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

ing half a hundred-weight of sand. Sheets of grey coarseofficial paper bestrewed the floor. It must have been a roomoccupied by some higher official of the Customs, because alarge leathern armchair stood behind the table, with otherhigh-backed chairs scattered about. A net hammock wasswung under one of the beams—for the official’s afternoonsiesta, no doubt. A couple of candles stuck into talliron candlesticks gave a dim reddish light. The colonel’shat, sword, and revolver lay between them, and a couple ofhis more trusty officers lounged gloomily against the table.The colonel threw himself into the armchair, and a big negrowith a sergeant’s stripes on his ragged sleeve, kneelingdown, pulled off his boots. Sotillo’s ebony moustache contrastedviolently with the livid colouring of his cheeks. Hiseyes were sombre and as if sunk very far into his head. Heseemed exhausted by his perplexities, languid with disappointment;but when the sentry on the landing thrust hishead in to announce the arrival of a prisoner, he revivedat once.‘Let him be brought in,’ he shouted, fiercely.The door flew open, and Captain Mitchell, bareheaded,his waistcoat open, the bow of his tie under his ear, washustled into the room.Sotillo recognized him at once. He could not have hopedfor a more precious capture; here was a man who could tellhim, if he chose, everything he wished to know—and directlythe problem of how best to make him talk to the pointpresented itself to his mind. The resentment of a foreignnation had no terrors for Sotillo. The might of the whole