Page:Nostromo (1904).djvu/247

 news there. What he will do then, who can say? Hold Cayta? Offer his submission to Montero? Dis- band his army this last most likely, and go himself in one of the O.S.N. Company's stcamors, north or south, to Valparaiso or to San Francisco, no matter where. Our Barrios has a great practice in exiles and repatriations, which mark the points in the political game."

Decoud, exchanging a steady stare with Mrs. Gould, added, tentatively, as it were, "And yet, if we had Barrios with his two thousand improved rifles here, something could have been done."

"Montero victorious, completely victorious!" Mrs. Gould breathed out in a tone of unbelief.

"A canard, probably. That sort of bird is hatched in great numbers in such times as these. And even if it were true? Well, let us put things at their worst, let us say it is true."

"Then everything is lost," said Mrs, Gould, with the calmness of despair.

Suddenly she seemed to divine, she seemed to see Decoud 's tremendous excitement under its cloak of studied carelessness. It was, indeed, becoming visible in his audacious and watchful stare, in the curve, half- reckless, half-contemptuous, of his lips. And a French phrase came upon them as if, for this Costa guanero of the boulevard, that had been the only forcible language:

"Non, madame. Rien n'est perdu. "

It electrified Mrs. Gould out of her benumbed attitude, and she said, vivaciously:

"What would you think of doing?"