A primera hora del matí d'aquell dia les autoritats locals de Sulaco havien fugit per refugiar-se a l'O.S.N.. Oficines de l'empresa, un edifici fort prop de l'extrem de la costa de l'embarcador, deixant la ciutat a mercè d'una chusma revolucionària; i com que el dictador va ser execrat pel poble a causa de la severa llei de reclutament, les seves necessitats l'havien obligat a fer complir durant la lluita., tenia una bona oportunitat de ser trencat a trossos. Providencialment, Nostromo, un company inestimable, amb alguns obrers italians, importat per treballar al National Central Railway, estava a mà, i va aconseguir arrabassar-lo, almenys de moment. En definitiva, El capità Mitchell va aconseguir portar tothom en el seu propi concert a un dels vaixells de vapor de la Companyia —era el Minerva— just aleshores., com la sort ho volgués, entrant al port.

He had to lower these gentlemen at the end of a rope out of a hole in the wall at the back, while the mob which, pouring out of the town, had spread itself all along the shore, howled and foamed at the foot of the building in front. He had to hurry them then the whole length of the jetty; it had been a desperate dash, neck or nothing—and again it was Nostromo, a fellow in a thousand, who, at the head, this time, of the Company’s body of lightermen, held the jetty against the rushes of the rabble, thus giving the fugitives time to reach the gig lying ready for them at the other end with the Company’s flag at the stern. Sticks, stones, shots flew; knives, també, were thrown. Captain Mitchell exhibited willingly the long cicatrice of a cut over his left ear and temple, made by a razor-blade fastened to a stick—a weapon, he explained, very much in favour with the “worst kind of nigger out here.”