________________________________________________
_ THE only sign of commercial activity within the harbour, visible
from the beach of the Great Isabel, is the square blunt end of
the wooden jetty which the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company (the
O.S.N. of familiar speech) had thrown over the shallow part of
the bay soon after they had resolved to make of Sulaco one of
their ports of call for the Republic of Costaguana. The State
possesses several harbours on its long seaboard, but except
Cayta, an important place, all are either small and inconvenient
inlets in an iron-bound coast--like Esmeralda, for instance,
sixty miles to the south--or else mere open roadsteads exposed to
the winds and fretted by the surf.
Perhaps the very atmospheric conditions which had kept away the
merchant fleets of bygone ages induced the O.S.N. Company to
violate the sanctuary of peace sheltering the calm existence of
Sulaco. The variable airs sporting lightly with the vast
semicircle of waters within the head of Azuera could not baffle
the steam power of their excellent fleet. Year after year the
black hulls of their ships had gone up and down the coast, in and
out, past Azuera, past the Isabels, past Punta Mala--disregarding
everything but the tyranny of time. Their names, the names of all
mythology, became the household words of a coast that had never
been ruled by the gods of Olympus. The Juno was known only for
her comfortable cabins amidships, the Saturn for the geniality of
her captain and the painted and gilt luxuriousness of her saloon,
whereas the Ganymede was fitted out mainly for cattle transport,
and to be avoided by coastwise passengers. The humblest Indian in
the obscurest village on the coast was familiar with the
Cerberus, a little black puffer without charm or living
accommodation to speak of, whose mission was to creep inshore
along the wooded beaches close to mighty ugly rocks, stopping
obligingly before every cluster of huts to collect produce, down
to three-pound parcels of indiarubber bound in a wrapper of dry
grass.
And as they seldom failed to account for the smallest package,
rarely lost a bullock, and had never drowned a single passenger,
the name of the O.S.N. stood very high for trustworthiness.
People declared that under the Company's care their lives and
property were safer on the water than in their own houses on
shore.
The O.S.N.'s superintendent in Sulaco for the whole Costaguana
section of the service was very proud of his Company's standing.
He resumed it in a saying which was very often on his lips, "We
never make mistakes." To the Company's officers it took the form
of a severe injunction, "We must make no mistakes. I'll have no
mistakes here, no matter what Smith may do at his end."
Smith, on whom he had never set eyes in his life, was the other
superintendent of the service, quartered some fifteen hundred
miles away from Sulaco. "Don't talk to me of your Smith."
Then, calming down suddenly, he would dismiss the subject with
studied negligence.
"Smith knows no more of this continent than a baby."
"Our excellent Senor Mitchell" for the business and official
world of Sulaco; "Fussy Joe" for the commanders of the Company's
ships, Captain Joseph Mitchell prided himself on his profound
knowledge of men and things in the country--cosas de Costaguana.
Amongst these last he accounted as most unfavourable to the
orderly working of his Company the frequent changes of government
brought about by revolutions of the military type.
The political atmosphere of the Republic was generally stormy in
these days. The fugitive patriots of the defeated party had the
knack of turning up again on the coast with half a steamer's load
of small arms and ammunition. Such resourcefulness Captain
Mitchell considered as perfectly wonderful in view of their utter
destitution at the time of flight. He had observed that "they
never seemed to have enough change about them to pay for their
passage ticket out of the country." And he could speak with
knowledge; for on a memorable occasion he had been called upon to
save the life of a dictator, together with the lives of a few
Sulaco officials--the political chief, the director of the
customs, and the head of police--belonging to an overturned
government. Poor Senor Ribiera (such was the dictator's name) had
come pelting eighty miles over mountain tracks after the lost
battle of Socorro, in the hope of out-distancing the fatal
news--which, of course, he could not manage to do on a lame mule.
The animal, moreover, expired under him at the end of the
Alameda, where the military band plays sometimes in the evenings
between the revolutions. "Sir," Captain Mitchell would pursue
with portentous gravity, "the ill-timed end of that mule
attracted attention to the unfortunate rider. His features were
recognized by several deserters from the Dictatorial army amongst
the rascally mob already engaged in smashing the windows of the
Intendencia."
Early on the morning of that day the local authorities of Sulaco
had fled for refuge to the O.S.N. Company's offices, a strong
building near the shore end of the jetty, leaving the town to the
mercies of a revolutionary rabble; and as the Dictator was
execrated by the populace on account of the severe recruitment
law his necessities had compelled him to enforce during the
struggle, he stood a good chance of being torn to pieces.
Providentially, Nostromo--invaluable fellow--with some Italian
workmen, imported to work upon the National Central Railway, was
at hand, and managed to snatch him away--for the time at least.
Ultimately, Captain Mitchell succeeded in taking everybody off in
his own gig to one of the Company's steamers--it was the
Minerva--just then, as luck would have it, entering the harbour.
He had to lower these gentlemen at the end of a rope out of a
hole in the wall at the back, while the mob which, pouring out of
the town, had spread itself all along the shore, howled and
foamed at the foot of the building in front. He had to hurry them
then the whole length of the jetty; it had been a desperate dash,
neck or nothing--and again it was Nostromo, a fellow in a
thousand, who, at the head, this time, of the Company's body of
lightermen, held the jetty against the rushes of the rabble, thus
giving the fugitives time to reach the gig lying ready for them
at the other end with the Company's flag at the stern. Sticks,
stones, shots flew; knives, too, were thrown. Captain Mitchell
exhibited willingly the long cicatrice of a cut over his left ear
and temple, made by a razor-blade fastened to a stick--a weapon,
he explained, very much in favour with the "worst kind of nigger
out here."
Captain Mitchell was a thick, elderly man, wearing high, pointed
collars and short side-whiskers, partial to white waistcoats, and
really very communicative under his air of pompous reserve.
"These gentlemen," he would say, staring with great solemnity,
"had to run like rabbits, sir. I ran like a rabbit myself.
Certain forms of death are--er--distasteful to
a--a--er--respectable man. They would have pounded me to death,
too. A crazy mob, sir, does not discriminate. Under providence we
owed our preservation to my Capataz de Cargadores, as they called
him in the town, a man who, when I discovered his value, sir, was
just the bos'n of an Italian ship, a big Genoese ship, one of the
few European ships that ever came to Sulaco with a general cargo
before the building of the National Central. He left her on
account of some very respectable friends he made here, his own
countrymen, but also, I suppose, to better himself. Sir, I am a
pretty good judge of character. I engaged him to be the foreman
of our lightermen, and caretaker of our jetty. That's all that he
was. But without him Senor Ribiera would have been a dead man.
This Nostromo, sir, a man absolutely above reproach, became the
terror of all the thieves in the town. We were infested,
infested, overrun, sir, here at that time by ladrones and
matreros, thieves and murderers from the whole province. On this
occasion they had been flocking into Sulaco for a week past.
They had scented the end, sir. Fifty per cent. of that murdering
mob were professional bandits from the Campo, sir, but there
wasn't one that hadn't heard of Nostromo. As to the town leperos,
sir, the sight of his black whiskers and white teeth was enough
for them. They quailed before him, sir. That's what the force of
character will do for you."
It could very well be said that it was Nostromo alone who saved
the lives of these gentlemen. Captain Mitchell, on his part,
never left them till he had seen them collapse, panting,
terrified, and exasperated, but safe, on the luxuriant velvet
sofas in the first-class saloon of the Minerva. To the very last
he had been careful to address the ex-Dictator as "Your
Excellency."
"Sir, I could do no other. The man was down--ghastly, livid, one
mass of scratches."
The Minerva never let go her anchor that call. The superintendent
ordered her out of the harbour at once. No cargo could be
landed, of course, and the passengers for Sulaco naturally
refused to go ashore. They could hear the firing and see plainly
the fight going on at the edge of the water. The repulsed mob
devoted its energies to an attack upon the Custom House, a
dreary, unfinished-looking structure with many windows two
hundred yards away from the O.S.N. Offices, and the only other
building near the harbour. Captain Mitchell, after directing the
commander of the Minerva to land "these gentlemen" in the first
port of call outside Costaguana, went back in his gig to see what
could be done for the protection of the Company's property. That
and the property of the railway were preserved by the European
residents; that is, by Captain Mitchell himself and the staff of
engineers building the road, aided by the Italian and Basque
workmen who rallied faithfully round their English chiefs. The
Company's lightermen, too, natives of the Republic, behaved very
well under their Capataz. An outcast lot of very mixed blood,
mainly negroes, everlastingly at feud with the other customers of
low grog shops in the town, they embraced with delight this
opportunity to settle their personal scores under such favourable
auspices. There was not one of them that had not, at some time or
other, looked with terror at Nostromo's revolver poked very close
at his face, or been otherwise daunted by Nostromo's resolution.
He was "much of a man," their Capataz was, they said, too
scornful in his temper ever to utter abuse, a tireless
taskmaster, and the more to be feared because of his aloofness.
And behold! there he was that day, at their head, condescending
to make jocular remarks to this man or the other.
Such leadership was inspiriting, and in truth all the harm the
mob managed to achieve was to set fire to one--only one--stack
of railway-sleepers, which, being creosoted, burned well. The
main attack on the railway yards, on the O.S.N. Offices, and
especially on the Custom House, whose strong room, it was well
known, contained a large treasure in silver ingots, failed
completely. Even the little hotel kept by old Giorgio, standing
alone halfway between the harbour and the town, escaped looting
and destruction, not by a miracle, but because with the safes in
view they had neglected it at first, and afterwards found no
leisure to stop. Nostromo, with his Cargadores, was pressing them
too hard then. _
Read next: PART FIRST - THE SILVER OF THE MINE: CHAPTER III
Read previous: PART FIRST - THE SILVER OF THE MINE: CHAPTER I
Table of content of Nostromo
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
