meant to make Barrios issue from his headquarters

at Cayta, as soon as he got there, passed through his mind; the very germ of the new state, the Separation- roclamation which he had tried before he left to hurriedly to Don Jose stretched out on his bed under the fixed gaze of his daughter. God knows whether the old statesman had understood it; he was unuble to speak, but he had certainly lifted his arm off the coverlet; his hand had moved as if to make the sign of the cross in the air, a gesture of bless- ing, of consent. Decoud had that very draft in his pocket, written in pencil on several loose sheets of paper, with the heavily printed heading. "Adminis- tration of the San Tomd Silver Mine. Sulaco. Re- public of Costaguana." He had written it furiously, snatching page after page on Charles Gould's table. Mrs. Gould had looked several times over his shoulder as he wrote; but the Seflor Administrador, standing strai Idle-legged, would not even glance at it when it was finished. He had waved it away firmly. It must have been scorn, and not caution, since he never made a remark about the use of the administration's paper for such a compromising document. And that showed lisdain, the true English disdain of common pru- dence, as if everything outside the range of their own thoughts and feelings were unworthy of serious recog- nition. Decoud had the time in a second or two to become furiously angry with Charles Gould, and even resentful against Mrs. Gould, in whose care, tacitly it is true, he had left the safety of Antonia. Better per- i thousand times than owe your preservation to

such people, he exclaimed mentally. The grip of