 | CHAPTER EIGHT Nostromo: a Tale of the Seaboard / Joseph Conrad |  |
8. CHAPTER EIGHT
THOSE of us whom business or curiosity took to
Sulaco in these years before the first advent of the railway
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 rail-way
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 a 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
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, señor," 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
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 hopeless
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,
señores," 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
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 windows
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
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 shrewdness,
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 mountain"
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 Costaguana
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 Señor 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 doorway.
Don Pépé only smiled in his long moustaches, as
much as to say, "You might have found a worse name
for an old soldier."
And El Señor Gobernador he had remained, with his
small jokes upon his function and upon his domain,
Gould —
"No two stones could come together anywhere without
the Gobernador hearing the click, señora."
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 suffering
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 squatted
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 pounding
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
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 profile,
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
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, señor!"
"Si! Si! Una Americana del Norte."
"Ah, well! if your worship is informed. Una Americana;
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, trying
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, hanging
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. Monygham,
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 Señor Doctor, who, with
his twisted shoulders, drooping head, sardonic mouth,
and side-long bitter glance, was mysterious and uncanny.
The other two authorities worked in harmony.
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 organized
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 upwards,
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 Señor Administrador,
has been painted in Europe, a country of saints and
miracles, and much greater 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, became
very reserved and severe. "No doubt it is
the San Tomé mine should think earnestly of ever-
lasting punishment instead of inquiring into the
magnitude of the earth, with its countries and populations
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 noiselessly
towards him. On one side of the road a long
frame building — the store — would be closed and barricaded
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. Monygham'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
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. Riding
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 proclamation
thundered forth over the land and the marvellousness
of an accomplished fact fulfilling an audacious
desire. He had heard this very sound in his imagination
on that far-off evening when his wife and himself,
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 solitude
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, señora."
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
señora 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 supreme — of a pension
(amounting to about a dollar a month) to which he
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, señor."
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 husband;
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 señoras and black-
eyed señoritas rolling solemnly in the shaded alley white
hands were waved towards her with animation in a
flutter of greetings. Doña Emilia was "down from the
mountain."
But not for long. Doña 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 the first frame-
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 perfectly
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 unmercenary
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 justificative
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
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 inspired.
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 pursuit
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. Expeditions
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 unsuspecting
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 intoxication
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 —
"If 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."
"Señora," 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, Doña Emilia — meek as lambs,
patient like their own burros, brave like lions. I have
here before you, señora — 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 permanently,
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?
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! I tell you! The political
Géfé, 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 Señor 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
older, harder, mysteriously silent, with the lines
deepened on his English, ruddy, out-of-doors complexion;
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 Doña
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 disregarded
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 transactions
(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
with a discomfited droop of his rubicund, rather handsome
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, between
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 fluttering
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
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 ranches 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 Señor Administrador riding 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 considered
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 Señor Administrador — leaning over to see the escort
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 constantly
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 Señor 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 influence
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 administration
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
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. Anybody
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 mediation.
Sir John had been extremely fêted 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
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 representative
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 moustache,
made the Señor Administrador appear by contrast
twice as sunbaked, more flaming red, a hundred
times more intensely and silently alive. Don José
Avellanos touched elbows with the other foreign diplomat,
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 pronouncement.
The Excellentissimo was on his legs. He said only a
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 mournful
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 retirement
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
"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, "Heavens!
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, lowering,
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
succeeded the felicitous toast. Sir John did not move.
"I don't think I am called upon to rise," he murmured
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 then.
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 invisibly,
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, under the
bunches of multicoloured flags fluttering on tall poles.
and the remote sound of shouting. A knot of ragged
negroes at the end of the wharf kept on loading and
firing 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 Señor Avellanos; a
wide circle was formed round him, where the mirthless
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 opportunity
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 shining
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 incredible;
the exaggeration of a cruel caricature, the
fatuity of solemn masquerading, the atrocious grotesqueness
of some military idol of Aztec conception and
European bedecking, awaiting the homage of worshippers.
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."
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 drumming
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
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 children.
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.
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.
"It 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. I've
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 Cargadores,
calmly. "Listen, Vecchio — go in and bring me,
out a cigar, but don't look for it in my room. There's
nothing there."
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 unconscious
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 greetings,
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,
for employment on the wharf. He whined,
offering the Señor 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 resplendent
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.
"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 inconstant
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."
"Is that true?" she cooed, joyously, her cheeks still
wet with tears.
"It is true."
"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."
"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 mocking
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 saddle.
"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
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 swinging
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 hurried
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.
"Sir" he used to say afterwards, "that was no mistake.
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."
| CHAPTER EIGHT Nostromo: a Tale of the Seaboard / Joseph Conrad | |