________________________________________________
_ FOR a moment, before this extraordinary find, they forgot their
own concerns and sensations. Senor Hirsch's sensations as he lay
there must have been those of extreme terror. For a long time he
refused to give a sign of life, till at last Decoud's
objurgations, and, perhaps more, Nostromo's impatient suggestion
that he should be thrown overboard, as he seemed to be dead,
induced him to raise one eyelid first, and then the other.
It appeared that he had never found a safe opportunity to leave
Sulaco. He lodged with Anzani, the universal storekeeper, on the
Plaza Mayor. But when the riot broke out he had made his escape
from his host's house before daylight, and in such a hurry that
he had forgotten to put on his shoes. He had run out impulsively
in his socks, and with his hat in his hand, into the garden of
Anzani's house. Fear gave him the necessary agility to climb over
several low walls, and afterwards he blundered into the overgrown
cloisters of the ruined Franciscan convent in one of the
by-streets. He forced himself into the midst of matted bushes
with the recklessness of desperation, and this accounted for his
scratched body and his torn clothing. He lay hidden there all
day, his tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth with all the
intensity of thirst engendered by heat and fear. Three times
different bands of men invaded the place with shouts and
imprecations, looking for Father Corbelan; but towards the
evening, still lying on his face in the bushes, he thought he
would die from the fear of silence. He was not very clear as to
what had induced him to leave the place, but evidently he had got
out and slunk successfully out of town along the deserted back
lanes. He wandered in the darkness near the railway, so maddened
by apprehension that he dared not even approach the fires of the
pickets of Italian workmen guarding the line. He had a vague idea
evidently of finding refuge in the railway yards, but the dogs
rushed upon him, barking; men began to shout; a shot was fired at
random. He fled away from the gates. By the merest accident, as
it happened, he took the direction of the O.S.N. Company's
offices. Twice he stumbled upon the bodies of men killed during
the day. But everything living frightened him much more. He
crouched, crept, crawled, made dashes, guided by a sort of animal
instinct, keeping away from every light and from every sound of
voices. His idea was to throw himself at the feet of Captain
Mitchell and beg for shelter in the Company's offices. It was all
dark there as he approached on his hands and knees, but suddenly
someone on guard challenged loudly, "Quien vive?" There were more
dead men lying about, and he flattened himself down at once by
the side of a cold corpse. He heard a voice saying, "Here is one
of those wounded rascals crawling about. Shall I go and finish
him?" And another voice objected that it was not safe to go out
without a lantern upon such an errand; perhaps it was only some
negro Liberal looking for a chance to stick a knife into the
stomach of an honest man. Hirsch didn't stay to hear any more,
but crawling away to the end of the wharf, hid himself amongst a
lot of empty casks. After a while some people came along,
talking, and with glowing cigarettes. He did not stop to ask
himself whether they would be likely to do him any harm, but
bolted incontinently along the jetty, saw a lighter lying moored
at the end, and threw himself into it. In his desire to find
cover he crept right forward under the half-deck, and he had
remained there more dead than alive, suffering agonies of hunger
and thirst, and almost fainting with terror, when he heard
numerous footsteps and the voices of the Europeans who came in a
body escorting the wagonload of treasure, pushed along the rails
by a squad of Cargadores. He understood perfectly what was being
done from the talk, but did not disclose his presence from the
fear that he would not be allowed to remain. His only idea at
the time, overpowering and masterful, was to get away from this
terrible Sulaco. And now he regretted it very much. He had heard
Nostromo talk to Decoud, and wished himself back on shore. He
did not desire to be involved in any desperate affair--in a
situation where one could not run away. The involuntary groans of
his anguished spirit had betrayed him to the sharp ears of the
Capataz.
They had propped him up in a sitting posture against the side of
the lighter, and he went on with the moaning account of his
adventures till his voice broke, his head fell forward. "Water,"
he whispered, with difficulty. Decoud held one of the cans to
his lips. He revived after an extraordinarily short time, and
scrambled up to his feet wildly. Nostromo, in an angry and
threatening voice, ordered him forward. Hirsch was one of those
men whom fear lashes like a whip, and he must have had an
appalling idea of the Capataz's ferocity. He displayed an
extraordinary agility in disappearing forward into the darkness.
They heard him getting over the tarpaulin; then there was the
sound of a heavy fall, followed by a weary sigh. Afterwards all
was still in the fore-part of the lighter, as though he had
killed himself in his headlong tumble. Nostromo shouted in a
menacing voice--
"Lie still there! Do not move a limb. If I hear as much as a loud
breath from you I shall come over there and put a bullet through
your head."
The mere presence of a coward, however passive, brings an element
of treachery into a dangerous situation. Nostromo's nervous
impatience passed into gloomy thoughtfulness. Decoud, in an
undertone, as if speaking to himself, remarked that, after all,
this bizarre event made no great difference. He could not
conceive what harm the man could do. At most he would be in the
way, like an inanimate and useless object--like a block of wood,
for instance.
"I would think twice before getting rid of a piece of wood," said
Nostromo, calmly. "Something may happen unexpectedly where you
could make use of it. But in an affair like ours a man like this
ought to be thrown overboard. Even if he were as brave as a lion
we would not want him here. We are not running away for our
lives. Senor, there is no harm in a brave man trying to save
himself with ingenuity and courage; but you have heard his tale,
Don Martin. His being here is a miracle of fear--" Nostromo
paused. "There is no room for fear in this lighter," he added
through his teeth.
Decoud had no answer to make. It was not a position for argument,
for a display of scruples or feelings. There were a thousand
ways in which a panic-stricken man could make himself dangerous.
It was evident that Hirsch could not be spoken to, reasoned with,
or persuaded into a rational line of conduct. The story of his
own escape demonstrated that clearly enough. Decoud thought that
it was a thousand pities the wretch had not died of fright.
Nature, who had made him what he was, seemed to have calculated
cruelly how much he could bear in the way of atrocious anguish
without actually expiring. Some compassion was due to so much
terror. Decoud, though imaginative enough for sympathy, resolved
not to interfere with any action that Nostromo would take. But
Nostromo did nothing. And the fate of Senor Hirsch remained
suspended in the darkness of the gulf at the mercy of events
which could not be foreseen.
The Capataz, extending his hand, put out the candle suddenly. It
was to Decoud as if his companion had destroyed, by a single
touch, the world of affairs, of loves, of revolution, where his
complacent superiority analyzed fearlessly all motives and all
passions, including his own.
He gasped a little. Decoud was affected by the novelty of his
position. Intellectually self-confident, he suffered from being
deprived of the only weapon he could use with effect. No
intelligence could penetrate the darkness of the Placid Gulf.
There remained only one thing he was certain of, and that was the
overweening vanity of his companion. It was direct,
uncomplicated, naive, and effectual. Decoud, who had been making
use of him, had tried to understand his man thoroughly. He had
discovered a complete singleness of motive behind the varied
manifestations of a consistent character. This was why the man
remained so astonishingly simple in the jealous greatness of his
conceit. And now there was a complication. It was evident that he
resented having been given a task in which there were so many
chances of failure. "I wonder," thought Decoud, "how he would
behave if I were not here."
He heard Nostromo mutter again, "No! there is no room for fear on
this lighter. Courage itself does not seem good enough. I have a
good eye and a steady hand; no man can say he ever saw me tired
or uncertain what to do; but por Dios, Don Martin, I have been
sent out into this black calm on a business where neither a good
eye, nor a steady hand, nor judgment are any use. . . ." He swore
a string of oaths in Spanish and Italian under his breath.
"Nothing but sheer desperation will do for this affair."
These words were in strange contrast to the prevailing peace--to
this almost solid stillness of the gulf. A shower fell with an
abrupt whispering sound all round the boat, and Decoud took off
his hat, and, letting his head get wet, felt greatly refreshed.
Presently a steady little draught of air caressed his cheek. The
lighter began to move, but the shower distanced it. The drops
ceased to fall upon his head and hands, the whispering died out
in the distance. Nostromo emitted a grunt of satisfaction, and
grasping the tiller, chirruped softly, as sailors do, to
encourage the wind. Never for the last three days had Decoud felt
less the need for what the Capataz would call desperation.
"I fancy I hear another shower on the water," he observed in a
tone of quiet content. "I hope it will catch us up."
Nostromo ceased chirruping at once. "You hear another shower?" he
said, doubtfully. A sort of thinning of the darkness seemed to
have taken place, and Decoud could see now the outline of his
companion's figure, and even the sail came out of the night like
a square block of dense snow.
The sound which Decoud had detected came along the water harshly.
Nostromo recognized that noise partaking of a hiss and a rustle
which spreads out on all sides of a steamer making her way
through a smooth water on a quiet night. It could be nothing else
but the captured transport with troops from Esmeralda. She
carried no lights. The noise of her steaming, growing louder
every minute, would stop at times altogether, and then begin
again abruptly, and sound startlingly nearer; as if that
invisible vessel, whose position could not be precisely guessed,
were making straight for the lighter. Meantime, that last kept on
sailing slowly and noiselessly before a breeze so faint that it
was only by leaning over the side and feeling the water slip
through his fingers that Decoud convinced himself they were
moving at all. His drowsy feeling had departed. He was glad to
know that the lighter was moving. After so much stillness the
noise of the steamer seemed uproarious and distracting. There was
a weirdness in not being able to see her. Suddenly all was still.
She had stopped, but so close to them that the steam, blowing
off, sent its rumbling vibration right over their heads.
"They are trying to make out where they are," said Decoud in a
whisper. Again he leaned over and put his fingers into the water.
"We are moving quite smartly," he informed Nostromo.
"We seem to be crossing her bows," said the Capataz in a cautious
tone. "But this is a blind game with death. Moving on is of no
use. We mustn't be seen or heard."
His whisper was hoarse with excitement. Of all his face there was
nothing visible but a gleam of white eyeballs. His fingers
gripped Decoud's shoulder. "That is the only way to save this
treasure from this steamer full of soldiers. Any other would
have carried lights. But you observe there is not a gleam to
show us where she is."
Decoud stood as if paralyzed; only his thoughts were wildly
active. In the space of a second he remembered the desolate
glance of Antonia as he left her at the bedside of her father in
the gloomy house of Avellanos, with shuttered windows, but all
the doors standing open, and deserted by all the servants except
an old negro at the gate. He remembered the Casa Gould on his
last visit, the arguments, the tones of his voice, the
impenetrable attitude of Charles, Mrs. Gould's face so blanched
with anxiety and fatigue that her eyes seemed to have changed
colour, appearing nearly black by contrast. Even whole sentences
of the proclamation which he meant to make Barrios issue from his
headquarters at Cayta as soon as he got there passed through his
mind; the very germ of the new State, the Separationist
proclamation which he had tried before he left to read hurriedly
to Don Jose, stretched out on his bed under the fixed gaze of his
daughter. God knows whether the old statesman had understood it;
he was unable to speak, but he had certainly lifted his arm off
the coverlet; his hand had moved as if to make the sign of the
cross in the air, a gesture of blessing, of consent. Decoud had
that very draft in his pocket, written in pencil on several loose
sheets of paper, with the heavily-printed heading,
"Administration of the San Tome Silver Mine. Sulaco. Republic of
Costaguana." He had written it furiously, snatching page after
page on Charles Gould's table. Mrs. Gould had looked several
times over his shoulder as he wrote; but the Senor Administrador,
standing straddle-legged, would not even glance at it when it was
finished. He had waved it away firmly. It must have been scorn,
and not caution, since he never made a remark about the use of
the Administration's paper for such a compromising document. And
that showed his disdain, the true English disdain of common
prudence, as if everything outside the range of their own
thoughts and feelings were unworthy of serious recognition.
Decoud had the time in a second or two to become furiously angry
with Charles Gould, and even resentful against Mrs. Gould, in
whose care, tacitly it is true, he had left the safety of
Antonia. Better perish a thousand times than owe your
preservation to such people, he exclaimed mentally. The grip of
Nostromo's fingers never removed from his shoulder, tightening
fiercely, recalled him to himself.
"The darkness is our friend," the Capataz murmured into his ear.
"I am going to lower the sail, and trust our escape to this black
gulf. No eyes could make us out lying silent with a naked mast. I
will do it now, before this steamer closes still more upon us.
The faint creak of a block would betray us and the San Tome
treasure into the hands of those thieves."
He moved about as warily as a cat. Decoud heard no sound; and it
was only by the disappearance of the square blotch of darkness
that he knew the yard had come down, lowered as carefully as if
it had been made of glass. Next moment he heard Nostromo's quiet
breathing by his side.
"You had better not move at all from where you are, Don Martin,"
advised the Capataz, earnestly. "You might stumble or displace
something which would make a noise. The sweeps and the punting
poles are lying about. Move not for your life. Por Dios, Don
Martin," he went on in a keen but friendly whisper, "I am so
desperate that if I didn't know your worship to be a man of
courage, capable of standing stock still whatever happens, I
would drive my knife into your heart."
A deathlike stillness surrounded the lighter. It was difficult to
believe that there was near a steamer full of men with many pairs
of eyes peering from her bridge for some hint of land in the
night. Her steam had ceased blowing off, and she remained stopped
too far off apparently for any other sound to reach the lighter.
"Perhaps you would, Capataz," Decoud began in a whisper.
"However, you need not trouble. There are other things than the
fear of your knife to keep my heart steady. It shall not betray
you. Only, have you forgotten--"
"I spoke to you openly as to a man as desperate as myself,"
explained the Capataz. "The silver must be saved from the
Monterists. I told Captain Mitchell three times that I preferred
to go alone. I told Don Carlos Gould, too. It was in the Casa
Gould. They had sent for me. The ladies were there; and when I
tried to explain why I did not wish to have you with me, they
promised me, both of them, great rewards for your safety. A
strange way to talk to a man you are sending out to an almost
certain death. Those gentlefolk do not seem to have sense enough
to understand what they are giving one to do. I told them I could
do nothing for you. You would have been safer with the bandit
Hernandez. It would have been possible to ride out of the town
with no greater risk than a chance shot sent after you in the
dark. But it was as if they had been deaf. I had to promise I
would wait for you under the harbour gate. I did wait. And now
because you are a brave man you are as safe as the silver.
Neither more nor less."
At that moment, as if by way of comment upon Nostromo's words,
the invisible steamer went ahead at half speed only, as could be
judged by the leisurely beat of her propeller. The sound shifted
its place markedly, but without coming nearer. It even grew a
little more distant right abeam of the lighter, and then ceased
again.
"They are trying for a sight of the Isabels," muttered Nostromo,
"in order to make for the harbour in a straight line and seize
the Custom House with the treasure in it. Have you ever seen the
Commandant of Esmeralda, Sotillo? A handsome fellow, with a soft
voice. When I first came here I used to see him in the Calle
talking to the senoritas at the windows of the houses, and
showing his white teeth all the time. But one of my Cargadores,
who had been a soldier, told me that he had once ordered a man to
be flayed alive in the remote Campo, where he was sent recruiting
amongst the people of the Estancias. It has never entered his
head that the Compania had a man capable of baffling his game."
The murmuring loquacity of the Capataz disturbed Decoud like a
hint of weakness. And yet, talkative resolution may be as genuine
as grim silence.
"Sotillo is not baffled so far," he said. "Have you forgotten
that crazy man forward?"
Nostromo had not forgotten Senor Hirsch. He reproached himself
bitterly for not having visited the lighter carefully before
leaving the wharf. He reproached himself for not having stabbed
and flung Hirsch overboard at the very moment of discovery
without even looking at his face. That would have been consistent
with the desperate character of the affair. Whatever happened,
Sotillo was already baffled. Even if that wretch, now as silent
as death, did anything to betray the nearness of the lighter,
Sotillo--if Sotillo it was in command of the troops on
board--would be still baffled of his plunder.
"I have an axe in my hand," Nostromo whispered, wrathfully, "that
in three strokes would cut through the side down to the water's
edge. Moreover, each lighter has a plug in the stern, and I know
exactly where it is. I feel it under the sole of my foot."
Decoud recognized the ring of genuine determination in the
nervous murmurs, the vindictive excitement of the famous Capataz.
Before the steamer, guided by a shriek or two (for there could be
no more than that, Nostromo said, gnashing his teeth audibly),
could find the lighter there would be plenty of time to sink this
treasure tied up round his neck.
The last words he hissed into Decoud's ear. Decoud said nothing.
He was perfectly convinced. The usual characteristic quietness
of the man was gone. It was not equal to the situation as he
conceived it. Something deeper, something unsuspected by
everyone, had come to the surface. Decoud, with careful
movements, slipped off his overcoat and divested himself of his
boots; he did not consider himself bound in honour to sink with
the treasure. His object was to get down to Barrios, in Cayta, as
the Capataz knew very well; and he, too, meant, in his own way,
to put into that attempt all the desperation of which he was
capable. Nostromo muttered, "True, true! You are a politician,
senor. Rejoin the army, and start another revolution." He
pointed out, however, that there was a little boat belonging to
every lighter fit to carry two men, if not more. Theirs was
towing behind.
Of that Decoud had not been aware. Of course, it was too dark to
see, and it was only when Nostromo put his hand upon its painter
fastened to a cleat in the stern that he experienced a full
measure of relief. The prospect of finding himself in the water
and swimming, overwhelmed by ignorance and darkness, probably in
a circle, till he sank from exhaustion, was revolting. The barren
and cruel futility of such an end intimidated his affectation of
careless pessimism. In comparison to it, the chance of being left
floating in a boat, exposed to thirst, hunger, discovery,
imprisonment, execution, presented itself with an aspect of
amenity worth securing even at the cost of some self-contempt. He
did not accept Nostromo's proposal that he should get into the
boat at once. "Something sudden may overwhelm us, senor," the
Capataz remarked promising faithfully, at the same time, to let
go the painter at the moment when the necessity became manifest.
But Decoud assured him lightly that he did not mean to take to
the boat till the very last moment, and that then he meant the
Capataz to come along, too. The darkness of the gulf was no
longer for him the end of all things. It was part of a living
world since, pervading it, failure and death could be felt at
your elbow. And at the same time it was a shelter. He exulted in
its impenetrable obscurity. "Like a wall, like a wall," he
muttered to himself.
The only thing which checked his confidence was the thought of
Senor Hirsch. Not to have bound and gagged him seemed to Decoud
now the height of improvident folly. As long as the miserable
creature had the power to raise a yell he was a constant danger.
His abject terror was mute now, but there was no saying from what
cause it might suddenly find vent in shrieks.
This very madness of fear which both Decoud and Nostromo had seen
in the wild and irrational glances, and in the continuous
twitchings of his mouth, protected Senor Hirsch from the cruel
necessities of this desperate affair. The moment of silencing him
for ever had passed. As Nostromo remarked, in answer to Decoud's
regrets, it was too late! It could not be done without noise,
especially in the ignorance of the man's exact position. Wherever
he had elected to crouch and tremble, it was too hazardous to go
near him. He would begin probably to yell for mercy. It was much
better to leave him quite alone since he was keeping so still.
But to trust to his silence became every moment a greater strain
upon Decoud's composure.
"I wish, Capataz, you had not let the right moment pass," he
murmured.
"What! To silence him for ever? I thought it good to hear first
how he came to be here. It was too strange. Who could imagine
that it was all an accident? Afterwards, senor, when I saw you
giving him water to drink, I could not do it. Not after I had
seen you holding up the can to his lips as though he were your
brother. Senor, that sort of necessity must not be thought of too
long. And yet it would have been no cruelty to take away from him
his wretched life. It is nothing but fear. Your compassion saved
him then, Don Martin, and now it is too late. It couldn't be done
without noise."
In the steamer they were keeping a perfect silence, and the
stillness was so profound that Decoud felt as if the slightest
sound conceivable must travel unchecked and audible to the end of
the world. What if Hirsch coughed or sneezed? To feel himself at
the mercy of such an idiotic contingency was too exasperating to
be looked upon with irony. Nostromo, too, seemed to be getting
restless. Was it possible, he asked himself, that the steamer,
finding the night too dark altogether, intended to remain stopped
where she was till daylight? He began to think that this, after
all, was the real danger. He was afraid that the darkness, which
was his protection, would, in the end, cause his undoing.
Sotillo, as Nostromo had surmised, was in command on board the
transport. The events of the last forty-eight hours in Sulaco
were not known to him; neither was he aware that the telegraphist
in Esmeralda had managed to warn his colleague in Sulaco. Like a
good many officers of the troops garrisoning the province,
Sotillo had been influenced in his adoption of the Ribierist
cause by the belief that it had the enormous wealth of the Gould
Concession on its side. He had been one of the frequenters of the
Casa Gould, where he had aired his Blanco convictions and his
ardour for reform before Don Jose Avellanos, casting frank,
honest glances towards Mrs. Gould and Antonia the while. He was
known to belong to a good family persecuted and impoverished
during the tyranny of Guzman Bento. The opinions he expressed
appeared eminently natural and proper in a man of his parentage
and antecedents. And he was not a deceiver; it was perfectly
natural for him to express elevated sentiments while his whole
faculties were taken up with what seemed then a solid and
practical notion--the notion that the husband of Antonia
Avellanos would be, naturally, the intimate friend of the Gould
Concession. He even pointed this out to Anzani once, when
negotiating the sixth or seventh small loan in the gloomy, damp
apartment with enormous iron bars, behind the principal shop in
the whole row under the Arcades. He hinted to the universal
shopkeeper at the excellent terms he was on with the emancipated
senorita, who was like a sister to the Englishwoman. He would
advance one leg and put his arms akimbo, posing for Anzani's
inspection, and fixing him with a haughty stare.
"Look, miserable shopkeeper! How can a man like me fail with any
woman, let alone an emancipated girl living in scandalous
freedom?" he seemed to say.
His manner in the Casa Gould was, of course, very
different--devoid of all truculence, and even slightly mournful.
Like most of his countrymen, he was carried away by the sound of
fine words, especially if uttered by himself. He had no
convictions of any sort upon anything except as to the
irresistible power of his personal advantages. But that was so
firm that even Decoud's appearance in Sulaco, and his intimacy
with the Goulds and the Avellanos, did not disquiet him. On the
contrary, he tried to make friends with that rich Costaguanero
from Europe in the hope of borrowing a large sum by-and-by. The
only guiding motive of his life was to get money for the
satisfaction of his expensive tastes, which he indulged
recklessly, having no self-control. He imagined himself a master
of intrigue, but his corruption was as simple as an animal
instinct. At times, in solitude, he had his moments of ferocity,
and also on such occasions as, for instance, when alone in a room
with Anzani trying to get a loan.
He had talked himself into the command of the Esmeralda garrison.
That small seaport had its importance as the station of the main
submarine cable connecting the Occidental Provinces with the
outer world, and the junction with it of the Sulaco branch. Don
Jose Avellanos proposed him, and Barrios, with a rude and jeering
guffaw, had said, "Oh, let Sotillo go. He is a very good man to
keep guard over the cable, and the ladies of Esmeralda ought to
have their turn." Barrios, an indubitably brave man, had no great
opinion of Sotillo.
It was through the Esmeralda cable alone that the San Tome mine
could be kept in constant touch with the great financier, whose
tacit approval made the strength of the Ribierist movement. This
movement had its adversaries even there. Sotillo governed
Esmeralda with repressive severity till the adverse course of
events upon the distant theatre of civil war forced upon him the
reflection that, after all, the great silver mine was fated to
become the spoil of the victors. But caution was necessary. He
began by assuming a dark and mysterious attitude towards the
faithful Ribierist municipality of Esmeralda. Later on, the
information that the commandant was holding assemblies of
officers in the dead of night (which had leaked out somehow)
caused those gentlemen to neglect their civil duties altogether,
and remain shut up in their houses. Suddenly one day all the
letters from Sulaco by the overland courier were carried off by a
file of soldiers from the post office to the Commandancia,
without disguise, concealment, or apology. Sotillo had heard
through Cayta of the final defeat of Ribiera.
This was the first open sign of the change in his convictions.
Presently notorious democrats, who had been living till then in
constant fear of arrest, leg irons, and even floggings, could be
observed going in and out at the great door of the Commandancia,
where the horses of the orderlies doze under their heavy saddles,
while the men, in ragged uniforms and pointed straw hats, lounge
on a bench, with their naked feet stuck out beyond the strip of
shade; and a sentry, in a red baize coat with holes at the
elbows, stands at the top of the steps glaring haughtily at the
common people, who uncover their heads to him as they pass.
Sotillo's ideas did not soar above the care for his personal
safety and the chance of plundering the town in his charge, but
he feared that such a late adhesion would earn but scant
gratitude from the victors. He had believed just a little too
long in the power of the San Tome mine. The seized correspondence
had confirmed his previous information of a large amount of
silver ingots lying in the Sulaco Custom House. To gain
possession of it would be a clear Monterist move; a sort of
service that would have to be rewarded. With the silver in his
hands he could make terms for himself and his soldiers. He was
aware neither of the riots, nor of the President's escape to
Sulaco and the close pursuit led by Montero's brother, the
guerrillero. The game seemed in his own hands. The initial moves
were the seizure of the cable telegraph office and the securing
of the Government steamer lying in the narrow creek which is the
harbour of Esmeralda. The last was effected without difficulty by
a company of soldiers swarming with a rush over the gangways as
she lay alongside the quay; but the lieutenant charged with the
duty of arresting the telegraphist halted on the way before the
only cafe in Esmeralda, where he distributed some brandy to his
men, and refreshed himself at the expense of the owner, a known
Ribierist. The whole party became intoxicated, and proceeded on
their mission up the street yelling and firing random shots at
the windows. This little festivity, which might have turned out
dangerous to the telegraphist's life, enabled him in the end to
send his warning to Sulaco. The lieutenant, staggering upstairs
with a drawn sabre, was before long kissing him on both cheeks in
one of those swift changes of mood peculiar to a state of
drunkenness. He clasped the telegraphist close round the neck,
assuring him that all the officers of the Esmeralda garrison were
going to be made colonels, while tears of happiness streamed down
his sodden face. Thus it came about that the town major, coming
along later, found the whole party sleeping on the stairs and in
passages, and the telegraphist (who scorned this chance of
escape) very busy clicking the key of the transmitter. The major
led him away bareheaded, with his hands tied behind his back, but
concealed the truth from Sotillo, who remained in ignorance of
the warning despatched to Sulaco.
The colonel was not the man to let any sort of darkness stand in
the way of the planned surprise. It appeared to him a dead
certainty; his heart was set upon his object with an
ungovernable, childlike impatience. Ever since the steamer had
rounded Punta Mala, to enter the deeper shadow of the gulf, he
had remained on the bridge in a group of officers as excited as
himself. Distracted between the coaxings and menaces of Sotillo
and his Staff, the miserable commander of the steamer kept her
moving with as much prudence as they would let him exercise. Some
of them had been drinking heavily, no doubt; but the prospect of
laying hands on so much wealth made them absurdly foolhardy, and,
at the same time, extremely anxious. The old major of the
battalion, a stupid, suspicious man, who had never been afloat in
his life, distinguished himself by putting out suddenly the
binnacle light, the only one allowed on board for the necessities
of navigation. He could not understand of what use it could be
for finding the way. To the vehement protestations of the ship's
captain, he stamped his foot and tapped the handle of his sword.
"Aha! I have unmasked you," he cried, triumphantly. "You are
tearing your hair from despair at my acuteness. Am I a child to
believe that a light in that brass box can show you where the
harbour is? I am an old soldier, I am. I can smell a traitor a
league off. You wanted that gleam to betray our approach to your
friend the Englishman. A thing like that show you the way! What a
miserable lie! Que picardia! You Sulaco people are all in the
pay of those foreigners. You deserve to be run through the body
with my sword." Other officers, crowding round, tried to calm his
indignation, repeating persuasively, "No, no! This is an
appliance of the mariners, major. This is no treachery." The
captain of the transport flung himself face downwards on the
bridge, and refused to rise. "Put an end to me at once," he
repeated in a stifled voice. Sotillo had to interfere.
The uproar and confusion on the bridge became so great that the
helmsman fled from the wheel. He took refuge in the engine-room,
and alarmed the engineers, who, disregarding the threats of the
soldiers set on guard over them, stopped the engines, protesting
that they would rather be shot than run the risk of being drowned
down below.
This was the first time Nostromo and Decoud heard the steamer
stop. After order had been restored, and the binnacle lamp
relighted, she went ahead again, passing wide of the lighter in
her search for the Isabels. The group could not be made out, and,
at the pitiful entreaties of the captain, Sotillo allowed the
engines to be stopped again to wait for one of those periodical
lightenings of darkness caused by the shifting of the cloud
canopy spread above the waters of the gulf.
Sotillo, on the bridge, muttered from time to time angrily to the
captain. The other, in an apologetic and cringing tone, begged su
merced the colonel to take into consideration the limitations put
upon human faculties by the darkness of the night. Sotillo
swelled with rage and impatience. It was the chance of a
lifetime.
"If your eyes are of no more use to you than this, I shall have
them put out," he yelled.
The captain of the steamer made no answer, for just then the mass
of the Great Isabel loomed up darkly after a passing shower, then
vanished, as if swept away by a wave of greater obscurity
preceding another downpour. This was enough for him. In the
voice of a man come back to life again, he informed Sotillo that
in an hour he would be alongside the Sulaco wharf. The ship was
put then full speed on the course, and a great bustle of
preparation for landing arose among the soldiers on her deck.
It was heard distinctly by Decoud and Nostromo. The Capataz
understood its meaning. They had made out the Isabels, and were
going on now in a straight line for Sulaco. He judged that they
would pass close; but believed that lying still like this, with
the sail lowered, the lighter could not be seen. "No, not even if
they rubbed sides with us," he muttered.
The rain began to fall again; first like a wet mist, then with a
heavier touch, thickening into a smart, perpendicular downpour;
and the hiss and thump of the approaching steamer was coming
extremely near. Decoud, with his eyes full of water, and lowered
head, asked himself how long it would be before she drew past,
when unexpectedly he felt a lurch. An inrush of foam broke
swishing over the stern, simultaneously with a crack of timbers
and a staggering shock. He had the impression of an angry hand
laying hold of the lighter and dragging it along to destruction.
The shock, of course, had knocked him down, and he found himself
rolling in a lot of water at the bottom of the lighter. A violent
churning went on alongside; a strange and amazed voice cried out
something above him in the night. He heard a piercing shriek for
help from Senor Hirsch. He kept his teeth hard set all the time.
It was a collision!
The steamer had struck the lighter obliquely, heeling her over
till she was half swamped, starting some of her timbers, and
swinging her head parallel to her own course with the force of
the blow. The shock of it on board of her was hardly perceptible.
All the violence of that collision was, as usual, felt only on
board the smaller craft. Even Nostromo himself thought that this
was perhaps the end of his desperate adventure. He, too, had
been flung away from the long tiller, which took charge in the
lurch. Next moment the steamer would have passed on, leaving the
lighter to sink or swim after having shouldered her thus out of
her way, and without even getting a glimpse of her form, had it
not been that, being deeply laden with stores and the great
number of people on board, her anchor was low enough to hook
itself into one of the wire shrouds of the lighter's mast. For
the space of two or three gasping breaths that new rope held
against the sudden strain. It was this that gave Decoud the
sensation of the snatching pull, dragging the lighter away to
destruction. The cause of it, of course, was inexplicable to
him. The whole thing was so sudden that he had no time to think.
But all his sensations were perfectly clear; he had kept complete
possession of himself; in fact, he was even pleasantly aware of
that calmness at the very moment of being pitched head first over
the transom, to struggle on his back in a lot of water. Senor
Hirsch's shriek he had heard and recognized while he was
regaining his feet, always with that mysterious sensation of
being dragged headlong through the darkness. Not a word, not a
cry escaped him; he had no time to see anything; and following
upon the despairing screams for help, the dragging motion ceased
so suddenly that he staggered forward with open arms and fell
against the pile of the treasure boxes. He clung to them
instinctively, in the vague apprehension of being flung about
again; and immediately he heard another lot of shrieks for help,
prolonged and despairing, not near him at all, but unaccountably
in the distance, away from the lighter altogether, as if some
spirit in the night were mocking at Senor Hirsch's terror and
despair.
Then all was still--as still as when you wake up in your bed in a
dark room from a bizarre and agitated dream. The lighter rocked
slightly; the rain was still falling. Two groping hands took hold
of his bruised sides from behind, and the Capataz's voice
whispered, in his ear, "Silence, for your life! Silence! The
steamer has stopped."
Decoud listened. The gulf was dumb. He felt the water nearly up
to his knees. "Are we sinking?" he asked in a faint breath.
"I don't know," Nostromo breathed back to him. "Senor, make not
the slightest sound."
Hirsch, when ordered forward by Nostromo, had not returned into
his first hiding-place. He had fallen near the mast, and had no
strength to rise; moreover, he feared to move. He had given
himself up for dead, but not on any rational grounds. It was
simply a cruel and terrifying feeling. Whenever he tried to think
what would become of him his teeth would start chattering
violently. He was too absorbed in the utter misery of his fear to
take notice of anything.
Though he was stifling under the lighter's sail which Nostromo
had unwittingly lowered on top of him, he did not even dare to
put out his head till the very moment of the steamer striking.
Then, indeed, he leaped right out, spurred on to new miracles of
bodily vigour by this new shape of danger. The inrush of water
when the lighter heeled over unsealed his lips. His shriek,
"Save me!" was the first distinct warning of the collision for
the people on board the steamer. Next moment the wire shroud
parted, and the released anchor swept over the lighter's
forecastle. It came against the breast of Senor Hirsch, who
simply seized hold of it, without in the least knowing what it
was, but curling his arms and legs upon the part above the fluke
with an invincible, unreasonable tenacity. The lighter yawed off
wide, and the steamer, moving on, carried him away, clinging
hard, and shouting for help. It was some time, however, after the
steamer had stopped that his position was discovered. His
sustained yelping for help seemed to come from somebody swimming
in the water. At last a couple of men went over the bows and
hauled him on board. He was carried straight off to Sotillo on
the bridge. His examination confirmed the impression that some
craft had been run over and sunk, but it was impracticable on
such a dark night to look for the positive proof of floating
wreckage. Sotillo was more anxious than ever now to enter the
harbour without loss of time; the idea that he had destroyed the
principal object of his expedition was too intolerable to be
accepted. This feeling made the story he had heard appear the
more incredible. Senor Hirsch, after being beaten a little for
telling lies, was thrust into the chartroom. But he was beaten
only a little. His tale had taken the heart out of Sotillo's
Staff, though they all repeated round their chief, "Impossible!
impossible!" with the exception of the old major, who triumphed
gloomily.
"I told you; I told you," he mumbled. "I could smell some
treachery, some diableria a league off."
Meantime, the steamer had kept on her way towards Sulaco, where
only the truth of that matter could be ascertained. Decoud and
Nostromo heard the loud churning of her propeller diminish and
die out; and then, with no useless words, busied themselves in
making for the Isabels. The last shower had brought with it a
gentle but steady breeze. The danger was not over yet, and there
was no time for talk. The lighter was leaking like a sieve. They
splashed in the water at every step. The Capataz put into
Decoud's hands the handle of the pump which was fitted at the
side aft, and at once, without question or remark, Decoud began
to pump in utter forgetfulness of every desire but that of
keeping the treasure afloat. Nostromo hoisted the sail, flew back
to the tiller, pulled at the sheet like mad. The short flare of a
match (they had been kept dry in a tight tin box, though the man
himself was completely wet), disclosed to the toiling Decoud the
eagerness of his face, bent low over the box of the compass, and
the attentive stare of his eyes. He knew now where he was, and he
hoped to run the sinking lighter ashore in the shallow cove where
the high, cliff-like end of the Great Isabel is divided in two
equal parts by a deep and overgrown ravine.
Decoud pumped without intermission. Nostromo steered without
relaxing for a second the intense, peering effort of his stare.
Each of them was as if utterly alone with his task. It did not
occur to them to speak. There was nothing in common between them
but the knowledge that the damaged lighter must be slowly but
surely sinking. In that knowledge, which was like the crucial
test of their desires, they seemed to have become completely
estranged, as if they had discovered in the very shock of the
collision that the loss of the lighter would not mean the same
thing to them both. This common danger brought their differences
in aim, in view, in character, and in position, into absolute
prominence in the private vision of each. There was no bond of
conviction, of common idea; they were merely two adventurers
pursuing each his own adventure, involved in the same imminence
of deadly peril. Therefore they had nothing to say to each other.
But this peril, this only incontrovertible truth in which they
shared, seemed to act as an inspiration to their mental and
bodily powers.
There was certainly something almost miraculous in the way the
Capataz made the cove with nothing but the shadowy hint of the
island's shape and the vague gleam of a small sandy strip for a
guide. Where the ravine opens between the cliffs, and a slender,
shallow rivulet meanders out of the bushes to lose itself in the
sea, the lighter was run ashore; and the two men, with a
taciturn, undaunted energy, began to discharge her precious
freight, carrying each ox-hide box up the bed of the rivulet
beyond the bushes to a hollow place which the caving in of the
soil had made below the roots of a large tree. Its big smooth
trunk leaned like a falling column far over the trickle of water
running amongst the loose stones.
A couple of years before Nostromo had spent a whole Sunday, all
alone, exploring the island. He explained this to Decoud after
their task was done, and they sat, weary in every limb, with
their legs hanging down the low bank, and their backs against the
tree, like a pair of blind men aware of each other and their
surroundings by some indefinable sixth sense.
"Yes," Nostromo repeated, "I never forget a place I have
carefully looked at once." He spoke slowly, almost lazily, as if
there had been a whole leisurely life before him, instead of the
scanty two hours before daylight. The existence of the treasure,
barely concealed in this improbable spot, laid a burden of
secrecy upon every contemplated step, upon every intention and
plan of future conduct. He felt the partial failure of this
desperate affair entrusted to the great reputation he had known
how to make for himself. However, it was also a partial success.
His vanity was half appeased. His nervous irritation had
subsided.
"You never know what may be of use," he pursued with his usual
quietness of tone and manner. "I spent a whole miserable Sunday
in exploring this crumb of land."
"A misanthropic sort of occupation," muttered Decoud, viciously.
"You had no money, I suppose, to gamble with, and to fling about
amongst the girls in your usual haunts, Capataz."
"e vero!" exclaimed the Capataz, surprised into the use of his
native tongue by so much perspicacity. "I had not! Therefore I
did not want to go amongst those beggarly people accustomed to my
generosity. It is looked for from the Capataz of the Cargadores,
who are the rich men, and, as it were, the Caballeros amongst the
common people. I don't care for cards but as a pastime; and as to
those girls that boast of having opened their doors to my knock,
you know I wouldn't look at any one of them twice except for what
the people would say. They are queer, the good people of Sulaco,
and I have got much useful information simply by listening
patiently to the talk of the women that everybody believed I was
in love with. Poor Teresa could never understand that. On that
particular Sunday, senor, she scolded so that I went out of the
house swearing that I would never darken their door again unless
to fetch away my hammock and my chest of clothes. Senor, there
is nothing more exasperating than to hear a woman you respect
rail against your good reputation when you have not a single
brass coin in your pocket. I untied one of the small boats and
pulled myself out of the harbour with nothing but three cigars in
my pocket to help me spend the day on this island. But the water
of this rivulet you hear under your feet is cool and sweet and
good, senor, both before and after a smoke." He was silent for a
while, then added reflectively, "That was the first Sunday after
I brought down the white-whiskered English rico all the way down
the mountains from the Paramo on the top of the Entrada Pass--and
in the coach, too! No coach had gone up or down that mountain
road within the memory of man, senor, till I brought this one
down in charge of fifty peons working like one man with ropes,
pickaxes, and poles under my direction. That was the rich
Englishman who, as people say, pays for the making of this
railway. He was very pleased with me. But my wages were not due
till the end of the month."
He slid down the bank suddenly. Decoud heard the splash of his
feet in the brook and followed his footsteps down the ravine. His
form was lost among the bushes till he had reached the strip of
sand under the cliff. As often happens in the gulf when the
showers during the first part of the night had been frequent and
heavy, the darkness had thinned considerably towards the morning
though there were no signs of daylight as yet.
The cargo-lighter, relieved of its precious burden, rocked
feebly, half-afloat, with her fore-foot on the sand. A long rope
stretched away like a black cotton thread across the strip of
white beach to the grapnel Nostromo had carried ashore and hooked
to the stem of a tree-like shrub in the very opening of the
ravine.
There was nothing for Decoud but to remain on the island. He
received from Nostromo's hands whatever food the foresight of
Captain Mitchell had put on board the lighter and deposited it
temporarily in the little dinghy which on their arrival they had
hauled up out of sight amongst the bushes. It was to be left with
him. The island was to be a hiding-place, not a prison; he could
pull out to a passing ship. The O.S.N. Company's mail boats
passed close to the islands when going into Sulaco from the
north. But the Minerva, carrying off the ex-president, had taken
the news up north of the disturbances in Sulaco. It was possible
that the next steamer down would get instructions to miss the
port altogether since the town, as far as the Minerva's officers
knew, was for the time being in the hands of the rabble. This
would mean that there would be no steamer for a month, as far as
the mail service went; but Decoud had to take his chance of that.
The island was his only shelter from the proscription hanging
over his head. The Capataz was, of course, going back. The
unloaded lighter leaked much less, and he thought that she would
keep afloat as far as the harbour.
He passed to Decoud, standing knee-deep alongside, one of the two
spades which belonged to the equipment of each lighter for use
when ballasting ships. By working with it carefully as soon as
there was daylight enough to see, Decoud could loosen a mass of
earth and stones overhanging the cavity in which they had
deposited the treasure, so that it would look as if it had fallen
naturally. It would cover up not only the cavity, but even all
traces of their work, the footsteps, the displaced stones, and
even the broken bushes.
"Besides, who would think of looking either for you or the
treasure here?" Nostromo continued, as if he could not tear
himself away from the spot. "Nobody is ever likely to come here.
What could any man want with this piece of earth as long as there
is room for his feet on the mainland! The people in this country
are not curious. There are even no fishermen here to intrude upon
your worship. All the fishing that is done in the gulf goes on
near Zapiga, over there. Senor, if you are forced to leave this
island before anything can be arranged for you, do not try to
make for Zapiga. It is a settlement of thieves and matreros,
where they would cut your throat promptly for the sake of your
gold watch and chain. And, senor, think twice before confiding in
any one whatever; even in the officers of the Company's steamers,
if you ever get on board one. Honesty alone is not enough for
security. You must look to discretion and prudence in a man. And
always remember, senor, before you open your lips for a
confidence, that this treasure may be left safely here for
hundreds of years. Time is on its side, senor. And silver is an
incorruptible metal that can be trusted to keep its value for
ever. . . . An incorruptible metal," he repeated, as if the idea
had given him a profound pleasure.
"As some men are said to be," Decoud pronounced, inscrutably,
while the Capataz, who busied himself in baling out the lighter
with a wooden bucket, went on throwing the water over the side
with a regular splash. Decoud, incorrigible in his scepticism,
reflected, not cynically, but with general satisfaction, that
this man was made incorruptible by his enormous vanity, that
finest form of egoism which can take on the aspect of every
virtue.
Nostromo ceased baling, and, as if struck with a sudden thought,
dropped the bucket with a clatter into the lighter.
"Have you any message?" he asked in a lowered voice. "Remember, I
shall be asked questions."
"You must find the hopeful words that ought to be spoken to the
people in town. I trust for that your intelligence and your
experience, Capataz. You understand?"
"Si, senor. . . . For the ladies."
"Yes, yes," said Decoud, hastily. "Your wonderful reputation will
make them attach great value to your words; therefore be careful
what you say. I am looking forward," he continued, feeling the
fatal touch of contempt for himself to which his complex nature
was subject, "I am looking forward to a glorious and successful
ending to my mission. Do you hear, Capataz? Use the words
glorious and successful when you speak to the senorita. Your own
mission is accomplished gloriously and successfully. You have
indubitably saved the silver of the mine. Not only this silver,
but probably all the silver that shall ever come out of it."
Nostromo detected the ironic tone. "I dare say, Senor Don
Martin," he said, moodily. "There are very few things that I am
not equal to. Ask the foreign signori. I, a man of the people,
who cannot always understand what you mean. But as to this lot
which I must leave here, let me tell you that I would believe it
in greater safety if you had not been with me at all."
An exclamation escaped Decoud, and a short pause followed. "Shall
I go back with you to Sulaco?" he asked in an angry tone.
"Shall I strike you dead with my knife where you stand?" retorted
Nostromo, contemptuously. "It would be the same thing as taking
you to Sulaco. Come, senor. Your reputation is in your politics,
and mine is bound up with the fate of this silver. Do you wonder
I wish there had been no other man to share my knowledge? I
wanted no one with me, senor."
"You could not have kept the lighter afloat without me," Decoud
almost shouted. "You would have gone to the bottom with her."
"Yes," uttered Nostromo, slowly; "alone."
Here was a man, Decoud reflected, that seemed as though he would
have preferred to die rather than deface the perfect form of his
egoism. Such a man was safe. In silence he helped the Capataz to
get the grapnel on board. Nostromo cleared the shelving shore
with one push of the heavy oar, and Decoud found himself solitary
on the beach like a man in a dream. A sudden desire to hear a
human voice once more seized upon his heart. The lighter was
hardly distinguishable from the black water upon which she
floated.
"What do you think has become of Hirsch?" he shouted.
"Knocked overboard and drowned," cried Nostromo's voice
confidently out of the black wastes of sky and sea around the
islet. "Keep close in the ravine, senor. I shall try to come out
to you in a night or two."
A slight swishing rustle showed that Nostromo was setting the
sail. It filled all at once with a sound as of a single loud
drum-tap. Decoud went back to the ravine. Nostromo, at the
tiller, looked back from time to time at the vanishing mass of
the Great Isabel, which, little by little, merged into the
uniform texture of the night. At last, when he turned his head
again, he saw nothing but a smooth darkness, like a solid wall.
Then he, too, experienced that feeling of solitude which had
weighed heavily on Decoud after the lighter had slipped off the
shore. But while the man on the island was oppressed by a bizarre
sense of unreality affecting the very ground upon which he
walked, the mind of the Capataz of the Cargadores turned alertly
to the problem of future conduct. Nostromo's faculties, working
on parallel lines, enabled him to steer straight, to keep a
look-out for Hermosa, near which he had to pass, and to try to
imagine what would happen tomorrow in Sulaco. To-morrow, or, as a
matter of fact, to-day, since the dawn was not very far, Sotillo
would find out in what way the treasure had gone. A gang of
Cargadores had been employed in loading it into a railway truck
from the Custom House store-rooms, and running the truck on to
the wharf. There would be arrests made, and certainly before noon
Sotillo would know in what manner the silver had left Sulaco, and
who it was that took it out.
Nostromo's intention had been to sail right into the harbour; but
at this thought by a sudden touch of the tiller he threw the
lighter into the wind and checked her rapid way. His
re-appearance with the very boat would raise suspicions, would
cause surmises, would absolutely put Sotillo on the track. He
himself would be arrested; and once in the Calabozo there was no
saying what they would do to him to make him speak. He trusted
himself, but he stood up to look round. Near by, Hermosa showed
low its white surface as flat as a table, with the slight run of
the sea raised by the breeze washing over its edges noisily. The
lighter must be sunk at once.
He allowed her to drift with her sail aback. There was already a
good deal of water in her. He allowed her to drift towards the
harbour entrance, and, letting the tiller swing about, squatted
down and busied himself in loosening the plug. With that out she
would fill very quickly, and every lighter carried a little iron
ballast--enough to make her go down when full of water. When he
stood up again the noisy wash about the Hermosa sounded far away,
almost inaudible; and already he could make out the shape of land
about the harbour entrance. This was a desperate affair, and he
was a good swimmer. A mile was nothing to him, and he knew of an
easy place for landing just below the earthworks of the old
abandoned fort. It occurred to him with a peculiar fascination
that this fort was a good place in which to sleep the day through
after so many sleepless nights.
With one blow of the tiller he unshipped for the purpose, he
knocked the plug out, but did not take the trouble to lower the
sail. He felt the water welling up heavily about his legs before
he leaped on to the taffrail. There, upright and motionless, in
his shirt and trousers only, he stood waiting. When he had felt
her settle he sprang far away with a mighty splash.
At once he turned his head. The gloomy, clouded dawn from behind
the mountains showed him on the smooth waters the upper corner of
the sail, a dark wet triangle of canvas waving slightly to and
fro. He saw it vanish, as if jerked under, and then struck out
for the shore. _
Read next: PART THIRD - THE LIGHTHOUSE: CHAPTER I
Read previous: PART SECOND - THE ISABELS: CHAPTER VII
Table of content of Nostromo
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
