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a man of culture and ability, seemed, without official posi-
tion, to possess an extraordinary influence in the highest
Government spheres. He was able to assure Sir John that
the President-Dictator would make the journey. He regret-
ted, however, in the course of the same conversation, that
General Montero insisted upon going, too.
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 for-
tunes 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 com-
mandancia 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 con-
sul. Having, however, collected a small band of outlaws, he

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard