Page 169 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

organizing an army, gathering malcontents, sending em-
issaries primed with patriotic lies to the people, and with
promises of plunder to the wild llaneros. Even a Monterist
press had come into existence, speaking oracularly of the
secret promises of support given by ‘our great sister Repub-
lic of the North’ against the sinister land-grabbing designs
of European powers, cursing in every issue the ‘miserable
Ribiera,’ who had plotted to deliver his country, bound
hand and foot, for a prey to foreign speculators.
Sulaco, pastoral and sleepy, with its opulent Campo and
the rich silver mine, heard the din of arms fitfully in its for-
tunate isolation. It was nevertheless in the very forefront
of the defence with men and money; but the very rumours
reached it circuitously—from abroad even, so much was it
cut off from the rest of the Republic, not only by natural
obstacles, but also by the vicissitudes of the war. The Mon-
teristos were besieging Cayta, an important postal link.
The overland couriers ceased to come across the mountains,
and no muleteer would consent to risk the journey at last;
even Bonifacio on one occasion failed to return from Sta.
Marta, either not daring to start, or perhaps captured by
the parties of the enemy raiding the country between the
Cordillera and the capital. Monterist publications, howev-
er, found their way into the province, mysteriously enough;
and also Monterist emissaries preaching death to aristo-
crats in the villages and towns of the Campo. Very early, at
the beginning of the trouble, Hernandez, the bandit, had
proposed (through the agency of an old priest of a village in
the wilds) to deliver two of them to the Ribierist authorities

1 Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard