Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART THIRD: THE LIGHTHOUSE 2. CHAPTER TWO (continued)

"Disarm him! Bind him!" the colonel could be heard vociferating.

Captain Mitchell had just the time to glance once at the windows,
with three perpendicular bars of iron each and some twenty feet
from the ground, as he well knew, before the door flew open and
the rush upon him took place. In an incredibly short time he
found himself bound with many turns of a hide rope to a
high-backed chair, so that his head alone remained free. Not till
then did Sotillo, who had been leaning in the doorway trembling
visibly, venture again within. The soldiers, picking up from the
floor the rifles they had dropped to grapple with the prisoner,
filed out of the room. The officers remained leaning on their
swords and looking on.

"The watch! the watch!" raved the colonel, pacing to and fro like
a tiger in a cage. "Give me that man's watch."

It was true, that when searched for arms in the hall downstairs,
before being taken into Sotillo's presence, Captain Mitchell had
been relieved of his watch and chain; but at the colonel's
clamour it was produced quickly enough, a corporal bringing it
up, carried carefully in the palms of his joined hands. Sotillo
snatched it, and pushed the clenched fist from which it dangled
close to Captain Mitchell's face.

"Now then! You arrogant Englishman! You dare to call the soldiers
of the army thieves! Behold your watch."

He flourished his fist as if aiming blows at the prisoner's nose.
Captain Mitchell, helpless as a swathed infant, looked anxiously
at the sixty-guinea gold half-chronometer, presented to him years
ago by a Committee of Underwriters for saving a ship from total
loss by fire. Sotillo, too, seemed to perceive its valuable
appearance. He became silent suddenly, stepped aside to the
table, and began a careful examination in the light of the
candles. He had never seen anything so fine. His officers closed
in and craned their necks behind his back.