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

the hammock. With less confidence, but as ignorant as hisflock, he asked the major what did he think was going tohappen now.Don Pepe, bolt upright in the chair, folded his handspeacefully on the hilt of his sword, standing perpendicularbetween his thighs, and answered that he did not know.The mine could be defended against any force likely to besent to take possession. On the other hand, from the aridcharacter of the valley, when the regular supplies from theCampo had been cut off, the population of the three villagescould be starved into submission. Don Pepe exposedthese contingencies with serenity to Father Roman, who, asan old campaigner, was able to understand the reasoningof a military man. They talked with simplicity and directness.Father Roman was saddened at the idea of his flockbeing scattered or else enslaved. He had no illusions as totheir fate, not from penetration, but from long experienceof political atrocities, which seemed to him fatal and unavoidablein the life of a State. The working of the usualpublic institutions presented itself to him most distinctlyas a series of calamities overtaking private individuals andflowing logically from each other through hate, revenge,folly, and rapacity, as though they had been part of a divinedispensation. Father Roman’s clear-sightedness was servedby an uninformed intelligence; but his heart, preserving itstenderness amongst scenes of carnage, spoliation, and violence,abhorred these calamities the more as his associationwith the victims was closer. He entertained towards the Indiansof the valley feelings of paternal scorn. He had been