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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 Tome 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 concession of the San Tome 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 presented 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 favour with many
arguments and entreaties, but without 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 Senor
Gould--the poor man.
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