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_ AFTER landing from his swim Nostromo had scrambled up, all
dripping, into the main quadrangle of the old fort; and there,
amongst ruined bits of walls and rotting remnants of roofs and
sheds, he had slept the day through. He had slept in the shadow
of the mountains, in the white blaze of noon, in the stillness
and solitude of that overgrown piece of land between the oval of
the harbour and the spacious semi-circle of the gulf. He lay as
if dead. A rey-zamuro, appearing like a tiny black speck in the
blue, stooped, circling prudently with a stealthiness of flight
startling in a bird of that great size. The shadow of his
pearly-white body, of his black-tipped wings, fell on the grass
no more silently than he alighted himself on a hillock of rubbish
within three yards of that man, lying as still as a corpse. The
bird stretched his bare neck, craned his bald head, loathsome in
the brilliance of varied colouring, with an air of voracious
anxiety towards the promising stillness of that prostrate body.
Then, sinking his head deeply into his soft plumage, he settled
himself to wait. The first thing upon which Nostromo's eyes fell
on waking was this patient watcher for the signs of death and
corruption. When the man got up the vulture hopped away in great,
side-long, fluttering jumps. He lingered for a while, morose and
reluctant, before he rose, circling noiselessly with a sinister
droop of beak and claws.
Long after he had vanished, Nostromo, lifting his eyes up to the
sky, muttered, "I am not dead yet."
The Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores had lived in splendour and
publicity up to the very moment, as it were, when he took charge
of the lighter containing the treasure of silver ingots.
The last act he had performed in Sulaco was in complete harmony
with his vanity, and as such perfectly genuine. He had given his
last dollar to an old woman moaning with the grief and fatigue of
a dismal search under the arch of the ancient gate. Performed in
obscurity and without witnesses, it had still the characteristics
of splendour and publicity, and was in strict keeping with his
reputation. But this awakening in solitude, except for the
watchful vulture, amongst the ruins of the fort, had no such
characteristics. His first confused feeling was exactly
this--that it was not in keeping. It was more like the end of
things. The necessity of living concealed somehow, for God knows
how long, which assailed him on his return to consciousness, made
everything that had gone before for years appear vain and
foolish, like a flattering dream come suddenly to an end.
He climbed the crumbling slope of the rampart, and, putting aside
the bushes, looked upon the harbour. He saw a couple of ships at
anchor upon the sheet of water reflecting the last gleams of
light, and Sotillo's steamer moored to the jetty. And behind the
pale long front of the Custom House, there appeared the extent of
the town like a grove of thick timber on the plain with a gateway
in front, and the cupolas, towers, and miradors rising above the
trees, all dark, as if surrendered already to the night. The
thought that it was no longer open to him to ride through the
streets, recognized by everyone, great and little, as he used to
do every evening on his way to play monte in the posada of the
Mexican Domingo; or to sit in the place of honour, listening to
songs and looking at dances, made it appear to him as a town that
had no existence.
For a long time he gazed on, then let the parted bushes spring
back, and, crossing over to the other side of the fort, surveyed
the vaster emptiness of the great gulf. The Isabels stood out
heavily upon the narrowing long band of red in the west, which
gleamed low between their black shapes, and the Capataz thought
of Decoud alone there with the treasure. That man was the only
one who cared whether he fell into the hands of the Monterists or
not, the Capataz reflected bitterly. And that merely would be an
anxiety for his own sake. As to the rest, they neither knew nor
cared. What he had heard Giorgio Viola say once was very true.
Kings, ministers, aristocrats, the rich in general, kept the
people in poverty and subjection; they kept them as they kept
dogs, to fight and hunt for their service.
The darkness of the sky had descended to the line of the horizon,
enveloping the whole gulf, the islets, and the lover of Antonia
alone with the treasure on the Great Isabel. The Capataz, turning
his back on these things invisible and existing, sat down and
took his face between his fists. He felt the pinch of poverty for
the first time in his life. To find himself without money after a
run of bad luck at monte in the low, smoky room of Domingo's
posada, where the fraternity of Cargadores gambled, sang, and
danced of an evening; to remain with empty pockets after a burst
of public generosity to some peyne d'oro girl or other (for whom
he did not care), had none of the humiliation of destitution. He
remained rich in glory and reputation. But since it was no longer
possible for him to parade the streets of the town, and be hailed
with respect in the usual haunts of his leisure, this sailor felt
himself destitute indeed.
His mouth was dry. It was dry with heavy sleep and extremely
anxious thinking, as it had never been dry before. It may be said
that Nostromo tasted the dust and ashes of the fruit of life into
which he had bitten deeply in his hunger for praise. Without
removing his head from between his fists, he tried to spit before
him--"Tfui"--and muttered a curse upon the selfishness of all the
rich people.
Since everything seemed lost in Sulaco (and that was the feeling
of his waking), the idea of leaving the country altogether had
presented itself to Nostromo. At that thought he had seen, like
the beginning of another dream, a vision of steep and tideless
shores, with dark pines on the heights and white houses low down
near a very blue sea. He saw the quays of a big port, where the
coasting feluccas, with their lateen sails outspread like
motionless wings, enter gliding silently between the end of long
moles of squared blocks that project angularly towards each
other, hugging a cluster of shipping to the superb bosom of a
hill covered with palaces. He remembered these sights not without
some filial emotion, though he had been habitually and severely
beaten as a boy on one of these feluccas by a short-necked,
shaven Genoese, with a deliberate and distrustful manner, who (he
firmly believed) had cheated him out of his orphan's inheritance.
But it is mercifully decreed that the evils of the past should
appear but faintly in retrospect. Under the sense of loneliness,
abandonment, and failure, the idea of return to these things
appeared tolerable. But, what? Return? With bare feet and head,
with one check shirt and a pair of cotton calzoneros for all
worldly possessions?
The renowned Capataz, his elbows on his knees and a fist dug into
each cheek, laughed with self-derision, as he had spat with
disgust, straight out before him into the night. The confused and
intimate impressions of universal dissolution which beset a
subjective nature at any strong check to its ruling passion had a
bitterness approaching that of death itself. He was simple. He
was as ready to become the prey of any belief, superstition, or
desire as a child.
The facts of his situation he could appreciate like a man with a
distinct experience of the country. He saw them clearly. He was
as if sobered after a long bout of intoxication. His fidelity had
been taken advantage of. He had persuaded the body of Cargadores
to side with the Blancos against the rest of the people; he had
had interviews with Don Jose; he had been made use of by Father
Corbelan for negotiating with Hernandez; it was known that Don
Martin Decoud had admitted him to a sort of intimacy, so that he
had been free of the offices of the Porvenir. All these things
had flattered him in the usual way. What did he care about their
politics? Nothing at all. And at the end of it all--Nostromo
here and Nostromo there--where is Nostromo? Nostromo can do this
and that--work all day and ride all night--behold! he found
himself a marked Ribierist for any sort of vengeance Gamacho, for
instance, would choose to take, now the Montero party, had, after
all, mastered the town. The Europeans had given up; the
Caballeros had given up. Don Martin had indeed explained it was
only temporary--that he was going to bring Barrios to the
rescue. Where was that now--with Don Martin (whose ironic manner
of talk had always made the Capataz feel vaguely uneasy) stranded
on the Great Isabel? Everybody had given up. Even Don Carlos had
given up. The hurried removal of the treasure out to sea meant
nothing else than that. The Capataz de Cargadores, on a revulsion
of subjectiveness, exasperated almost to insanity, beheld all his
world without faith and courage. He had been betrayed!
With the boundless shadows of the sea behind him, out of his
silence and immobility, facing the lofty shapes of the lower
peaks crowded around the white, misty sheen of Higuerota,
Nostromo laughed aloud again, sprang abruptly to his feet, and
stood still. He must go. But where?
"There is no mistake. They keep us and encourage us as if we were
dogs born to fight and hunt for them. The vecchio is right," he
said, slowly and scathingly. He remembered old Giorgio taking
his pipe out of his mouth to throw these words over his shoulder
at the cafe, full of engine-drivers and fitters from the railway
workshops. This image fixed his wavering purpose. He would try
to find old Giorgio if he could. God knows what might have
happened to him! He made a few steps, then stopped again and
shook his head. To the left and right, in front and behind him,
the scrubby bush rustled mysteriously in the darkness.
"Teresa was right, too," he added in a low tone touched with awe.
He wondered whether she was dead in her anger with him or still
alive. As if in answer to this thought, half of remorse and half
of hope, with a soft flutter and oblique flight, a big owl, whose
appalling cry: "Ya-acabo! Ya-acabo!--it is finished; it is
finished"--announces calamity and death in the popular belief,
drifted vaguely like a large dark ball across his path. In the
downfall of all the realities that made his force, he was
affected by the superstition, and shuddered slightly. Signora
Teresa must have died, then. It could mean nothing else. The cry
of the ill-omened bird, the first sound he was to hear on his
return, was a fitting welcome for his betrayed individuality. The
unseen powers which he had offended by refusing to bring a priest
to a dying woman were lifting up their voice against him. She was
dead. With admirable and human consistency he referred everything
to himself. She had been a woman of good counsel always. And the
bereaved old Giorgio remained stunned by his loss just as he was
likely to require the advice of his sagacity. The blow would
render the dreamy old man quite stupid for a time.
As to Captain Mitchell, Nostromo, after the manner of trusted
subordinates, considered him as a person fitted by education
perhaps to sign papers in an office and to give orders, but
otherwise of no use whatever, and something of a fool. The
necessity of winding round his little finger, almost daily, the
pompous and testy self-importance of the old seaman had grown
irksome with use to Nostromo. At first it had given him an inward
satisfaction. But the necessity of overcoming small obstacles
becomes wearisome to a self-confident personality as much by the
certitude of success as by the monotony of effort. He mistrusted
his superior's proneness to fussy action. That old Englishman had
no judgment, he said to himself. It was useless to suppose that,
acquainted with the true state of the case, he would keep it to
himself. He would talk of doing impracticable things. Nostromo
feared him as one would fear saddling one's self with some
persistent worry. He had no discretion. He would betray the
treasure. And Nostromo had made up his mind that the treasure
should not be betrayed.
The word had fixed itself tenaciously in his intelligence. His
imagination had seized upon the clear and simple notion of
betrayal to account for the dazed feeling of enlightenment as to
being done for, of having inadvertently gone out of his existence
on an issue in which his personality had not been taken into
account. A man betrayed is a man destroyed. Signora Teresa (may
God have her soul!) had been right. He had never been taken into
account. Destroyed! Her white form sitting up bowed in bed, the
falling black hair, the wide-browed suffering face raised to him,
the anger of her denunciations appeared to him now majestic with
the awfulness of inspiration and of death. For it was not for
nothing that the evil bird had uttered its lamentable shriek over
his head. She was dead--may God have her soul!
Sharing in the anti-priestly freethought of the masses, his mind
used the pious formula from the superficial force of habit, but
with a deep-seated sincerity. The popular mind is incapable of
scepticism; and that incapacity delivers their helpless strength
to the wiles of swindlers and to the pitiless enthusiasms of
leaders inspired by visions of a high destiny. She was dead. But
would God consent to receive her soul? She had died without
confession or absolution, because he had not been willing to
spare her another moment of his time. His scorn of priests as
priests remained; but after all, it was impossible to know
whether what they affirmed was not true. Power, punishment,
pardon, are simple and credible notions. The magnificent Capataz
de Cargadores, deprived of certain simple realities, such as the
admiration of women, the adulation of men, the admired publicity
of his life, was ready to feel the burden of sacrilegious guilt
descend upon his shoulders.
Bareheaded, in a thin shirt and drawers, he felt the lingering
warmth of the fine sand under the soles of his feet. The narrow
strand gleamed far ahead in a long curve, defining the outline of
this wild side of the harbour. He flitted along the shore like a
pursued shadow between the sombre palm-groves and the sheet of
water lying as still as death on his right hand. He strode with
headlong haste in the silence and solitude as though he had
forgotten all prudence and caution. But he knew that on this
side of the water he ran no risk of discovery. The only
inhabitant was a lonely, silent, apathetic Indian in charge of
the palmarias, who brought sometimes a load of cocoanuts to the
town for sale. He lived without a woman in an open shed, with a
perpetual fire of dry sticks smouldering near an old canoe lying
bottom up on the beach. He could be easily avoided.
The barking of the dogs about that man's ranche was the first
thing that checked his speed. He had forgotten the dogs. He
swerved sharply, and plunged into the palm-grove, as into a
wilderness of columns in an immense hall, whose dense obscurity
seemed to whisper and rustle faintly high above his head. He
traversed it, entered a ravine, and climbed to the top of a steep
ridge free of trees and bushes.
From there, open and vague in the starlight, he saw the plain
between the town and the harbour. In the woods above some
night-bird made a strange drumming noise. Below beyond the
palmaria on the beach, the Indian's dogs continued to bark
uproariously. He wondered what had upset them so much, and,
peering down from his elevation, was surprised to detect
unaccountable movements of the ground below, as if several oblong
pieces of the plain had been in motion. Those dark, shifting
patches, alternately catching and eluding the eye, altered their
place always away from the harbour, with a suggestion of
consecutive order and purpose. A light dawned upon him. It was a
column of infantry on a night march towards the higher broken
country at the foot of the hills. But he was too much in the dark
about everything for wonder and speculation.
The plain had resumed its shadowy immobility. He descended the
ridge and found himself in the open solitude, between the harbour
and the town. Its spaciousness, extended indefinitely by an
effect of obscurity, rendered more sensible his profound
isolation. His pace became slower. No one waited for him; no one
thought of him; no one expected or wished his return. "Betrayed!
Betrayed!" he muttered to himself. No one cared. He might have
been drowned by this time. No one would have cared--unless,
perhaps, the children, he thought to himself. But they were with
the English signora, and not thinking of him at all.
He wavered in his purpose of making straight for the Casa Viola.
To what end? What could he expect there? His life seemed to fail
him in all its details, even to the scornful reproaches of
Teresa. He was aware painfully of his reluctance. Was it that
remorse which she had prophesied with, what he saw now, was her
last breath?
Meantime, he had deviated from the straight course, inclining by
a sort of instinct to the right, towards the jetty and the
harbour, the scene of his daily labours. The great length of the
Custom House loomed up all at once like the wall of a factory.
Not a soul challenged his approach, and his curiosity became
excited as he passed cautiously towards the front by the
unexpected sight of two lighted windows.
They had the fascination of a lonely vigil kept by some
mysterious watcher up there, those two windows shining dimly upon
the harbour in the whole vast extent of the abandoned building.
The solitude could almost be felt. A strong smell of wood smoke
hung about in a thin haze, which was faintly perceptible to his
raised eyes against the glitter of the stars. As he advanced in
the profound silence, the shrilling of innumerable cicalas in the
dry grass seemed positively deafening to his strained ears.
Slowly, step by step, he found himself in the great hall, sombre
and full of acrid smoke.
A fire built against the staircase had burnt down impotently to a
low heap of embers. The hard wood had failed to catch; only a few
steps at the bottom smouldered, with a creeping glow of sparks
defining their charred edges. At the top he saw a streak of light
from an open door. It fell upon the vast landing, all foggy with
a slow drift of smoke. That was the room. He climbed the stairs,
then checked himself, because he had seen within the shadow of a
man cast upon one of the walls. It was a shapeless,
highshouldered shadow of somebody standing still, with lowered
head, out of his line of sight. The Capataz, remembering that he
was totally unarmed, stepped aside, and, effacing himself upright
in a dark corner, waited with his eyes fixed on the door.
The whole enormous ruined barrack of a place, unfinished, without
ceilings under its lofty roof, was pervaded by the smoke swaying
to and fro in the faint cross draughts playing in the obscurity
of many lofty rooms and barnlike passages. Once one of the
swinging shutters came against the wall with a single sharp
crack, as if pushed by an impatient hand. A piece of paper
scurried out from somewhere, rustling along the landing. The
man, whoever he was, did not darken the lighted doorway. Twice
the Capataz, advancing a couple of steps out of his corner,
craned his neck in the hope of catching sight of what he could be
at, so quietly, in there. But every time he saw only the
distorted shadow of broad shoulders and bowed head. He was doing
apparently nothing, and stirred not from the spot, as though he
were meditating--or, perhaps, reading a paper. And not a sound
issued from the room.
Once more the Capataz stepped back. He wondered who it was--some
Monterist? But he dreaded to show himself. To discover his
presence on shore, unless after many days, would, he believed,
endanger the treasure. With his own knowledge possessing his
whole soul, it seemed impossible that anybody in Sulaco should
fail to jump at the right surmise. After a couple of weeks or so
it would be different. Who could tell he had not returned
overland from some port beyond the limits of the Republic? The
existence of the treasure confused his thoughts with a peculiar
sort of anxiety, as though his life had become bound up with it.
It rendered him timorous for a moment before that enigmatic,
lighted door. Devil take the fellow! He did not want to see him.
There would be nothing to learn from his face, known or unknown.
He was a fool to waste his time there in waiting.
Less than five minutes after entering the place the Capataz began
his retreat. He got away down the stairs with perfect success,
gave one upward look over his shoulder at the light on the
landing, and ran stealthily across the hall. But at the very
moment he was turning out of the great door, with his mind fixed
upon escaping the notice of the man upstairs, somebody he had not
heard coming briskly along the front ran full into him. Both
muttered a stifled exclamation of surprise, and leaped back and
stood still, each indistinct to the other. Nostromo was silent.
The other man spoke first, in an amazed and deadened tone.
"Who are you?"
Already Nostromo had seemed to recognize Dr. Monygham. He had no
doubt now. He hesitated the space of a second. The idea of
bolting without a word presented itself to his mind. No use! An
inexplicable repugnance to pronounce the name by which he was
known kept him silent a little longer. At last he said in a low
voice--
"A Cargador."
He walked up to the other. Dr. Monygham had received a shock. He
flung his arms up and cried out his wonder aloud, forgetting
himself before the marvel of this meeting. Nostromo angrily
warned him to moderate his voice. The Custom House was not so
deserted as it looked. There was somebody in the lighted room
above.
There is no more evanescent quality in an accomplished fact than
its wonderfulness. Solicited incessantly by the considerations
affecting its fears and desires, the human mind turns naturally
away from the marvellous side of events. And it was in the most
natural way possible that the doctor asked this man whom only two
minutes before he believed to have been drowned in the gulf--
"You have seen somebody up there? Have you?"
"No, I have not seen him."
"Then how do you know?"
"I was running away from his shadow when we met."
"His shadow?"
"Yes. His shadow in the lighted room," said Nostromo, in a
contemptuous tone. Leaning back with folded arms at the foot of
the immense building, he dropped his head, biting his lips
slightly, and not looking at the doctor. "Now," he thought to
himself, "he will begin asking me about the treasure."
But the doctor's thoughts were concerned with an event not as
marvellous as Nostromo's appearance, but in itself much less
clear. Why had Sotillo taken himself off with his whole command
with this suddenness and secrecy? What did this move portend?
However, it dawned upon the doctor that the man upstairs was one
of the officers left behind by the disappointed colonel to
communicate with him.
"I believe he is waiting for me," he said.
"It is possible."
"I must see. Do not go away yet, Capataz."
"Go away where?" muttered Nostromo.
Already the doctor had left him. He remained leaning against the
wall, staring at the dark water of the harbour; the shrilling of
cicalas filled his ears. An invincible vagueness coming over his
thoughts took from them all power to determine his will.
"Capataz! Capataz!" the doctor's voice called urgently from
above.
The sense of betrayal and ruin floated upon his sombre
indifference as upon a sluggish sea of pitch. But he stepped out
from under the wall, and, looking up, saw Dr. Monygham leaning
out of a lighted window.
"Come up and see what Sotillo has done. You need not fear the man
up here."
He answered by a slight, bitter laugh. Fear a man! The Capataz
of the Sulaco Cargadores fear a man! It angered him that anybody
should suggest such a thing. It angered him to be disarmed and
skulking and in danger because of the accursed treasure, which
was of so little account to the people who had tied it round his
neck. He could not shake off the worry of it. To Nostromo the
doctor represented all these people. . . . And he had never even
asked after it. Not a word of inquiry about the most desperate
undertaking of his life.
Thinking these thoughts, Nostromo passed again through the
cavernous hall, where the smoke was considerably thinned, and
went up the stairs, not so warm to his feet now, towards the
streak of light at the top. The doctor appeared in it for a
moment, agitated and impatient.
"Come up! Come up!"
At the moment of crossing the doorway the Capataz experienced a
shock of surprise. The man had not moved. He saw his shadow in
the same place. He started, then stepped in with a feeling of
being about to solve a mystery.
It was very simple. For an infinitesimal fraction of a second,
against the light of two flaring and guttering candles, through a
blue, pungent, thin haze which made his eyes smart, he saw the
man standing, as he had imagined him, with his back to the door,
casting an enormous and distorted shadow upon the wall. Swifter
than a flash of lightning followed the impression of his
constrained, toppling attitude--the shoulders projecting forward,
the head sunk low upon the breast. Then he distinguished the arms
behind his back, and wrenched so terribly that the two clenched
fists, lashed together, had been forced up higher than the
shoulder-blades. From there his eyes traced in one instantaneous
glance the hide rope going upwards from the tied wrists over a
heavy beam and down to a staple in the wall. He did not want to
look at the rigid legs, at the feet hanging down nervelessly,
with their bare toes some six inches above the floor, to know
that the man had been given the estrapade till he had swooned.
His first impulse was to dash forward and sever the rope at one
blow. He felt for his knife. He had no knife--not even a knife.
He stood quivering, and the doctor, perched on the edge of the
table, facing thoughtfully the cruel and lamentable sight, his
chin in his hand, uttered, without stirring--
"Tortured--and shot dead through the breast--getting cold."
This information calmed the Capataz. One of the candles
flickering in the socket went out. "Who did this?" he asked.
"Sotillo, I tell you. Who else? Tortured--of course. But why
shot?" The doctor looked fixedly at Nostromo, who shrugged his
shoulders slightly. "And mark, shot suddenly, on impulse. It is
evident. I wish I had his secret."
Nostromo had advanced, and stooped slightly to look. "I seem to
have seen that face somewhere," he muttered. "Who is he?"
The doctor turned his eyes upon him again. "I may yet come to
envying his fate. What do you think of that, Capataz, eh?"
But Nostromo did not even hear these words. Seizing the remaining
light, he thrust it under the drooping head. The doctor sat
oblivious, with a lost gaze. Then the heavy iron candlestick, as
if struck out of Nostromo's hand, clattered on the floor.
"Hullo!" exclaimed the doctor, looking up with a start. He could
hear the Capataz stagger against the table and gasp. In the
sudden extinction of the light within, the dead blackness sealing
the window-frames became alive with stars to his sight.
"Of course, of course," the doctor muttered to himself in
English. "Enough to make him jump out of his skin."
Nostromo's heart seemed to force itself into his throat. His
head swam. Hirsch! The man was Hirsch! He held on tight to the
edge of the table.
"But he was hiding in the lighter," he almost shouted His voice
fell. "In the lighter, and--and--"
"And Sotillo brought him in," said the doctor. "He is no more
startling to you than you were to me. What I want to know is how
he induced some compassionate soul to shoot him."
"So Sotillo knows--" began Nostromo, in a more equable voice.
"Everything!" interrupted the doctor.
The Capataz was heard striking the table with his fist.
"Everything? What are you saying, there? Everything? Know
everything? It is impossible! Everything?"
"Of course. What do you mean by impossible? I tell you I have
heard this Hirsch questioned last night, here, in this very room.
He knew your name, Decoud's name, and all about the loading of
the silver. . . . The lighter was cut in two. He was grovelling
in abject terror before Sotillo, but he remembered that much.
What do you want more? He knew least about himself. They found
him clinging to their anchor. He must have caught at it just as
the lighter went to the bottom."
"Went to the bottom?" repeated Nostromo, slowly. "Sotillo
believes that? Bueno!"
The doctor, a little impatiently, was unable to imagine what else
could anybody believe. Yes, Sotillo believed that the lighter was
sunk, and the Capataz de Cargadores, together with Martin Decoud
and perhaps one or two other political fugitives, had been
drowned.
"I told you well, senor doctor," remarked Nostromo at that point,
"that Sotillo did not know everything."
"Eh? What do you mean?"
"He did not know I was not dead."
"Neither did we."
"And you did not care--none of you caballeros on the wharf--once
you got off a man of flesh and blood like yourselves on a fool's
business that could not end well."
"You forget, Capataz, I was not on the wharf. And I did not think
well of the business. So you need not taunt me. I tell you what,
man, we had but little leisure to think of the dead. Death stands
near behind us all. You were gone."
"I went, indeed!" broke in Nostromo. "And for the sake of
what--tell me?"
"Ah! that is your own affair," the doctor said, roughly. "Do not
ask me."
Their flowing murmurs paused in the dark. Perched on the edge of
the table with slightly averted faces, they felt their shoulders
touch, and their eyes remained directed towards an upright shape
nearly lost in the obscurity of the inner part of the room, that
with projecting head and shoulders, in ghastly immobility, seemed
intent on catching every word.
"Muy bien!" Nostromo muttered at last. "So be it. Teresa was
right. It is my own affair."
"Teresa is dead," remarked the doctor, absently, while his mind
followed a new line of thought suggested by what might have been
called Nostromo's return to life. "She died, the poor woman."
"Without a priest?" the Capataz asked, anxiously.
"What a question! Who could have got a priest for her last
night?"
"May God keep her soul!" ejaculated Nostromo, with a gloomy and
hopeless fervour which had no time to surprise Dr. Monygham,
before, reverting to their previous conversation, he continued in
a sinister tone, "Si, senor doctor. As you were saying, it is my
own affair. A very desperate affair."
"There are no two men in this part of the world that could have
saved themselves by swimming as you have done," the doctor said,
admiringly.
And again there was silence between those two men. They were
both reflecting, and the diversity of their natures made their
thoughts born from their meeting swing afar from each other. The
doctor, impelled to risky action by his loyalty to the Goulds,
wondered with thankfulness at the chain of accident which had
brought that man back where he would be of the greatest use in
the work of saving the San Tome mine. The doctor was loyal to the
mine. It presented itself to his fifty-years' old eyes in the
shape of a little woman in a soft dress with a long train, with a
head attractively overweighted by a great mass of fair hair and
the delicate preciousness of her inner worth, partaking of a gem
and a flower, revealed in every attitude of her person. As the
dangers thickened round the San Tome mine this illusion acquired
force, permanency, and authority. It claimed him at last! This
claim, exalted by a spiritual detachment from the usual sanctions
of hope and reward, made Dr. Monygham's thinking, acting,
individuality extremely dangerous to himself and to others, all
his scruples vanishing in the proud feeling that his devotion was
the only thing that stood between an admirable woman and a
frightful disaster.
It was a sort of intoxication which made him utterly indifferent
to Decoud's fate, but left his wits perfectly clear for the
appreciation of Decoud's political idea. It was a good idea--and
Barrios was the only instrument of its realization. The doctor's
soul, withered and shrunk by the shame of a moral disgrace,
became implacable in the expansion of its tenderness. Nostromo's
return was providential. He did not think of him humanely, as of
a fellow-creature just escaped from the jaws of death. The
Capataz for him was the only possible messenger to Cayta. The
very man. The doctor's misanthropic mistrust of mankind (the
bitterer because based on personal failure) did not lift him
sufficiently above common weaknesses. He was under the spell of
an established reputation. Trumpeted by Captain Mitchell, grown
in repetition, and fixed in general assent, Nostromo's
faithfulness had never been questioned by Dr. Monygham as a fact.
It was not likely to be questioned now he stood in desperate need
of it himself. Dr. Monygham was human; he accepted the popular
conception of the Capataz's incorruptibility simply because no
word or fact had ever contradicted a mere affirmation. It seemed
to be a part of the man, like his whiskers or his teeth. It was
impossible to conceive him otherwise. The question was whether he
would consent to go on such a dangerous and desperate errand. The
doctor was observant enough to have become aware from the first
of something peculiar in the man's temper. He was no doubt sore
about the loss of the silver.
"It will be necessary to take him into my fullest confidence," he
said to himself, with a certain acuteness of insight into the
nature he had to deal with.
On Nostromo's side the silence had been full of black
irresolution, anger, and mistrust. He was the first to break it,
however.
"The swimming was no great matter," he said. "It is what went
before--and what comes after that--"
He did not quite finish what he meant to say, breaking off short,
as though his thought had butted against a solid obstacle. The
doctor's mind pursued its own schemes with Machiavellian
subtlety. He said as sympathetically as he was able--
"It is unfortunate, Capataz. But no one would think of blaming
you. Very unfortunate. To begin with, the treasure ought never to
have left the mountain. But it was Decoud who--however, he is
dead. There is no need to talk of him."
"No," assented Nostromo, as the doctor paused, "there is no need
to talk of dead men. But I am not dead yet."
"You are all right. Only a man of your intrepidity could have
saved himself."
In this Dr. Monygham was sincere. He esteemed highly the
intrepidity of that man, whom he valued but little, being
disillusioned as to mankind in general, because of the particular
instance in which his own manhood had failed. Having had to
encounter singlehanded during his period of eclipse many physical
dangers, he was well aware of the most dangerous element common
to them all: of the crushing, paralyzing sense of human
littleness, which is what really defeats a man struggling with
natural forces, alone, far from the eyes of his fellows. He was
eminently fit to appreciate the mental image he made for himself
of the Capataz, after hours of tension and anxiety, precipitated
suddenly into an abyss of waters and darkness, without earth or
sky, and confronting it not only with an undismayed mind, but
with sensible success. Of course, the man was an incomparable
swimmer, that was known, but the doctor judged that this instance
testified to a still greater intrepidity of spirit. It was
pleasing to him; he augured well from it for the success of the
arduous mission with which he meant to entrust the Capataz so
marvellously restored to usefulness. And in a tone vaguely
gratified, he observed--
"It must have been terribly dark!"
"It was the worst darkness of the Golfo," the Capataz assented,
briefly. He was mollified by what seemed a sign of some faint
interest in such things as had befallen him, and dropped a few
descriptive phrases with an affected and curt nonchalance. At
that moment he felt communicative. He expected the continuance of
that interest which, whether accepted or rejected, would have
restored to him his personality--the only thing lost in that
desperate affair. But the doctor, engrossed by a desperate
adventure of his own, was terrible in the pursuit of his idea. He
let an exclamation of regret escape him.
"I could almost wish you had shouted and shown a light."
This unexpected utterance astounded the Capataz by its character
of cold-blooded atrocity. It was as much as to say, "I wish you
had shown yourself a coward; I wish you had had your throat cut
for your pains." Naturally he referred it to himself, whereas it
related only to the silver, being uttered simply and with many
mental reservations. Surprise and rage rendered him speechless,
and the doctor pursued, practically unheard by Nostromo, whose
stirred blood was beating violently in his ears.
"For I am convinced Sotillo in possession of the silver would
have turned short round and made for some small port abroad.
Economically it would have been wasteful, but still less wasteful
than having it sunk. It was the next best thing to having it at
hand in some safe place, and using part of it to buy up Sotillo.
But I doubt whether Don Carlos would have ever made up his mind
to it. He is not fit for Costaguana, and that is a fact,
Capataz."
The Capataz had mastered the fury that was like a tempest in his
ears in time to hear the name of Don Carlos. He seemed to have
come out of it a changed man--a man who spoke thoughtfully in a
soft and even voice.
"And would Don Carlos have been content if I had surrendered this
treasure?"
"I should not wonder if they were all of that way of thinking
now," the doctor said, grimly. "I was never consulted. Decoud had
it his own way. Their eyes are opened by this time, I should
think. I for one know that if that silver turned up this moment
miraculously ashore I would give it to Sotillo. And, as things
stand, I would be approved."
"Turned up miraculously," repeated the Capataz very low; then
raised his voice. "That, senor, would be a greater miracle than
any saint could perform."
"I believe you, Capataz," said the doctor, drily.
He went on to develop his view of Sotillo's dangerous influence
upon the situation. And the Capataz, listening as if in a dream,
felt himself of as little account as the indistinct, motionless
shape of the dead man whom he saw upright under the beam, with
his air of listening also, disregarded, forgotten, like a
terrible example of neglect.
"Was it for an unconsidered and foolish whim that they came to
me, then?" he interrupted suddenly. "Had I not done enough for
them to be of some account, por Dios? Is it that the hombres
finos--the gentlemen--need not think as long as there is a man
of the people ready to risk his body and soul? Or, perhaps, we
have no souls--like dogs?"
"There was Decoud, too, with his plan," the doctor reminded him
again.
"Si! And the rich man in San Francisco who had something to do
with that treasure, too--what do I know? No! I have heard too
many things. It seems to me that everything is permitted to the
rich."
"I understand, Capataz," the doctor began.
"What Capataz?" broke in Nostromo, in a forcible but even voice.
"The Capataz is undone, destroyed. There is no Capataz. Oh, no!
You will find the Capataz no more."
"Come, this is childish!" remonstrated the doctor; and the other
calmed down suddenly.
"I have been indeed like a little child," he muttered.
And as his eyes met again the shape of the murdered man suspended
in his awful immobility, which seemed the uncomplaining
immobility of attention, he asked, wondering gently--
"Why did Sotillo give the estrapade to this pitiful wretch? Do
you know? No torture could have been worse than his fear. Killing
I can understand. His anguish was intolerable to behold. But why
should he torment him like this? He could tell no more."
"No; he could tell nothing more. Any sane man would have seen
that. He had told him everything. But I tell you what it is,
Capataz. Sotillo would not believe what he was told. Not
everything."
"What is it he would not believe? I cannot understand."
"I can, because I have seen the man. He refuses to believe that
the treasure is lost."
"What?" the Capataz cried out in a discomposed tone.
"That startles you--eh?"
"Am I to understand, senor," Nostromo went on in a deliberate
and, as it were, watchful tone, "that Sotillo thinks the treasure
has been saved by some means?"
"No! no! That would be impossible," said the doctor, with
conviction; and Nostromo emitted a grunt in the dark. "That would
be impossible. He thinks that the silver was no longer in the
lighter when she was sunk. He has convinced himself that the
whole show of getting it away to sea is a mere sham got up to
deceive Gamacho and his Nationals, Pedrito Montero, Senor
Fuentes, our new Gefe Politico, and himself, too. Only, he says,
he is no such fool."
"But he is devoid of sense. He is the greatest imbecile that ever
called himself a colonel in this country of evil," growled
Nostromo.
"He is no more unreasonable than many sensible men," said the
doctor. "He has convinced himself that the treasure can be found
because he desires passionately to possess himself of it. And he
is also afraid of his officers turning upon him and going over to
Pedrito, whom he has not the courage either to fight or trust. Do
you see that, Capataz? He need fear no desertion as long as some
hope remains of that enormous plunder turning up. I have made it
my business to keep this very hope up."
"You have?" the Capataz de Cargadores repeated cautiously. "Well,
that is wonderful. And how long do you think you are going to
keep it up?"
"As long as I can."
"What does that mean?"
"I can tell you exactly. As long as I live," the doctor retorted
in a stubborn voice. Then, in a few words, he described the story
of his arrest and the circumstances of his release. "I was going
back to that silly scoundrel when we met," he concluded.
Nostromo had listened with profound attention. "You have made up
your mind, then, to a speedy death," he muttered through his
clenched teeth.
"Perhaps, my illustrious Capataz," the doctor said, testily. "You
are not the only one here who can look an ugly death in the
face."
"No doubt," mumbled Nostromo, loud enough to be overheard. "There
may be even more than two fools in this place. Who knows?"
"And that is my affair," said the doctor, curtly.
"As taking out the accursed silver to sea was my affair,"
retorted Nostromo. "I see. Bueno! Each of us has his reasons. But
you were the last man I conversed with before I started, and you
talked to me as if I were a fool."
Nostromo had a great distaste for the doctor's sardonic treatment
of his great reputation. Decoud's faintly ironic recognition used
to make him uneasy; but the familiarity of a man like Don Martin
was flattering, whereas the doctor was a nobody. He could
remember him a penniless outcast, slinking about the streets of
Sulaco, without a single friend or acquaintance, till Don Carlos
Gould took him into the service of the mine.
"You may be very wise," he went on, thoughtfully, staring into
the obscurity of the room, pervaded by the gruesome enigma of the
tortured and murdered Hirsch. "But I am not such a fool as when
I started. I have learned one thing since, and that is that you
are a dangerous man."
Dr. Monygham was too startled to do more than exclaim--
"What is it you say?"
"If he could speak he would say the same thing," pursued
Nostromo, with a nod of his shadowy head silhouetted against the
starlit window.
"I do not understand you," said Dr. Monygham, faintly.
"No? Perhaps, if you had not confirmed Sotillo in his madness, he
would have been in no haste to give the estrapade to that
miserable Hirsch."
The doctor started at the suggestion. But his devotion, absorbing
all his sensibilities, had left his heart steeled against remorse
and pity. Still, for complete relief, he felt the necessity of
repelling it loudly and contemptuously.
"Bah! You dare to tell me that, with a man like Sotillo. I
confess I did not give a thought to Hirsch. If I had it would
have been useless. Anybody can see that the luckless wretch was
doomed from the moment he caught hold of the anchor. He was
doomed, I tell you! Just as I myself am doomed--most probably."
This is what Dr. Monygham said in answer to Nostromo's remark,
which was plausible enough to prick his conscience. He was not a
callous man. But the necessity, the magnitude, the importance of
the task he had taken upon himself dwarfed all merely humane
considerations. He had undertaken it in a fanatical spirit. He
did not like it. To lie, to deceive, to circumvent even the
basest of mankind was odious to him. It was odious to him by
training, instinct, and tradition. To do these things in the
character of a traitor was abhorrent to his nature and terrible
to his feelings. He had made that sacrifice in a spirit of
abasement. He had said to himself bitterly, "I am the only one
fit for that dirty work." And he believed this. He was not
subtle. His simplicity was such that, though he had no sort of
heroic idea of seeking death, the risk, deadly enough, to which
he exposed himself, had a sustaining and comforting effect. To
that spiritual state the fate of Hirsch presented itself as part
of the general atrocity of things. He considered that episode
practically. What did it mean? Was it a sign of some dangerous
change in Sotillo's delusion? That the man should have been
killed like this was what the doctor could not understand.
"Yes. But why shot?" he murmured to himself.
Nostromo kept very still. _
Read next: PART THIRD - THE LIGHTHOUSE: CHAPTER IX
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