Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
the office but himself and the operator of the railway telegraph, who read off the clicks aloud as the tape coiled its length upon the floor. And the purport of that talk, clirked nervously from a wooden shed in the depths of the forests, had informed the chief that President Ribiera had been or was being pursued. This was news, indeed, to all of us in Sulaco. Ribiera himself, when rescued, revived, and soothed by us, been inclined to think that he had not been pursued.
"Ribiera had yielded to the urgent solicitations of his friends, and had left the headquarters of his discomfited army alone, under the guidance of Bonifacio, be muleteer, who had been willing to take the responsibility with the risk. He had departed at daybreak of the third day. His remaining forces had melted away during the night. Bonifacio and he rode hard on horses towards the Cordillera; then they obtained mules, entered the passes, and crossed the paramo of Ivie just before a freezing blast swept over that stony plateau, burying in a drift of snow the little shelterhut of stones in which they had spent the night. Afterwards poor Ribiera had many adventures, got separated his guide, lost his mount, struggled down to the Campo on foot, and if he had not thrown himself on the mercy of a ram-hero would have perished a long way from Sulaco. That man. who as a matter of fact, recognized him at once, let him have a fresh mule, which the fugitive, heavy and unskilful, had ridden to death. And it was true he had been pursued by a party commanded by no less a person than Pedro Montero, the brother of the general. The cold wind of the paramo luckily caught the pursuers on the top
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