Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

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

The morning was wearing on; there were already signs of
disruption, currents and eddies in the crowd. Some were seeking
the shade of the walls and under the trees of the Alameda.
Horsemen spurred through, shouting; groups of sombreros set level
on heads against the vertical sun were drifting away into the
streets, where the open doors of pulperias revealed an enticing
gloom resounding with the gentle tinkling of guitars. The
National Guards were thinking of siesta, and the eloquence of
Gamacho, their chief, was exhausted. Later on, when, in the
cooler hours of the afternoon, they tried to assemble again for
further consideration of public affairs, detachments of Montero's
cavalry camped on the Alameda charged them without parley, at
speed, with long lances levelled at their flying backs as far as
the ends of the streets. The National Guards of Sulaco were
surprised by this proceeding. But they were not indignant. No
Costaguanero had ever learned to question the eccentricities of a
military force. They were part of the natural order of things.
This must be, they concluded, some kind of administrative
measure, no doubt. But the motive of it escaped their unaided
intelligence, and their chief and orator, Gamacho, Commandante of
the National Guard, was lying drunk and asleep in the bosom of
his family. His bare feet were upturned in the shadows
repulsively, in the manner of a corpse. His eloquent mouth had
dropped open. His youngest daughter, scratching her head with one
hand, with the other waved a green bough over his scorched and
peeling face.