the wall at the back, while the mob which, pouring out of the town, had
spread itself all along the shore, howled and foamed at the foot of the
building in front. He had to hurry them then the whole length of the
jetty; it had been a desperate dash, neck or nothing--and again it was
Nostromo, a fellow in a thousand, who, at the head, this time, of the
Company's body of lightermen, held the jetty against the rushes of the
rabble, thus giving the fugitives time to reach the gig lying ready
for them at the other end with the Company's flag at the stern. Sticks,
stones, shots flew; knives, too, were thrown. Captain Mitchell exhibited
willingly the long cicatrice of a cut over his left ear and temple, made
by a razor-blade fastened to a stick--a weapon, he explained, very much
in favour with the "worst kind of nigger out here."

Captain Mitchell was a thick, elderly man, wearing high, pointed collars
and short side-whiskers, partial to white waistcoats, and really very
communicative under his air of pompous reserve.

"These gentlemen," he would say, staring with great solemnity, "had
to run like rabbits, sir. I ran like a rabbit myself. Certain forms of
death are--er--distasteful to a--a--er--respectable man. They would have
pounded me to death, too. A crazy mob, sir, does not discriminate. Under
providence we owed our preservation to my Capataz de Cargadores, as they
called him in the town, a man who, when I discovered his value, sir, was
just the bos'n of an Italian ship, a big Genoese ship, one of the few
European ships that ever came to Sulaco with a general cargo before the
building of the National Central. He left her on account of some very
respectable friends he made here, his own countrymen, but also, I
suppose, to better himself. Sir, I am a pretty good judge of character.
I engaged him to be the foreman of our lightermen, and caretaker of our
jetty. That's all that he was. But without him Senor Ribiera would have