ooming on the hotbed of corrupt revolutions; and when
he rode slowly through the streets during some military display, the
contemptuous good humour of his solitary eye roaming over the crowds
extorted the acclamations of the populace. The women of that class
especially seemed positively fascinated by the long drooping nose,
the peaked chin, the heavy lower lip, the black silk eyepatch and band
slanting rakishly over the forehead. His high rank always procured an
audience of Caballeros for his sporting stories, which he detailed very
well with a simple, grave enjoyment. As to the society of ladies, it was
irksome by the restraints it imposed without any equivalent, as far as
he could see. He had not, perhaps, spoken three times on the whole to
Mrs. Gould since he had taken up his high command; but he had observed
her frequently riding with the Senor Administrador, and had pronounced
that there was more sense in her little bridle-hand than in all the
female heads in Sulaco. His impulse had been to be very civil on parting
to a woman who did not wobble in the saddle, and happened to be the wife
of a personality very important to a man always short of money. He even
pushed his attentions so far as to desire the aide-de-camp at his side
(a thick-set, short captain with a Tartar physiognomy) to bring along a
corporal with a file of men in front of the carriage, lest the crowd in
its backward surges should "incommode the mules of the senora." Then,
turning to the small knot of silent Europeans looking on within earshot,
he raised his voice protectingly--

"Senores, have no apprehension. Go on quietly making your Ferro
Carril--your railways, your telegraphs. Your--There's enough wealth in
Costaguana to pay for everything--or else you would not be here. Ha! ha!
Don't mind this little picardia of my friend Montero. In a little while
you shall behold his dyed moustaches through the bars of a strong wooden
cage. Si, senores! Fear nothing, develop the country, work, work!"

The little group of engineers received this exhortation without a word,
and after waving his hand at them loftily, he addressed himself again to
Mrs. Gould--

"That is what Don Jose says we must do. Be enterprising! Work! Grow
rich! To put Montero in a cage is my work; and when that insignificant
piece of business is done, then, as Don Jose wishes us, we shall grow
rich, one and all, like so many Englishmen, because it is money that
saves a country, and--"

B