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

emaining open so late because of the steamer. Nearly—butnot quite.‘Ten o’clock. Your ship won’t be ready to leave till halfpasttwelve, if by then. Come in for a brandy-and-soda andone more cigar.’And in the superintendent’s private room the privilegedpassenger by the Ceres, or Juno, or Pallas, stunned and asit were annihilated mentally by a sudden surfeit of sights,sounds, names, facts, and complicated information imperfectlyapprehended, would listen like a tired child to a fairytale; would hear a voice, familiar and surprising in its pompousness,tell him, as if from another world, how there was‘in this very harbour’ an international naval demonstration,which put an end to the Costaguana-Sulaco War. How theUnited States cruiser, Powhattan, was the first to salute theOccidental flag—white, with a wreath of green laurel in themiddle encircling a yellow amarilla flower. Would hear howGeneral Montero, in less than a month after proclaiminghimself Emperor of Costaguana, was shot dead (during asolemn and public distribution of orders and crosses) by ayoung artillery officer, the brother of his then mistress.‘The abominable Pedrito, sir, fled the country,’ the voicewould say. And it would continue: ‘A captain of one of ourships told me lately that he recognized Pedrito the Guerrillero,arrayed in purple slippers and a velvet smoking-capwith a gold tassel, keeping a disorderly house in one of thesouthern ports.’‘Abominable Pedrito! Who the devil was he?’ wouldwonder the distinguished bird of passage hovering on the