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him, and Barrios, with a rude and jeering guffaw, had said,
‘Oh, let Sotillo go. He is a very good man to keep guard over
the cable, and the ladies of Esmeralda ought to have their
turn.’ Barrios, an indubitably brave man, had no great opin-
ion of Sotillo.
It was through the Esmeralda cable alone that the San
Tome mine could be kept in constant touch with the great
financier, whose tacit approval made the strength of the Ri-
bierist movement. This movement had its adversaries even
there. Sotillo governed Esmeralda with repressive severity
till the adverse course of events upon the distant theatre of
civil war forced upon him the reflection that, after all, the
great silver mine was fated to become the spoil of the vic-
tors. But caution was necessary. He began by assuming a
dark and mysterious attitude towards the faithful Ribier-
ist municipality of Esmeralda. Later on, the information
that the commandant was holding assemblies of officers in
the dead of night (which had leaked out somehow) caused
those gentlemen to neglect their civil duties altogether, and
remain shut up in their houses. Suddenly one day all the
letters from Sulaco by the overland courier were carried off
by a file of soldiers from the post office to the Commandan-
cia, without disguise, concealment, or apology. Sotillo had
heard through Cayta of the final defeat of Ribiera.
This was the first open sign of the change in his convic-
tions. Presently notorious democrats, who had been living
till then in constant fear of arrest, leg irons, and even flog-
gings, could be observed going in and out at the great door
of the Commandancia, where the horses of the orderlies