All the morning Nostromo had kept his eye from afar on the Casa Viola, even in the thick of the hottest scrimmage near the Custom House.

"If I see smoke rising over there," he thought to himself, "they are lost." Directly the mob had broken he pressed with a small band of Italian workmen in that direction, which, indeed, was the shortest line towards the town.

That part of the rabble he was pursuing seemed to think of making a stand under the house; a volley fired by his followers from behind an aloe hedge made the rascals fly.

In a gap chopped out for the rails of the harbour branch line Nostromo appeared, mounted on his silver-grey mare.

He shouted, sent after them one shot from his revolver, and galloped up to the cafe window.