Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART THIRD: THE LIGHTHOUSE 1. CHAPTER ONE (continued)

"His prestige is his fortune," muttered the doctor, sourly.

"The man has proved his trustworthiness up to the hilt on
innumerable occasions and in all sorts of ways," argued the
engineer. "When this question of the silver arose, Captain
Mitchell naturally was very warmly of the opinion that his
Capataz was the only man fit for the trust. As a sailor, of
course, I suppose so. But as a man, don't you know, Gould,
Decoud, and myself judged that it didn't matter in the least who
went. Any boatman would have done just as well. Pray, what could
a thief do with such a lot of ingots? If he ran off with them he
would have in the end to land somewhere, and how could he conceal
his cargo from the knowledge of the people ashore? We dismissed
that consideration from our minds. Moreover, Decoud was going.
There have been occasions when the Capataz has been more
implicitly trusted."

"He took a slightly different view," the doctor said. "I heard
him declare in this very room that it would be the most desperate
affair of his life. He made a sort of verbal will here in my
hearing, appointing old Viola his executor; and, by Jove! do you
know, he--he's not grown rich by his fidelity to you good people
of the railway and the harbour. I suppose he obtains some--how
do you say that?--some spiritual value for his labours, or else I
don't know why the devil he should be faithful to you, Gould,
Mitchell, or anybody else. He knows this country well. He knows,
for instance, that Gamacho, the Deputy from Javira, has been
nothing else but a 'tramposo' of the commonest sort, a petty
pedlar of the Campo, till he managed to get enough goods on
credit from Anzani to open a little store in the wilds, and got
himself elected by the drunken mozos that hang about the
Estancias and the poorest sort of rancheros who were in his debt.
And Gamacho, who to-morrow will be probably one of our high
officials, is a stranger, too--an Isleno. He might have been a
Cargador on the O. S. N. wharf had he not (the posadero of Rincon
is ready to swear it) murdered a pedlar in the woods and stolen
his pack to begin life on. And do you think that Gamacho, then,
would have ever become a hero with the democracy of this place,
like our Capataz? Of course not. He isn't half the man. No;
decidedly, I think that Nostromo is a fool."