major what did he think was going to happen
now.
    Don Pépé, bolt upright in the chair, folded his hands peacefully on the hilt
of his sword, standing perpendicular between his thighs, and answered that he
did not know. The mine could be defended against any force likely to be sent to
take possession. On the other hand, from the arid character of the valley, when
the regular supplies from the Campo had been cut off, the population of the
three villages could be starved into submission. Don Pépé exposed these
contingencies with serenity to Father Romàn, who, as an old campaigner, was able
to understand the reasoning of a military man. They talked with simplicity and
directness. Father Romàn was saddened at the idea of his flock being scattered
or else enslaved. He had no illusions as to their fate, not from penetration,
but from long experience of political atrocities, which seemed to him fatal and
unavoidable in the life of a State. The working of the usual public institutions
presented itself to him most distinctly as a series of calamities overtaking
private individuals and flowing logically from each other through hate, revenge,
folly, and rapacity, as though they had been part of a divine dispensation.
Father Romàn's clear-sightedness was served by an uninformed intelligence; but
his heart, preserving its tenderness amongst scenes of carnage, spoliation, and
violence, abhorred these calamities the more as his association with the victims
was closer. He entertained towards the Indians of the valley feelings of
paternal scorn. He had been marrying, baptizing, confessing, absolving, and
burying the workers of the San Tomé mine with dignity and unction for five years
or more; and he believed in the sacredness of these ministrations, which made
them his own in a spiritual sense. They were dear to his sacerdotal supremacy.
Mrs. Gould's earnest interest in the concerns of these people enhanced their
importance in the priest's eyes, because it really augmented his own. When
talking over with her the innumerable Marias and Brigidas of the villages, he
felt his own humanity expand. Padre Romàn was incapable of fanaticism to an
almost reprehensible degree. The English señora was evidently a heretic; but at
the same time she seemed to him wonderful and angelic. Whenever that confused
state of his feelings occurred to him, while strolling, for instance, his
breviary under his arm, in the wide shade of the tamarind, he would stop short
to inhale with a strong snuffling noise a large quantity of snuff, and shake his
head profoundly. At the thought of what might befall the illustrious señora
presently, he