Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART THIRD: THE LIGHTHOUSE 8. CHAPTER EIGHT (continued)

The sense of betrayal and ruin floated upon his sombre
indifference as upon a sluggish sea of pitch. But he stepped out
from under the wall, and, looking up, saw Dr. Monygham leaning
out of a lighted window.

"Come up and see what Sotillo has done. You need not fear the man
up here."

He answered by a slight, bitter laugh. Fear a man! The Capataz
of the Sulaco Cargadores fear a man! It angered him that anybody
should suggest such a thing. It angered him to be disarmed and
skulking and in danger because of the accursed treasure, which
was of so little account to the people who had tied it round his
neck. He could not shake off the worry of it. To Nostromo the
doctor represented all these people. . . . And he had never even
asked after it. Not a word of inquiry about the most desperate
undertaking of his life.

Thinking these thoughts, Nostromo passed again through the
cavernous hall, where the smoke was considerably thinned, and
went up the stairs, not so warm to his feet now, towards the
streak of light at the top. The doctor appeared in it for a
moment, agitated and impatient.

"Come up! Come up!"

At the moment of crossing the doorway the Capataz experienced a
shock of surprise. The man had not moved. He saw his shadow in
the same place. He started, then stepped in with a feeling of
being about to solve a mystery.

It was very simple. For an infinitesimal fraction of a second,
against the light of two flaring and guttering candles, through a
blue, pungent, thin haze which made his eyes smart, he saw the
man standing, as he had imagined him, with his back to the door,
casting an enormous and distorted shadow upon the wall. Swifter
than a flash of lightning followed the impression of his
constrained, toppling attitude--the shoulders projecting forward,
the head sunk low upon the breast. Then he distinguished the arms
behind his back, and wrenched so terribly that the two clenched
fists, lashed together, had been forced up higher than the
shoulder-blades. From there his eyes traced in one instantaneous
glance the hide rope going upwards from the tied wrists over a
heavy beam and down to a staple in the wall. He did not want to
look at the rigid legs, at the feet hanging down nervelessly,
with their bare toes some six inches above the floor, to know
that the man had been given the estrapade till he had swooned.
His first impulse was to dash forward and sever the rope at one
blow. He felt for his knife. He had no knife--not even a knife.
He stood quivering, and the doctor, perched on the edge of the
table, facing thoughtfully the cruel and lamentable sight, his
chin in his hand, uttered, without stirring--