He had
distributed heavy penances, no doubt in the way of litanies and fasts;
but he argued shrewdly that it would be difficult for them to make their
peace with God durably till they had made peace with men.
Never before, perhaps, had Hernandez's head been in less jeopardy than
when he petitioned humbly for permission to buy a pardon for himself
and his gang of deserters by armed service. He could range afar from the
waste lands protecting his fastness, unchecked, because there were no
troops left in the whole province. The usual garrison of Sulaco had gone
south to the war, with its brass band playing the Bolivar march on the
bridge of one of the O.S.N. Company's steamers. The great family coaches
drawn up along the shore of the harbour were made to rock on the high
leathern springs by the enthusiasm of the senoras and the senoritas
standing up to wave their lace handkerchiefs, as lighter after lighter
packed full of troops left the end of the jetty.
Nostromo directed the embarkation, under the superintendendence
of Captain Mitchell, red-faced in the sun, conspicuous in a white
waistcoat, representing the allied and anxious goodwill of all the
material interests of civilization.
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