Page 268 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

handfuls of type, blown in the wind, trampled in the mud?
I have seen pages floating upon the very waters of the har-
bour. It would be unreasonable to expect him to survive. It
would be cruel.
‘Do you know,’ I cried, ‘what surrender means to you, to
your women, to your children, to your property?’
‘I declaimed for five minutes without drawing breath, it
seems to me, harping on our best chances, on the ferocity of
Montero, whom I made out to be as great a beast as I have
no doubt he would like to be if he had intelligence enough
to conceive a systematic reign of terror. And then for an-
other five minutes or more I poured out an impassioned
appeal to their courage and manliness, with all the passion
of my love for Antonia. For if ever man spoke well, it would
be from a personal feeling, denouncing an enemy, defend-
ing himself, or pleading for what really may be dearer than
life. My dear girl, I absolutely thundered at them. It seemed
as if my voice would burst the walls asunder, and when I
stopped I saw all their scared eyes looking at me dubiously.
And that was all the effect I had produced! Only Don Jose’s
head had sunk lower and lower on his breast. I bent my ear
to his withered lips, and made out his whisper, something
like, ‘In God’s name, then, Martin, my son!’ I don’t know
exactly. There was the name of God in it, I am certain. It
seems to me I have caught his last breath—the breath of his
departing soul on his lips.
‘He lives yet, it is true. I have seen him since; but it was
only a senile body, lying on its back, covered to the chin,
with open eyes, and so still that you might have said it was