Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART THIRD: THE LIGHTHOUSE 5. CHAPTER FIVE (continued)

Upstairs Pedrito Montero walked about rapidly from one wrecked
room of the Intendencia to another, snarling incessantly--

"What stupidity! What destruction!"

Senor Fuentes, following, would relax his taciturn disposition to
murmur--

"It is all the work of Gamacho and his Nationals;" and then,
inclining his head on his left shoulder, would press together his
lips so firmly that a little hollow would appear at each corner.
He had his nomination for Political Chief of the town in his
pocket, and was all impatience to enter upon his functions.

In the long audience room, with its tall mirrors all starred by
stones, the hangings torn down and the canopy over the platform
at the upper end pulled to pieces, the vast, deep muttering of
the crowd and the howling voice of Gamacho speaking just below
reached them through the shutters as they stood idly in dimness
and desolation.

"The brute!" observed his Excellency Don Pedro Montero through
clenched teeth. "We must contrive as quickly as possible to send
him and his Nationals out there to fight Hernandez."

The new Gefe Politico only jerked his head sideways, and took a
puff at his cigarette in sign of his agreement with this method
for ridding the town of Gamacho and his inconvenient rabble.

Pedrito Montero looked with disgust at the absolutely bare floor,
and at the belt of heavy gilt picture-frames running round the
room, out of which the remnants of torn and slashed canvases
fluttered like dingy rags.

"We are not barbarians," he said.

This was what said his Excellency, the popular Pedrito, the
guerrillero skilled in the art of laying ambushes, charged by his
brother at his own demand with the organization of Sulaco on
democratic principles. The night before, during the consultation
with his partisans, who had come out to meet him in Rincon, he
had opened his intentions to Senor Fuentes--

"We shall organize a popular vote, by yes or no, confiding the
destinies of our beloved country to the wisdom and valiance of my
heroic brother, the invincible general. A plebiscite. Do you
understand?"