears as much 
 as through his prudence. ‘To do things by stealth hu- 
 miliated him. And he suffered most from the concen- 
 tration of his thought upon the treasure. 
 
 A transgression, a crime, entering a man’s existence, 
 eats it up like a malignant growth, consumes it like a 
 fever. Nostromo had lost his peace; the genuineness of 
 all his qualities was destroyed. He felt it himself, 
 and often cursed the silver of San Tomé. His courage, 
 his magnificence, his leisure, his work, everything was 
 
 523 
 
524 NOSTROMO 
 
 as before, only everything was a sham. But the treas- 
 ure was real. He clung to it with a more tenacious, 
 mental grip. But he hated the feel of the ingots. 
 Sometimes, after putting away a couple of them in his 
 cabin—the fruit of a secret night expedition to the 
 Great Isabel—he would look fixedly at his fingers, as if 
 surprised they had left no stain on his skin. 
 
 He had found means of disposing of the silver bars in 
 distant ports. The necessity to go far afield made his 
 coasting voyages long, and caused his visits to the Viola 
 household to be rare and far between. He was fated 
 to have his wife from there. He had said so once to 
 Giorgio himself. But the Garibaldino had put the 
 subject aside with a majestic wave of his hand, clutch- 
 ing a smouldering black briar-root pipe. There was 
 plenty of time; he was not the man to force his girls 
 upon anybody. 
 
 As time went on, Nostromo discovered his preference 
 for the younger of the two. ‘They had some profound 
 similarities of nature, which must exist for complete 
 confidence and understanding, no matter what outward 
 differences of temperament there may be to exercise 
 their own fascination of contrast. His wife would 
 have to know his secret or else life would be impossible. 
 He was attracted by Giselle, with her candid gaze and 
 white throat, pliable, silent, fond of excitement under 
 her quiet indolence; whereas Linda, with her intense, 
 passionately pale face, energetic, all fire and words, 
 touched with gloom and scorn, a chip of the old block, 
 true daughter of the austere republican, but with Te- 
 resa’s voice, inspired him with a deep-seated mistrust. 
 Moreover, the poor girl could not conceal her love for 
 Gian’ Battista. He could see it would be violent, ex- 
 acting, suspicious, uncompromising—like her soul. 
 Giselle, by her fair but warm beauty, by the surface 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 525 
 
 placidity of her nature holding a promise of submissive- 
 1ess, by the charm of her girlish mysteriousness, ex- 
 cited his passion and allayed his fears as to the future. 
 
 His absences from Sulaco were long. On returning 
 from the longest of them, he made out lighters loaded 
 with blocks of stone lying under the cliff of the Great 
 Isabel; cranes and scaffolding above; workmen’s figures 
 moving about, and a small lighthouse already rising 
 from its foundations on the edge of the cliff. 
 
 At this unexpected, undreamt-of, startling sight, he 
 thought himself lost irretrievably. What could save 
 him from detection now? Nothing! He was struck 
 with amazed dread at this turn of chance, that would 
 kindle a far-reaching light upon the only secret spot o/ 
 his life; that life whose very essence, value, reality, 
 consisted in its reflection from the admiring eyes of 
 men. All of it but that thing which was beyond com- 
 mon comprehension; which stood between him and 
 the power that hears and gives effect to the evil inten- 
 tion of curses. It was dark. Not every man had 
 such a darkness. And they were going to put a light 
 there. A light! He saw it shining upon disgrace, 
 poverty, contempt. Somebody was sure to. 
 Perhaps somebody had already. hes 
 
 The incomparable Nostromo, the Capataz, the re- 
 spected and feared Captain Fidanza, the unquestioned 
 patron of secret societies, a republican like old Giorgio, 
 and a revolutionist at heart (but in another manner), 
 was on the point of jumping overboard from the deck 
 of his own schooner. That man, subjective almost to 
 insanity, looked suicide deliberately in the face. But 
 he never lost his head. He was checked by the thought 
 that this was no escape. He imagined himself dead, 
 and the disgrace, the shame going on. Or, rather, prop- 
 erly speaking, he could not imagine himself dead. He 
 
526 NOSTROMO 
 
 was possessed too strongly by the sense’ of his own ex- 
 istence, a thing of infinite duration in its changes, to 
 grasp the notion of finality. The earth goes on for 
 ever. 
 
 And he was courageous. It was a corrupt courage, 
 but it was as good for his purposes as the other kind. 
 He sailed close to the cliff of the Great Isabel, throwing 
 a penetrating glance from the deck at the mouth of the 
 ravine, tangled in an undisturbed growth of bushes. 
 He sailed close enough to exchange hails with the work- 
 men, shading their eyes on the edge of the sheer drop 
 of the cliff overhung by the jib-head of a powerful crane. 
 He perceived that none of them had any occasion even 
 to approach the ravine where the silver lay hidden; let 
 alone to enter it. In the harbour he learned that no 
 one slept on the island. The labouring gangs returned 
 to port every evening, singing chorus songs in the 
 empty lighters towed by a harbour tug. For the 
 moment he had nothing to fear. 
 
 But afterwards? he asked himself. Later, when a 
 keeper came to live in the cottage that was being built 
 some hundred and fifty yards back from the low light- 
 tower, and four hundred or so from the dark, shaded, 
 jungly ravine, containing the secret of his safety, of his | 
 influence, of his magnificence, of his power over the fu- 
 ture, of his defiance of ill-luck, of every possible be- 
 trayal from rich and poor alike—what then? He could 
 never shake off the treasure. His audacity, greater 
 than that of other men, had welded that vein of silver 
 into his life. And the feeling of fearful and ardent sub- 
 jection, the feeling of his slavery—so irremediable and 
 profound that often, in his thoughts, he compared 
 himself to the legendary Gringos, neither dead nor 
 alive, bound down to their conquest of unlawful wealth 
 on Azuera—weighed heavily on the independent Cap- 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 527 
 
 tain Fidanza, owner and master of a coasting schooner, 
 whose smart appearance (and fabulous good-luck in 
 trading) were so well known along the western sea- 
 board of a vast continent. 
 
 Fiercely whiskered and grave, a shade less supple in 
 his walk, the vigour and symmetry of his powerful 
 limbs lost in the vulgarity of a brown tweed suit, made 
 by Jews in the slums of London, and sold by the cloth- 
 ing department of the Compafiia Anzani, Captain 
 Fidanza was seen in the streets of Sulaco attending to 
 his business, as usual, that trip. And, as usual, he al- 
 lowed it to get about that he had made a great profit 
 on his cargo. It was a cargo of salt fish, and Lent was 
 approaching. He was seen in tramcars going to and 
 fro between the town and the harbour; he talked with 
 people in a café or two in his measured, steady voice. 
 Captain Fidanza was seen. The generation that would 
 know nothing of the famous ride to Cayta was not born 
 yet. 
 
 Nostromo, the miscalled Capataz de Cargadores, had 
 made for himself, under his rightful name, another 
 public existence, but modified by the new conditions, 
 less picturesque, more difficult to keep up in the in- 
 creased size and varied population of Sulaco, the pro- 
 gressive capital of the Occidental Republic. 
 
 Captain Fidanza, unpicturesque, but always a little 
 mysterious, was recognized quite sufficiently under the 
 lofty glass and iron roof of the Sulaco railway station. 
 He took a local train, and got out in Rincon, where he 
 visited the widow of the Cargador who had died of his 
 wounds (at the dawn of the New Era, like Don José 
 Avellanos) in the patio of the Casa Gould. He con- 
 sented to sit down and drink a glass of cool lemonade 
 in the hut, while the woman, standing up, poured a 
 perfect torrent of words to which he did not listen. 
 
§28 NOSTROMO 
 
 He left some money with her, as usual. The orphaned 
 children, growing up and well schooled, calling him 
 uncle, clamoured for his blessing. He gave that, too; 
 and in the doorway paused for a moment to look at the 
 flat face of the San ‘Tomé mountain with a faint frown. 
 This slight contraction of his bronzed brow casting a 
 marked tinge of severity upon his usual unbending ex- 
 pression, was observed at the Lodge which he attended 
 —hbut went away before the banquet. He wore it at 
 the meeting of some good comrades, Italians and Occi- 
 dentals, assembled in his honour under the presidency 
 of an indigent, sickly, somewhat hunchbacked little 
 photographer, with a white face and a magnanimous 
 soul dyed crimson by a bloodthirsty hate of all capital- 
 ists, oppressors of the two hemispheres. The heroic 
 Giorgio Viola, old revolutionist, would have under- 
 stood nothing of his opening speech; and Captain 
 Fidanza, lavishly generous as usual to some poor com- 
 rades, made no speech at all. He had listened, frowning, 
 with his mind far away, and walked off unapproachable, 
 silent, like a man full of cares. 
 
 His frown deepened as, in the early morning, he 
 watched the stone-masons go off to the Great Isabel, 
 in lighters loaded with squared blocks of stone, enough 
 to add another course to the squat light-tower. That 
 was the rate of the work. One course per day. 
 
 And Captain Fidanza meditated. The presence of 
 strangers on the island would cut him completely off the 
 treasure. It had been difficult and dangerous enough 
 before. He was afraid, and he was angry. He thought 
 with the resolution of a master and the cunning of a 
 cowed slave. ‘Then he went ashore. 
 
 He was a man of resource and ingenuity; and, as 
 usual, the expedient he found at a critical moment was 
 effective enough to alter the situation radically. He 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 529 
 
 had the gift of evolving safety out of the very danger, 
 this incomparable Nostromo, this “fellow in a thou- 
 sand.” With Giorgio established on the Great Isabel, 
 there would be no need for concealment. He would be 
 able to go openly, in daylight, to see his daughters— 
 one of his daughters—and stay late talking to the old 
 Garibaldino. Then in the dark . . . Night after 
 night . . . He would dare to grow rich quicker 
 now. He yearned to clasp, embrace, absorb, subjugate 
 in unquestioned possession this treasure, whose tyranny 
 had weighed upon his mind, his actions, his very sleep. 
 He went to see his friend Captain Mitchell—and the 
 thing was done as Dr. Monygham had related to Mrs. 
 Gould. When the project was mooted to the Garibal- 
 dino, something like the faint reflection, the dim ghost 
 of a very ancient smile, stole under the white and enor- 
 mous moustaches of the old hater of kings and ministers. 
 His daughters were the object of his anxious care. The 
 younger, especially. Linda, with her mother’s voice,. 
 had taken more her mother’s place. Her deep, vibrat- 
 ing “Eh, Padre?’’ seemed, but for the change of the 
 word, the very echo of the impassioned, remonstrating 
 “Eh, Giorgio?” of poor Signora Teresa. It was his. 
 fixed opinion that the town was no proper place for 
 his girls. The infatuated but guileless Ramirez was 
 the object of his profound aversion, as resuming the 
 sins of the country whose people were blind, vile 
 esclavos. 
 ~ On his return from his next voyage, Captain Fidanza. 
 found the Violas settled in the light-keeper’s cottage. 
 His knowledge of Giorgio’s idiosyncrasies had not 
 played him false. The Garibaldino had refused to en- 
 tertain the idea of any companion whatever, except 
 his girls. And Captain Mitchell, anxious to please his 
 poor Nostromo, with that felicity of inspiration which 
 
530 NOSTROMO 
 
 only true affection can give, had formally appoimted 
 Linda Viola as under-keeper of the Isabel’s Light. 
 
 ‘The light is private property,” he used to explain. 
 “Tt belongs tomy Company. Ive the power to nomi- 
 nate whom I like, and Viola it shall be. It’s about the 
 - only thing Nostromo—a man worth his weight in gold, © 
 mind you—has ever asked me to do for him.” 
 
 Directly his schooner was anchored opposite the New 
 Custom House, with its sham air of a Greek temple, flat- 
 roofed, with a colonnade, Captain Fidanza went pulling 
 his small boat out of the harbour, bound for the Great 
 Isabel, openly in the light of a declining day, before 
 all men’s eyes, with a sense of having mastered the 
 fates. He must establish a regular position. He 
 would ask him for his daughter now. He thought of 
 Giselle as he pulled. Linda loved him, perhaps, but 
 the old man would be glad to keep the elder, who had 
 his wife’s voice. 
 
 He did not pull for the narrow strand where he had 
 landed with Decoud, and afterwards alone on his first 
 visit to the treasure. He made for the beach at the 
 other end, and walked up the regular and gentle slope 
 of the wedge-shaped island. Giorgio Viola, whom he 
 saw from afar, sitting on a bench under the front wall 
 of the cottage, lifted his arm slightly to his loud hail. 
 He walked up. Neither of the girls appeared. 
 
 *““It is good here,” said the old man, in his austere, 
 far-away manner. 
 
 Nostromo nodded; then, after a short silence— 
 
 “You saw my schooner pass in not two hours agor 
 Do you know why I am here before, so to speak, my 
 anchor has fairly bitten into the ground of this port of 
 Sulaco?”’ 
 
 “You are welcome like a son,” the old man declared. 
 quietly, staring away upon the sea. 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 531 
 
 “Ah! thy son. I know. I am what thy son would 
 have been. It is well, viejo. It is avery good welcome. 
 Listen, I have come to ask you for "i 
 
 A sudden dread came upon the fearless and incorrup- 
 tible Nostromo. He dared not utter the name in his 
 mind. The slight pause only imparted a marked weight 
 and solemnity to the changed end of the phrase. 
 
 “For my wife!” . . . His heart was beating 
 fast. “It is time you 2 
 
 The Garibaldino arrested him with an extended arm. 
 That was left for you to judge.” 
 
 He got up slowly. His beard, unclipped since 
 Teresa’s death, thick, snow-white, covered his powerful 
 chest. He turned his head to the door, and called out 
 in his strong voice— 
 
 ** Linda.” 
 
 Her answer came sharp and faint from within; and the 
 appalled Nostromo stood up, too, but remained mute, 
 gazing at the door. He was afraid. He was not afraid 
 of being refused the girl he loved—no mere refusal could 
 stand between him and a woman he desired—but the 
 shining spectre of the treasure rose before him, claiming 
 his allegiance in a silence that could not be gainsaid. 
 He was afraid, because, neither dead nor alive, like the 
 Gringos on Azuera, he belonged body and soul to the 
 unlawfulness of his audacity. He was afraid of be- 
 ing forbidden the island. He was afraid, and said 
 nothing. 
 
 Seeing the two men standing up side by side to await 
 her, Linda stopped in the doorway. Nothing could alter 
 the passionate dead whiteness of her face; but her black 
 eyes seemed to catch and concentrate all the light of the 
 low sun in a flaming spark within the black depths, 
 covered at once by the slow descent of heavy eyelids. 
 
 “Behold thy husband, master, and beneiactor.” Old 
 
532 NOSTROMO 
 
 Viola’s voice resounded with a force that seemed to fill 
 the whole gulf. 
 
 She stepped forward with her eyes nearly closed, like a 
 sleep-walker in a beatific dream. 
 
 Nostromo made a superhuman effort. “It is time, 
 Linda, we two were betrothed,”’ he said, steadily, in his 
 level, careless, unbending tone. 
 
 She put her hand into his offered palm, lowering her 
 head, dark with bronze glints, upon which her father’s 
 hand rested for a moment. 
 
 “And so the soul of the dead is satisfied.” 
 
 This came from Giorgio Viola, who went on talking 
 for a while of his dead wife; wh le the two, sitting side by 
 side, never looked at each other. Then the old man 
 ceased; and Linda, motionless, began to speak. 
 
 “Ever since I felt I lived in the world, I have lived 
 for you alone, Gian’ Battista. And that you knew! 
 You knew it . . . Battistino.” 
 
 She pronounced the name exactly with her mother’s 
 intonation. A gloom as of the grave covered Nos-« 
 tromo’s heart. 
 
 “Yes. I knew,” he said. 
 
 The heroic Garibaldino sat on the same bench bowing 
 his hoary head, his old soul dwelling alone with its 
 memories, tender and violent, terrible and dreary— 
 solitary on the earth full of men. 
 
 And Linda, his best-loved daughter, was saying, “I 
 was yours ever since I can remember. I had only to 
 think of you for the earth to become empty to my eyes. 
 When you were there, I could see no one else. I was 
 yours. Nothing is changed. The world belongs to 
 you, and you let me live init.” . . . She dropped. 
 her low, vibrating voice to a still lower note, and found 
 other things to say—torturing for the man at her side. 
 Her murmur ran on ardent and voluble. She did not 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 533 
 
 seem to see her sister, who came out with an altar-cloth 
 she was embroidering in her hands, and passed in front 
 of them, silent, fresh, fair, with a quick glance and a 
 faint smile, to sit a little away on the other side of 
 Nostromo. 
 
 The evening was still. The sun sank almost to the 
 edge of a purple ocean; and the white lighthouse, livid 
 against the background of clouds filling the head of the 
 gulf, bore the lantern red and glowing, like a live ember 
 kindled by the fire of the sky. Giselle, indolent and 
 demure, raised the altar-cloth from time to time to hide 
 nervous yawns, as of a young panther. 
 
 Suddenly Linda rushed at her sister, and seizing her 
 head, covered her face with kisses. Nostromo’s brain 
 reeled. When she left her, as if stunned by the violent 
 caresses, with her hands lying in her lap, the slave of 
 the treasure felt as if he could shoot that woman. Old 
 Giorgio lifted his leonine head. 
 
 “Where are you going, Linda?” 
 
 “To the light, padre mio.” 
 
 “Si, si—to your duty.” 
 
 He got up, too, looked after his eidest daughter; then, 
 in a tone whose festive note seemed the echo of a mood 
 lost in the night of ages— 
 
 “TI am going in to cook something. Aha! Son! The 
 old man knows where to find a bottle of wine, too.” 
 
 He turned to Giselle, with a change to austere ten- 
 derness. 
 
 “And you, little one, pray not to the God of priests 
 and slaves, but to the God of orphans, of the oppressed, 
 of the poor, of little children, to give thee a man like 
 this one for a husband.” 
 
 His hand rested heavily for a moment on Nostromo’s 
 shoulder; then he went in. The hopeless slave of the 
 San Tomé silver felt at these words the venomous fangs 
 
534 NOSTROMO 
 
 of jealousy biting deep into his heart. He was ap- 
 palled by the novelty of the experience, by its force, 
 by its physical intimacy. A husband! A husband 
 for her! And yet it was natural that Giselle should 
 have a husband at some time or other. He had never 
 realized that before. In discovering that her beauty 
 could belong to another he felt as though he could 
 kill this one of old Giorgio’s daughters also. He mut- 
 tered moodily— 
 
 “They say you love Ramirez.”’ 
 
 She shook her head without looking at him. Cop- 
 pery glints rippled to and fro on the wealth of her gold 
 hair. Her smooth forehead had the soft, pure sheen 
 of a priceless pearl in the splendour of the sunset, mingl- 
 ing the gloom of starry spaces, the purple of the sea, and 
 the crimson of the sky in a magnificent stillness. - 
 
 “No,” she said, slowly. “I never loved him. I 
 think I never . . . He loves me—perhaps.” 
 
 The seduction of her slow voice died out of the air, 
 and her raised eyes remained fixed on nothing, as if 
 indifferent and without thought. 
 
 “Ramirez told you he loved you?”’ asked Nostromo, 
 restraining himself. 
 
 **Ah! once—one evening 3 
 
 “The miserable . . . Ha!” 
 
 He had jumped up as if stung by a gad-fly, and stood 
 before her mute with anger. 
 
 * Misericordia Divina! You, too, Gian’ Battista! 
 Poor wretch that I am!” she lamented in ingenuous 
 tones. “I told Linda, and she scolded—she scolded. 
 Am I to live blind, dumb, and deaf in this world? And 
 she told father, who took down his gun and cleaned it. 
 Poor Ramirez! Then you came, and she told you.” 
 
 He looked at her. He fastened his eyes upon the 
 hollow of her, white throat, which had the invincible 
 
 393 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 535 
 
 charm of things young, palpitating, delicate, and alive. 
 Was this the child he had known? Was it possible? 
 It dawned upon him that in these last years he had 
 really seen very litthnothing—of her. Nothing. 
 She had come into the world like a thing unknown. 
 She had come upon him unawares. She was a danger. 
 A frightful danger. The instinctive mood of fierce 
 determination that had never failed him before the 
 perils of this life added its steady force to the violence 
 of his passion. She, in a voice that recalled to him the 
 song of running water, the tinkling of a silver bell, 
 continued— 
 
 *“And between you three you have brought me here 
 into this captivity to the sky and water. Nothing else. 
 Sky and water. Oh, Sanctissima Madre. My hair 
 shall turn grey on this tedious island. I could hate you, 
 Gian’ Battista!” 
 
 He laughed loudly. Her voice enveloped him like a 
 caress. She bemoaned her fate, spreading unconsciously, 
 like a flower its perfume in the coolness of the evening, 
 the indefinable seduction of her person. Was it her 
 fault that nobody ever had admired Linda? Even 
 when they were little, gomg out with their mother to 
 Mass, she remembered that people took no notice of 
 Linda, who was fearless, and chose instead to frighten 
 her, who was timid, with their attention... It was her 
 hair like gold, she supposed. 
 
 He broke out— 
 
 “Your hair like gold, and your eyes like violets, and 
 your lips like the rose; your round arms, your white 
 throat.” é 
 
 Imperturbable in the indolence of her pose, she 
 blushed deeply all over to the roots of her hair. She 
 was not conceited. She was no more self-conscious than 
 a flower. But she was pleased. And perhaps even a 
 
536 NOSTROMO 
 
 flower loves to hear itself praised. He glanced down, 
 and added, impetuously— 
 
 “Your little feet!”’ 
 
 Leaning back against the rough stone wall of the 
 cottage, she seemed to bask languidly in the warmth 
 of the rosy flush. Only her lowered eyes glanced at 
 her little feet. 
 
 “And so you are going at last to marry our Linda. 
 She is terrible. Ah! now she will understand better 
 since you have told her you love her. She will not be so 
 fierce.” 
 
 “Chica!”’ said Nostromo, “I have not told her any- 
 thing.” 
 
 “Then make haste. Come to-morrow. Come and 
 tell her, so that I may have some peace from her scolding 
 and—perhaps—who knows 
 
 “Be allowed to Aisten to your Reaniee eh? Is that 
 PHY our! 179% 
 
 “Mercy of God! How violent you are, Giovanni,” 
 she said, unmoved. ‘Who is Ramirez 
 Ramirez . . . Whois he?” she repeated, dream- 
 ily, in the dusk and gloom of the clouded gulf, with a 
 low red streak in the west like a hot bar of glowmg 
 iron laid across the entrance of a world sombre as a 
 cavern, where the magnificent Capataz de Cargadores 
 had hidden his conquests of love and wealth. 
 
 “Listen, Giselle,’? he said, in measured tones; “I 
 will tell no word of love to your sister. Do you want 
 to know why?” 
 
 “Alas! I could not understand perhaps, Giovanni. 
 Father says you are not like other men; that no one had 
 "ever understood you properly; that the rich will be 
 surprised yet. . . . Oh! saints in heaven! I am 
 weary.” 
 
 She raised her embroidery to conceal the lower 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 537 
 
 part of her face, then let it fal! on her lap. The 
 lantern was shaded on the land side, but slanting 
 away from the dark column of the lighthouse they 
 could see the long shaft of light, kindled by Linda, go 
 out to strike the expiring glow in a horizon of purple 
 and red. 
 
 Giselle Viola, with her head resting against the wall of 
 the house, her eyes half closed, and her little feet, in 
 white stockings and black slippers, crossed over each 
 other, seemed to surrender herself, tranquil and fatal, 
 to the gathering dusk. The charm of her body, the 
 promising mysteriousness of her indolence, went out 
 into the night of the Placid Gulf like a fresh and 
 intoxicating fragrance spreading out in the shadows, 
 impregnating the air. The incorruptible Nostromo 
 breathed her ambient seduction in the tumultuous 
 heaving of his breast. Before leaving the harbour 
 he had thrown off the store clothing of Captain Fidanza, 
 for greater ease in the long pull out to the islands. He 
 stood before her in the red sash and check shirt as he 
 used to appear on the Company’s wharf—a Mediter- 
 ranean sailor come ashore to try his luck in Costaguana. 
 The dusk of purple and red enveloped him, too—close, 
 soft, profound, as no more than fifty yards from that 
 spot it had gathered evening after evening about the 
 self-destructive passion of Don Martin Decoud’s utter 
 scepticism, flaming up to death in solitude. 
 
 “You have got to hear,” he began at last, with per- 
 fect self-control. “I shall say no word of love to your 
 sister, to whom I am betrothed from this evening, 
 because it is you that I love. It is you!” 
 
 The dusk let him see yet the tender and voluntanee 
 smile that came instinctively upon her lips shaped for 
 love and kisses, freeze hard in the drawn, haggard lines 
 of terror. He could not restrain himself any longer. 
 
538 NOSTROMO 
 
 While she shrank from his approach, her arms went 
 out to him, abandoned and regal in the dignity of her 
 languid surrender. He held her head in his two hands, 
 and showered rapid kisses upon the upturned face that 
 gleamed in the purple dusk. Masterful and tender, 
 he was entering slowly upon the fulness of his possession. 
 And he perceived that she was erying. Then the in- 
 comparable Capataz, the man of careless loves, became 
 gentle and caressing, like a woman to the grief of a 
 child. He murmured to her fondly. He sat down by 
 her and nursed her fair head on his breast. He called 
 her his star and his little flower. 
 
 It had grown dark. From the living-room of the 
 light-keeper’s cottage, where Giorgio, one of the Im- 
 mortal Thousand, was bending his leonine and heroic 
 head over a charcoal fire, there came the sound of 
 sizzling and the aroma of an artistic friitura. 
 
 In the obscure disarray of that thing, happening like a 
 cataclysm, it was in her feminine head that some gleam 
 of reason survived. He was lost to the world in their 
 embraced stillness. But she said, whispering into his 
 ear— 
 
 “God of mercy! What will become of me—here— 
 now—between this sky and this water I hate? Linda, 
 Linda—I see her!”” . . . She tried to get out of his 
 arms, suddenly relaxed at the sound of that name. But 
 there was no one approaching their black shapes, en- 
 laced and struggling on the white background of the 
 wall. “Linda! Poor Linda! I tremble! I shall die 
 of fear before my poor sister Linda, betrothed to-day 
 to Giovanni—my lover! Giovanni, you must have been 
 mad! I cannot understand you! You are not like 
 other men! I will not give you up—never—only to 
 God himself! But why have you done this blind, mad, 
 cruel, frightful thing?” 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 539 
 
 Released, she hung her head, let fall her hands. The 
 altar-cloth, as if tossed by a great wind, lay far away 
 from them, gleaming white on the black ground. 
 
 “From fear of losing my hope of you,” said Nostromo. 
 
 “You knew that you had my soul! You know every- 
 thing! It was made for you! But what could stand 
 between you and me? What? ‘Tell me!” she re- 
 peated, without impatience, in superb assurance. 
 
 *Your dead mother,”’ he said, very low. 
 
 “Ah! . . . Poor mother! She has always. . 
 She is a saint in heaven now, and I cannot give you 
 up to her. No, Giovanni. Only to God alone. You 
 were mad—but it is done. Oh! what have you done? 
 Giovanni, my beloved, my life, my master, do not leave 
 me here in this grave of clouds. You cannot leave me 
 now. You must take me away—at once—this instant 
 —in the little boat. Giovanni, carry me off to-night, 
 from my fear of Linda’s eyes, before I have to look at 
 her again.” 
 
 She nestled close to him. The slave of the San Tomé 
 silver felt the weight as of chains upon his limbs, a pres- 
 sure as of a cold hand upon his lips. He struggled 
 against the spell. 
 
 “I cannot,” he said. ““Not yet. There is something 
 that stands between us two and the freedom of the 
 world.” 
 
 She pressed her form closer to his side with a subtle 
 and naive instinct of seduction. 
 
 “You rave, Giovanni—my lover!’’ she whispered, 
 engagingly. “What can there be? Carry me off—in 
 thy very hands—to Dofia Emilia—away from here. 
 I am not very heavy.” 
 
 It seemed as though she expected him to lift her up at 
 once in his two palms. She had lost the notion of all 
 impossibility. Anything could happen on this night of 
 
540 NOSTROMO 
 
 wonder. As he made no movement, she almost cried 
 aloud— 
 
 “T tell you I am afraid of Linda!’’ And still he dia not 
 move. She became quiet and wily. ‘What can there 
 be?”’ she asked, coaxingly. 
 
 He felt her warm, breathing, alive, quivering in the 
 hollow of his arm. In the exulting consciousness of his 
 strength, and the triumphant excitement of his mind, he 
 struck out for his freedom. 
 
 *“A treasure,’ he said. All was still. She did not 
 understand. “A treasure. A treasure of silver to buy 
 a gold crown for thy brow.” 
 
 ““A treasure?’’ she repeated in a faint voice, as if 
 from the depths of a dream. “What is it you say?” 
 
 She disengaged herself gently. He got up and looked 
 down at her, aware of her face, of her hair, her lips, the 
 dimples on her cheeks—seeing the fascination of her 
 person in the night of the gulf as if in the blaze of noon- 
 day. Her nonchalant and seductive voice trembled 
 with the excitement of admiring awe and ungovernable 
 curiosity. 
 
 “A treasure of silver!’’ she stammered out. Then 
 pressed on faster: “What? Where? How did you 
 get it, Giovanni?”’ 
 
 He wrestled with the spell of captivity. It was as if 
 striking a heroic blow that he burst out— 
 
 “Like a thief!”’ 
 
 The densest blackness of the Placid Gulf seemed to 
 fall upon his head. He could not see her now. She had 
 vanished into a long, obscure abysmal silence, whence 
 her voice came back to him after a time with a faint 
 glimmer, which was her face. 
 
 “T love you! I love you!” 
 
 These words gave him an unwonted sense of freedom; 
 they cast a spell stronger than the accursed spell of the 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 541 
 
 treasure; they changed his weary subjection to that 
 dead thing into an exulting conviction of his power. 
 He would cherish her, he said, in a splendour as great 
 as Dofia Emilia’s. The rich lived on wealth stolen 
 from the people, but he had taken from the rich noth- 
 ing—nothing that was not lost to them already by their 
 folly and their betrayal. For he had been betrayed— 
 he said—deceived, tempted. She believed him. ... 
 He had kept the treasure for purposes of revenge; but 
 now he cared nothing for it. He cared only for her. 
 He would put her beauty in a palace on a hill crowned 
 with olive trees—a white palace above a blue sea. He 
 would keep her there like a jewel in a casket. He would 
 get land for her—her own land fertile with vines and 
 corn —to set her little feet upon. Hekissed them... . 
 He had already paid for it all with the soul of a woman 
 and the life of a man. . . . The Capataz de 
 Cargadores tasted the supreme intoxication of his gen- 
 erosity. He flung the mastered treasure superbly at 
 her feet in the impenetrable darkness of the gulf, in 
 the darkness defying—as men said—the knowledge 
 of God and the wit of the devil. But she must let him 
 grow rich first—he warned her. 
 
 She listened as if in a trance. Her fingers stirred in 
 hishair. Hegot up from his knees reeling, weak, empty, 
 as though he had flung his soul away. 
 
 “Make haste, then,’ she said. ‘‘Make haste, 
 Giovanni, my lover, my master, for I will give thee 
 up to no one but God. And I am afraid of Linda.”’ 
 
 He guessed at her shudder, and swore to do his best. 
 He trusted the courage of her love. She promised to be 
 brave in order to be loved aiways—far away in a white 
 palace upon a hill above a blue sea. Then with a timid, 
 tentative eagerness she murmured— 
 
 “Where is it? Where? Tell me that, Giovanni.” 
 
542 NOSTROMO 
 
 He opened his mouth and remained silent—thunder-: 
 struck. 
 
 “Not that! Not that!’’ he gasped out, appalled at 
 the spell of secrecy that had kept him dumb before so 
 many people falling upon his lips again with unimpaired 
 force. Not evento her. Noteventoher. It was too 
 dangerous. “I forbid thee to ask,” he cried at her, 
 deadening cautiously the anger of his voice. 
 
 He had not regained his freedom. ‘The spectre of the 
 unlawful treasure arose, standing by her side like a figure 
 of silver, pitiless and secret, with a finger on its pale lips. 
 His soul died within him at the vision of himself creeping 
 in presently along the ravine, with the smell of earth, of 
 damp foliage in his nostrils—creeping in, determined in — 
 a purpose that numbed his breast, and creeping out 
 again loaded with silver, with his ears alert to every 
 sound. It must be done on this very night—that work 
 of a craven slave! 
 
 He stooped low, pressed the hem of her skirt to his 
 lips, with a muttered command— 
 
 Tell him I would not stay,” and was gone suddenly 
 from her, silent, without as much as a footfall in the 
 dark night. 
 
 She sat still, her head resting indolently against the 
 wall, and her little feet in white stockings and black 
 slippers crossed over each other. Old Giorgio, coming 
 out, did not seem to be surprised at the intelligence as 
 much as she had vaguely feared. For she was full of 
 inexplicable fear now—fear of everything and everybody 
 except of her Giovanni and his treasure. But that was 
 incredible. 
 
 The heroic Garibaldino accepted Nostromo’s abrupt 
 departure with a sagacious indulgence. He remem- 
 bered his own feelings, and exhibited a masculine pene- 
 tration of the true state of the case. 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 543 
 
 “Va bene. Let him go. Ha! ha! No matter how 
 fair the woman, it galls a little. Liberty, liberty. 
 There’s more than one kind! He has said the great 
 word, and son Gian’ Battista is not tame.’” He seemed 
 to be instructing the motionless and scared Giselle. 
 
 . “A man should not be tame,”’ he added, dog- 
 3 ee out of the doorway. Her stillness and silence 
 seemed to displease him. ‘“‘Do not give way to the 
 enviousness of your sister’s lot,’? he admonished her, 
 very grave, in his deep voice. 
 
 Presently he had to come to the door again to call in 
 his younger daughter. It was late. He shouted her 
 name three times before she even moved her head. Left 
 alone, she had become the helpless prey of astonish- 
 ment. She walked into the bedroom she shared with 
 Linda like a person profoundly asleep. That aspect 
 was so marked that even old Giorgio, spectacled, raising 
 his eyes from the Bible, shook his head as she shut the 
 door behind her. 
 
 She walked right across the room without looking at 
 anything, and sat down at once by the open window. 
 Linda, stealing down from the tower in the exuberance 
 of her happiness, found her with a lighted candle at her 
 back, facing the black night full of sighing gusts of wind 
 and the sound of distant showers—a true night of the 
 gulf, too dense for the eye of God and the wiles of the 
 devil. She did not turn her head at the opening of the 
 door. 
 
 There was something in that immobility which 
 reached Linda in the depths of her paradise. The elder 
 sister guessed angrily: the child is thinking of that 
 wretched Ramirez. Linda longed to talk. She said 
 in her arbitrary voice, “Giselle!’? and was not answered 
 by the slightest movement. 
 
 The girl that was going to live in a palace and walk on 
 
544 NOSTROMO 
 
 ground of her own was ready to die with terror. Not 
 for anything in the world would she have turned her 
 head to face her sister. Her heart was beating madly. 
 
 She said with subdued haste— ; 
 
 “Do not speak to me. I am praying.” 
 
 Linda, disappointed, went out quietly; and Giselle 
 sat on unbelieving, lost, dazed, patient, as if waiting for 
 the confirmation of the incredible. The hopeless black- 
 ness of the clouds seemed part of a dream, too. She 
 waited. | 
 
 She did not wait in vain. The man whose soul was 
 dead within him, creeping out of the ravine, weighted 
 with silver, had seen the gleam of the lighted win- 
 dow, and could not help retracing his steps from the 
 beach. 
 
 On that impenetrable background, obliterating the 
 lofty mountains by the seaboard, she saw the slave of 
 the San Tomé silver, as if by an extraordinary power 
 of a miracle. She accepted his return as if henceforth 
 the world could hold no surprise for all eternity. 
 
 She rose, compelled and rigid, and began to speak long 
 before the light from within fell upon the face of the 
 approaching man. 
 
 “You have come back to carry me off. It is 
 well! Open thy arms, Giovanni, my lover. I am 
 coming.” 
 
 His prudent footsteps stopped, and with his eyes 
 glistening wildly, he spoke in a harsh voice: 
 
 “Not yet. I must grow rich slowly.” . . . A 
 threatening note came into his tone. ‘“‘Do not forget 
 that you have a thief for your lover.” 
 
 “Yes! Yes!’ she whispered, hastily. “Come nearer! 
 Listen! Do not give me up, Giovanni! Never, 
 never! . . . I will be patient! Fe 
 
 Her form drooped consolingly over the low casement 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 545 
 
 towards the slave of the unlawful treasure. The light in 
 the room went out, and weighted with silver, the mag- 
 nificent Capataz clasped her round her white neck in the 
 darkness of the gulf as a drowning man clutches at a 
 straw. 
 
CHAPTER THIRTEEN 
 
 On THE day Mrs. Gould was going, in Dr. Monyg- 
 ham’s words, to “give a tertulia,’ Captain Fidanza 
 went down the side of his schooner lying in Sulaco 
 harbour, calm, unbending, deliberate in the way he sat 
 down in his dinghy and took up his sculls. He was later 
 than usual. The afternoon was well advanced before 
 he landed on the beach of the Great Isabel, and with a 
 steady pace climbed the slope of the island. 
 
 From a distance he made out Giselle sitting in a chair 
 tilted back against the end of the house, under the win- 
 dow of the girl’s room. She had her embroidery in her 
 hands, and held it well up to her eyes. The tranquillity 
 of that girlish figure exasperated the feeling of perpetual 
 struggle and strife he carried in his breast. He became 
 angry. It seemed to him that she ought to hear the 
 clanking of his fetters—his silver fetters, from afar. 
 And while ashore that day, he had met the doctor with 
 the evil eye, who had looked at him very hard. 
 
 The raising of her eyes mollified him. They smiled in 
 their flower-like freshness straight upon his heart. Then 
 she frowned. It was a warning to be cautious. He 
 stopped some distance away, and in a loud, indifferent 
 tone, said— 
 
 _ “Good day, Giselle. Is Linda up yet?” 
 
 “Yes. She is in the big room with father.” 
 
 He approached then, and, looking through the win- 
 dow into the bedroom for fear of being detected by 
 Linda returning there for some reason, he said, moving 
 only his lips— 
 
 546 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 547 
 
 “You love me?”’ 
 
 “More than my life.” She went on with her em- 
 broidery under his contemplating gaze and continued 
 to speak, looking at her work, “Or I could not live. I 
 could not, Giovanni. For this life is like death. Oh, 
 Giovanni, I shall perish if you do not take me away.” 
 
 He smiled carelessly. ‘I will come to the window 
 when it’s dark,” he said. 
 
 “No, don’t, Giovanni. Not-to-night. Linda and 
 father have been talking together for a long time to- 
 day.” 
 
 “What about?” 
 
 “Ramirez, I fancy I heard. I do not know. I 
 am afraid. I am always afraid. It is like dying a 
 thousand times a day. Your love is to me like your 
 treasure to you. It is there, but I can never get enough 
 of it.” 
 
 He looked at her very still. She was beautiful. His 
 desire had grown within him. He had two masters 
 now. But she was incapable of sustained emotion. 
 She was sincere in what she said, but she slept placidly 
 at night. When she saw him she flamed up always. 
 Then only an increased taciturnity marked the change 
 in her. She was afraid of betraying herself. She was 
 afraid of pain, of bodily harm, of sharp words, of facing 
 anger, and witnessing violence. For her soul was light 
 and tender with a pagan sincerity in its impules. She 
 murmured— 
 
 “Give up the palazzo, Giovanni, and the vineyard on 
 the hills, for which we are starving our love.”’ 
 
 She ceased, seeing Linda standing silent at the corner 
 of the house. 
 
 Nostromo turned to his affianced wife with a greeting, 
 and was amazed at her sunken eyes, at her hollow 
 cheeks, at the air of illness and anguish in her face. 
 
548 NOSTROMO 
 
 “Have you been ill?”’ he asked, trying to put some 
 concern into this question. 
 
 Her black eyes blazed at him. “Am I thinner?” 
 she asked. 
 
 * Yes—perhaps—a little.” 
 
 “And older?”’ 
 
 “Every day counts—for all of us.” 
 
 “TI shall go grey, I fear, before the ring is on my 
 finger,”’ she said, slowly, keeping her gaze fastened upon 
 him. 
 
 She waited for what he would say, rolling down her 
 turned-up sleeves. 
 
 “No fear of that,” he said, absently. 
 
 She turned away as if it had been something final, and 
 busied herself with household cares while Nostromo 
 talked with her father. Conversation with the old 
 Garibaldino was not easy. Age had left his faculties 
 unimpaired, only they seemed to have withdrawn some- 
 where deep within him. His answers were slow in com- 
 ing, with an effect of august gravity. But that day 
 he was more animated, quicker; there seemed to be 
 more life in the old lion. He was uneasy for the in- 
 tegrity of his honour. He believed Sidoni’s warning as 
 to Ramirez’s designs upon his younger daughter. And 
 he did not trust her. She was flighty. He said nothing 
 of his cares to “Son Gian’ Battista.’ It was a touch 
 of senile vanity. He wanted to show that he was equal 
 yet to the task of guarding alone the honour of his house. 
 
 Nostromo went away early. As soon as he had dis- 
 appeared, walking towards the beach, Linda stepped ~ 
 over the threshold and, with a haggard smile, sat down 
 by the side of her father. 
 
 Ever since that Sunday, when the infatuated and 
 desperate Ramirez had waited for her on the wharf, she 
 had no doubts whatever. The jealous ravings of that 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 549 
 
 man were no revelation. They had only fixed with 
 precision, as with a nail driven into her heart, that sense 
 of unreality and deception which, instead of bliss and 
 security, she had found in her intercourse with her prom- 
 ised husband. She had passed on, pouring indignation 
 and scorn upon Ramirez; but, that Sunday, she nearly 
 died of wretchedness and shame, lying on the carved 
 and lettered stone of Teresa’s grave, subscribed for by 
 the engine-drivers and the fitters of the railway work- 
 shops, in sign of their respect for the hero of Italian 
 Unity. Old Viola had not been able to carry out his 
 desire of burying his wife in the sea; and Linda wept 
 upon the stone. 
 
 The gratuitous outrage appalled her. If he wished to 
 break her heart—well and good. Everything was per- 
 mitted to Gian’ Battista. But why trample upon the 
 pieces; why seek to humiliate her spirit? Aha! He 
 could not break that. She dried her tears. And 
 Giselle! Giselle! The little one that, ever since she 
 could toddle, had always clung to her skirt for protec- 
 tion. What duplicity! But she could not help it 
 probably. When there was a man in the case the poor 
 featherheaded wretch could not help herself. 
 
 Linda had a good share of the Viola stoicism. She 
 resolved to say nothing. But woman-like she put pas- 
 sion into her stoicism. Giselle’s short answers, prompted 
 by fearful caution, drove her beside herself by their 
 curtness that resembled disdain. One day she flung 
 herself upon the chair in which her indolent sister was 
 lying and impressed the mark of her teeth at the base 
 of the whitest neck in Sulaco. Giselle cried out. But 
 she had her share of the Viola heroism. Ready to faint 
 with terror, she only said, in a lazy voice, “Madre de 
 Dios! Are you going to eat me alive, Linda?” And 
 this outburst passed off leaving no trace upon the situa- 
 
550 NOSTROMO 
 
 tion. “She knows nothing. She cannot know any: 
 thing,’ reflected Giselle. “Perhaps it is not true. 
 It cannot be true,” Linda tried to persuade herself. 
 
 But when she saw Captain Fidanza for the first time 
 after her meeting with the distracted Ramirez, the 
 certitude of her misfortune returned. She watched 
 him from the doorway go away to his boat, asking her- 
 self stoically, “Will they meet to-night?’’ She made up 
 her mind not to leave the tower for a second. When he 
 had disappeared she came out and sat down by her 
 father. 
 
 The venerable Garibaldino felt, in his own words, “a 
 young man yet.” In one way or another a good deal of 
 talk about Ramirez had reached him of late; and his 
 contempt and dislike of that man who obviously was 
 not what his son would have been, had made him rest- 
 less. He slept very little now; but for several nights 
 past instead of reading—or only sitting, with Mrs. 
 Gould’s silver spectacles on his nose, before the open 
 Bible, he had been prowling actively all about the island 
 with his old gun, on watch over his honour. 
 
 Linda, laying her thin brown hand on his knee, tried 
 to soothe his excitement. Ramirez was not in Sulaco. 
 Nobody knew where he was. He was gone. His talk 
 of what he would do meant nothing. 
 
 “No,” the old man interrupted. “But son Gian’ 
 Battista told me—quite of himself—that the cowardly 
 esclavo was drinking and gambling with the rascals of 
 Zapiga, over there on the north side of the gulf. He 
 may get some of the worst scoundrels of that scoun- 
 drelly town of negroes to help him in his attempt upon 
 the little one. . . . ButJamnotsoold. No!” 
 
 She argued earnestly against the probability of any 
 attempt being made; and at last the old man fell silent, 
 chewing his white moustache. Women had their ob- 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 551 
 
 stinate notions which must be humoured—his poor wife 
 was like that, and Linda resembled her mother. It was 
 not seemly for a man to argue. “May be. May be,” 
 he mumbled. 
 
 She was by no means easy in her mind. She loved 
 Nostromo. She turned her eyes upon Giselle, sitting at 
 a distance, with something of maternal tenderness, and 
 the jealous anguish of a rival outraged in her defeat. 
 Then she rose and walked over to her. 
 
 **Listen—you,”’ she said, roughly. 
 
 The invincible candour of the gaze, raised up all violet 
 and dew, excited her rage and admiration. She had 
 beautiful eyes—the Chica—this vile thing of white flesh 
 and black deception. She did not know whether she 
 wanted to tear them out with shouts of vengeance or 
 cover up their mysterious and shameless innocence with 
 kisses of pity and love. And suddenly they became 
 empty, gazing blankly at her, except for a little fear not 
 quite buried deep enough with all the other emotions 
 in Giselle’s heart. 
 
 Linda said, “Ramirez is boasting in town that he will 
 carry you off from the island.” 
 
 “What folly!” answered the other, and in a perver- 
 sity born of long restraint, she added: “He is not the 
 man,” in a jesting tone with a trembling audacity. 
 
 “No?” said Linda, through her clenched teeth. “Is 
 he not? Well, then, look to it; because father has been 
 walking about with a loaded gun at night.” 
 
 “It is not good for him. You must tell him not to, 
 Linda. He will not listen to me.” 
 
 *T shall say nothing—never any more—to anybody,” 
 cried Linda, passionately. 
 
 This could not last, thought Giselle. Giovanni must 
 take her away soon—the very next time he came. She 
 would not suffer these terrors for ever so much silver. 
 
552 NOSTROMO 
 
 To speak with her sister made her ill. But she was not 
 uneasy at her father’s watchfulness. She had begged 
 Nostromo not to come to the window that night. He 
 had promised to keep away for this once. And she 
 did not know, could not guess or imagine, that he had 
 another reason for coming on the island. 
 
 Linda had gone straight to the tower. It was time to 
 light up. She unlocked the little door, and went heavily 
 up the spiral staircase, carrying her love for the magnifi- 
 cent Capataz de Cargadores like an ever-increasing load 
 of shameful fetters. No; she could not throw it off. 
 No; let Heaven dispose of these two. And moving 
 about the lantern, filled with twilight and the sheen of 
 the moon, with careful movements she lighted the lamp. 
 Then her arms fell along her body. 
 
 “And with our mother looking on,” she murmured. 
 “My own sister—the Chica!” 
 
 The whole refracting apparatus, with its brass fittings 
 and rings of prisms, glittered and sparkled like a dome- 
 shaped shrine of diamonds, containing not a lamp, but 
 some sacred flame, dominating the sea. And Linda, the 
 keeper, in black, with a pale face, drooped low in a 
 wooden chair, alone with her jealousy, far above the 
 shames and passions of the earth. A strange, dragging 
 pain as if somebody were pulling her about brutally 
 by her dark hair with bronze glints, made her put her 
 hands up to her temples. They would meet. ‘They 
 would meet. And she knew where, too. At the window. 
 The sweat of torture fell in drops on her cheeks, while 
 the moonlight in the offing closed as if with a colossal 
 bar of silver the entrance of the Placid Gulf—the sombre 
 cavern of clouds and stillness in the surf-fretted sea- 
 board. 
 
 Linda Viola stood up suddenly with a finger on her lip. 
 He loved neither her nor her sister. The whole thing 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 553 
 
 seemed so objectless as to frighten her, and also give her 
 some hope. Why did he not carry her off? What pre- 
 vented him? He was incomprehensible. What were 
 they waiting for? For what end were these two lying 
 and deceiving? Not for the ends of their love. There 
 was no such thing. The hope of regaining him for 
 herself made her break her vow of not leaving the tower 
 that night. She must talk at once to her father, who 
 was wise, and would understand. She ran down the 
 spiral stairs. At the moment of opening the door at 
 the bottom she heard the sound of the first shot ever 
 fired on the Great Isabel. 
 
 She felt a shock, as though the bullet had struck her 
 breast. She ran on without pausing. ‘The cottage was 
 dark. She cried at the door, “‘Giselle! Giselle!’’ then 
 dashed round the corner and screamed her sister’s name 
 at the open window, without getting an answer; but 
 as she was rushing, distracted, round the house, Giselle 
 came out of the door, and darted past her, running 
 silently, her hair loose, and her eyes staring straight 
 ahead. She seemed to skim along the grass as if on 
 tiptoe, and vanished. . 
 
 Linda walked on slowly, with her arms stretched out 
 before her. All was still on the island; she did not know 
 where she was going. The tree under which Martin 
 Decoud spent his last days, beholding life like a suc- 
 cession of senseless images, threw a large blotch of 
 black shade upon the grass. Suddenly she saw her 
 father, standing quietly all alone in the moonlight. 
 
 The Garibaldino—big, erect, with his snow-white 
 hair and beard—had a monumental repose in his im- 
 mobility, leaning upon a rifle. She put her hand upon 
 his arm lightly. He never stirred. 
 
 “What have you done?”’ she asked, in her ordinary 
 voice. 
 
554 NOSTROMO 
 
 “IT have shot Ramirez—infame!’’ he answered, with 
 his eyes directed to where the shade was blackest. 
 “Like a thief he came, and like a thief he fell. The 
 child had to be protected.”’ 
 
 He did not offer to move an inch, to advance a single 
 step. He stood there, rugged and unstirring, like a 
 statue of an old man guarding the honour of his house. 
 Linda removed her trembling hand from his arm, firm 
 and steady like an arm of stone, and, without a word, 
 entered the blackness of the shade. She saw a stir of 
 formless shapes on the ground, and stopped short. A 
 murmur of despair and tears grew louder to her strained 
 hearing. 
 
 “I entreated you not to come to-night. Oh, my 
 Giovanni! And you promised. Oh! Why—why did 
 you come, Giovanni?” : 
 
 It was her sister’s voice. It broke on a heartrending 
 sob. And the voice of the resourceful Capataz de 
 Cargadores, master and slave of the San Tomé treasure, 
 who had been caught unawares by old Giorgio while 
 stealing across the open towards the ravine to get some 
 more silver, answered careless and cool, but sounding 
 startlingly weak from the ground. 
 
 “It seemed as though I could not live through the 
 night without seeing thee once more—my star, my little 
 flower.” 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 The brilliant tertulia was just over, the last guests had 
 departed, and the Sefior Administrador had gone to his 
 room already, when Dr. Monygham, who had been ex- 
 pected in the evening but had not turned up, arrived 
 _ driving along the wood-block pavement under the 
 electric-lamps of the deserted Calle de la Constitucion, 
 and found the great gateway of the Casa still open. 
 
_ THE LIGHTHOUSE 555 
 
 He limped in, stumped up the stairs, and found the 
 fat and sleek Basilio on the point of turning off the 
 lights in the sala. The prosperous majordomo re- 
 mained open-mouthed at this late invasion. 
 
 “Don’t put out the lights,’’ commanded the doctor. 
 “I want to see the sefiora.”’ 
 
 “The sefiora is in the Sefior Adminstrador’s cancil- 
 laria,”’ said Basilio, in an unctuous voice. ‘“*‘ The Sefor 
 Administrador starts for the mountain in an hour. 
 There is some trouble with the workmen to be feared, it 
 appears. A shameless people without reason and de- 
 cency. And idle, sefior. Idle.” 
 
 “You are shamelessly lazy and imbecile yourself,’ 
 said the doctor, with that faculty for exasperation which 
 made him so generally beloved. ‘Don’t put the lights 
 out.” 
 
 Basilio retired with dignity. Dr. Monygham, waiting 
 in the brilliantly lighted sala, heard presently a door close 
 at the further end of the house. A jungle of spurs 
 died out. The Sefior Administrador was off to the 
 mountain. 
 
 With a measured swish of her long train, flashing with 
 jewels and the shimmer of silk, her delicate head bowed 
 as if under the weight of a mass of fair hair, in which 
 the silver threads were lost, the “‘first lady of Sulaco,”’ 
 as Captain Mitchell used to describe her, moved along 
 the lighted corredor, wealthy beyond great dreams of 
 wealth, considered, loved, respected, honoured, and as 
 solitary as any human being had ever been, perhaps, 
 on this earth. 
 
 The doctor’s “Mrs. Gould! One minute!” stopped 
 her with a start at the door of the lighted and empty 
 sala. From the similarity of mood and circumstance, 
 the sight of the doctor, standing there al! alone amongst 
 the groups of furniture, recalled to her emotional mem- 
 
556 NOSTROMO 
 
 ory her unexpected meeting with Martin Decoud; she 
 seemed to hear in the silence the voice of that man, 
 dead miserably so many years ago, pronounce the 
 words, “‘Antonia left her fan here.’ But it was the 
 doctor’s voice that spoke, a little altered by his excite- 
 ment. She remarked his shining eyes. 
 
 “Mrs. Gould, you are wanted. Do you know what 
 has happened? You remember what I told you yester- 
 day about Nostromo. Well, it seems that a lancha, 
 a decked boat, coming from Zapiga, with four negroes 
 in her, passing close to the Great Isabel, was hailed 
 from the cliff by a woman’s voice—Linda’s, as a matter 
 of fact—commanding them (it’s a moonlight night) to 
 go round to the beach and take up a wounded man to — 
 the town. The patron (from whom I’ve heard all this), 
 of course, did so at once. He told me that when they 
 got round to the low side of the Great Isabel, they 
 found Linda Viola waiting for them. They followed 
 her: she led them under a tree not far from the cottage. 
 There they found Nostromo lying on the ground with 
 his head in the younger girl’s lap, and father Viola 
 standing some distance off leaning on his gun. Under 
 Linda’s direction they got a table out of the cottage for a 
 stretcher, after breaking off the legs. They are here, 
 Mrs. Gould. I mean Nostromo and—and Giselle. 
 The negroes brought him in to the first-aid hospital 
 near the harbour. He made the attendant send for 
 me. But it was not me he wanted to see—it was you, 
 Mrs. Gould! It was you.” 
 
 ““Me?’’ whispered Mrs. Gould, shrinking a little. 
 
 “Yes, you!”’ the doctor burst out. “He begged me 
 —his enemy, as he thinks—to bring you to him at once. 
 It seems he has something to say to you alone.” 
 
 “Tmpossible!’? murmured Mrs. Gould. 
 
 “He said to me, ‘Remind her that I have done some- 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 557 
 
 thing to keep a roof over her head.” . . . Mrs. 
 Gould,” the doctor pursued, in the greatest excite- 
 ment. “‘Do you remember the silver? The silver in 
 the lighter—that was lost?”’ 
 
 Mrs. Gould remembered. But she did not say she 
 hated the mere mention of that silver. Frankness 
 personified, she remembered with an exaggerated horror 
 that for the first and last time of her life she had con- 
 cealed the truth from her husband about that very 
 silver. She had been corrupted by her fears at that 
 time, and she had never forgiven herself. Moreover, 
 that silver, which would never have come down if her 
 husband had been made acquainted with the news 
 brought by Decoud, had been in a roundabout way 
 nearly the cause of Dr. Monygham’s death. And these 
 things appeared to her very dreadful. 
 
 “Was it lost, though?” the doctor exclaimed. “I’ve 
 always felt that there was a mystery about our Nos- 
 tromo ever since. I do believe he wants now, at the 
 point of death Li 
 
 The point of death?” repeated Mrs. Gould. 
 
 “Yes. Yes. . . . He wants. perhaps to tell 
 you something concerning that silver which o 
 
 “Oh, no! No!” exclaimed Mrs. Gould, in a low 
 voice. “Isn’t it lost and done with? Isn’t there 
 enough treasure without it to make everybody in the 
 world miserable?”’ 
 
 The doctor remained still, in a submissive, disap- 
 pointed silence. At last he ventured, very low— 
 
 “And there is that Viola girl, Giselle. What are 
 we to do? It looks as though father and sister had if 
 
 Mrs. Gould admitted that she felt in duty bound to 
 do her best for these girls. 
 
 “I have a volante here,” the doctor said. “If you 
 don’t mind getting into that 4 
 
558 NOSTROMO 
 
 He waited, all impatience, till Mrs. Gould reap- 
 peared, having thrown over her dress a grey cloak 
 with a deep hood. 
 
 It was thus that, cloaked and monastically hooded 
 over her evening costume, this woman, full of endurance 
 and compassion, stood by the side of the bed on which 
 the splendid Capataz de Cargadores lay stretched out 
 motionless on his back. The whiteness of sheets and 
 pillows gave a sombre and energetic relief to his bronzed 
 face, to the dark, nervous hands, so good on a tiller, 
 upon a bridle and on a trigger, lymg open and idle 
 upon a white coverlet. 
 
 “She is innocent,’ the Capataz was saying in a deep 
 and level voice, as though afraid that a louder word 
 would break the slender hold his spirit still kept upon 
 his body. “She is innocent. It is I alone. But no 
 matter. For these things I would answer to no man 
 or woman alive.” 
 
 He paused. Mrs. Gould’s face, very white within the 
 shadow of the hood, bent over him with an invincible 
 and dreary sadness. And the low sobs of Giselle Viola, 
 kneeling at the end of the bed, her gold hair with cop- 
 pery gleams loose and scattered over the Capataz’s 
 feet, hardly troubled the silence of the room. 
 
 “Ha! Old Giorgio—the guardian of thine honour! 
 Fancy the Vecchio coming upon me so light of foot, so 
 steady of aim. I myself could have done no better. 
 But the price of a charge of powder might have been 
 
 saved. The honour was safe. . . . Sefiora, she 
 would have followed to the end of the world Nostromo 
 the thief. . . . I have said the word. The spell 
 is broken!”’ 
 
 A low moan from the girl made him cast his eyes 
 
 down. 
 *T cannot see her. - . . No matter,’’ he went on, 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 559 
 
 with the shadow of the old magnificent carelessness in 
 his voice. “One kiss is enough, if there is no time for 
 more. An airy soul, sefiora! Bright and warm, like 
 sunshine—soon clouded, and soon serene. They would 
 crush it there between them. Sefiora, cast on her the 
 eye of your compassion, as famed from one end of the 
 land to the other as the courage and daring of the man 
 who speaks to you. She will console herself in time. 
 And even Ramirez is not a bad fellow. Iam not angry. 
 No! It is not Ramirez who overcame the Capataz 
 of the Sulaco Cargadores.”” He paused, made an effort, 
 and in louder voice, a little wildly, declared— 
 
 “I die betrayed—betrayed by i 
 
 But he did not say by whom or by what he was dying 
 betrayed. 
 
 *“She would not have betrayed me,” he began again, 
 opening his eyes very wide. “She was faithful. We 
 were going very far—very soon. I could have torn 
 myself away from that accursed treasure for her. For 
 that child I would have left boxes and boxes of it—full. 
 And Decoud took four. Four ingots. Why? Pircardial 
 To betray me? How could I give back the treasure 
 with four ingots missing? They would have said I 
 had purloined them. The doctor would have said that. 
 Alas! it holds me yet!” 
 
 Mrs. Gould bent low, fascinated—cold with appre- 
 hension. 
 
 “What became of Don Martin on that night, Nos- 
 tromo?”’ 
 
 “Who knows? I wondered what would become of 
 me. Now I know. Death was to come upon me un- 
 awares. He went away! He betrayed me. And you 
 think I have killed him! You are all alike, you fine 
 people. The silver has killed me. It has held me. It 
 holds me yet. Nobody knows where it is. But you are 
 
560 NOSTROMO 
 
 the wife of Don Carlos, who put it into my hands and 
 said, “Save it on your life.’ And when I returned, and 
 you all thought it was lost, what do I hear? ‘It was 
 nothing of importance. Let it go. Up, Nostromo, the 
 faithful, and ride away to save us, for dear life!’”’ 
 
 “Nostromo!”’ Mrs. Gould whispered, bending very 
 low. “I, too, have hated the idea of that silver from 
 the bottom of my heart.” 
 
 **Marvellous!—that one of you should hate the 
 wealth that you know so well how to take from the 
 hands of the poor. The world rests upon the poor, 
 as old Giorgio says. You have been always good to the 
 poor. But there is something accursed in wealth. 
 Sefiora, shall I tell you where the treasure is? To you 
 alone. . . . Shining! Incorruptible!”’ 
 
 A pained, involuntary reluctance lingered in his tone, 
 in his eyes, plain to the woman with the genius of sym- 
 pathetic intuition. She averted her glance from the 
 miserable subjection of the dying man, appalled, wish- 
 ing to hear no more of the silver. 
 
 “No, Capataz,”’ she said. ““No one misses it now. 
 Let it be lost for ever.” 
 
 After hearing these words, Nostromo closed his eyes, 
 uttered no word, made no movement. Outside the 
 door of the sick-room Dr. Monygham, excited to the 
 highest pitch, his eyes shining with eagerness, came up 
 to the two women. 
 
 “Now, Mrs. Gould,” he said, almost brutally in his 
 impatience, “tell me, was I right? There is a mystery. 
 You have got the word of it, have you not? He told 
 you 393 
 
 ‘He told me nothing,” said Mrs. Gould, steadily. 
 
 The light of his temperamental enmity to Nostrome 
 went out of Dr. Monygham’s eyes. He stepped back 
 submissively. He did not believe Mrs. Gould. But 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 561 
 
 her word was law. He accepted her denial like an 
 inexplicable fatality affirming the victory of Nostromo’s 
 genius over his own. Even before that woman, whem 
 he loved with secret devotion, he had been defeated 
 by the magnificent Capataz de Cargadores, the man 
 who had lived his own life on the assumption of un- 
 broken fidelity, rectitude, and courage! 
 
 “Pray send at once somebody for my carriage,” 
 spoke Mrs. Gould from within her hood. Then, turn- 
 ing to Giselle Viola, ““Come nearer me, child; come 
 closer. We will wait here.” 
 
 Giselle Viola, heartbroken and childlike, her face 
 veiled in her falling hair, crept up to her side. Mrs. 
 Gould slipped her hand through the arm of the un- 
 worthy daughter of old Viola, the immaculate repub- 
 lican, the hero without a stain. Slowly, gradually, 
 as a withered flower droops, the head of the girl, who 
 would have followed a thief to the end of the world, 
 rested on the shoulder of Dofia Emilia, the first lady 
 of Sulaco, the wife of the Sefior Administrador of the 
 San Tomé mine. And Mrs. Gould, feeling her sup- 
 pressed sobbing, nervous and excited, had the first 
 and only moment of bitterness in her life. It was 
 worthy of Dr. Monygham himself. 
 
 “Console yourself, child. Very soon he would have 
 forgotten you for his treasure.” 
 
 ““Sefiora, he loved me. He loved me,” Giselle whis- 
 pered, despairingly. ‘““He loved me as no one had ever 
 been loved before.” 
 
 **1I have been loved, too,’’ Mrs. Gould said in a severe 
 tone. 
 
 Giselle clung to her convulsively. “Oh, sefiora, 
 but you shall live adored to the end of your life,” she 
 sobbed out. 
 
 Mrs. Gould kept an unbroken silence till the carriage 
 
562 NOSTROMO 
 
 arrived. She helped in the half-fainting girl. After 
 the doctor had shut the door of the landau, she leaned 
 over to him. | 
 
 “You can do nothing?”’ she whispered. 
 
 *“No, Mrs. Gould. Moreover, he won’t let us touch 
 him. It does not matter. I just had one look... . 
 Useless.”’ 
 
 But he promised to see old Viola and the other girl 
 that very night. He could get the police-boat to take 
 him off to the island. He remained in the street, look- 
 ing after the landau rolling away slowly behind the 
 white mules. 
 
 The rumour of some accident—an accident to Cap- 
 tain Fidanza—had been spreading along the new quays 
 with their rows of lamps and the dark shapes of tower- 
 ing cranes. A knot of night prowlers—the poorest of 
 the poor—hung about the door of the first-aid hospital, 
 whispering in the moonlight of the empty street. 
 
 There was no one with the wounded man but the pale 
 photographer, small, frail, bloodthirsty, the hater of 
 capitalists, perched on a high stool near the head of the 
 bed with his knees up and his chin in his hands. He 
 had been fetehed by a comrade who, working late on 
 the wharf, had heard from a negro belonging to a lancha, 
 that Captain Fidanza had been brought ashore mor- 
 tally wounded. 
 
 “‘Have you any dispositions to make, comrade?” 
 he asked, anxiously. ““Do not forget that we want 
 money for our work. ‘The rich must be fought with 
 their own weapons.”’ ! 
 
 Nostromo made no answer. The other did not in- 
 sist, remaining huddled up on the stool, shock-headed, 
 wildly hairy, like a hunchbacked monkey. ‘Then, after 
 a long silence— 
 
 “Comrade Fidanza,” he began, solemnly, “you have 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE 563 
 
 refused all aid from that doctor. Is he really a danger- 
 ous enemy of the people?” 
 
 In the dimly lit room Nostromo rolled his head slowly 
 on the pillow and opened his eyes, directing at the weird 
 figure perched by his bedside a glance of enigmatic and 
 profound inquiry. Then his head rolled back, his eye- 
 lids fell, and the Capataz de Cargadores died without a 
 word or moan after an hour of immobility, broken by 
 short shudders testifying to the most atrocious suffer- 
 ings. 
 
 Dr. Monygham, going out in the police-galley to the 
 islands, beheld the glitter of the moon upon the gulf 
 and the high black shape of the Great Isabel sending 
 a shaft of light afar, from under the canopy of clouds. 
 
 “Pull easy,” he said, wondering what he would find 
 there. He tried to imagine Linda and her father, and 
 discovered a strange reluctance within himself. “Pull 
 easy,” he repeated. 
 
 x ** # * * 
 
 From the moment he fired at the thief of his honour, 
 Giorgio Viola had not stirred from the spot. He stood, 
 his old gun grounded, his hand grasping the barrel near 
 the muzzle. After the lancha carrying off Nostromo 
 for ever from her had left the shore, Linda, coming up, 
 stopped before him. He did not seem to be aware of 
 her presence, but when, losing her forced calmness, 
 she cried out— 
 
 “Do you know whom you have killed?” he an- 
 swered— 
 
 “Ramirez the vagabond.”’ 
 
 White, and staring insanely at her father, Linda 
 laughed -in his face. After a time he joined her faintly 
 in a deep-toned and distant echo of her peals. Then 
 she stopped, and the old man spoke as if startled— 
 
 “He cried out in son Gian’ Battista’s voice.” 
 
564 NOSTROMO 
 
 The gun fell from his opened hand, but the arm re- 
 mained extended for a moment as if still supported. 
 Linda seized it roughly. 
 
 “You are too old to understand. Come into the 
 house.” 
 
 He let her lead him. On the threshold he stumbled 
 heavily, nearly coming to the ground together with 
 his daughter. His excitement, his activity of the last 
 few days, had been like the flare of a dying lamp. He 
 caught at the back of his chair. 
 
 “In son Gian’ Battista’s voice,” he repeated in a 
 severe tone. “I heard him—Ramirez—the miser- 
 able——”’ 
 
 Linda helped him into the chair, and, bending low, 
 hissed into his ear— 
 
 You have killed Gian’ Battista.” 
 
 The old man smiled under his thick moustache. 
 Women had strange fancies. 
 
 “Where is the child?”’ he asked, surprised at the pene- 
 trating chilliness of the air and the unwonted dimness 
 of the lamp by which he used to sit up half the night 
 with the open Bible before him. 
 
 Linda hesitated a moment, then averted her eyes. 
 
 “She is asleep,” she said. ‘We shall talk of her to- 
 morrow.” 
 
 She could not bear to look at him. He filled her with 
 terror and with an almost unbearable feeling of pity. 
 She had observed the change that came over him. He 
 would never understand what he had done; and even 
 to her the whole thing remained incomprehensible. 
 He said with difficulty— 
 
 “Give me the book.” 
 
 Linda laid on the table the closed volume in its worn 
 leather cover, the Bible given him ages ago by an 
 Englishman in Palermo. 
 
THE LIGHTHOUSE | 565 
 
 “The child had to be protected,” he said, in a strange, 
 mournful voice. 
 
 Behind his chair Linda wrung her hands, crying with- 
 out noise. Suddenly she started for the door. He 
 heard her move. 
 
 “Where are you going?”’ he asked. 
 
 “To the light,’ she answered, turning round to look 
 at him balefully. 
 
 “The light! Si—duty.” 
 
 Very upright, white-haired, leonine, heroic in his 
 absorbed quietness, he felt in the pocket of his red shirt 
 for the spectacles given him by Dofia Emilia. He put 
 them on. After a long period of immobility he opened 
 the book, and from on high looked through the glasses 
 at the small print in double columns. A rigid, stern 
 expression settled upon his features with a slight frown, 
 as if in response to some gloomy thought or unpleasant 
 sensation. But he never detached his eyes from the 
 book while he swayed forward, gently, gradually, till 
 his snow-white head rested upon the open pages. A 
 wooden clock ticked methodically on the white-washed 
 wall, and growing slowly cold the Garibaldino lay 
 alone, rugged, undecayed, like an old oak uprooted by 
 a treacherous gust of wind. 
 
 The light of the Great Isabel burned unfailing above 
 the lost treasure of the San Tomé mine. Into the 
 bluish sheen of a night without stars the lantern sent 
 out a yellow beam towards the far horizon. Like a 
 black speck upon the shining panes, Linda, crouching 
 in the outer gallery, rested her head on the rail. The 
 moon, drooping in the western board, looked at her 
 radiantly. 
 
 Below, at the foot of the cliff, the regular splash of 
 oars from a passing boat ceased, and Dr. Monygham 
 stood up in the stern sheets. 
 
566 NOSTROMO 
 
 “Linda!” he shouted, throwing back his head. 
 “Linda!” 
 
 Linda stood up. She had recognized the voice. 
 
 “Is he dead?”’ she cried, bending over. 
 
 “Yes, my poor girl. I am coming round,” the doctor 
 answered from below. “Pull to the beach,” he said 
 to the rowers. 
 
 Linda’s black figure detached itself upright on the 
 light of the lantern with her arms raised above her head 
 as though she were going to throw herself over. 
 
 “It is I who loved you,” she whispered, with a face 
 as set and white as marble in the moonlight. “I! 
 Only I! She will forget thee, killed miserably for 
 her pretty face. I cannot understand. I cannot un- 
 derstand. But I shall never forget thee. Never!”’ 
 
 She stood silent and still, collecting her strength to 
 throw all her fidelity, her pain, bewilderment, and de- 
 spair into one great cry. 
 
 “Never! Gian’ Battista!” 
 
 Dr. Monygham, pulling round in the police-galley, 
 heard the name pass over his head. It was another 
 of Nostromo’s triumphs, the greatest, the most en- 
 viable, the most sinister of all. In that true cry of 
 undying passion that seemed to ring aloud from Punta 
 Mala to Azuera and away to the bright line of the 
 horizon, overhung by a big white cloud shining like a 
 mass of solid silver, the genius of the magnificent Cap- 
 ataz de Cargadores dominated the dark gulf containing 
 his conquests of treasure and love. 
 
 _THE END 
 
URBANA 
 
 UN 
 
 {I 
 
 | 
 
 3 0112 041686764 
 
 meats 
 Sorieethier 
 
 teiavatety 
 
 pe 
 o 
 <= 
 - 
 = 
 re 
 oO 
 > 
 - 
 n 
 c 
 Ww 
 = 
 z 
 ~ 
 
 See 
 
 sheets 
 
 + 
 
 selebe ley pial’ 
 
 a 
 
 eal