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

a man of culture and ability, seemed, without official position,to possess an extraordinary influence in the highestGovernment spheres. He was able to assure Sir John thatthe President-Dictator would make the journey. He regretted,however, in the course of the same conversation, thatGeneral Montero insisted upon going, too.General Montero, whom the beginning of the strugglehad found an obscure army captain employed on the wildeastern frontier of the State, had thrown in his lot with theRibiera party at a moment when special circumstances hadgiven that small adhesion a fortuitous importance. The fortunesof war served him marvellously, and the victory ofRio Seco (after a day of desperate fighting) put a seal to hissuccess. At the end he emerged General, Minister of War,and the military head of the Blanco party, although therewas nothing aristocratic in his descent. Indeed, it was saidthat he and his brother, orphans, had been brought up bythe munificence of a famous European traveller, in whoseservice their father had lost his life. Another story was thattheir father had been nothing but a charcoal burner in thewoods, and their mother a baptised Indian woman fromthe far interior.However that might be, the Costaguana Press was inthe habit of styling Montero’s forest march from his commandanciato join the Blanco forces at the beginning of thetroubles, the ‘most heroic military exploit of modern times.’About the same time, too, his brother had turned up fromEurope, where he had gone apparently as secretary to a consul.Having, however, collected a small band of outlaws, he