CHAPTER TWO
After another armed struggle, decided by Montero's victory of Rio Seco,
had been added to the tale of civil wars, the "honest men," as Don Jose
called them, could breathe freely for the first time in half a century.
The Five-Year-Mandate law became the basis of that regeneration,
the passionate desire and hope for which had been like the elixir of
everlasting youth for Don Jose Avellanos.
And when it was suddenly--and not quite unexpectedly--endangered by that
"brute Montero," it was a passionate indignation that gave him a
new lease of life, as it were. Already, at the time of the
President-Dictator's visit to Sulaco, Moraga had sounded a note of
warning from Sta. Marta about the War Minister. Montero and his brother
made the subject of an earnest talk between the Dictator-President
and the Nestor-inspirer of the party. But Don Vincente, a doctor of
philosophy from the Cordova University, seemed to have an exaggerated
respect for military ability, whose mysteriousness--since it appeared
to be altogether independent of intellect--imposed upon his imagination.
The victor of Rio Seco was a popular hero. His services were so recent
that the President-Dictator quailed before the obvious charge of
political ingratitude. Great regenerating transactions were being
initiated--the fresh loan, a new railway line, a vast colonization
scheme. Anything that could unsettle the public opinion in the capital
was to be avoided. Don Jose bowed to these arguments and tried to
dismiss from his mind the gold-laced portent in boots, and with a sabre,
made meaningless now at last, he hoped, in the new order of things.
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