. He
has a howling voice, and he shouted like mad, lifting his clenched fist right
above his head, and throwing his body half out of the window. At every pause the
rabble below yelled, Down with the Oligarchs! Viva la Libertad! Fuentes inside
looked extremely miserable. You know, he is the brother of Jorge Fuentes, who
has been Minister of the Interior for six months or so, some few years back. Of
course, he has no conscience; but he is a man of birth and education - at one
time the director of the Customs of Cayta. That idiot-brute Gamacho fastened
himself upon him with his following of the lowest rabble. His sickly fear of
that ruffian was the most rejoicing sight imaginable.«
    He got up and went to the door to look out towards the harbour. »All quiet,«
he said; »I wonder if Sotillo really means to turn up here?«
 

                                  Chapter Two

Captain Mitchell, pacing the wharf, was asking himself the same question. There
was always the doubt whether the warning of the Esmeralda telegraphist - a
fragmentary and interrupted message - had been properly understood. However, the
good man had made up his mind not to go to bed till daylight, if even then. He
imagined himself to have rendered an enormous service to Charles Gould. When he
thought of the saved silver he rubbed his hands together with satisfaction. In
his simple way he was proud at being a party to this extremely clever expedient.
It was he who had given it a practical shape by suggesting the possibility of
intercepting at sea the north-bound steamer. And it was advantageous to his
Company, too, which would have lost a valuable freight if the treasure had been
left ashore to be confiscated. The pleasure of disappointing the Monterists was
also very great. Authoritative by temperament and the long habit of command,
Captain Mitchell was no democrat. He even went so far as to profess a contempt
for parliamentarism itself. »His Excellency Don Vincente Ribiera,« he used to
say, »whom I and that fellow of mine, Nostromo, had the honour, sir, and the
pleasure of saving from a cruel death, deferred too much to his Congress. It was
a mistake - a distinct mistake, sir.«
    The guileless old seaman superintending the O.S.N. service imagined that the
last three days had exhausted every startling surprise the political life of
Costaguana could offer. He used to confess afterwards that the events which
followed surpassed his imagination. To begin with, Sulaco (because of the
seizure of the cables and the
