political chief of Sulaco had yielded at the last moment

to the urgent entreaties of the priest, had signed a pro- visional nomination appointing Hernandez a general, and calling upon him officially in this new capacity to preserve order in the town. The fact is that the po- litical chief, seeing the situation desperate, did not care what he signed. It was the last official document he signed before he left the palace of the Intendencia for the refuge of the O.S.N. Company's office. But even had he meant his act to be effective it was already too late. The riot which he feared and expected broke out in less than an hour after Father Corbelan had left him. Indeed, Father Corbelan, who had appointed a meeting with Nostromo in the Dominican convent, where he had his residence in one of the cells, never managed to reach the place. From the Intendencia he had gone straight on to the Avellanos house to tell his brother- in-law, and though he stayed there no more than half an hour he had found himself cut off from his ascetic abode. Nostromo, after waiting there for some time watching uneasily the increasing uproar in the street, had made his way to the offices of the Porvcnir and stayed there till daylight, as Decoud had mentioned in the letter to his sister. Thus the capataz, instead of riding towards the Los Hatos woods as bearer of Hernandez's nomination, had remained in town to save the life of the President-Dictator, to assist in re- pressing the outbreak of the mob, and at last to sail out with the silver of the mine. But Father Corbelkn, escaping to Hernandez, had the document in his pocket, a piece of official writing

turning a bandit into a general in a memorable last