"And we are not going to give our new rulers a
handle against the railway. You approve me, Gould?"
"Absolutely," said Charles Gould's impassive voice, high up and outside
the dim parallelogram of light falling on the road through the open
door.
With Sotillo expected from one side, and Pedro Montero from the other,
the engineer-in-chief's only anxiety now was to avoid a collision with
either. Sulaco, for him, was a railway station, a terminus, workshops,
a great accumulation of stores. As against the mob the railway defended
its property, but politically the railway was neutral. He was a brave
man; and in that spirit of neutrality he had carried proposals of truce
to the self-appointed chiefs of the popular party, the deputies Fuentes
and Gamacho. Bullets were still flying about when he had crossed the
Plaza on that mission, waving above his head a white napkin belonging to
the table linen of the Amarilla Club.
He was rather proud of this exploit; and reflecting that the doctor,
busy all day with the wounded in the patio of the Casa Gould, had
not had time to hear the news, he began a succinct narrative.
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