Page:Nostromo (1904).djvu/274

 was all the effect I had produced! Only Don Josh's head had sunk lower and lower on his breast. I bent my ear to his withered lips, and made out his whisper, something like 'In God's name, then, Martin, my son!' I don't know exactly. There was the name of God in it, I am certain. It seems to me I have caught his last breath—the breath of his departing soul on his lips.

"He lives yet, it is true. I have seen him since; but it was only a senile body, lying on its back, covered to the chin, with open eyes, and so still that you might have said it was breathing no longer. I left him thus, with Antonia kneeling by the side of the bed, just before I came to this Italian's posada, where the ubiquitous death is also waiting. But I know that Don José has really died there, in the Casa Gould, with that whisper urging me to attempt what no doubt his soul, wrapped up in the sanctity of diplomatic treaties and solemn declarations, must have abhorred. I had exclaimed very loud, 'There is never any God in a country where men will not help themselves.'

"Meanwhile Don Juste had begun a pondered oration, whose solemn effect was spoiled by the ridiculous disaster to his beard. I did not wait to make it out. He seemed to argue that Montero's (he called him the General) intentions were probably not evil, though, he went on, 'that distinguished man' (only a week ago he used to call him a gran' bestia) 'was perhaps mistaken as to the true means.' As you may imagine, I did not stay to hear the rest. I know the intentions of Montero's brother, Pedrito, the guerrillero, whom I