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

sitting, the remnant of the vanished Provincial Assembly.Don Juste Lopez had had half his beard singed off at themuzzle of a trabuco loaded with slugs, of which every onemissed him, providentially. And as he turned his head fromside to side it was exactly as if there had been two men insidehis frock-coat, one nobly whiskered and solemn, theother untidy and scared.‘They raised a cry of ‘Decoud! Don Martin!’ at my entrance.I asked them, ‘What are you deliberating upon,gentlemen?’ There did not seem to be any president, thoughDon Jose Avellanos sat at the head of the table. They all answeredtogether, ‘On the preservation of life and property.’‘Till the new officials arrive,’ Don Juste explained to me,with the solemn side of his face offered to my view. It was asif a stream of water had been poured upon my glowing ideaof a new State. There was a hissing sound in my ears, andthe room grew dim, as if suddenly filled with vapour.‘I walked up to the table blindly, as though I had beendrunk. ‘You are deliberating upon surrender,’ I said. Theyall sat still, with their noses over the sheet of paper each hadbefore him, God only knows why. Only Don Jose hid hisface in his hands, muttering, ‘Never, never!’ But as I lookedat him, it seemed to me that I could have blown him awaywith my breath, he looked so frail, so weak, so worn out.Whatever happens, he will not survive. The deception istoo great for a man of his age; and hasn’t he seen the sheetsof ‘Fifty Years of Misrule,’ which we have begun printingon the presses of the Porvenir, littering the Plaza, floatingin the gutters, fired out as wads for trabucos loaded with