Nostromo - A Tale of the Seaboard.pdf - Planet eBook

aristocratic old Spanish families, all those Don Ambrosiosthis and Don Fernandos that, who seemed actually to dislikeand distrust the coming of the railway over their lands.It had happened that some of the surveying parties scatteredall over the province had been warned off with threatsof violence. In other cases outrageous pretensions as toprice had been raised. But the man of railways prided himselfon being equal to every emergency. Since he was metby the inimical sentiment of blind conservatism in Sulacohe would meet it by sentiment, too, before taking his standon his right alone. The Government was bound to carry outits part of the contract with the board of the new railwaycompany, even if it had to use force for the purpose. Buthe desired nothing less than an armed disturbance in thesmooth working of his plans. They were much too vast andfar-reaching, and too promising to leave a stone unturned;and so he imagined to get the President-Dictator over thereon a tour of ceremonies and speeches, culminating in agreat function at the turning of the first sod by the harbourshore. After all he was their own creature—that Don Vincente.He was the embodied triumph of the best elements inthe State. These were facts, and, unless facts meant nothing,Sir John argued to himself, such a man’s influence must bereal, and his personal action would produce the conciliatoryeffect he required. He had succeeded in arranging thetrip with the help of a very clever advocate, who was knownin Sta. Marta as the agent of the Gould silver mine, the biggestthing in Sulaco, and even in the whole Republic. It wasindeed a fabulously rich mine. Its so-called agent, evidently