This chapter opens with a quick sketch of the Monterist war, then plunges into a flashback to pre-Ribierist times, which shows Don Jose Avellanos, Charles Gould and finally Holroyd scheming to put Ribiera into power. The effect is to undermine the account of Ribiera's triumph, and with it all the optimism of the Unification movement that dominated the end of Part One. This chapter has a newly cynical flavor, with passages on the barbarities of Guzman Bento and the corrupt intrigues of Gould and Avellanos, signaling that the novel has started to turn a more jaundiced eye toward Unification movements.