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

for that, senor?’ Then it dawned upon me that perhaps thisman’s vanity has been satiated by the adulation of the commonpeople and the confidence of his superiors!’Decoud paused to light a cigarette, then, with his headstill over his writing, he blew a cloud of smoke, whichseemed to rebound from the paper. He took up the pencilagain.‘That was yesterday evening on the Plaza, while he saton the steps of the cathedral, his hands between his knees,holding the bridle of his famous silver-grey mare. He hadled his body of Cargadores splendidly all day long. Helooked fatigued. I don’t know how I looked. Very dirty, Isuppose. But I suppose I also looked pleased. From the timethe fugitive President had been got off to the S. S. Minerva,the tide of success had turned against the mob. They hadbeen driven off the harbour, and out of the better streets ofthe town, into their own maze of ruins and tolderias. Youmust understand that this riot, whose primary object wasundoubtedly the getting hold of the San Tome silver storedin the lower rooms of the Custom House (besides the generallooting of the Ricos), had acquired a political colouringfrom the fact of two Deputies to the Provincial Assembly,Senores Gamacho and Fuentes, both from Bolson, puttingthemselves at the head of it—late in the afternoon, it is true,when the mob, disappointed in their hopes of loot, madea stand in the narrow streets to the cries of ‘Viva la Libertad!Down with Feudalism!’ (I wonder what they imaginefeudalism to be?) ‘Down with the Goths and Paralytics.’ Isuppose the Senores Gamacho and Fuentes knew what they