He had come to look upon the Albergo d'Italia Una as a dependence of the railway. Many of his subordinates had their quarters there. Mrs Gould's interest in the family conferred upon it a sort of distinction. The engineer-in-chief, with an army of workers under his orders, appreciated the moral influence of the old Garibaldino upon his countrymen. His austere, old-world Republicanism had a severe, soldier-like standard of faithfulness and duty, as if the world were a battlefield where men had to fight for the sake of universal love and brotherhood, instead of a more or less large share of booty.
`Poor old chap!' he said, after he had heard the doctor's account of Teresa. `He'll never be able to keep the place going by himself. I shall be sorry.'
`He's quite alone up there,' grunted Dr Monygham, with a toss of his heavy head towards the narrow staircase. `Every living soul has cleared out, and Mrs Gould took the girls away just now. It might not be over-safe for them out here before very long. Of course, as a doctor I can do nothing more here; but she has asked me to stay with old Viola, and as I have no horse to get back to the mine, where I ought to be, I made no difficulty to stay. They can do without me in the town.'
`I have a good mind to remain with you, doctor, till we see whether anything happens tonight at the harbour,' declared the engineer-in-chief.
`He must not be molested by Sotillo's soldiery, who may push on as far as this at once. Sotillo used to be very cordial to me at the Goulds' and at the club. How that man'll ever dare to look any of his friends here in the face I can't imagine.'
`He'll no doubt begin by shooting some of them to get over the first awkwardness,' said the doctor. `Nothing in this country serves better your military man who has changed sides than a few summary executions.' He spoke with a gloomy positiveness that left no room for protest. The engineer-in-chief did not attempt any. He simply nodded several times regretfully, then said:
`He took a slightly different view,' the doctor said. `I heard him declare in this very room that it would be the most desperate affair of his life.
He made a sort of verbal will here in my hearing, appointing old Viola his executor; and, by Jove! do you know, he -- he's not grown rich by his fidelity to you good people of the railway and the harbour. I suppose he obtains some -- how do you say that? -- some spiritual value for his labours, or else I don't know why the devil he should be faithful to you, Gould, Mitchell, or anybody else. He knows this country well. He knows, for instance, that Gamacho, the Deputy from javira, has been nothing else but a tramposo of the commonest sort, a petty pedlar of the Campo, till he managed to get enough goods on credit from Anzani to open a little store in the wilds, and got himself elected by the drunken mozos that hang about the estancias and the poorest sort of rancheros who were in his debt. And Gamacho, who tomorrow will be probably one of our high officials, is a stranger, too -- an isleno . He might have been a cargador on the O.S.N. wharf had he not (the posadero of Rincon is ready to swear it) murdered a pedlar in the woods and stolen his pack to begin life on. And do you think that Gamacho, then, would have ever become a hero with the democracy of this place, like our Capataz? Of course not.
He isn't half the man. No; decidedly, I think that Nostromo is a fool.'
The doctor's talk was distasteful to the builder of railways. `It is impossible to argue that point,' he said, philosophically. `Each man has his gifts. You should have heard Gamacho haranguing his friends in the street. He has a howling voice, and he shouted like mad, lifting his clenched fist right above his head, and throwing his body half out of the window.
At every pause the rabble below yelled, "Down with the Oligarchs! Viva la libertad !" Fuentes inside looked extremely miserable. You know, he is the brother of Jorge Fuentes, who has been Minister of the Interior for six months or so, some few years back. Of course, he has no conscience;but he is a man of birth and education -- at one time the director of the Customs of Cayta. That idiot-brute Gamacho fastened himself upon him with his following of the lowest rabble. His sickly fear of that ruffian was the most rejoicing sight imaginable.'
He got up and went to the door to look out towards the harbour. `All quiet,' he said; `I wonder if Sotillo really means to turn up here?'