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

Captain Mitchell stopped for a while.‘Begad, sir! I could spin you a yarn for hours. But it’stime we started off to Rincon. It would not do for you topass through Sulaco and not see the lights of the San Tomemine, a whole mountain ablaze like a lighted palace abovethe dark Campo. It’s a fashionable drive…. But let me tellyou one little anecdote, sir; just to show you. A fortnight ormore later, when Barrios, declared Generalissimo, was gonein pursuit of Pedrito away south, when the Provisional Junta,with Don Juste Lopez at its head, had promulgated the newConstitution, and our Don Carlos Gould was packing uphis trunks bound on a mission to San Francisco and Washington(the United States, sir, were the first great power torecognize the Occidental Republic)—a fortnight later, I say,when we were beginning to feel that our heads were safeon our shoulders, if I may express myself so, a prominentman, a large shipper by our line, came to see me on business,and, says he, the first thing: ‘I say, Captain Mitchell, isthat fellow’ (meaning Nostromo) ‘still the Capataz of yourCargadores or not?’ ‘What’s the matter?’ says I. ‘Because, ifhe is, then I don’t mind; I send and receive a good lot ofcargo by your ships; but I have observed him several daysloafing about the wharf, and just now he stopped me as coolas you please, with a request for a cigar. Now, you know, mycigars are rather special, and I can’t get them so easily as allthat.’ ‘I hope you stretched a point,’ I said, very gently. ‘Why,yes. But it’s a confounded nuisance. The fellow’s everlastinglycadging for smokes.’ Sir, I turned my eyes away, andthen asked, ‘Weren’t you one of the prisoners in the Cabil-