They drove him away from his instrument this
time for good, because Bernhardt has been calling up Esmeralda ever
since without getting an answer."

After setting these words down in the pocket-book which he was filling
up for the benefit of his sister, Decoud lifted his head to listen. But
there were no sounds, neither in the room nor in the house, except the
drip of the water from the filter into the vast earthenware jar under
the wooden stand. And outside the house there was a great silence.
Decoud lowered his head again over the pocket-book.

"I am not running away, you understand," he wrote on. "I am simply
going away with that great treasure of silver which must be saved at
all costs. Pedro Montero from the Campo and the revolted garrison of
Esmeralda from the sea are converging upon it. That it is there lying
ready for them is only an accident. The real objective is the San Tome
mine itself, as you may well imagine; otherwise the Occidental Province
would have been, no doubt, left alone for many weeks, to be gathered
at leisure into the arms of the victorious party. Don Carlos Gould
will have enough to do to save his mine, with its organization and its
people; this 'Imperium in Imperio,' this wealth-producing thing, to
which his sentimentalism attaches a strange idea of justice. He holds
to it as some men hold to the idea of love or revenge. Unless I am much
mistaken in the man, it must remain inviolate or perish by an act of
his will alone. A passion has crept into his cold and idealistic life.
A passion which I can only comprehend intellectually. A passion that
is not like the passions we know, we men of another blood. But it is as
dangerous as any of ours.

"His wife has understood it, too. That is why she is such a good ally
of mine. She seizes upon all my suggestions with a sure instinct that in
the end they make for the safety of the Gould Concession. And he defers
to her because he trusts her perhaps, but I fancy rather as if he wished
to make up for some subtle wrong, for that sentimental unfaithfulness
which surrenders her happiness, her life, to the seduction of an idea.
The little woman has discovered that he lives for the mine rather
than for her. But let them be. To each his fate, shaped by passion or
sentiment. The principal thing is that she has backed up my advice to
get the silver out of the town, out of the country, at once, at any
cost, at any risk. Don Carlos' mission is to preserve unstaine