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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
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