第73章

We had a conversation this very evening, I walking by the side of his horse as he rode slowly out of the town just now. He promised me that if a riot took place for any reason -- even for the most political of reasons, you understand -- his cargadores , an important part of the populace, you will admit, should be found on the side of the Europeans.'

`He has promised you that?' Mrs Gould inquired, with interest. `What made him make that promise to you?'

`Upon my word, I don't know,' declared Decoud, in a slightly surprised tone. `He certainly promised me that, but now you ask me why I certainly could not tell you his reasons. He talked with his usual carelessness, which, if he had been anything else but a common sailor, I would call a pose or an affectation.'

Decoud, interrupting himself, looked at Mrs Gould curiously.

`Upon the whole,' he continued, `I suppose he expects something to his advantage from it. You mustn't forget that he does not exercise his extraordinary power over the lower classes without a certain amount of personal risk and without a great profusion in spending his money. One must pay in some way or other for such a solid thing as individual prestige. He told me after we made friends at a dance, in a posada kept by a Mexican just outside the walls, that he had come here to make his fortune. I suppose he looks upon his prestige as a sort of investment.'

`Perhaps he prizes it for its own sake,' Mrs Gould said in a tone as if she were repelling an undeserved aspersion. `Viola, the Garibaldino, with whom he has lived for some years, calls him the Incorruptible.

`Ah! he belongs to the group of your proteges out there towards the harbour, Mrs Gould. Muy bien . And Captain Mitchell calls him wonderful.

I have heard no end of tales of his strength, his audacity, his fidelity.

No end of fine things. H'm! incorruptible! It is indeed a name of honour for the Capataz of the Cargadores of Sulaco. Incorruptible! Fine, but vague.

However, I suppose he's sensible, too. And I talked to him upon that sane and practical assumption.'

`I prefer to think him disinterested, and therefore trustworthy,' Mrs Gould said, with the nearest approach to curtness it was in her nature to assume.

`Well, if so, then the silver will be still more safe. Let it come down, senora . Let it come down, so that it may go north and return to us in the shape of credit.'

Mrs Gould glanced along the corridor towards the door of her husband's room. Decoud, watching her as if she had his fate in her hands, detected an almost imperceptible nod of assent. He bowed with a smile, and, putting his hand into the breast pocket of his coat, pulled out a fan of light feathers set upon painted leaves of sandal-wood. `I had it in my pocket,'

he murmured, triumphantly, `for a plausible pretext.' He bowed again. `Good night, senora .'

Mrs Gould continued along the corridor away from her husband's room.

The fate of the San Tome mine was lying heavy upon her heart. It was a long time now since she had begun to fear it. It had been an idea. She had watched it with misgivings turning into a fetish, and now the fetish had grown into a monstrous and crushing weight. It was as if the inspiration of their early years had left her heart to turn into a wall of silver-bricks, erected by the silent work of evil spirits, between her and her husband.

He seemed to dwell alone within a circumvallation of precious metal, leaving her outside with her school, her hospital, the sick mothers, and the feeble old men, mere insignificant vestiges of the initial inspiration. `Those poor people!' she murmured to herself.

Below she heard the voice of Martin Decoud in the patio speaking loudly:

`I have found Dona Antonia's fan, Basilio. Look, here it is!'