This chapter, which concludes Part One, follows the San Tomé mine up to the height of its power in Costaguana: the installation of its own government in the person of Ribiera. The description of the society at the mine, the doctrine of "Imperium in Imperio," and a consistent strain of thematic imagery make it explicit that we are witnessing (in essence) the growth of a new State as a unifying force. The sense is optimistic, and we thrill to the first sight of the silver, to Charles Gould hearing the sound of the stamps from afar, and especially to the first ride of the silver down to Sulaco. But Unification, as we have seen throughout Part One, is made possible only by suppressing or ignoring the underlying divisions between subjective, opposing individuals. The same tension of misunderstanding that underlies the Goulds' union now underlies a political unity, and the same portents of division arise, in this case via the figure of Montero. Our faith in Ribiera as a leader is checked, of course, by our foreknowledge of his downfall, and our faith in leadership is checked on the literary level too, when we suddenly learn that the narrator, who has been pretending to omniscience, is really a subjective character who has received much of his story by hearsay.

The chapter concludes with a brilliant disguised parable which pits Nostromo (the People) against a feisty, demanding lover (the Ruler), illustrating the psychology of the ruler-subject relationship that drives the mighty dream-ideals of politics and progress.