Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
before the drowsy, conscious stare of those fixed eyeballs starting out of the grimy, dishevelled head that
drooped very still with its mouth closed askew. The
colonel ground his teeth and struck. The rope vibrated leisurely to the blow, like the long string of a
pendulum starting from a rest. But no swinging motion was imparted to the body of Señor Hirsch, the
well-known hide-merchant of the coast. With a convulsive effort of the twisted arms it leaped up a few
inches, curling upon itself like a fish on the end of a
line. Señor Hirsch's head was flung back on his
straining throat; his chin trembled. For a moment
the rattle of his chattering teeth pervaded the vast,
shadowy room, where the candles made a patch of
light round the two flames burning side by side. And
as Sotillo, staying his raised hand, waited for him to
speak, with a sudden flash of a grin and a straining
forward of the wrenched shoulders, he spat violently
into his face.
The uplifted whip fell, and the colonel sprang back with a low cry of dismay, as if aspersed by a jet of deadly venom. Quick as thought he snatched up his revolver and fired twice. The report and the concussion of the shots seemed to throw him at once from ungovernable rage into idiotic stupor. He stood with drooping jaw and stony eyes. What had he done? Sangre de Dios! what had he done? He was basely appalled at his impulsive act, sealing forever these lips from which so much was to be extorted. What could he say? How could he explain? Ideas of head-long flight somewhere, anywhere, passed through his mind; even the craven and absurd notion of hiding
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