 | CHAPTER EIGHT Nostromo: a Tale of the Seaboard / Joseph Conrad |  |
8. CHAPTER EIGHT
FOR a moment, before this extraordinary find, they
forgot their own concerns and sensations. Señor
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 Corbelàn; 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
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,
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 wagon-
load 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. Señor, 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
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 Señor 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,
naïve, 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
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
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 eye-
balls. 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
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 José, 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 Tomé 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 Señor 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
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 Tomé
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
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
Calle talking to the señoritas 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 Señor 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,
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, señor.
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,
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 Señor 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
Señor 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, señor, 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. Señor, 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
before Don José 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 señorita, 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
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
José 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 Tomé 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
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 Tomé 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
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 café 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.
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
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
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 Señor
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
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. Señor 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
Señor 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
asked in a faint breath.
"I don't know," Nostromo breathed back to him.
"Señor, 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 Señor 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
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. Señor Hirsch, after being
beaten a little for telling lies, was thrust into the chart-
room. 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
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
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."
"È vero!" exclaimed the Capataz, surprised into the
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,
señor, 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.
Señor, 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, señor, 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, señor, 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
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
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. Señor, 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, señor, 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, señor, 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, señor. And
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, señor. . . . 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 señorita. 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,
Señor 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, señor. 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, señor."
"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
and sea around the islet. "Keep close in the ravine,
señor. 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 rail-
way 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
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
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.
| CHAPTER EIGHT Nostromo: a Tale of the Seaboard / Joseph Conrad | |