the poor man could only respond by a dazed
smoothing of his beard and the ringing of the presidential bell. Then,
when the downfall of the Ribierist cause became confirmed beyond the
shadow of a doubt, they have blossomed into convinced Liberals, acting
together as if they were Siamese twins, and ultimately taking charge, as
it were, of the riot in the name of Monterist principles.

"Their last move of eight o'clock last night was to organize themselves
into a Monterist Committee which sits, as far as I know, in a posada
kept by a retired Mexican bull-fighter, a great politician, too, whose
name I have forgotten. Thence they have issued a communication to
us, the Goths and Paralytics of the Amarilla Club (who have our own
committee), inviting us to come to some provisional understanding for a
truce, in order, they have the impudence to say, that the noble cause of
Liberty 'should not be stained by the criminal excesses of Conservative
selfishness!' As I came out to sit with Nostromo on the cathedral steps
the club was busy considering a proper reply in the principal room,
littered with exploded cartridges, with a lot of broken glass, blood
smears, candlesticks, and all sorts of wreckage on the floor. But all
this is nonsense. Nobody in the town has any real power except the
railway engineers, whose men occupy the dismantled houses acquired
by the Company for their town station on one side of the Plaza, and
Nostromo, whose Cargadores were sleeping under the arcades along
the front of Anzani's shops. A fire of broken furniture out of the
Intendencia saloons, mostly gilt, was burning on the Plaza, in a high
flame swaying right upon the statue of Charles IV. The dead body of a
man was lying on the steps of the pedestal, his arms thrown wide open,
and his sombrero covering his face--the attention of some friend,
perhaps. The light of the flames touched the foliage of the first trees
on the Alameda, and played on the end of a side street near by, blocked
up by a jumble of ox-carts and dead bullocks. Sitting on one of the
carcasses, a lepero, muffled up, smoked a cigarette. It was a truce, you
understand. The only other living being on the Plaza besides ourselves
was a Cargador walking to and fro, with a long, bare knife in his hand,
like a sentry before the Arcades, where his friends were sleeping. And
the only other spot of light in the dark town were the lighted windows
of the club, at the corner of the Calle."

After hav