Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART FIRST: THE SILVER OF THE MINE 5. CHAPTER FIVE (continued)

General Montero, whom the beginning of the struggle had found an
obscure army captain employed on the wild eastern frontier of the
State, had thrown in his lot with the Ribiera party at a moment
when special circumstances had given that small adhesion a
fortuitous importance. The fortunes of war served him
marvellously, and the victory of Rio Seco (after a day of
desperate fighting) put a seal to his success. At the end he
emerged General, Minister of War, and the military head of the
Blanco party, although there was nothing aristocratic in his
descent. Indeed, it was said that he and his brother, orphans,
had been brought up by the munificence of a famous European
traveller, in whose service their father had lost his life.
Another story was that their father had been nothing but a
charcoal burner in the woods, and their mother a baptised Indian
woman from the far interior.

However that might be, the Costaguana Press was in the habit of
styling Montero's forest march from his commandancia to join the
Blanco forces at the beginning of the troubles, the "most heroic
military exploit of modern times." About the same time, too, his
brother had turned up from Europe, where he had gone apparently
as secretary to a consul. Having, however, collected a small band
of outlaws, he showed some talent as guerilla chief and had been
rewarded at the pacification by the post of Military Commandant
of the capital.

The Minister of War, then, accompanied the Dictator. The board
of the O.S.N. Company, working hand-in-hand with the railway
people for the good of the Republic, had on this important
occasion instructed Captain Mitchell to put the mail-boat Juno at
the disposal of the distinguished party. Don Vincente, journeying
south from Sta. Marta, had embarked at Cayta, the principal port
of Costaguana, and came to Sulaco by sea. But the chairman of the
railway company had courageously crossed the mountains in a
ramshackle diligencia, mainly for the purpose of meeting his
engineer-in-chief engaged in the final survey of the road.