Page 416 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

eyes, and in a tempestuous voice, by Guzman Bento. The
old tyrant, maddened by one of his sudden accesses of sus-
picion, mingled spluttering appeals to their fidelity with
imprecations and horrible menaces. The cells and case-
ments of the castle on the hill had been already filled with
prisoners. The commission was charged now with the task
of discovering the iniquitous conspiracy against the Citi-
zen-Saviour of his country.
Their dread of the raving tyrant translated itself into a
hasty ferocity of procedure. The Citizen-Saviour was not
accustomed to wait. A conspiracy had to be discovered. The
courtyards of the castle resounded with the clanking of
leg-irons, sounds of blows, yells of pain; and the commis-
sion of high officers laboured feverishly, concealing their
distress and apprehensions from each other, and especial-
ly from their secretary, Father Beron, an army chaplain, at
that time very much in the confidence of the Citizen-Sav-
iour. That priest was a big round-shouldered man, with an
unclean-looking, overgrown tonsure on the top of his flat
head, of a dingy, yellow complexion, softly fat, with greasy
stains all down the front of his lieutenant’s uniform, and a
small cross embroidered in white cotton on his left breast.
He had a heavy nose and a pendant lip. Dr. Monygham re-
membered him still. He remembered him against all the
force of his will striving its utmost to forget. Father Ber-
on had been adjoined to the commission by Guzman Bento
expressly for the purpose that his enlightened zeal should
assist them in their labours. Dr. Monygham could by no
manner of means forget the zeal of Father Beron, or his face,

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