The authorities of Sulaco had learned that the San Tome mine could make it worth their while to leave things and people alone.

This was the nearest approach to the rule of common-sense and justice Charles Gould felt it possible to secure at first.

In fact, the mine, with its organization, its population growing fiercely attached to their position of privileged safety, with its armoury, with its Don Pepe, with its armed body of serenos (where, it was said, many an outlaw and deserter--and even some members of Hernandez's band--had found a place), the mine was a power in the land.

As a certain prominent man in Sta.

Marta had exclaimed with a hollow laugh, once, when discussing the line of action taken by the Sulaco authorities at a time of political crisis-- "You call these men Government officials?
They?
Never! They are officials of the mine--officials of the Concession--I tell you." The prominent man (who was then a person in power, with a lemon-coloured face and a very short and curly, not to say woolly, head of hair) went so far in his temporary discontent as to shake his yellow fist under the nose of his interlocutor, and shriek-- "Yes! All! Silence! All! I tell you! The political Gefe, the chief of the police, the chief of the customs, the general, all, all, are the officials of that Gould." Thereupon an intrepid but low and argumentative murmur would flow on for a space in the ministerial cabinet, and the prominent man's passion would end in a cynical shrug of the shoulders.