Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART SECOND: THE ISABELS 7. CHAPTER SEVEN (continued)

"I am waiting for him here now. On arriving at the posada kept by
Viola we found the children alone down below, and the old Genoese
shouted to his countryman to go and fetch the doctor. Otherwise
we would have gone on to the wharf, where it appears Captain
Mitchell with some volunteer Europeans and a few picked
Cargadores are loading the lighter with the silver that must be
saved from Montero's clutches in order to be used for Montero's
defeat. Nostromo galloped furiously back towards the town. He has
been long gone already. This delay gives me time to talk to you.
By the time this pocket-book reaches your hands much will have
happened. But now it is a pause under the hovering wing of death
in this silent house buried in the black night, with this dying
woman, the two children crouching without a sound, and that old
man whom I can hear through the thickness of the wall passing up
and down with a light rubbing noise no louder than a mouse. And
I, the only other with them, don't really know whether to count
myself with the living or with the dead. 'Quien sabe?' as the
people here are prone to say in answer to every question. But no!
feeling for you is certainly not dead, and the whole thing, the
house, the dark night, the silent children in this dim room, my
very presence here--all this is life, must be life, since it is
so much like a dream."

With the writing of the last line there came upon Decoud a moment
of sudden and complete oblivion. He swayed over the table as if
struck by a bullet. The next moment he sat up, confused, with the
idea that he had heard his pencil roll on the floor. The low door
of the cafe, wide open, was filled with the glare of a torch in
which was visible half of a horse, switching its tail against the
leg of a rider with a long iron spur strapped to the naked heel.
The two girls were gone, and Nostromo, standing in the middle of
the room, looked at him from under the round brim of the sombrero
low down over his brow.

"I have brought that sour-faced English doctor in Senora Gould's
carriage," said Nostromo. "I doubt if, with all his wisdom, he
can save the Padrona this time. They have sent for the children.
A bad sign that."