Page 438 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

‘The brute!’ observed his Excellency Don Pedro Mon-
tero through clenched teeth. ‘We must contrive as quickly
as possible to send him and his Nationals out there to fight
Hernandez.’
The new Gefe Politico only jerked his head sideways, and
took a puff at his cigarette in sign of his agreement with this
method for ridding the town of Gamacho and his inconve-
nient rabble.
Pedrito Montero looked with disgust at the absolutely
bare floor, and at the belt of heavy gilt picture-frames run-
ning round the room, out of which the remnants of torn
and slashed canvases fluttered like dingy rags.
‘We are not barbarians,’ he said.
This was what said his Excellency, the popular Pedri-
to, the guerrillero skilled in the art of laying ambushes,
charged by his brother at his own demand with the organi-
zation of Sulaco on democratic principles. The night before,
during the consultation with his partisans, who had come
out to meet him in Rincon, he had opened his intentions to
Senor Fuentes—
‘We shall organize a popular vote, by yes or no, con-
fiding the destinies of our beloved country to the wisdom
and valiance of my heroic brother, the invincible general. A
plebiscite. Do you understand?’
And Senor Fuentes, puffing out his leathery cheeks, had
inclined his head slightly to the left, letting a thin, bluish
jet of smoke escape through his pursed lips. He had under-
stood.
His Excellency was exasperated at the devastation. Not a