Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
to deport the Grand Vicar out of Sulaco, anywhere, to some desert island, to the Isabels, for instance. "The one without water preferably—eh, Don Carlos?" he had added, in a tone between jest and earnest. This uncontrollable priest, who had rejected his offer of the episcopal palace for a residence and preferred to hang his shabby hammock among the rubble and spiders of the sequestrated Dominican convent, had taken into his head to advocate an unconditional pardon for Hernandez the Robber! And this was not enough; he seemed to have entered into communication with the most audacious criminal the country had known for years. The Sulaco police knew, of course, what was going on. Padre Corbelàn had got hold of that reckless Italian, the capataz de cargadores, the only man fit for such an errand, and had sent a message through him. Father Corbelàn had studied in Rome, and could speak Italian. The capataz was known to visit the old Dominican convent at night. An old woman who served the Grand Vicar had heard the name of Hernandez pronounced; and only last Saturday afternoon the capataz had been observed galloping out of town. He did not return for two days. The police would have laid the Italian by the heels if it had not been for fear of the cargadores, a turbulent body of men, quite apt to raise a tumult. Nowadays it was not so easy to govern Sulaco. Bad characters flocked into it, attracted by the money in the pockets of the railway workmen. The populace was made restless by Father Corbelàn's discourses. And the first magistrate explained to Charles Gould that now the province was stripped of troops any outbreak of lawlessness
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