Previous - next
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 feted 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 Don Jose had addressed
him in a public speech delivered in the name of the Provincial Assembly
of Sulaco) sat at the head of the long table; Captain Mitchell,
positively stony-eyed and purple in the face with the solemnity of
this "historical event," occupied the foot as the 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 Senor Administrador appear by contrast twice as
sunbaked, more flaming red, a hundred times more intensely and silently
alive. Don Jose 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 few words, evidently
deeply felt, and meant perhaps mostly for Avellanos--his old friend--as
to the necessity of unremitting effort to secure the lasting welfare of
the country emerging after this last struggle, he hoped, into a period
of peace and material prosperity.
Mrs. Gould, listening to the mellow, slightly mournful voice, looking
at this rotund, dark, spectacled face, at the short body, obese to the
Previous - next
