adre Corbelan himself was never known
to talk. But he made no secret of his opinion that the politicians of
Sta. Marta had harder hearts and more corrupt minds than the heathen
to whom he had carried the word of God. His injudicious zeal for the
temporal welfare of the Church was damaging the Ribierist cause. It was
common knowledge that he had refused to be made titular bishop of the
Occidental diocese till justice was done to a despoiled Church. The
political Gefe of Sulaco (the same dignitary whom Captain Mitchell saved
from the mob afterwards) hinted with naive cynicism that doubtless their
Excellencies the Ministers sent the padre over the mountains to Sulaco
in the worst season of the year in the hope that he would be frozen
to death by the icy blasts of the high paramos. Every year a few hardy
muleteers--men inured to exposure--were known to perish in that way. But
what would you have? Their Excellencies possibly had not realized what
a tough priest he was. Meantime, the ignorant were beginning to murmur
that the Ribierist reforms meant simply the taking away of the land
from the people. Some of it was to be given to foreigners who made the
railway; the greater part was to go to the padres.

These were the results of the Grand Vicar's zeal. Even from the short
allocution to the troops on the Plaza (which only the first ranks
could have heard) he had not been able to keep out his fixed idea of
an outraged Church waiting for reparation from a penitent country. The
political Gefe had been exasperated. But he could not very well throw
the brother-in-law of Don Jose into the prison of the Cabildo. The chief
magistrate, an easy-going and popular official, visited the Casa
Gould, walking over after sunset from the Intendencia, unattended,
acknowledging with dignified courtesy the salutations of high and low
alike. That evening he had walked up straight to Charles Gould and had
hissed out to him that he would have liked to deport the Grand Vicar
out of Sulaco, anywhere, to some desert island, to the Isabels, for
instance. "The one without water preferably--eh, Don Carlos?" he had
added in a tone between jest and earnest. This uncontrollable priest,
who had rejected his offer of the episcopal palace for a residence and
preferred to hang his shabby hammock amongst the rubble and spiders of
the sequestrated Dominican Convent, had taken into his head to advocate
an unconditional pardon for Hernandez the Robber! And this was n