Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART SECOND: THE ISABELS 8. CHAPTER EIGHT (continued)

"I spoke to you openly as to a man as desperate as myself,"
explained the Capataz. "The silver must be saved from the
Monterists. I told Captain Mitchell three times that I preferred
to go alone. I told Don Carlos Gould, too. It was in the Casa
Gould. They had sent for me. The ladies were there; and when I
tried to explain why I did not wish to have you with me, they
promised me, both of them, great rewards for your safety. A
strange way to talk to a man you are sending out to an almost
certain death. Those gentlefolk do not seem to have sense enough
to understand what they are giving one to do. I told them I could
do nothing for you. You would have been safer with the bandit
Hernandez. It would have been possible to ride out of the town
with no greater risk than a chance shot sent after you in the
dark. But it was as if they had been deaf. I had to promise I
would wait for you under the harbour gate. I did wait. And now
because you are a brave man you are as safe as the silver.
Neither more nor less."

At that moment, as if by way of comment upon Nostromo's words,
the invisible steamer went ahead at half speed only, as could be
judged by the leisurely beat of her propeller. The sound shifted
its place markedly, but without coming nearer. It even grew a
little more distant right abeam of the lighter, and then ceased
again.

"They are trying for a sight of the Isabels," muttered Nostromo,
"in order to make for the harbour in a straight line and seize
the Custom House with the treasure in it. Have you ever seen the
Commandant of Esmeralda, Sotillo? A handsome fellow, with a soft
voice. When I first came here I used to see him in the Calle
talking to the senoritas at the windows of the houses, and
showing his white teeth all the time. But one of my Cargadores,
who had been a soldier, told me that he had once ordered a man to
be flayed alive in the remote Campo, where he was sent recruiting
amongst the people of the Estancias. It has never entered his
head that the Compania had a man capable of baffling his game."