A Tale of the Seaboard Joseph Conrad - Penn State University

Joseph Conrad
cate 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
Corbelan 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 Corbelan 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 Corbelan’s discourses. And
the first magistrate explained to Charles Gould that now the province
was stripped of troops any outbreak of lawlessness would find
the authorities with their boots off, as it were.
Then he went away moodily to sit in an armchair, smoking a
long, thin cigar, not very far from Don Jose, with whom, bending
over sideways, he exchanged a few words from time to time. He
ignored the entrance of the priest, and whenever Father Corbelan’s
voice was raised behind him, he shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
Father Corbelan had remained quite motionless for a time with
that something vengeful in his immobility which seemed to characterize
all his attitudes. A lurid glow of strong convictions gave its
peculiar aspect to the black figure. But its fierceness became softened
as the padre, fixing his eyes upon Decoud, raised his long,
black arm slowly, impressively—
“And you—you are a perfect heathen,” he said, in a subdued,
deep voice.
He made a step nearer, pointing a forefinger at the young man’s
breast. Decoud, very calm, felt the wall behind the curtain with the
back of his head. Then, with his chin tilted well up, he smiled.
“Very well,” he agreed with the slightly weary nonchalance of a
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