Page 70 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

with many arguments and entreaties, but without success.
He knew nothing of mining; he had no means to put his
concession on the European market; the mine as a working
concern did not exist. The buildings had been burnt down,
the mining plant had been destroyed, the mining popula-
tion had disappeared from the neighbourhood years and
years ago; the very road had vanished under a flood of trop-
ical vegetation as effectually as if swallowed by the sea; and
the main gallery had fallen in within a hundred yards from
the entrance. It was no longer an abandoned mine; it was
a wild, inaccessible, and rocky gorge of the Sierra, where
vestiges of charred timber, some heaps of smashed bricks,
and a few shapeless pieces of rusty iron could have been
found under the matted mass of thorny creepers covering
the ground. Mr. Gould, senior, did not desire the perpetual
possession of that desolate locality; in fact, the mere vision
of it arising before his mind in the still watches of the night
had the power to exasperate him into hours of hot and agi-
tated insomnia.
It so happened, however, that the Finance Minister of
the time was a man to whom, in years gone by, Mr. Gould
had, unfortunately, declined to grant some small pecuniary
assistance, basing his refusal on the ground that the appli-
cant was a notorious gambler and cheat, besides being more
than half suspected of a robbery with violence on a wealthy
ranchero in a remote country district, where he was actual-
ly exercising the function of a judge. Now, after reaching his
exalted position, that politician had proclaimed his inten-
tion to repay evil with good to Senor Gould—the poor man.