Page 224 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

for reparation from a penitent country. The political Gefe
had been exasperated. But he could not very well throw the
brother-in-law of Don Jose into the prison of the Cabildo.
The chief magistrate, an easy-going and popular official,
visited the Casa Gould, walking over after sunset from the
Intendencia, unattended, acknowledging with dignified
courtesy the salutations of high and low alike. That eve-
ning he had walked up straight to Charles Gould and had
hissed out to him that he would have liked to deport the
Grand Vicar out of Sulaco, anywhere, to some desert island,
to the Isabels, for instance. ‘The one without water prefer-
ably—eh, Don Carlos?’ he had added in a tone between jest
and earnest. This uncontrollable priest, who had rejected
his offer of the episcopal palace for a residence and pre-
ferred to hang his shabby hammock amongst the rubble
and spiders of the sequestrated Dominican Convent, had
taken into his head to advocate an unconditional pardon
for Hernandez the Robber! And this was not enough; he
seemed to have entered into communication with the most
audacious criminal the country had known for years. The
Sulaco police knew, of course, what was going on. Padre
Corbelan had got hold of that reckless Italian, the Capataz
de Cargadores, the only man fit for such an errand, and had
sent a message through him. Father Corbelan had studied
in Rome, and could speak Italian. The Capataz was known
to visit the old Dominican Convent at night. An old woman
who served the Grand Vicar had heard the name of Her-
nandez pronounced; and only last Saturday afternoon the
Capataz had been observed galloping out of town. He did