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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
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