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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 Pepe's remark--
"If it had not been for the lawless tyranny of your Government, Don
Pepe, many an outlaw now with Hernandez would be living peaceably and
happy by the honest work of his hands."
"Senora," cried Don Pepe, 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, Dona Emilia--meek as lambs, patient
like their own burros, brave like lions. I have led them to the very
muzzles of guns--I, who stand here before you, senora--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 Tome mine.
For the San Tome 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 Tome 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 Pepe, 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? Never! They are
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