Page 363 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

vice imagined that the last three days had exhausted every
startling surprise the political life of Costaguana could of-
fer. He used to confess afterwards that the events which
followed surpassed his imagination. To begin with, Sulaco
(because of the seizure of the cables and the disorganization
of the steam service) remained for a whole fortnight cut off
from the rest of the world like a besieged city.
‘One would not have believed it possible; but so it was, sir.
A full fortnight.’
The account of the extraordinary things that happened
during that time, and the powerful emotions he experi-
enced, acquired a comic impressiveness from the pompous
manner of his personal narrative. He opened it always by
assuring his hearer that he was ‘in the thick of things from
first to last.’ Then he would begin by describing the getting
away of the silver, and his natural anxiety lest ‘his fellow’
in charge of the lighter should make some mistake. Apart
from the loss of so much precious metal, the life of Senor
Martin Decoud, an agreeable, wealthy, and well-informed
young gentleman, would have been jeopardized through
his falling into the hands of his political enemies. Captain
Mitchell also admitted that in his solitary vigil on the wharf
he had felt a certain measure of concern for the future of the
whole country.
‘A feeling, sir,’ he explained, ‘perfectly comprehensible in
a man properly grateful for the many kindnesses received
from the best families of merchants and other native gentle-
men of independent means, who, barely saved by us from the
excesses of the mob, seemed, to my mind’s eye, destined to

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard