Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART THIRD: THE LIGHTHOUSE 1. CHAPTER ONE (continued)

"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 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."