Page 214 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

have ploughed the sea.’ He did not care, he declared bold-
ly; he seized every opportunity to tell her that though she
had managed to make a Blanco journalist of him, he was
no patriot. First of all, the word had no sense for cultured
minds, to whom the narrowness of every belief is odious;
and secondly, in connection with the everlasting troubles of
this unhappy country it was hopelessly besmirched; it had
been the cry of dark barbarism, the cloak of lawlessness, of
crimes, of rapacity, of simple thieving.
He was surprised at the warmth of his own utterance. He
had no need to drop his voice; it had been low all the time, a
mere murmur in the silence of dark houses with their shut-
ters closed early against the night air, as is the custom of
Sulaco. Only the sala of the Casa Gould flung out defiantly
the blaze of its four windows, the bright appeal of light in
the whole dumb obscurity of the street. And the murmur
on the little balcony went on after a short pause.
‘But we are labouring to change all that,’ Antonia protest-
ed. ‘It is exactly what we desire. It is our object. It is the great
cause. And the word you despise has stood also for sacrifice,
for courage, for constancy, for suffering. Papa, who—‘
‘Ploughing the sea,’ interrupted Decoud, looking down.
There was below the sound of hasty and ponderous foot-
steps.
‘Your uncle, the grand-vicar of the cathedral, has just
turned under the gate,’ observed Decoud. ‘He said Mass for
the troops in the Plaza this morning. They had built for him
an altar of drums, you know. And they brought outside all
the painted blocks to take the air. All the wooden saints

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