University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER NINE

DISTRACTED between doubts and hopes, dismayed by
the sound of bells pealing out the arrival of Pedrito
Montero, Sotillo had spent the morning in battling
with his thoughts; a contest to which he was unequal,
from the vacuity of his mind and the violence of his
passions. Disappointment, greed, anger, and fear
made a tumult, in the colonel's breast louder than the
din of bells in the town. Nothing he had planned had
come to pass. Neither Sulaco nor the silver of the
mine had fallen into his hands. He had performed
no military exploit to secure his position, and had obtained
no enormous booty to make off with. Pedrito
Montero, either as friend or foe, filled him with dread.
The sound of bells maddened him.

Imagining at first that he might be attacked at once,
he had made his battalion stand to arms on the shore.
He walked to and fro all the length of the room, stopping
sometimes to gnaw the finger-tips of his right hand
with a lurid sideways glare fixed on the floor; then, with
a sullen, repelling glance all round, he would resume
his tramping in savage aloofness. His hat, horsewhip,
sword, and revolver were lying on the table. His
officers, crowding the window giving the view of the
town gate, disputed amongst themselves the use of his
field-glass bought last year on long credit from Anzani.
It passed from hand to hand, and the possessor for the
time being was besieged by anxious inquiries.

"There is nothing; there is nothing to see!" he would
repeat impatiently.

There was nothing. And when the picket in the
bushes near the Casa Viola had been ordered to fall
back upon the main body, no stir of life appeared on the
stretch of dusty and arid land between the town and
the waters of the port. But late in the afternoon a
horseman issuing from the gate was made out riding up
fearlessly. It was an emissary from Señor Fuentes.
Being all alone he was allowed to come on. Dismounting
at the great door he greeted the silent bystanders
with cheery impudence, and begged to be taken up at
once to the "muy valliente" colonel.

Señor Fuentes, on entering upon his functions of Géfé
Político, had turned his diplomatic abilities to getting
hold of the harbour as well as of the mine. The man
he pitched upon to negotiate with Sotillo was a Notary
Public, whom the revolution had found languishing in
the common jail on a charge of forging documents.
Liberated by the mob along with the other "victims
of Blanco tyranny," he had hastened to offer his services
to the new Government.

He set out determined to display much zeal and
eloquence in trying to induce Sotillo to come into town
alone for a conference with Pedrito Montero. Nothing
was further from the colonel's intentions. The mere
fleeting idea of trusting himself into the famous Pedrito's
hands had made him feel unwell several times.
It was out of the question — it was madness. And to
put himself in open hostility was madness, too. It
would render impossible a systematic search for that
treasure, for that wealth of silver which he seemed
to feel somewhere about, to scent somewhere near.

But where? Where? Heavens! Where? Oh! why had
he allowed that doctor to go! Imbecile that he was.
But no! It was the only right course, he reflected distractedly,
while the messenger waited downstairs chatting

agreeably to the officers. It was in that scoundrelly
doctor's true interest to return with positive information.
But what if anything stopped him? A general prohibition
to leave the town, for instance! There would
be patrols!

The colonel, seizing his head in his hands, turned in
his tracks as if struck with vertigo. A flash of craven
inspiration suggested to him an expedient not unknown
to European statesmen when they wish to delay a difficult
negotiation. Booted and spurred, he scrambled
into the hammock with undignified haste. His handsome
face had turned yellow with the strain of weighty
cares. The ridge of his shapely nose had grown sharp;
the audacious nostrils appeared mean and pinched.
The velvety, caressing glance of his fine eyes seemed
dead, and even decomposed; for these almond-shaped,
languishing orbs had become inappropriately bloodshot
with much sinister sleeplessness. He addressed the
surprised envoy of Señor Fuentes in a deadened, exhausted
voice. It came pathetically feeble from under
a pile of ponchos, which buried his elegant person right
up to the black moustaches, uncurled, pendant, in sign
of bodily prostration and mental incapacity. Fever,
fever — a heavy fever had overtaken the "muy valliente"
colonel. A wavering wildness of expression, caused by
the passing spasms of a slight colic which had declared
itself suddenly, and the rattling teeth of repressed panic,
had a genuineness which impressed the envoy. It was a
cold fit. The colonel explained that he was unable
to think, to listen, to speak. With an appearance of
superhuman effort the colonel gasped out that he was
not in a state to return a suitable reply or to execute
any of his Excellency's orders. But to-morrow!
To-morrow! Ah! to-morrow! Let his Excellency Don
Pedro be without uneasiness. The brave Esmeralda

Regiment held the harbour, held — And closing his
eyes, he rolled his aching head like a half-delirious
invalid under the inquisitive stare of the envoy, who
was obliged to bend down over the hammock in order
to catch the painful and broken accents. Meantime,
Colonel Sotillo trusted that his Excellency's humanity
would permit the doctor, the English doctor, to come
out of town with his case of foreign remedies to attend
upon him. He begged anxiously his worship the
caballero now present for the grace of looking in as he
passed the Casa Gould, and informing the English
doctor, who was probably there, that his services were
immediately required by Colonel Sotillo, lying ill of
fever in the Custom House. Immediately. Most
urgently required. Awaited with extreme impatience.
A thousand thanks. He closed his eyes wearily and
would not open them again, lying perfectly still, deaf,
dumb, insensible, overcome, vanquished, crushed, annihilated
by the fell disease.

But as soon as the other had shut after him the door of
the landing, the colonel leaped out with a fling of both
feet in an avalanche of woollen coverings. His spurs
having become entangled in a perfect welter of ponchos
he nearly pitched on his head, and did not recover his
balance till the middle of the room. Concealed behind
the half-closed jalousies he listened to what went on
below.

The envoy had already mounted, and turning to the
morose officers occupying the great doorway, took off
his hat formally.

"Caballeros," he said, in a very loud tone, "allow me
to recommend you to take great care of your colonel. It
has done me much honour and gratification to have seen
you all, a fine body of men exercising the soldierly virtue
of patience in this exposed situation, where there is

much sun, and no water to speak of, while a town full
of wine and feminine charms is ready to embrace you
for the brave men you are. Caballeros, I have the
honour to salute you. There will be much dancing
to-night in Sulaco. Good-bye!"

But he reined in his horse and inclined his head sideways
on seeing the old major step out, very tall and
meagre, in a straight narrow coat coming down to his
ankles as it were the casing of the regimental colours
rolled round their staff.

The intelligent old warrior, after enunciating in a
dogmatic tone the general proposition that the "world
was full of traitors," went on pronouncing deliberately a
panegyric upon Sotillo. He ascribed to him with leisurely
emphasis every virtue under heaven, summing
it all up in an absurd colloquialism current amongst
the lower class of Occidentals (especially about Esmeralda).
"And," he concluded, with a sudden rise in the
voice, "a man of many teeth — 'hombre de muchos
dientes.' Si, señor. As to us," he pursued, portentous
and impressive, "your worship is beholding the finest
body of officers in the Republic, men unequalled for
valour and sagacity, 'y hombres de muchos dientes.'"

"What? All of them?" inquired the disreputable
envoy of Señor Fuentes, with a faint, derisive smile.

"Todos. Si, señor," the major affirmed, gravely,
with conviction. "Men of many teeth."

The other wheeled his horse to face the portal resembling
the high gate of a dismal barn. He raised
himself in his stirrups, extended one arm. He was a
facetious scoundrel, entertaining for these stupid
Occidentals a feeling of great scorn natural in a native
from the central provinces. The folly of Esmeraldians
especially aroused his amused contempt. He
began an oration upon Pedro Montero, keeping a solemn

countenance. He flourished his hand as if introducing
him to their notice. And when he saw every face set,
all the eyes fixed upon his lips, he began to shout a sort
of catalogue of perfections: "Generous, valorous,
affable, profound" — (he snatched off his hat enthusiastically)
— "a statesman, an invincible chief of partisans
—" He dropped his voice startlingly to a deep,
hollow note — "and a dentist."

He was off instantly at a smart walk; the rigid straddle
of his legs, the turned-out feet, the stiff back, the
rakish slant of the sombrero above the square, motionless
set of the shoulders expressing an infinite, awe-
inspiring impudence.

Upstairs, behind the jalousies, Sotillo did not move
for a long time. The audacity of the fellow appalled
him. What were his officers saying below? They were
saying nothing. Complete silence. He quaked. It was
not thus that he had imagined himself at that stage
of the expedition. He had seen himself triumphant,
appeased, the idol of the soldiers, weighing
in secret complacency the agreeable alternatives
of power and wealth open to his choice. Alas! How
different! Distracted, restless, supine, burning with
fury, or frozen with terror, he felt a dread as fathomless
as the sea creep upon him from every side. That rogue
of a doctor had to come out with his information.
That was clear. It would be of no use to him — alone.
He could do nothing with it. Malediction! The doctor
would never come out. He was probably under
arrest already, shut up together with Don Carlos. He
laughed aloud insanely. Ha! ha! ha! ha! It was
Pedrito Montero who would get the information. Ha!
ha! ha! ha! — and the silver. Ha!

All at once, in the midst of the laugh, he became
motionless and silent as if turned into stone. He too,

had a prisoner. A prisoner who must, must know the
real truth. He would have to be made to speak. And
Sotillo, who all that time had not quite forgotten Hirsch,
felt an inexplicable reluctance at the notion of proceeding
to extremities.

He felt a reluctance — part of that unfathomable
dread that crept on all sides upon him. He remembered
reluctantly, too, the dilated eyes of the hide merchant,
his contortions, his loud sobs and protestations. It
was not compassion or even mere nervous sensibility.
The fact was that though Sotillo did never for a moment
believe his story — he could not believe it; nobody
could believe such nonsense — yet those accents of despairing
truth impressed him disagreeably. They made
him feel sick. And he suspected also that the man might
have gone mad with fear. A lunatic is a hopeless subject.
Bah! A pretence. Nothing but a pretence.
He would know how to deal with that.

He was working himself up to the right pitch of
ferocity. His fine eyes squinted slightly; he clapped
his hands; a bare-footed orderly appeared noiselessly,
a corporal, with his bayonet hanging on his thigh and a
stick in his hand.

The colonel gave his orders, and presently the miserable
Hirsch, pushed in by several soldiers, found him
frowning awfully in a broad armchair, hat on head,
knees wide apart, arms akimbo, masterful, imposing,
irresistible, haughty, sublime, terrible.

Hirsch, with his arms tied behind his back, had been
bundled violently into one of the smaller rooms. For
many hours he remained apparently forgotten, stretched
lifelessly on the floor. From that solitude, full of despair
and terror, he was torn out brutally, with kicks and
blows, passive, sunk in hebetude. He listened to threats
and admonitions, and afterwards made his usual answers

to questions, with his chin sunk on his breast,
his hands tied behind his back, swaying a little in front
of Sotillo, and never looking up. When he was forced
to hold up his head, by means of a bayonet-point prodding
him under the chin, his eyes had a vacant, trance-
like stare, and drops of perspiration as big as peas were
seen hailing down the dirt, bruises, and scratches of
his white face. Then they stopped suddenly.

Sotillo looked at him in silence. "Will you depart
from your obstinacy, you rogue?" he asked. Already
a rope, whose one end was fastened to Señor Hirsch's
wrists, had been thrown over a beam, and three soldiers
held the other end, waiting. He made no answer.
His heavy lower lip hung stupidly. Sotillo made a
sign. Hirsch was jerked up off his feet, and a yell of
despair and agony burst out in the room, filled the passage
of the great buildings, rent the air outside, caused
every soldier of the camp along the shore to look up
at the windows, started some of the officers in the hall
babbling excitedly, with shining eyes; others, setting
their lips, looked gloomily at the floor.

Sotillo, followed by the soldiers, had left the room.
The sentry on the landing presented arms. Hirsch went
on screaming all alone behind the half-closed jalousies
while the sunshine, reflected from the water of the harbour,
made an ever-running ripple of light high up on
the wall. He screamed with uplifted eyebrows and a
wide-open mouth — incredibly wide, black, enormous,
full of teeth — comical.

In the still burning air of the windless afternoon he
made the waves of his agony travel as far as the O. S. N.
Company's offices. Captain Mitchell on the balcony,
trying to make out what went on generally, had heard
him faintly but distinctly, and the feeble and appalling
sound lingered in his ears after he had retreated indoors

with blanched cheeks. He had been driven off the
balcony several times during that afternoon.

Sotillo, irritable, moody, walked restlessly about, held
consultations with his officers, gave contradictory orders
in this shrill clamour pervading the whole empty edifice.
Sometimes there would be long and awful silences.
Several times he had entered the torture-chamber
where his sword, horsewhip, revolver, and field-glass
were lying on the table, to ask with forced calmness,
"Will you speak the truth now? No? I can wait."
But he could not afford to wait much longer. That
was just it. Every time he went in and came out with
a slam of the door, the sentry on the landing presented
arms, and got in return a black, venomous, unsteady
glance, which, in reality, saw nothing at all, being
merely the reflection of the soul within — a soul of
gloomy hatred, irresolution, avarice, and fury.

The sun had set when he went in once more. A
soldier carried in two lighted candles and slunk out,
shutting the door without noise.

"Speak, thou Jewish child of the devil! The silver!
The silver, I say! Where is it? Where have you
foreign rogues hidden it? Confess or —"

A slight quiver passed up the taut rope from the
racked limbs, but the body of Señor Hirsch, enterprising
business man from Esmeralda, hung under the heavy
beam perpendicular and silent, facing the colonel
awfully. The inflow of the night air, cooled by the
snows of the Sierra, spread gradually a delicious freshness
through the close heat of the room.

"Speak — thief — scoundrel — picaro — or —"

Sotillo had seized the riding-whip, and stood with his
arm lifted up. For a word, for one little word, he felt
he would have knelt, cringed, grovelled on the floor
before the drowsy, conscious stare of those fixed eye-

balls starting out of the grimy, dishevelled head that
drooped very still with its mouth closed askew. The
colonel ground his teeth with rage and struck. The
rope vibrated leisurely to the blow, like the long string
of a pendulum starting from a rest. But no swinging
motion was imparted to the body of Señor Hirsch,
the well-known hide merchant on the coast. With
a convulsive effort of the twisted arms it leaped up a few
inches, curling upon itself like a fish on the end of a line.
Señor Hirsch's head was flung back on his straining
throat; his chin trembled. For a moment the rattle
of his chattering teeth pervaded the vast, shadowy
room, where the candles made a patch of light round
the two flames burning side by side. And as Sotillo,
staying his raised hand, waited for him to speak, with
the sudden flash of a grin and a straining forward of the
wrenched shoulders, he spat violently into his face.

The uplifted whip fell, and the colonel sprang back
with a low cry of dismay, as if aspersed by a jet of
deadly venom. Quick as thought he snatched up his
revolver, and fired twice. The report and the concussion
of the shots seemed to throw him at once from
ungovernable rage into idiotic stupor. He stood with
drooping jaw and stony eyes. What had he done,
Sangre de Dios! What had he done? He was basely
appalled at his impulsive act, sealing for ever these lips
from which so much was to be extorted. What could
he say? How could he explain? Ideas of headlong
flight somewhere, anywhere, passed through his mind;
even the craven and absurd notion of hiding under
the table occurred to his cowardice. It was too late;
his officers had rushed in tumultuously, in a great clatter
of scabbards, clamouring, with astonishment and
wonder. But since they did not immediately proceed
to plunge their swords into his breast, the brazen side

of his character asserted itself. Passing the sleeve
of his uniform over his face he pulled himself together,
His truculent glance turned slowly here and there,
checked the noise where it fell; and the stiff body of the
late Señor Hirsch, merchant, after swaying imperceptibly,
made a half turn, and came to a rest in the midst
of awed murmurs and uneasy shuffling.

A voice remarked loudly, "Behold a man who will
never speak again." And another, from the back
row of faces, timid and pressing, cried out —

"Why did you kill him, mi colonel?"

"Because he has confessed everything," answered
Sotillo, with the hardihood of desperation. He felt
himself cornered. He brazened it out on the strength
of his reputation with very fair success. His hearers
thought him very capable of such an act. They were
disposed to believe his flattering tale. There is no
credulity so eager and blind as the credulity of covetousness,
which, in its universal extent, measures the
moral misery and the intellectual destitution of mankind.
Ah! he had confessed everything, this fractious
Jew, this bribon. Good! Then he was no longer
wanted. A sudden dense guffaw was heard from the
senior captain — a big-headed man, with little round
eyes and monstrously fat cheeks which never moved.
The old major, tall and fantastically ragged like a scarecrow,
walked round the body of the late Señor Hirsch,
muttering to himself with ineffable complacency that
like this there was no need to guard against any future
treacheries of that scoundrel. The others stared, shifting
from foot to foot, and whispering short remarks
to each other.

Sotillo buckled on his sword and gave curt, peremptory
orders to hasten the retirement decided upon in the
afternoon. Sinister, impressive, his sombrero pulled

right down upon his eyebrows, he marched first through
the door in such disorder of mind that he forgot utterly
to provide for Dr. Monygham's possible return. As
the officers trooped out after him, one or two looked
back hastily at the late Señor Hirsch, merchant from
Esmeralda, left swinging rigidly at rest, alone with the
two burning candles. In the emptiness of the room
the burly shadow of head and shoulders on the wall had
an air of life.

Below, the troops fell in silently and moved off by
companies without drum or trumpet. The old scarecrow
major commanded the rearguard; but the party
he left behind with orders to fire the Custom House
(and "burn the carcass of the treacherous Jew where it
hung") failed somehow in their haste to set the staircase
properly alight. The body of the late Señor Hirsch
dwelt alone for a time in the dismal solitude of the unfinished
building, resounding weirdly with sudden
slams and clicks of doors and latches, with rustling
scurries of torn papers, and the tremulous sighs that
at each gust of wind passed under the high roof. The
light of the two candles burning before the perpendicular
and breathless immobility of the late Señor Hirsch
threw a gleam afar over land and water, like a signal
in the night. He remained to startle Nostromo by his
presence, and to puzzle Dr. Monygham by the mystery
of his atrocious end.

"But why shot?" the doctor again asked himself,
audibly. This time he was answered by a dry laugh
from Nostromo.

"You seem much concerned at a very natural thing,
señor doctor. I wonder why? It is very likely that before
long we shall all get shot one after another, if not
by Sotillo, then by Pedrito, or Fuentes, or Gamacho.
And we may even get the estrapade, too, or worse — quien

sabe? — with your pretty tale of the silver you put into
Sotillo's head."

"It was in his head already," the doctor protested.
"I only —"

"Yes. And you only nailed it there so that the devil
himself —"

"That is precisely what I meant to do," caught up
the doctor.

"That is what you meant to do. Bueno. It is as I
say. You are a dangerous man."

Their voices, which without rising had been growing
quarrelsome, ceased suddenly. The late Señor Hirsch,
erect and shadowy against the stars, seemed to be waiting
attentive, in impartial silence.

But Dr. Monygham had no mind to quarrel with Nostromo.
At this supremely critical point of Sulaco's
fortunes it was borne upon him at last that this man
was really indispensable, more indispensable than ever
the infatuation of Captain Mitchell, his proud discoverer,
could conceive; far beyond what Decoud's
best dry raillery about "my illustrious friend, the unique
Capataz de Cargadores," had ever intended. The
fellow was unique. He was not "one in a thousand."
He was absolutely the only one. The doctor surrendered.
There was something in the genius of that
Genoese seaman which dominated the destinies of great
enterprises and of many people, the fortunes of Charles
Gould, the fate of an admirable woman. At this last
thought the doctor had to clear his throat before he
could speak.

In a completely changed tone he pointed out to the
Capataz that, to begin with, he personally ran no great
risk. As far as everybody knew he was dead. It was
an enormous advantage. He had only to keep out
of sight in the Casa Viola, where the old Garibaldino

was known to be alone — with his dead wife. The
servants had all run away. No one would think of
searching for him there, or anywhere else on earth,
for that matter.

"That would be very true," Nostromo spoke up,
bitterly, "if I had not met you."

For a time the doctor kept silent. "Do you mean to
say that you think I may give you away?" he asked in
an unsteady voice. "Why? Why should I do that?"

"What do I know? Why not? To gain a day perhaps.
It would take Sotillo a day to give me the estrapade,
and try some other things perhaps, before he puts
a bullet through my heart — as he did to that poor
wretch here. Why not?"

The doctor swallowed with difficulty. His throat
had gone dry in a moment. It was not from indignation.
The doctor, pathetically enough, believed that
he had forfeited the right to be indignant with any one —
for anything. It was simple dread. Had the fellow
heard his story by some chance? If so, there was an
end of his usefulness in that direction. The indispensable
man escaped his influence, because of that indelible
blot which made him fit for dirty work. A feeling
as of sickness came upon the doctor. He would have
given anything to know, but he dared not clear up the
point. The fanaticism of his devotion, fed on the sense
of his abasement, hardened his heart in sadness and
scorn.

"Why not, indeed?" he reëchoed, sardonically.
"Then the safe thing for you is to kill me on the spot.
I would defend myself. But you may just as well know
I am going about unarmed."

"Por Dios!" said the Capataz, passionately. "You
fine people are all alike. All dangerous. All betrayers
of the poor who are your dogs."

"You do not understand," began the doctor, slowly.

"I understand you all!" cried the other with a violent
movement, as shadowy to the doctor's eyes as the persistent
immobility of the late Señor Hirsch. "A poor
man amongst you has got to look after himself. I say
that you do not care for those that serve you. Look
at me! After all these years, suddenly, here I find
myself like one of these curs that bark outside the walls
— without a kennel or a dry bone for my teeth. (Caramba!"
But he relented with a contemptuous fairness.
"Of course," he went on, quietly, "I do not suppose
that you would hasten to give me up to Sotillo,
for example. It is not that. It is that I am nothing!
Suddenly —" He swung his arm downwards. "Nothing
to any one," he repeated.

The doctor breathed freely. "Listen, Capataz,"
he said, stretching out his arm almost affectionately
towards Nostromo's shoulder. "I am going to tell
you a very simple thing. You are safe because you
are needed. I would not give you away for any conceivable
reason, because I want you."

In the dark Nostromo bit his lip. He had heard
enough of that. He knew what that meant. No more
of that for him. But he had to look after himself now,
he thought. And he thought, too, that it would not
be prudent to part in anger from his companion. The
doctor, admitted to be a great healer, had, amongst
the populace of Sulaco, the reputation of being an evil
sort of man. It was based solidly on his personal appearance,
which was strange, and on his rough ironic
manner — proofs visible, sensible, and incontrovertible
of the doctor's malevolent disposition. And Nostromo
was of the people. So he only grunted incredulously.

"You, to speak plainly, are the only man," the doctor
pursued. "It is in your power to save this town and

. . . everybody from the destructive rapacity of
men who —"

"No, señor," said Nostromo, sullenly. "It is not
in my power to get the treasure back for you to give
up to Sotillo, or Pedrito, or Gamacho. What do I
know?"

"Nobody expects the impossible," was the answer.

"You have said it yourself — nobody," muttered
Nostromo, in a gloomy, threatening tone.

But Dr. Monygham, full of hope, disregarded the
enigmatic words and the threatening tone. To their
eyes, accustomed to obscurity, the late Señor Hirsch,
growing more distinct, seemed to have come nearer.
And the doctor lowered his voice in exposing his scheme
as though afraid of being overheard.

He was taking the indispensable man into his fullest
confidence. Its implied flattery and suggestion of great
risks came with a familiar sound to the Capataz. His
mind, floating in irresolution and discontent, recognized
it with bitterness. He understood well that the doctor
was anxious to save the San Tomé mine from annihilation.
He would be nothing without it. It was his
interest. Just as it had been the interest of Señor
Decoud, of the Blancos, and of the Europeans to get
his Cargadores on their side. His thought became
arrested upon Decoud. What would happen to him?

Nostromo's prolonged silence made the doctor uneasy.
He pointed out, quite unnecessarily, that though
for the present he was safe, he could not live concealed
for ever. The choice was between accepting the mission
to Barrios, with all its dangers and difficulties, and leaving
Sulaco by stealth, ingloriously, in poverty.

"None of your friends could reward you and protect
you just now, Capataz. Not even Don Carlos himself."

"I would have none of your protection and none of

your rewards. I only wish I could trust your courage
and your sense. When I return in triumph, as you
say, with Barrios, I may find you all destroyed. You
have the knife at your throat now."

It was the doctor's turn to remain silent in the contemplation
of horrible contingencies.

"Well, we would trust your courage and your sense.
And you, too, have a knife at your throat."

"Ah! And whom am I to thank for that? What
are your politics and your mines to me — your silver and
your constitutions — your Don Carlos this, and Don
José that —"

"I don't know," burst out the exasperated doctor.
"There are innocent people in danger whose little
finger is worth more than you or I and all the Ribierists
together. I don't know. You should have asked
yourself before you allowed Decoud to lead you into
all this. It was your place to think like a man; but
if you did not think then, try to act like a man now.
Did you imagine Decoud cared very much for what
would happen to you?"

"No more than you care for what will happen to me,"
muttered the other.

"No; I care for what will happen to you as little as I
care for what will happen to myself."

"And all this because you are such a devoted Ribierist?"
Nostromo said in an incredulous tone.

"All this because I am such a devoted Ribierist,"
repeated Dr. Monygham, grimly.

Again Nostromo, gazing abstractedly at the body of
the late Señor Hirsch, remained silent, thinking that the
doctor was a dangerous person in more than one sense.
It was impossible to trust him.

"Do you speak in the name of Don Carlos?" he asked
at last.

"Yes. I do," the doctor said, loudly, without hesitation.
"He must come forward now. He must," he
added in a mutter, which Nostromo did not catch.

"What did you say, señor?"

The doctor started. "I say that you must be true to
yourself, Capataz. It would be worse than folly to fail
now."

"True to myself," repeated Nostromo. "How do
you know that I would not be true to myself if I told
you to go to the devil with your propositions?"

"I do not know. Maybe you would," the doctor
said, with a roughness of tone intended to hide the
sinking of his heart and the faltering of his voice. "All
I know is, that you had better get away from here.
Some of Sotillo's men may turn up here looking for
me."

He slipped off the table, listening intently. The
Capataz, too, stood up.

"Suppose I went to Cayta, what would you do meantime?"
he asked.

"I would go to Sotillo directly you had left — in the
way I am thinking of."

"A very good way — if only that engineer-in-chief
consents. Remind him, señor, that I looked after the
old rich Englishman who pays for the railway, and that
I saved the lives of some of his people that time when a
gang of thieves came from the south to wreck one of his
pay-trains. It was I who discovered it all at the risk
of my life, by pretending to enter into their plans. Just
as you are doing with Sotillo."

"Yes. Yes, of course. But I can offer him better
arguments," the doctor said, hastily. " Leave it to me."

"Ah, yes! True. I am nothing."

"Not at all. You are everything."

They moved a few paces towards the door. Behind

them the late Señor Hirsch preserved the immobility
of a disregarded man.

"That will be all right. I know what to say to the
engineer," pursued the doctor, in a low tone. "My
difficulty will be with Sotillo."

And Dr. Monygham stopped short in the doorway as
if intimidated by the difficulty. He had made the sacrifice
of his life. He considered this a fitting opportunity.
But he did not want to throw his life away too soon.
In his quality of betrayer of Don Carlos' confidence,
he would have ultimately to indicate the hiding-place
of the treasure. That would be the end of his deception,
and the end of himself as well, at the hands of the infuriated
colonel. He wanted to delay him to the very last
moment; and he had been racking his brains to invent
some place of concealment at once plausible and difficult
of access.

He imparted his trouble to Nostromo, and concluded
—

"Do you know what, Capataz? I think that when
the time comes and some information must be given,
I shall indicate the Great Isabel. That is the best
place I can think of. What is the matter?"

A low exclamation had escaped Nostromo. The
doctor waited, surprised, and after a moment of profound
silence, heard a thick voice stammer out, "Utter
folly," and stop with a gasp.

"Why folly?"

"Ah! You do not see it," began Nostromo, scathingly,
gathering scorn as he went on. "Three men in
half an hour would see that no ground had been disturbed
anywhere on that island. Do you think that
such a treasure can be buried without leaving traces
of the work — eh! señor doctor? Why! you would not
gain half a day more before having your throat cut by

Sotillo. The Isabel! What stupidity! What miserable
invention! Ah! you are all alike, you fine men
of intelligence. All you are fit for is to betray men of
the people into undertaking deadly risks for objects
that you are not even sure about. If it comes off you
get the benefit. If not, then it does not matter. He
is only a dog. Ah! Madre de Dios, I would —"
He shook his fists above his head.

The doctor was overwhelmed at first by this fierce,
hissing vehemence.

"Well! It seems to me on your own showing that the
men of the people are no mean fools, too," he said, sullenly.
"No, but come. You are so clever. Have you
a better place?"

Nostromo had calmed down as quickly as he had
flared up.

"I am clever enough for that," he said, quietly, almost
with indifference. "You want to tell him of a
hiding-place big enough to take days in ransacking — a
place where a treasure of silver ingots can be buried
without leaving a sign on the surface."

"And close at hand," the doctor put in.

"Just so, señor. Tell him it is sunk."

"This has the merit of being the truth," the doctor
said, contemptuously. "He will not believe it."

"You tell him that it is sunk where he may hope to
lay his hands on it, and he will believe you quick enough.
Tell him it has been sunk in the harbour in order to be
recovered afterwards by divers. Tell him you found out
that I had orders from Don Carlos Gould to lower the
cases quietly overboard somewhere in a line between
the end of the jetty and the entrance. The depth is
not too great there. He has no divers, but he has a ship,
boats, ropes, chains, sailors — of a sort. Let him fish
for the silver. Let him set his fools to drag backwards

and forwards and crossways while he sits and watches
till his eyes drop out of his head."

"Really, this is an admirable idea," muttered the
doctor.

"Si. You tell him that, and see whether he will not
believe you! He will spend days in rage and torment —
and still he will believe. He will have no thought for
anything else. He will not give up till he is driven off —
why, he may even forget to kill you. He will neither
eat nor sleep. He —"

"The very thing! The very thing!" the doctor
repeated in an excited whisper. "Capataz, I begin
to believe that you are a great genius in your
way."

Nostromo had paused; then began again in a changed
tone, sombre, speaking to himself as though he had
forgotten the doctor's existence.

"There is something in a treasure that fastens upon a
man's mind. He will pray and blaspheme and still
persevere, and will curse the day he ever heard of it,
and will let his last hour come upon him unawares, still
believing that he missed it only by a foot. He will see
it every time he closes his eyes. He will never forget
it till he is dead — and even then — Doctor, did you
ever hear of the miserable gringos on Azuera, that cannot
die? Ha! ha! Sailors like myself. There is no
getting away from a treasure that once fastens upon
your mind."

"You are a devil of a man, Capataz. It is the most
plausible thing."

Nostromo pressed his arm.

"It will be worse for him than thirst at sea or hunger
in a town full of people. Do you know what that is?
He shall suffer greater torments than he inflicted upon
that terrified wretch who had no invention. None!

none! Not like me. I could have told Sotillo a deadly
tale for very little pain."

He laughed wildly and turned in the doorway towards
the body of the late Señor Hirsch, an opaque long blotch
in the semi-transparent obscurity of the room between
the two tall parallelograms of the windows full of stars.

"You man of fear!" he cried. "You shall be avenged
by me — Nostromo. Out of my way, doctor! Stand
aside — or, by the suffering soul of a woman dead without
confession, I will strangle you with my two hands."

He bounded downwards into the black, smoky hall.
With a grunt of astonishment, Dr. Monygham threw
himself recklessly into the pursuit. At the bottom of
the charred stairs he had a fall, pitching forward on his
face with a force that would have stunned a spirit less
intent upon a task of love and devotion. He was up
in a moment, jarred, shaken, with a queer impression
of the terrestrial globe having been flung at his head in
the dark. But it wanted more than that to stop Dr.
Monygham's body, possessed by the exaltation of self-
sacrifice; a reasonable exaltation, determined not to lose
whatever advantage chance put into its way. He ran
with headlong, tottering swiftness, his arms going like a
windmill in his effort to keep his balance on his crippled
feet. He lost his hat; the tails of his open gaberdine
flew behind him. He had no mind to lose sight of the
indispensable man. But it was a long time, and a long
way from the Custom House, before he managed to
seize his arm from behind, roughly, out of breath.

"Stop! Are you mad?"

Already Nostromo was walking slowly, his head
dropping, as if checked in his pace by the weariness
of irresolution.

"What is that to you? Ah! I forgot you want me
for something. Always. Siempre Nostromo."

"What do you mean by talking of strangling me?"
panted the doctor.

"What do I mean? I mean that the king of the
devils himself has sent you out of this town of cowards
and talkers to meet me to-night of all the nights of my
life."

Under the starry sky the Albergo d'ltalia Una
emerged, black and low, breaking the dark level of the
plain. Nostromo stopped altogether.

"The priests say he is a tempter, do they not?" he
added, through his clenched teeth.

"My good man, you drivel. The devil has nothing
to do with this. Neither has the town, which you may
call by what name you please. But Don Carlos Gould
is neither a coward nor an empty talker. You will
admit that?" He waited. "Well?"

"Could I see Don Carlos?"

"Great heavens! No! Why? What for?" exclaimed
the doctor in agitation. "I tell you it is madness. I
will not let you go into the town for anything."

"I must."

"You must not!" hissed the doctor, fiercely, almost
beside himself with the fear of the man doing away with
his usefulness for an imbecile whim of some sort. "I
tell you you shall not. I would rather —"

He stopped at loss for words, feeling fagged out,
powerless, holding on to Nostromo's sleeve, absolutely
for support after his run.

"I am betrayed!" muttered the Capataz to himself;
and the doctor, who overheard the last word, made an
effort to speak calmly.

"That is exactly what would happen to you. You
would be betrayed."

He thought with a sickening dread that the man was
so well known that he could not escape recognition.

The house of the Señor Administrador was beset by
spies, no doubt. And even the very servants of the
casa were not to be trusted. "Reflect, Capataz," he
said, impressively. . . . "What are you laughing at?"

"I am laughing to think that if somebody that did not
approve of my presence in town, for instance — you
understand, señor doctor — if somebody were to give
me up to Pedrito, it would not be beyond my power to
make friends even with him. It is true. What do you
think of that?"

"You are a man of infinite resource, Capataz," said
Dr. Monygham, dismally. "I recognize that. But
the town is full of talk about you; and those few Cargadores
that are not in hiding with the railway people
have been shouting 'Viva Montero' on the Plaza all
day."

"My poor Cargadores!" muttered Nostromo. "Betrayed!
Betrayed!"

"I understand that on the wharf you were pretty free
in laying about you with a stick amongst your poor
Cargadores," the doctor said in a grim tone, which
showed that he was recovering from his exertions.
"Make no mistake. Pedrito is furious at Señor
Ribiera's rescue, and at having lost the pleasure of
shooting Decoud. Already there are rumours in the
town of the treasure having been spirited away. To
have missed that does not please Pedrito either; but
let me tell you that if you had all that silver in your
hand for ransom it would not save you."

Turning swiftly, and catching the doctor by the shoulders,
Nostromo thrust his face close to his.

"Maladetta! You follow me speaking of the treasure.
You have sworn my ruin. You were the last man who
looked upon me before I went out with it. And Sidoni
the engine-driver says you have an evil eye."

"He ought to know. I saved his broken leg for him
last year," the doctor said, stoically. He felt on his
shoulders the weight of these hands famed amongst the
populace for snapping thick ropes and bending horse-
shoes. "And to you I offer the best means of saving
yourself — let me go — and of retrieving your great reputation.
You boasted of making the Capataz de Cargadores
famous from one end of America to the other
about this wretched silver. But I bring you a better
opportunity — let me go, hombre!"

Nostromo released him abruptly, and the doctor
feared that the indispensable man would run off again.
But he did not. He walked on slowly. The doctor
hobbled by his side till, within a stone's throw from the
Casa Viola, Nostromo stopped again.

Silent in inhospitable darkness, the Casa Viola seemed
to have changed its nature; his home appeared to repel
him with an air of hopeless and inimical mystery. The
doctor said —

"You will be safe there. Go in, Capataz."

"How can I go in?" Nostromo seemed to ask himself
in a low, inward tone. "She cannot unsay what she
said, and I cannot undo what I have done."

"I tell you it is all right. Viola is all alone in there.
I looked in as I came out of the town. You will be
perfectly safe in that house till you leave it to make your
name famous on the Campo. I am going now to arrange
for your departure with the engineer-in-chief,
and I shall bring you news here long before daybreak."

Dr. Monygham, disregarding, or perhaps fearing to
penetrate the meaning of Nostromo's silence, clapped him
lightly on the shoulder, and starting off with his smart,
lame walk, vanished utterly at the third or fourth hop
in the direction of the railway track. Arrested between
the two wooden posts for people to fasten their horses to,

Nostromo did not move, as if he, too, had been planted
solidly in the ground. At the end of half an hour he
lifted his head to the deep baying of the dogs at the railway
yards, which had burst out suddenly, tumultuous
and deadened as if coming from under the plain. That
lame doctor with the evil eye had got there pretty fast.

Step by step Nostromo approached the Albergo
d'Italia Una, which he had never known so lightless, so
silent, before. The door, all black in the pale wall,
stood open as he had left it twenty-four hours before,
when he had nothing to hide from the world. He remained
before it, irresolute, like a fugitive, like a man
betrayed. Poverty, misery, starvation! Where had
he heard these words? The anger of a dying woman
had prophesied that fate for his folly. It looked as if
it would come true very quickly. And the leperos
would laugh — she had said. Yes, they would laugh
if they knew that the Capataz de Cargadores was at
the mercy of the mad doctor whom they could remember,
only a few years ago, buying cooked food from a
stall on the Plaza for a copper coin — like one of themselves.

At that moment the notion of seeking Captain Mitchell
passed through his mind. He glanced in the direction
of the jetty and saw a small gleam of light in the
O.S.N. Company's building. The thought of lighted
windows was not attractive. Two lighted windows
had decoyed him into the empty Custom House, only
to fall into the clutches of that doctor. No! He would
not go near lighted windows again on that night.
Captain Mitchell was there. And what could he be
told? That doctor would worm it all out of him as if
he were a child.

On the threshold he called out "Giorgio!" in an
undertone. Nobody answered. He stepped in. "Olà!

viejo! Are you there? . . ." In the impenetrable
darkness his head swam with the illusion that the obscurity
of the kitchen was as vast as the Placid Gulf,
and that the floor dipped forward like a sinking lighter.
"Olà! viejo!" he repeated, falteringly, swaying where he
stood. His hand, extended to steady himself, fell
upon the table. Moving a step forward, he shifted
it, and felt a box of matches under his fingers. He
fancied he had heard a quiet sigh. He listened for a
moment, holding his breath; then, with trembling hands,
tried to strike a light.

The tiny piece of wood flamed up quite blindingly
at the end of his fingers, raised above his blinking eyes.
A concentrated glare fell upon the leonine white head
of old Giorgio against the black fire-place — showed him
leaning forward in a chair in staring immobility, surrounded,
overhung, by great masses of shadow, his
legs crossed, his cheek in his hand, an empty pipe in
the corner of his mouth. It seemed hours before he attempted
to turn his face; at the very moment the match
went out, and he disappeared, overwhelmed by the
shadows, as if the walls and roof of the desolate house
had collapsed upon his white head in ghostly silence.

Nostromo heard him stir and utter dispassionately
the words —

"It may have been a vision."

"No," he said, softly. "It is no vision, old man."

A strong chest voice asked in the dark —

"Is that you I hear, Giovann' Battista?"

"Si, viejo. Steady. Not so loud."

After his release by Sotillo, Giorgio Viola, attended to
the very door by the good-natured engineer-in-chief,
had reëntered his house, which he had been made to
leave almost at the very moment of his wife's death.
All was still. The lamp above was burning. He nearly

called out to her by name; and the thought that no call
from him would ever again evoke the answer of her
voice, made him drop heavily into the chair with a
loud groan, wrung out by the pain as of a keen blade
piercing his breast.

The rest of the night he made no sound. The darkness
turned to grey, and on the colourless, clear, glassy
dawn the jagged sierra stood out flat and opaque, as if
cut out of paper.

The enthusiastic and severe soul of Giorgio Viola,
sailor, champion of oppressed humanity, enemy of kings,
and, by the grace of Mrs. Gould, hotel-keeper of the
Sulaco harbour, had descended into the open abyss of
desolation amongst the shattered vestiges of his past.
He remembered his wooing between two campaigns,
a single short week in the season of gathering olives.
Nothing approached the grave passion of that time but
the deep, passionate sense of his bereavement. He discovered
all the extent of his dependence upon the silenced
voice of that woman. It was her voice that he
missed. Abstracted, busy, lost in inward contemplation,
he seldom looked at his wife in those later years.
The thought of his girls was a matter of concern, not
of consolation. It was her voice that he would miss.
And he remembered the other child — the little boy who
died at sea. Ah! a man would have been something to
lean upon. And, alas! even Gian' Battista — he of whom,
and of Linda, his wife had spoken to him so anxiously
before she dropped off into her last sleep on earth, he on
whom she had called aloud to save the children, just
before she died — even he was dead!

And the old man, bent forward, his head in his hand,
sat through the day in immobility and solitude. He
never heard the brazen roar of the bells in town. When
it ceased the earthenware filter in the corner of the

kitchen kept on its swift musical drip, drip into the
great porous jar below.

Towards sunset he got up, and with slow movements
disappeared up the narrow staircase. His bulk filled it;
and the rubbing of his shoulders made a small noise as of
a mouse running behind the plaster of a wall. While
he remained up there the house was as dumb as a grave.
Then, with the same faint rubbing noise, he descended.
He had to catch at the chairs and tables to regain his
seat. He seized his pipe off the high mantel of the
fire-place — but made no attempt to reach the tobacco —
thrust it empty into the corner of his mouth, and sat
down again in the same staring pose. The sun of Pedrito's
entry into Sulaco, the last sun of Señor Hirsch's
life, the first of Decoud's solitude on the Great Isabel,
passed over the Albergo d'ltalia Una on its way to the
west. The tinkling drip, drip of the filter had ceased,
the lamp upstairs had burnt itself out, and the night
beset Giorgio Viola and his dead wife with its obscurity
and silence that seemed invincible till the
Capataz de Cargadores, returning from the dead, put
them to flight with the splutter and flare of a match.

"Si, viejo. It is me. Wait."

Nostromo, after barricading the door and closing the
shutters carefully, groped upon a shelf for a candle, and
lit it.

Old Viola had risen. He followed with his eyes in the
dark the sounds made by Nostromo. The light disclosed
him standing without support, as if the mere
presence of that man who was loyal, brave, incorruptible,
who was all his son would have been, were enough
for the support of his decaying strength.

He extended his hand grasping the briar-wood pipe,
whose bowl was charred on the edge, and knitted his
bushy eyebrows heavily at the light.

"You have returned," he said, with shaky dignity.
"Ah! Very well! I —"

He broke off. Nostromo, leaning back against the
table, his arms folded on his breast, nodded at him
slightly.

"You thought I was drowned! No! The best dog
of the rich, of the aristocrats, of these fine men who
can only talk and betray the people, is not dead yet."

The Garibaldino, motionless, seemed to drink in the
sound of the well-known voice. His head moved
slightly once as if in sign of approval; but Nostromo saw
clearly that the old man understood nothing of the
words. There was no one to understand; no one he
could take into the confidence of Decoud's fate, of his
own, into the secret of the silver. That doctor was an
enemy of the people — a tempter. . . .

Old Giorgio's heavy frame shook from head to foot
with the effort to overcome his emotion at the sight of
that man, who had shared the intimacies of his domestic
life as though he had been a grown-up son.

"She believed yon would return," he said, solemnly.

Nostromo raised his head.

"She was a wise woman. How could I fail to come
back —?"

He finished the thought mentally: "Since she has
prophesied for me an end of poverty, misery, and starvation."
These words of Teresa's anger, from the circumstances
in which they had been uttered, like the
cry of a soul prevented from making its peace with
God, stirred the obscure superstition of personal
fortune from which even the greatest genius amongst
men of adventure and action is seldom free. They
reigned over Nostromo's mind with the force of a potent
malediction. And what a curse it was that which her
words had laid upon him! He had been orphaned so

young that he could remember no other woman whom
he called mother. Henceforth there would be no enterprise
in which he would not fail. The spell was working
already. Death itself would elude him now. . . .
He said violently —

"Come, viejo! Get me something to eat. I am
hungry! Sangre de Dios! The emptiness of my belly
makes me lightheaded."

With his chin dropped again upon his bare breast
above his folded arms, barefooted, watching from under
a gloomy brow the movements of old Viola foraging
amongst the cupboards, he seemed as if indeed fallen
under a curse — a ruined and sinister Capataz.

Old Viola walked out of a dark corner, and, without a
word, emptied upon the table out of his hollowed palms
a few dry crusts of bread and half a raw onion.

While the Capataz began to devour this beggar's
fare, taking up with stony-eyed voracity piece after
piece lying by his side, the Garibaldino went off, and
squatting down in another corner filled an earthenware
mug with red wine out of a wicker-covered demijohn.
With a familiar gesture, as when serving customers in
the café, he had thrust his pipe between his teeth to
have his hands free.

The Capataz drank greedily. A slight flush deepened
the bronze of his cheek. Before him, Viola, with a
turn of his white and massive head towards the staircase,
took his empty pipe out of his mouth, and pronounced
slowly —

"After the shot was fired down here, which killed her
as surely as if the bullet had struck her oppressed heart,
she called upon you to save the children. Upon you,
Gian' Battista."

The Capataz looked up.

"Did she do that, Padrone? To save the children!

They are with the English señora, their rich benefactress.
Hey! old man of the people. Thy benefactress.
. . ."

"I am old," muttered Giorgio Viola. "An English-
woman was allowed to give a bed to Garibaldi lying
wounded in prison. The greatest man that ever lived.
A man of the people, too — a sailor. I may let another
keep a roof over my head. Si . . . I am old. I
may let her. Life lasts too long sometimes."

"And she herself may not have a roof over her head
before many days are out, unless I . . . What do
you say? Am I to keep a roof over her head? Am I
to try — and save all the Blancos together with her?"

"You shall do it," said old Viola in a strong voice.
"You shall do it as my son would have. . . ."

"Thy son, viejo! .. .. There never has been a
man like thy son. Ha, I must try. . . . But what
if it were only a part of the curse to lure me on? . . .
And so she called upon me to save — and then —?"

"She spoke no more." The heroic follower of Gari-@@@
baldi, at the thought of the eternal stillness and silence
fallen upon the shrouded form stretched out on the bed
upstairs, averted his face and raised his hand to his
furrowed brow. "She was dead before I could seize
her hands," he stammered out, pitifully.

Before the wide eyes of the Capataz, staring at the
doorway of the dark staircase, floated the shape of the
Great Isabel, like a strange ship in distress, freighted
with enormous wealth and the solitary life of a man.
It was impossible for him to do anything. He could
only hold his tongue, since there was no one to trust.
The treasure would be lost, probably — unless Decoud.
. . . And his thought came abruptly to an end.
He perceived that he could not imagine in the least
what Decoud was likely to do.

Old Viola had not stirred. And the motionless Capataz
dropped his long, soft eyelashes, which gave to the
upper part of his fierce, black-whiskered face a touch of
feminine ingenuousness. The silence had lasted for a
long time.

"God rest her soul!" he murmured, gloomily.