Page 492 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

CHAPTER NINE

ISTRACTED between doubts and hopes, dismayed by
Dthe sound of bells pealing out the arrival of Pedrito
Montero, Sotillo had spent the morning in battling with
his thoughts; a contest to which he was unequal, from the
vacuity of his mind and the violence of his passions. Dis-
appointment, greed, anger, and fear made a tumult, in the
colonel’s breast louder than the din of bells in the town.
Nothing he had planned had come to pass. Neither Sulaco
nor the silver of the mine had fallen into his hands. He had
performed no military exploit to secure his position, and
had obtained no enormous booty to make off with. Pedrito
Montero, either as friend or foe, filled him with dread. The
sound of bells maddened him.
Imagining at first that he might be attacked at once, he had
made his battalion stand to arms on the shore. He walked
to and fro all the length of the room, stopping sometimes to
gnaw the finger-tips of his right hand with a lurid sideways
glare fixed on the floor; then, with a sullen, repelling glance
all round, he would resume his tramping in savage aloof-
ness. His hat, horsewhip, sword, and revolver were lying on
the table. His officers, crowding the window giving the view
of the town gate, disputed amongst themselves the use of
his field-glass bought last year on long credit from Anzani.
It passed from hand to hand, and the possessor for the time

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