Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART THIRD: THE LIGHTHOUSE 10. CHAPTER TEN (continued)

"The equestrian statue that used to stand on the pedestal over
there has been removed. It was an anachronism," Captain Mitchell
commented, obscurely. "There is some talk of replacing it by a
marble shaft commemorative of Separation, with angels of peace at
the four corners, and bronze Justice holding an even balance, all
gilt, on the top. Cavaliere Parrochetti was asked to make a
design, which you can see framed under glass in the Municipal
Sala. Names are to be engraved all round the base. Well! They
could do no better than begin with the name of Nostromo. He has
done for Separation as much as anybody else, and," added Captain
Mitchell, "has got less than many others by it--when it comes to
that." He dropped on to a stone seat under a tree, and tapped
invitingly at the place by his side. "He carried to Barrios the
letters from Sulaco which decided the General to abandon Cayta
for a time, and come back to our help here by sea. The
transports were still in harbour fortunately. Sir, I did not even
know that my Capataz de Cargadores was alive. I had no idea. It
was Dr. Monygham who came upon him, by chance, in the Custom
House, evacuated an hour or two before by the wretched Sotillo.
I was never told; never given a hint, nothing--as if I were
unworthy of confidence. Monygham arranged it all. He went to the
railway yards, and got admission to the engineer-in-chief, who,
for the sake of the Goulds as much as for anything else,
consented to let an engine make a dash down the line, one hundred
and eighty miles, with Nostromo aboard. It was the only way to
get him off. In the Construction Camp at the railhead, he
obtained a horse, arms, some clothing, and started alone on that
marvellous ride--four hundred miles in six days, through a
disturbed country, ending by the feat of passing through the
Monterist lines outside Cayta. The history of that ride, sir,
would make a most exciting book. He carried all our lives in his
pocket. Devotion, courage, fidelity, intelligence were not
enough. Of course, he was perfectly fearless and incorruptible.
But a man was wanted that would know how to succeed. He was that
man, sir. On the fifth of May, being practically a prisoner in
the Harbour Office of my Company, I suddenly heard the whistle of
an engine in the railway yards, a quarter of a mile away. I could
not believe my ears. I made one jump on to the balcony, and
beheld a locomotive under a great head of steam run out of the
yard gates, screeching like mad, enveloped in a white cloud, and
then, just abreast of old Viola's inn, check almost to a
standstill. I made out, sir, a man--I couldn't tell who--dash
out of the Albergo d'ltalia Una, climb into the cab, and then,
sir, that engine seemed positively to leap clear of the house,
and was gone in the twinkling of an eye. As you blow a candle
out, sir! There was a first-rate driver on the foot-plate, sir, I
can tell you. They were fired heavily upon by the National Guards
in Rincon and one other place. Fortunately the line had not been
torn up. In four hours they reached the Construction Camp.
Nostromo had his start. . . . The rest you know. You've got only
to look round you. There are people on this Alameda that ride in
their carriages, or even are alive at all to-day, because years
ago I engaged a runaway Italian sailor for a foreman of our wharf
simply on the strength of his looks. And that's a fact. You can't
get over it, sir. On the seventeenth of May, just twelve days
after I saw the man from the Casa Viola get on the engine, and
wondered what it meant, Barrios's transports were entering this
harbour, and the 'Treasure House of the World,' as The Times man
calls Sulaco in his book, was saved intact for civilization--for
a great future, sir. Pedrito, with Hernandez on the west, and the
San Tome miners pressing on the land gate, was not able to oppose
the landing. He had been sending messages to Sotillo for a week
to join him. Had Sotillo done so there would have been massacres
and proscription that would have left no man or woman of position
alive. But that's where Dr. Monygham comes in. Sotillo, blind and
deaf to everything, stuck on board his steamer watching the
dragging for silver, which he believed to be sunk at the bottom
of the harbour. They say that for the last three days he was out
of his mind raving and foaming with disappointment at getting
nothing, flying about the deck, and yelling curses at the boats
with the drags, ordering them in, and then suddenly stamping his
foot and crying out, 'And yet it is there! I see it! I feel it!'