Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART THIRD: THE LIGHTHOUSE 4. CHAPTER FOUR (continued)

Charles Gould stopped before the sad bewilderment of the faces,
the wondering, anxious glances of the eyes. The feeling of pity
for those men, putting all their trust into words of some sort,
while murder and rapine stalked over the land, had betrayed him
into what seemed empty loquacity. Don Juste murmured--

"You are abandoning us, Don Carlos. . . . And yet, parliamentary
institutions--"

He could not finish from grief. For a moment he put his hand over
his eyes. Charles Gould, in his fear of empty loquacity, made no
answer to the charge. He returned in silence their ceremonious
bows. His taciturnity was his refuge. He understood that what
they sought was to get the influence of the San Tome mine on
their side. They wanted to go on a conciliating errand to the
victor under the wing of the Gould Concession. Other public
bodies--the Cabildo, the Consulado--would be coming, too,
presently, seeking the support of the most stable, the most
effective force they had ever known to exist in their province.

The doctor, arriving with his sharp, jerky walk, found that the
master had retired into his own room with. orders not to be
disturbed on any account. But Dr. Monygham was not anxious to
see Charles Gould at once. He spent some time in a rapid
examination of his wounded. He gazed down upon each in turn,
rubbing his chin between his thumb and forefinger; his steady
stare met without expression their silently inquisitive look. All
these cases were doing well; but when he came to the dead
Cargador he stopped a little longer, surveying not the man who
had ceased to suffer, but the woman kneeling in silent
contemplation of the rigid face, with its pinched nostrils and a
white gleam in the imperfectly closed eyes. She lifted her head
slowly, and said in a dull voice--

"It is not long since he had become a Cargador--only a few weeks.
His worship the Capataz had accepted him after many entreaties."

"I am not responsible for the great Capataz," muttered the
doctor, moving off.

Directing his course upstairs towards the door of Charles Gould's
room, the doctor at the last moment hesitated; then, turning away
from the handle with a shrug of his uneven shoulders, slunk off
hastily along the corredor in search of Mrs. Gould's camerista.