ny
arguments and entreaties, but without success. He knew nothing of
mining; he had no means to put his concession on the European market;
the mine as a working concern did not exist. The buildings had been
burnt down, the mining plant had been destroyed, the mining population
had disappeared from the neighbourhood years and years ago; the very
road had vanished under a flood of tropical vegetation as effectually
as if swallowed by the sea; and the main gallery had fallen in within a
hundred yards from the entrance. It was no longer an abandoned mine; it
was a wild, inaccessible, and rocky gorge of the Sierra, where vestiges
of charred timber, some heaps of smashed bricks, and a few shapeless
pieces of rusty iron could have been found under the matted mass of
thorny creepers covering the ground. Mr. Gould, senior, did not desire
the perpetual possession of that desolate locality; in fact, the mere
vision of it arising before his mind in the still watches of the night
had the power to exasperate him into hours of hot and agitated insomnia.

It so happened, however, that the Finance Minister of the time was a
man to whom, in years gone by, Mr. Gould had, unfortunately, declined to
grant some small pecuniary assistance, basing his refusal on the ground
that the applicant was a notorious gambler and cheat, besides being more
than half suspected of a robbery with violence on a wealthy ranchero in
a remote country district, where he was actually exercising the function
of a judge. Now, after reaching his exalted position, that politician
had proclaimed his intention to repay evil with good to Senor
Gould--the poor man. He affirmed and reaffirmed this resolution in the
drawing-rooms of Sta. Marta, in a soft and implacable voice, and
with such malicious glances that Mr. Gould's best friends advised him
earnestly to attempt no bribery to get the matter dropped. It would have
been useless. Indeed, it would not have been a very safe proceeding.
Such was also the opinion of a stout, loud-voiced lady of French
extraction, the daughter, she said, of an officer of high rank (_officier
superieur de l'armee_), who was accommodated with lodgings within the
walls of a secularized convent next door to the Ministry of Finance.
That florid person, when approached on behalf of Mr. Gould in a proper
manner, and with a suitable present, shook her head despondently. She
was good-natured, and her despondency was genuine. She imagined she
could no