Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

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

"Mi General," Nostromo's voice rang out loud, but quiet, from
behind a group of officers, "I should like to save that little
boat. Por Dios, I know her. She belongs to my Company."

"And, por Dios," guffawed Barrios, in a noisy, goodhumoured
voice, "you belong to me. I am going to make you a captain of
cavalry directly we get within sight of a horse again."

"I can swim far better than I can ride, mi General," cried
Nostromo, pushing through to the rail with a set
stare in his eyes. "Let me----"

"Let you? What a conceited fellow that is," bantered the General,
jovially, without even looking at him. "Let him go! Ha! ha! ha!
He wants me to admit that we cannot take Sulaco without him! Ha!
ha! ha! Would you like to swim off to her, my son?"

A tremendous shout from one end of the ship to the other stopped
his guffaw. Nostromo had leaped overboard; and his black head
bobbed up far away already from the ship. The General muttered an
appalled "Cielo! Sinner that I am!" in a thunderstruck tone. One
anxious glance was enough to show him that Nostromo was swimming
with perfect ease; and then he thundered terribly, "No! no! We
shall not stop to pick up this impertinent fellow. Let him
drown--that mad Capataz."

Nothing short of main force would have kept Nostromo from leaping
overboard. That empty boat, coming out to meet him mysteriously,
as if rowed by an invisible spectre, exercised the fascination of
some sign, of some warning, seemed to answer in a startling and
enigmatic way the persistent thought of a treasure and of a man's
fate. He would have leaped if there had been death in that
half-mile of water. It was as smooth as a pond, and for some
reason sharks are unknown in the Placid Gulf, though on the other
side of the Punta Mala the coastline swarms with them.