Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART THIRD: THE LIGHTHOUSE 9. CHAPTER NINE (continued)

"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 reechoed, 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 Senor 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.