the Esmeralda garrison. That
small seaport had its importance as the station of the main submarine
cable connecting the Occidental Provinces with the outer world, and the
junction with it of the Sulaco branch. Don Jose Avellanos proposed him,
and Barrios, with a rude and jeering guffaw, had said, "Oh, let Sotillo
go. He is a very good man to keep guard over the cable, and the ladies
of Esmeralda ought to have their turn." Barrios, an indubitably brave
man, had no great opinion of Sotillo.

It was through the Esmeralda cable alone that the San Tome mine could
be kept in constant touch with the great financier, whose tacit approval
made the strength of the Ribierist movement. This movement had its
adversaries even there. Sotillo governed Esmeralda with repressive
severity till the adverse course of events upon the distant theatre
of civil war forced upon him the reflection that, after all, the great
silver mine was fated to become the spoil of the victors. But caution
was necessary. He began by assuming a dark and mysterious attitude
towards the faithful Ribierist municipality of Esmeralda. Later on, the
information that the commandant was holding assemblies of officers in
the dead of night (which had leaked out somehow) caused those gentlemen
to neglect their civil duties altogether, and remain shut up in their
houses. Suddenly one day all the letters from Sulaco by the overland
courier were carried off by a file of soldiers from the post office to
the Commandancia, without disguise, concealment, or apology. Sotillo had
heard through Cayta of the final defeat of Ribiera.

This was the first open sign of the change in his convictions. Presently
notorious democrats, who had been living till then in constant fear of
arrest, leg irons, and even floggings, could be observed going in and
out at the great door of the Commandancia, where the horses of the
orderlies doze under their heavy saddles, while the men, in ragged
uniforms and pointed straw hats, lounge on a bench, with their naked
feet stuck out beyond the strip of shade; and a sentry, in a red baize
coat with holes at the elbows, stands at the top of the steps glaring
haughtily at the common people, who uncover their heads to him as they
pass.

Sotillo's ideas did not soar above the care for his personal safety and
the chance of plundering the town in his charge, but he feared that such
a late adhesion would earn but scant gratitude from the victors. He had
believed