This chapter, following directly on the previous one, continues the action in the beseiged Sulaco, as Dr. Monygham treats with Sotillo and a stream of refugees makes a vividly described flight to the safety of the woods. Amidst the anarchy and panic, meanwhile, hasty preparations are made to bring Decoud's Occidental Republic into existence.

A large part of the chapter is taken up by Hernandez' emissary, a character we never see again, speaking for a character we barely see at all. We watch his arrival in town, and follow a long, broken conversation he has with Charles Gould concerning payment for his bandits-turned-soldiers. At first glance these sections seem mere belabored plot detail, establishing Hernandez' army which will help in the (offstage) victory of the Occidental Republic to come. But there is a deeper political meaning at work here. Hernandez represents theft in the name of justice, i.e., socialist equality. It is fitting that he becomes one cornerstone of the Occidental Republic: Conrad is here sketching the moral outlines of the modern world. In the cloaked dialogue that ends the chapter, we see Charles Gould surrender the moral leadership of the material interests (retaining, of course, their financial power), which passes to socialism and religion in the persons of Hernandez and Father Corbelan. The implication is that in the modern world, if there is any idealistic promise for mankind in material progress, it is located in the material and spiritual aspirations of the workers.