University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER ONE

DIRECTLY 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 coming
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

kitchen, observed this retreat marking the end of the
foreign interference, this withdrawal of the army of
material progress from the field of Costaguana revolutions.

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'ltalia 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 falling
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,

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 belonging
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 communicated
to them the intelligence from the Construction
Camp as to Pedro Montero. The brother of the victorious
general, he had assured them, could be expected
at Sulaco at any time now. This news (as he anticipated),
when shouted out of the window by Señor
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 confessed.
"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. Decoud's
retreat had to be thought of, too. I think the
railway has done pretty well by its friends without compromising
itself hopelessly. Now the parties must be
left to themselves."

"Costaguana for the Costaguaneros," interjected the
doctor, sardonically. "It is a fine country, and they
have raised a fine crop 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, appreciatively,
dropping on a bench, and stretching his well-
shaped legs in cycling stockings nearly across the doorway.
"He must be extremely sure of himself."

"If 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 remorseful
bitterness. As he sat there he had the air of meditating
upon sinister things. The engineer-in-chief
gazed at him for a time before he protested.

"I really don't see that. For me there seems to be
nothing else. However —"

He was a wise man, but he could not quite 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 unfavourable

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 Doña 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 recognized

personality. He was recognized, but not unreservedly
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 whisper;
the whole story of the Great Conspiracy was
hopelessly involved and obscure; it is admitted in Costaguana
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 distinguished
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 José 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'ltalia Una as a dependence of the
railway. Many of his subordinates had their quarters

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 Monygham,
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."

"I 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

that left no room for protest. The engineer-in-chief
did not attempt any. He simply nodded several
times regretfully, then said —

"I think we shall be able to mount you in the morning,
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 anybody
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 impossible,
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 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 to day. 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

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
scoffing young man fleeing for his life, with a proclamation
in his pocket, to a rough, jeering, half-bred swashbuckler,
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

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 Concession.
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 Montero
either; not even a month's pay. From that point of

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 inducement
for the Cayta troops to embrace the cause of the
new State.

The doctor turned round and contemplated his companion
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 uncommon
man. They understand each other's imaginative
side. One is thirty, the other nearly sixty, and
they have been made for each other. To be a millionaire,
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.
The 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 Costaguana
he had with Sir John a couple of years ago.

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 —"

"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?"

"I 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 certainly
have liked to ease the last moments of that poor
woman. And I can't. It's impossible. 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 murmurs
ceased, then the doctor shrugged his shoulders and
muttered —

"Yes, she's bound to. And I could do nothing if I
went up now."

A long period of silence above and below ensued.

"I 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. I am 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 sentiment
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 frequently,
which, of course, is not inconsistent with my
idea. Not at all. It looked to me as if she were always
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.

He has encouraged much of the Capataz's confounded
nonsense — the high-strung, exalted old beggar!"

"What sort of nonsense?" wondered the chief engineer.
"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
he is. It is true that the Cargadores are strangers here,
too, for the most part — immigrants, Isleños."

"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 somewhere,
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."

"He took a slightly different view," the doctor said.
"I 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 nothing
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 Isleño. 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 the street.
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

la Libertad!' Fuentes inside looked extremely miserable.
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 conscience;
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 ruffian 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?"