Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
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 harbor 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 harbor. Captain
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