Bedient’s sense of loneliness became pervasive.  Apparently he was outside the range of consciousness—­for better or worse—­with the country to which he had always hoped to give his best years.  His ideals of the literary art were founded upon large flexible lines of beauty into which every dimension of life fell according to the reader’s vision.  He felt himself alone; that he was out of alignment with this young race from which he had sprung, to wander so far and so long.

And yet there was a Woman up there for him to know.  This was imbedded in his consciousness.  Soon he should go to her....  He should find her.  And as the Hindu poets falteringly called upon the lotos and the nectars; upon the brilliance of midday athwart the plain, and the glory of moonlight upon mountain and glacier and the standing water of foliaged pools; upon the seas at large, and the stars and the bees and the gods—­to express the triune loveliness of woman (which mere man may only venture to appraise, not to know)—­so should he, Bedient, envision the reality when the winds of the world brought him home to her heart.

* * * * *

There was much to do at the hacienda.  The Captain was past riding a great deal, and the large hill and river property—­the coffee, cacao, cotton, cane and tobacco industries profited much better with an overseer.  Still Bedient slowly realized that the hundreds of natives in touch with Captain Carreras’ plantations worked about as well for him as they knew.  Single-handed, Carreras had done great things, and was loved as a good doctor is loved.  In spite of his huge accumulation of land, the Captain was the least greedy of men.  He had been content to improve slowly.  His incalculable riches, as he had early confided to Bedient, were in the river-beds.  Only a few of these placer possibilities were operated.  There was a big leak in the washings.  Still, the natives were not greedy, either.  They were home-keepers, and had no way to dispose of bullion.

Carreras had managed all his affairs so as to keep the government on his side, and his revenues were no little part of the support of the Capitol.  This was his largest outlay, but in return he was protected....  Deep disorder brooded in the present political silence; all recalcitrants were gathering under Celestino Rey—­but this situation was only beginning to be understood.

At certain times of year, Carreras had in his employ the heads of five hundred families, and had shown himself unique in paying money for labor.  This was un-Spanish.  It gave him the choice of the natives.  He represented therefore a stable and prosperous element of the population.  His revenues were becoming enormous.  The Hollanders paid him a fortune annually for raw chocolate.  This, with tree-planting and culture, would double, for the soil seemed to contain the miraculous properties of alkahest.  The point of all this is, that Captain Carreras had come to be regarded as the right wing of the government.  He arranged all his dealings on a friendly rather than a business basis; his good-will was his best protection....  Bedient had been in Equatoria for several months when Jaffier sent for the Captain.