Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART THIRD: THE LIGHTHOUSE 3. CHAPTER THREE (continued)

In his message the Vicar-General answered upon his head for
Hernandez's fidelity. As to his power, he pointed out that he had
remained unsubdued for so many years. In that letter Decoud's
idea of the new Occidental State (whose flourishing and stable
condition is a matter of common knowledge now) was for the first
time made public and used as an argument. Hernandez, ex-bandit
and the last general of Ribierist creation, was confident of
being able to hold the tract of country between the woods of Los
Hatos and the coast range till that devoted patriot, Don Martin
Decoud, could bring General Barrios back to Sulaco for the
reconquest of the town.

"Heaven itself wills it. Providence is on our side," wrote Father
Corbelan; there was no time to reflect upon or to controvert his
statement; and if the discussion started upon the reading of that
letter in the Amarilla Club was violent, it was also shortlived.
In the general bewilderment of the collapse some jumped at the
idea with joyful astonishment as upon the amazing discovery of a
new hope. Others became fascinated by the prospect of immediate
personal safety for their women and children. The majority caught
at it as a drowning man catches at a straw. Father Corbelan was
unexpectedly offering them a refuge from Pedrito Montero with his
llaneros allied to Senores Fuentes and Gamacho with their armed
rabble.

All the latter part of the afternoon an animated discussion went
on in the big rooms of the Amarilla Club. Even those members
posted at the windows with rifles and carbines to guard the end
of the street in case of an offensive return of the populace
shouted their opinions and arguments over their shoulders. As
dusk fell Don Juste Lopez, inviting those caballeros who were of
his way of thinking to follow him, withdrew into the corredor,
where at a little table in the light of two candles he busied
himself in composing an address, or rather a solemn declaration
to be presented to Pedrito Montero by a deputation of such
members of Assembly as had elected to remain in town. His idea
was to propitiate him in order to save the form at least of
parliamentary institutions. Seated before a blank sheet of paper,
a goose-quill pen in his hand and surged upon from all sides, he
turned to the right and to the left, repeating with solemn
insistence--