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

passing into light banter, ‘that Montero, should he be successful,would get even with me in the only way such a brutecan get even with a man of intelligence who condescends tocall him a gran’ bestia three times a week. It’s a sort of intellectualdeath; but there is the other one in the backgroundfor a journalist of my ability.’‘If he is successful!’ said Antonia, thoughtfully.‘You seem satisfied to see my life hang on a thread,’ Decoudreplied, with a broad smile. ‘And the other Montero,the ‘my trusted brother’ of the proclamations, the guerrillero—haven’tI written that he was taking the guests’overcoats and changing plates in Paris at our Legation inthe intervals of spying on our refugees there, in the time ofRojas? He will wash out that sacred truth in blood. In myblood! Why do you look annoyed? This is simply a bit ofthe biography of one of our great men. What do you thinkhe will do to me? There is a certain convent wall round thecorner of the Plaza, opposite the door of the Bull Ring. Youknow? Opposite the door with the inscription, Intrada dela Sombra.’ Appropriate, perhaps! That’s where the uncleof our host gave up his Anglo-South-American soul. And,note, he might have run away. A man who has fought withweapons may run away. You might have let me go with Barriosif you had cared for me. I would have carried one ofthose rifles, in which Don Jose believes, with the greatestsatisfaction, in the ranks of poor peons and Indios, thatknow nothing either of reason or politics. The most forlornhope in the most forlorn army on earth would have beensafer than that for which you made me stay here. When you