--

"I think we shall be able to mount you in the morning, doctor. Our peons
have recovered some of our stampeded horses. By riding hard and taking
a wide circuit by Los Hatos and along the edge of the forest, clear of
Rincon altogether, you may hope to reach the San Tome bridge without
being interfered with. The mine is just now, to my mind, the safest
place for anybody at all compromised. I only wish the railway was as
difficult to touch."

"Am I compromised?" Doctor Monygham brought out slowly after a short
silence.

"The whole Gould Concession is compromised. It could not have remained
for ever outside the political life of the country--if those convulsions
may be called life. The thing is--can it be touched? The moment was
bound to come when neutrality would become impossible, and Charles Gould
understood this well. I believe he is prepared for every extremity. A
man of his sort has never contemplated remaining indefinitely at the
mercy of ignorance and corruption. It was like being a prisoner in a
cavern of banditti with the price of your ransom in your pocket, and
buying your life from day to day. Your mere safety, not your liberty,
mind, doctor. I know what I am talking about. The image at which you
shrug your shoulders is perfectly correct, especially if you conceive
such a prisoner endowed with the power of replenishing his pocket by
means as remote from the faculties of his captors as if they were magic.
You must have understood that as well as I do, doctor. He was in the
position of the goose with the golden eggs. I broached this matter to
him as far back as Sir John's visit here. The prisoner of stupid and
greedy banditti is always at the mercy of the first imbecile ruffian,
who may blow out his brains in a fit of temper or for some prospect of
an immediate big haul. The tale of killing the goose with the golden
eggs has not been evolved for nothing out of the wisdom of mankind. It
is a story that will never grow old. That is why Charles Gould in his
deep, dumb way has countenanced the Ribierist Mandate, the first public
act that promised him safety on other than venal grounds. Ribierism has
failed, as everything merely rational fails in this country. But Gould
remains logical in wishing to save this big lot of silver. Decoud's plan
of a counter-revolution may be practicable or not, it may have a
chance, or it may not have a chance. With all my experience of this
revolutionary continent, I can hardly yet