Page 256 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

death. That man seems to have a particular talent for being
on the spot whenever there is something picturesque to be
done.
‘He was with me at four o’clock in the morning at the
offices of the Porvenir, where he had turned up so early in
order to warn me of the coming trouble, and also to assure
me that he would keep his Cargadores on the side of order.
When the full daylight came we were looking together at
the crowd on foot and on horseback, demonstrating on the
Plaza and shying stones at the windows of the Intenden-
cia. Nostromo (that is the name they call him by here) was
pointing out to me his Cargadores interspersed in the mob.
‘The sun shines late upon Sulaco, for it has first to climb
above the mountains. In that clear morning light, brighter
than twilight, Nostromo saw right across the vast Plaza, at
the end of the street beyond the cathedral, a mounted man
apparently in difficulties with a yelling knot of leperos. At
once he said to me, ‘That’s a stranger. What is it they are do-
ing to him?’ Then he took out the silver whistle he is in the
habit of using on the wharf (this man seems to disdain the
use of any metal less precious than silver) and blew into it
twice, evidently a preconcerted signal for his Cargadores.
He ran out immediately, and they rallied round him. I ran
out, too, but was too late to follow them and help in the
rescue of the stranger, whose animal had fallen. I was set
upon at once as a hated aristocrat, and was only too glad
to get into the club, where Don Jaime Berges (you may re-
member him visiting at our house in Paris some three years
ago) thrust a sporting gun into my hands. They were al-