Page 347 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

up and outside the dim parallelogram of light falling on the
road through the open door.
With Sotillo expected from one side, and Pedro Montero
from the other, the engineer-in-chief’s only anxiety now
was to avoid a collision with either. Sulaco, for him, was a
railway station, a terminus, workshops, a great accumula-
tion of stores. As against the mob the railway defended its
property, but politically the railway was neutral. He was a
brave man; and in that spirit of neutrality he had carried
proposals of truce to the self-appointed chiefs of the popu-
lar party, the deputies Fuentes and Gamacho. Bullets were
still flying about when he had crossed the Plaza on that mis-
sion, waving above his head a white napkin belonging to the
table linen of the Amarilla Club.
He was rather proud of this exploit; and reflecting that
the doctor, busy all day with the wounded in the patio of
the Casa Gould, had not had time to hear the news, he be-
gan a succinct narrative. He had communicated to them the
intelligence from the Construction Camp as to Pedro Mon-
tero. The brother of the victorious general, he had assured
them, could be expected at Sulaco at any time now. This
news (as he anticipated), when shouted out of the window
by Senor Gamacho, induced a rush of the mob along the
Campo Road towards Rincon. The two deputies also, after
shaking hands with him effusively, mounted and galloped
off to meet the great man. ‘I have misled them a little as to
the time,’ the chief engineer confessed. ‘However hard he
rides, he can scarcely get here before the morning. But my
object is attained. I’ve secured several hours’ peace for the

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard