Quotation from: A Set of Six

Written by: Joseph Conrad

"'General,' I cried, I cannot move the door. We must be locked in.'

"I did not recognize his voice in the shout of malediction and despair
he let out. Senores, I know many men in my country, especially in the
provinces most subject to earthquakes, who will neither eat, sleep,
pray, nor even sit down to cards with closed doors. The danger is not
in the loss of time, but in this--that the movement of the walls may
prevent a door being opened at all. This was what had happened to us. We
were trapped, and we had no help to expect from anybody. There is no man
in my country who will go into a house when the earth trembles. There
never was--except one: Gaspar Ruiz.