"Sir," Captain Mitchel would pursue with portentous gravity, "the il -timed end of that mule attracted attention to the unfortunate rider. His features were recognized by several deserters from the Dictatorial army amongst the rascal y mob already engaged in smashing the windows of the Intendencia."

Early on the morning of that day the local authorities of Sulaco had fled for refuge to the O.S.N. Company's offices, a strong building near the shore end of the jetty, leaving the town to the mercies of a revolutionary rabble; and as the Dictator was execrated by the populace on account of the severe recruitment law his necessities had compel ed him to enforce during the struggle, he stood a good chance of being torn to pieces. Providential y, Nostromo--invaluable fel ow--with some Italian workmen, imported to work upon the National Central Railway, was at hand, and managed to snatch him away--for the time at least. Ultimately, Captain Mitchel succeeded in taking everybody off in his own gig to one of the Company's steamers--it was the Minerva--just then, as luck would have it, entering the harbour. He had to lower these gentlemen at the end of a rope out of a hole in the wal at the back, while the mob which, pouring out of the town, had spread itself al 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 fel ow 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 Mitchel exhibited wil ingly 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 Mitchel was a thick, elderly man, wearing high, pointed col ars and short sidewhiskers, partial to white waistcoats, and real y 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 cal ed 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 al that he was. But without him Senor Ribiera would have been a dead man. This Nostromo, sir, a man absolutely above reproach, became the terror of al the thieves in the town. We were infested, infested, overrun, sir, here at that time by ladrones and matreros, thieves and murderers from the whole province. On this occasion they had been flocking into Sulaco for a week past. They had scented the end, sir. Fifty per cent. of that murdering mob were professional bandits from the Campo, sir, but there wasn't one that hadn't heard of Nostromo. As to the town leperos, sir, the sight of his black whiskers and white teeth was enough for them. They quailed before him, sir. That's what the force of character wil do for you." It could very wel be said that it was Nostromo alone who saved the lives of these gentlemen. Captain Mitchel , on his part, never left them til he had seen them col apse, panting, terrified, and exasperated, but safe, on the luxuriant velvet sofas in the first-class saloon of the Minerva.