Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
South American continent knows, that Pablo Barrios has had his fill of military glory."
Charles Gould was not present at the anxious and patriotic send-off. It was not his part to see the soldiers embark. It was neither his part, nor his inclination, nor his policy. His part, his inclination, and his policy were united in one endeavor to keep unchecked the flow of treasure he had started single-handed from the re-opened scar in the flank of the mountain. As the mine had developed he had trained for himself some native help. There were foremen, artificers, and clerks, with Don Pépé for the gobernador of the mining population. For the rest, his shoulders alone sustained the whole weight of the "Imperium in imperio," the great Gould Concession whose mere shadow had been enough to crush the life out of his father.
Mrs. Gould had no silver-mine to look after. In the general life of the Gould Concession she was represented by her two lieutenants, the doctor and the priest, but she fed her woman's love of excitement on events whose significance was purified to her by the fire of her imaginative purpose. On that day she had brought the Avellanos, father and daughter, down to the harbor with her.
Among his other activities of that stirring time, Don José had become the chairman of a patriotic committee which had armed a great proportion of troops in the Sulaco command with an improved model of a military rifle. It had been just discarded for something still more deadly by one of the great European powers. How much of the market-price for second-
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