re looking
together at the crowd on foot and on horseback, demonstrating on the
Plaza and shying stones at the windows of the Intendencia. Nostromo
(that is the name they call him by here) was pointing out to me his
Cargadores interspersed in the mob.

"The sun shines late upon Sulaco, for it has first to climb above the
mountains. In that clear morning light, brighter than twilight, Nostromo
saw right across the vast Plaza, at the end of the street beyond the
cathedral, a mounted man apparently in difficulties with a yelling knot
of leperos. At once he said to me, 'That's a stranger. What is it they
are doing to him?' Then he took out the silver whistle he is in the
habit of using on the wharf (this man seems to disdain the use of any
metal less precious than silver) and blew into it twice, evidently a
preconcerted signal for his Cargadores. He ran out immediately, and they
rallied round him. I ran out, too, but was too late to follow them and
help in the rescue of the stranger, whose animal had fallen. I was set
upon at once as a hated aristocrat, and was only too glad to get into
the club, where Don Jaime Berges (you may remember him visiting at
our house in Paris some three years ago) thrust a sporting gun into
my hands. They were already firing from the windows. There were little
heaps of cartridges lying about on the open card-tables. I remember a
couple of overturned chairs, some bottles rolling on the floor amongst
the packs of cards scattered suddenly as the caballeros rose from their
game to open fire upon the mob. Most of the young men had spent the
night at the club in the expectation of some such disturbance. In two of
the candelabra, on the consoles, the candles were burning down in their
sockets. A large iron nut, probably stolen from the railway workshops,
flew in from the street as I entered, and broke one of the large mirrors
set in the wall. I noticed also one of the club servants tied up hand
and foot with the cords of the curtain and flung in a corner. I have a
vague recollection of Don Jaime assuring me hastily that the fellow had
been detected putting poison into the dishes at supper. But I remember
distinctly he was shrieking for mercy, without stopping at all,
continuously, and so absolutely disregarded that nobody even took the
trouble to gag him. The noise he made was so disagreeable that I had
half a mind to do it myself. But there was no time to waste on such
trifles. I took my place at one