Nostromo - A Tale of the Seaboard.pdf - Planet eBook

hush Mrs. Gould.‘General Montero is going to speak,’ he whispered, andalmost immediately added, in comic alarm, ‘Heavens! he’sgoing to propose my own health, I believe.’General Montero had risen with a jingle of steel scabbardand a ripple of glitter on his gold-embroidered breast;a heavy sword-hilt appeared at his side above the edge ofthe table. In this gorgeous uniform, with his bull neck, hishooked nose flattened on the tip upon a blue-black, dyedmoustache, he looked like a disguised and sinister vaquero.The drone of his voice had a strangely rasping, soulless ring.He floundered, lowering, through a few vague sentences;then suddenly raising his big head and his voice together,burst out harshly—‘The honour of the country is in the hands of the army.I assure you I shall be faithful to it.’ He hesitated till hisroaming eyes met Sir John’s face upon which he fixed a lurid,sleepy glance; and the figure of the lately negotiated loancame into his mind. He lifted his glass. ‘I drink to the healthof the man who brings us a million and a half of pounds.’He tossed off his champagne, and sat down heavily witha half-surprised, half-bullying look all round the faces inthe profound, as if appalled, silence which succeeded thefelicitous toast. Sir John did not move.‘I don’t think I am called upon to rise,’ he murmured toMrs. Gould. ‘That sort of thing speaks for itself.’ But DonJose Avellanos came to the rescue with a short oration, inwhich he alluded pointedly to England’s goodwill towardsCostaguana—‘a goodwill,’ he continued, significantly, ‘of