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

do no harm. And it was quite possible, also, that the rumourwas false.‘You have some sort of a plan,’ she said.‘Simplicity itself. Barrios has started, let him go on then;he will hold Cayta, which is the door of the sea route toSulaco. They cannot send a sufficient force over the mountains.No; not even to cope with the band of Hernandez.Meantime we shall organize our resistance here. And forthat, this very Hernandez will be useful. He has defeatedtroops as a bandit; he will no doubt accomplish the samething if he is made a colonel or even a general. You know thecountry well enough not to be shocked by what I say, Mrs.Gould. I have heard you assert that this poor bandit was theliving,breathing example of cruelty, injustice, stupidity, andoppression, that ruin men’s souls as well as their fortunes inthis country. Well, there would be some poetical retributionin that man arising to crush the evils which had driven anhonest ranchero into a life of crime. A fine idea of retributionin that, isn’t there?’Decoud had dropped easily into English, which he spokewith precision, very correctly, but with too many z sounds.‘Think also of your hospitals, of your schools, of yourailing mothers and feeble old men, of all that populationwhich you and your husband have brought into the rockygorge of San Tome. Are you not responsible to your consciencefor all these people? Is it not worth while to makeanother effort, which is not at all so desperate as it looks,rather than—‘Decoud finished his thought with an upward toss of the