He told me since that he had given himself up for lost, and kept on
yelling with all the strength of his lungs: 'Hoist a white flag! Hoist
a white flag!' Suddenly an old major of the Esmeralda regiment, standing
by, unsheathed his sword with a shriek: 'Die, perjured traitor!' and ran
Sotillo clean through the body, just before he fell himself shot through
the head."
Captain Mitchell stopped for a while.
"Begad, sir! I could spin you a yarn for hours. But it's time we started
off to Rincon. It would not do for you to pass through Sulaco and not
see the lights of the San Tome mine, a whole mountain ablaze like a
lighted palace above the dark Campo. It's a fashionable drive. . . . But
let me tell you one little anecdote, sir; just to show you. A fortnight
or more later, when Barrios, declared Generalissimo, was gone in pursuit
of Pedrito away south, when the Provisional Junta, with Don Juste Lopez
at its head, had promulgated the new Constitution, and our Don Carlos
Gould was packing up his trunks bound on a mission to San Francisco
and Washington (the United States, sir, were the first great power to
recognize the Occidental Republic)--a fortnight later, I say, when we
were beginning to feel that our heads were safe on our shoulders, if
I may express myself so, a prominent man, a large shipper by our line,
came to see me on business, and, says he, the first thing: 'I say,
Captain Mitchell, is that fellow' (meaning Nostromo) 'still the Capataz
of your Cargadores or not?' 'What's the matter?' says I.
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