Page 258 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

for that, senor?’ Then it dawned upon me that perhaps this
man’s vanity has been satiated by the adulation of the com-
mon people and the confidence of his superiors!’
Decoud paused to light a cigarette, then, with his head
still over his writing, he blew a cloud of smoke, which
seemed to rebound from the paper. He took up the pencil
again.
‘That was yesterday evening on the Plaza, while he sat
on the steps of the cathedral, his hands between his knees,
holding the bridle of his famous silver-grey mare. He had
led his body of Cargadores splendidly all day long. He
looked fatigued. I don’t know how I looked. Very dirty, I
suppose. But I suppose I also looked pleased. From the time
the fugitive President had been got off to the S. S. Minerva,
the tide of success had turned against the mob. They had
been driven off the harbour, and out of the better streets of
the town, into their own maze of ruins and tolderias. You
must understand that this riot, whose primary object was
undoubtedly the getting hold of the San Tome silver stored
in the lower rooms of the Custom House (besides the gen-
eral looting of the Ricos), had acquired a political colouring
from the fact of two Deputies to the Provincial Assembly,
Senores Gamacho and Fuentes, both from Bolson, putting
themselves at the head of it—late in the afternoon, it is true,
when the mob, disappointed in their hopes of loot, made
a stand in the narrow streets to the cries of ‘Viva la Liber-
tad! Down with Feudalism!’ (I wonder what they imagine
feudalism to be?) ‘Down with the Goths and Paralytics.’ I
suppose the Senores Gamacho and Fuentes knew what they