Page 528 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

CHAPTER TEN

HE next day was quiet in the morning, except for the
Tfaint sound of firing to the northward, in the direction of
Los Hatos. Captain Mitchell had listened to it from his bal-
cony anxiously. The phrase, ‘In my delicate position as the
only consular agent then in the port, everything, sir, every-
thing was a just cause for anxiety,’ had its place in the more
or less stereotyped relation of the ‘historical events’ which
for the next few years was at the service of distinguished
strangers visiting Sulaco. The mention of the dignity and
neutrality of the flag, so difficult to preserve in his position,
‘right in the thick of these events between the lawlessness of
that piratical villain Sotillo and the more regularly estab-
lished but scarcely less atrocious tyranny of his Excellency
Don Pedro Montero,’ came next in order. Captain Mitch-
ell was not the man to enlarge upon mere dangers much.
But he insisted that it was a memorable day. On that day,
towards dusk, he had seen ‘that poor fellow of mine—Nos-
tromo. The sailor whom I discovered, and, I may say, made,
sir. The man of the famous ride to Cayta, sir. An historical
event, sir!’
Regarded by the O. S. N. Company as an old and faith-
ful servant, Captain Mitchell was allowed to attain the
term of his usefulness in ease and dignity at the head of the
enormously extended service. The augmentation of the es-