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

ivers. And it was not mere boastfulness that prompted thegeneral’s reminiscences, but a genuine love of that wild lifewhich he had led in his young days before he turned hisback for ever on the thatched roof of the parental tolderia inthe woods. Wandering away as far as Mexico he had foughtagainst the French by the side (as he said) of Juarez, and wasthe only military man of Costaguana who had ever encounteredEuropean troops in the field. That fact shed a greatlustre upon his name till it became eclipsed by the risingstar of Montero. All his life he had been an inveterate gambler.He alluded himself quite openly to the current storyhow once, during some campaign (when in command of abrigade), he had gambled away his horses, pistols, and accoutrements,to the very epaulettes, playing monte with hiscolonels the night before the battle. Finally, he had sent underescort his sword (a presentation sword, with a gold hilt)to the town in the rear of his position to be immediatelypledged for five hundred pesetas with a sleepy and frightenedshop-keeper. By daybreak he had lost the last of thatmoney, too, when his only remark, as he rose calmly, was,‘Now let us go and fight to the death.’ From that time hehad become aware that a general could lead his troops intobattle very well with a simple stick in his hand. ‘It has beenmy custom ever since,’ he would say.He was always overwhelmed with debts; even duringthe periods of splendour in his varied fortunes of a Costaguanageneral, when he held high military commands, hisgold-laced uniforms were almost always in pawn with sometradesman. And at last, to avoid the incessant difficulties of