look at their methods
seriously. Decoud has been reading to us his draft of a proclamation,
and talking very well for two hours about his plan of action. He had
arguments which should have appeared solid enough if we, members of old,
stable political and national organizations, were not startled by the
mere idea of a new State evolved like this out of the head of a scoffing
young man fleeing for his life, with a proclamation in his pocket, to a
rough, jeering, half-bred swashbuckler, who in this part of the world is
called a general. It sounds like a comic fairy tale--and behold, it may
come off; because it is true to the very spirit of the country."

"Is the silver gone off, then?" asked the doctor, moodily.

The chief engineer pulled out his watch. "By Captain Mitchell's
reckoning--and he ought to know--it has been gone long enough now to
be some three or four miles outside the harbour; and, as Mitchell says,
Nostromo is the sort of seaman to make the best of his opportunities."
Here the doctor grunted so heavily that the other changed his tone.

"You have a poor opinion of that move, doctor? But why? Charles Gould
has got to play his game out, though he is not the man to formulate his
conduct even to himself, perhaps, let alone to others. It may be that
the game has been partly suggested to him by Holroyd; but it accords
with his character, too; and that is why it has been so successful.
Haven't they come to calling him 'El Rey de Sulaco' in Sta. Marta? A
nickname may be the best record of a success. That's what I call putting
the face of a joke upon the body of a truth. My dear sir, when I first
arrived in Sta. Marta I was struck by the way all those journalists,
demagogues, members of Congress, and all those generals and judges
cringed before a sleepy-eyed advocate without practice simply because he
was the plenipotentiary of the Gould Concession. Sir John when he came
out was impressed, too."

"A new State, with that plump dandy, Decoud, for the first President,"
mused Dr. Monygham, nursing his cheek and swinging his legs all the
time.

"Upon my word, and why not?" the chief engineer retorted in an
unexpectedly earnest and confidential voice. It was as if something
subtle in the air of Costaguana had inoculated him with the local faith
in "pronunciamientos." All at once he began to talk, like an expert
revolutionist, of the instrument ready to hand in the intact army at
Cayta, which could be brought back in