Page 502 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

its mouth closed askew. The colonel ground his teeth with
rage and struck. The rope vibrated leisurely to the blow, like
the long string of a pendulum starting from a rest. But no
swinging motion was imparted to the body of Senor Hirsch,
the well-known hide merchant on the coast. With a con-
vulsive effort of the twisted arms it leaped up a few inches,
curling upon itself like a fish on the end of a line. Senor
Hirsch’s head was flung back on his straining throat; his
chin trembled. For a moment the rattle of his chattering
teeth pervaded the vast, shadowy room, where the candles
made a patch of light round the two flames burning side by
side. And as Sotillo, staying his raised hand, waited for him
to speak, with the sudden flash of a grin and a straining
forward of the wrenched shoulders, he spat violently into
his face.
The uplifted whip fell, and the colonel sprang back with
a low cry of dismay, as if aspersed by a jet of deadly ven-
om. Quick as thought he snatched up his revolver, and fired
twice. The report and the concussion of the shots seemed
to throw him at once from ungovernable rage into idiotic
stupor. He stood with drooping jaw and stony eyes. What
had he done, Sangre de Dios! What had he done? He was
basely appalled at his impulsive act, sealing for ever these
lips from which so much was to be extorted. What could he
say? How could he explain? Ideas of headlong flight some-
where, anywhere, passed through his mind; even the craven
and absurd notion of hiding under the table occurred to
his cowardice. It was too late; his officers had rushed in
tumultuously, in a great clatter of scabbards, clamouring,

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