Page 265 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

Cable Company are in the same building as the Porvenir,
the mob, which has thrown my presses out of the window
and scattered the type all over the Plaza, has been kept from
interfering with the instruments on the other side of the
courtyard. As I sat talking with Nostromo, Bernhardt, the
telegraphist, came out from under the Arcades with a piece
of paper in his hand. The little man had tied himself up to
an enormous sword and was hung all over with revolvers.
He is ridiculous, but the bravest German of his size that ever
tapped the key of a Morse transmitter. He had received the
message from Cayta reporting the transports with Barrios’s
army just entering the port, and ending with the words, ‘The
greatest enthusiasm prevails.’ I walked off to drink some
water at the fountain, and I was shot at from the Alameda
by somebody hiding behind a tree. But I drank, and didn’t
care; with Barrios in Cayta and the great Cordillera between
us and Montero’s victorious army I seemed, notwithstand-
ing Messrs. Gamacho and Fuentes, to hold my new State in
the hollow of my hand. I was ready to sleep, but when I got
as far as the Casa Gould I found the patio full of wounded
laid out on straw. Lights were burning, and in that enclosed
courtyard on that hot night a faint odour of chloroform and
blood hung about. At one end Doctor Monygham, the doc-
tor of the mine, was dressing the wounds; at the other, near
the stairs, Father Corbelan, kneeling, listened to the confes-
sion of a dying Cargador. Mrs. Gould was walking about
through these shambles with a large bottle in one hand and
a lot of cotton wool in the other. She just looked at me and
never even winked. Her camerista was following her, also

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard