Page 370 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

ing half a hundred-weight of sand. Sheets of grey coarse
official paper bestrewed the floor. It must have been a room
occupied by some higher official of the Customs, because a
large leathern armchair stood behind the table, with other
high-backed chairs scattered about. A net hammock was
swung under one of the beams—for the official’s after-
noon siesta, no doubt. A couple of candles stuck into tall
iron candlesticks gave a dim reddish light. The colonel’s
hat, sword, and revolver lay between them, and a couple of
his more trusty officers lounged gloomily against the table.
The colonel threw himself into the armchair, and a big ne-
gro with a sergeant’s stripes on his ragged sleeve, kneeling
down, pulled off his boots. Sotillo’s ebony moustache con-
trasted violently with the livid colouring of his cheeks. His
eyes were sombre and as if sunk very far into his head. He
seemed exhausted by his perplexities, languid with disap-
pointment; but when the sentry on the landing thrust his
head in to announce the arrival of a prisoner, he revived
at once.
‘Let him be brought in,’ he shouted, fiercely.
The door flew open, and Captain Mitchell, bareheaded,
his waistcoat open, the bow of his tie under his ear, was
hustled into the room.
Sotillo recognized him at once. He could not have hoped
for a more precious capture; here was a man who could tell
him, if he chose, everything he wished to know—and di-
rectly the problem of how best to make him talk to the point
presented itself to his mind. The resentment of a foreign
nation had no terrors for Sotillo. The might of the whole