Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART THIRD: THE LIGHTHOUSE 10. CHAPTER TEN (continued)

"He was preparing to hang Dr. Monygham (whom he had on board) at
the end of the after-derrick, when the first of Barrios's
transports, one of our own ships at that, steamed right in, and
ranging close alongside opened a small-arm fire without as much
preliminaries as a hail. It was the completest surprise in the
world, sir. They were too astounded at first to bolt below. Men
were falling right and left like ninepins. It's a miracle that
Monygham, standing on the after-hatch with the rope already round
his neck, escaped being riddled through and through like a sieve.
He told me since that he had given himself up for lost, and kept
on yelling with all the strength of his lungs: 'Hoist a white
flag! Hoist a white flag!' Suddenly an old major of the Esmeralda
regiment, standing by, unsheathed his sword with a shriek: 'Die,
perjured traitor!' and ran Sotillo clean through the body, just
before he fell himself shot through the head."

Captain Mitchell stopped for a while.

"Begad, sir! I could spin you a yarn for hours. But it's time we
started off to Rincon. It would not do for you to pass through
Sulaco and not see the lights of the San Tome mine, a whole
mountain ablaze like a lighted palace above the dark Campo. It's
a fashionable drive. . . . But let me tell you one little
anecdote, sir; just to show you. A fortnight or more later, when
Barrios, declared Generalissimo, was gone in pursuit of Pedrito
away south, when the Provisional Junta, with Don Juste Lopez at
its head, had promulgated the new Constitution, and our Don
Carlos Gould was packing up his trunks bound on a mission to San
Francisco and Washington (the United States, sir, were the first
great power to recognize the Occidental Republic)--a fortnight
later, I say, when we were beginning to feel that our heads were
safe on our shoulders, if I may express myself so, a prominent
man, a large shipper by our line, came to see me on business,
and, says he, the first thing: 'I say, Captain Mitchell, is that
fellow' (meaning Nostromo) 'still the Capataz of your Cargadores
or not?' 'What's the matter?' says I. 'Because, if he is, then I
don't mind; I send and receive a good lot of cargo by your ships;
but I have observed him several days loafing about the wharf, and
just now he stopped me as cool as you please, with a request for
a cigar. Now, you know, my cigars are rather special, and I can't
get them so easily as all that.' 'I hope you stretched a point,'
I said, very gently. 'Why, yes. But it's a confounded nuisance.
The fellow's everlastingly cadging for smokes.' Sir, I turned my
eyes away, and then asked, 'Weren't you one of the prisoners in
the Cabildo?' 'You know very well I was, and in chains, too,'
says he. 'And under a fine of fifteen thousand dollars?' He
coloured, sir, because it got about that he fainted from fright
when they came to arrest him, and then behaved before Fuentes in
a manner to make the very policianos, who had dragged him there
by the hair of his head, smile at his cringing. 'Yes,' he says,
in a sort of shy way. 'Why?' 'Oh, nothing. You stood to lose a
tidy bit,' says I, 'even if you saved your life. . . . But what
can I do for you?' He never even saw the point. Not he. And
that's how the world wags, sir."