ization had been developed in these harassed, half-wild
Indians. They were proud of, and attached to, the mine. It had secured
their confidence and belief. They invested it with a protecting and
invincible virtue as though it were a fetish made by their own hands,
for they were ignorant, and in other respects did not differ appreciably
from the rest of mankind which puts infinite trust in its own creations.
It never entered the alcalde's head that the mine could fail in its
protection and force. Politics were good enough for the people of the
town and the Campo. His yellow, round face, with wide nostrils, and
motionless in expression, resembled a fierce full moon. He listened to
the excited vapourings of the mozo without misgivings, without surprise,
without any active sentiment whatever.

Padre Roman sat dejectedly balancing himself, his feet just touching
the ground, his hands gripping the edge of the hammock. With less
confidence, but as ignorant as his flock, he asked the major what did he
think was going to happen now.

Don Pepe, bolt upright in the chair, folded his hands peacefully on
the hilt of his sword, standing perpendicular between his thighs, and
answered that he did not know. The mine could be defended against any
force likely to be sent to take possession. On the other hand, from the
arid character of the valley, when the regular supplies from the Campo
had been cut off, the population of the three villages could be starved
into submission. Don Pepe exposed these contingencies with serenity
to Father Roman, who, as an old campaigner, was able to understand the
reasoning of a military man. They talked with simplicity and directness.
Father Roman was saddened at the idea of his flock being scattered
or else enslaved. He had no illusions as to their fate, not from
penetration, but from long experience of political atrocities, which
seemed to him fatal and unavoidable in the life of a State. The working
of the usual public institutions presented itself to him most distinctly
as a series of calamities overtaking private individuals and flowing
logically from each other through hate, revenge, folly, and rapacity,
as though they had been part of a divine dispensation. Father Roman's
clear-sightedness was served by an uninformed intelligence; but his
heart, preserving its tenderness amongst scenes of carnage, spoliation,
and violence, abhorred these calamities the more as his association with
the victims was cl