Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART FIRST: THE SILVER OF THE MINE 2. CHAPTER TWO (continued)

Early on the morning of that day the local authorities of Sulaco
had fled for refuge to the O.S.N. Company's offices, a strong
building near the shore end of the jetty, leaving the town to the
mercies of a revolutionary rabble; and as the Dictator was
execrated by the populace on account of the severe recruitment
law his necessities had compelled him to enforce during the
struggle, he stood a good chance of being torn to pieces.
Providentially, Nostromo--invaluable fellow--with some Italian
workmen, imported to work upon the National Central Railway, was
at hand, and managed to snatch him away--for the time at least.
Ultimately, Captain Mitchell succeeded in taking everybody off in
his own gig to one of the Company's steamers--it was the
Minerva--just then, as luck would have it, entering the harbour.

He had to lower these gentlemen at the end of a rope out of a
hole in the wall at the back, while the mob which, pouring out of
the town, had spread itself all along the shore, howled and
foamed at the foot of the building in front. He had to hurry them
then the whole length of the jetty; it had been a desperate dash,
neck or nothing--and again it was Nostromo, a fellow in a
thousand, who, at the head, this time, of the Company's body of
lightermen, held the jetty against the rushes of the rabble, thus
giving the fugitives time to reach the gig lying ready for them
at the other end with the Company's flag at the stern. Sticks,
stones, shots flew; knives, too, were thrown. Captain Mitchell
exhibited willingly the long cicatrice of a cut over his left ear
and temple, made by a razor-blade fastened to a stick--a weapon,
he explained, very much in favour with the "worst kind of nigger
out here."

Captain Mitchell was a thick, elderly man, wearing high, pointed
collars and short side-whiskers, partial to white waistcoats, and
really very communicative under his air of pompous reserve.