Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

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

"Everything!" interrupted the doctor.

The Capataz was heard striking the table with his fist.
"Everything? What are you saying, there? Everything? Know
everything? It is impossible! Everything?"

"Of course. What do you mean by impossible? I tell you I have
heard this Hirsch questioned last night, here, in this very room.
He knew your name, Decoud's name, and all about the loading of
the silver. . . . The lighter was cut in two. He was grovelling
in abject terror before Sotillo, but he remembered that much.
What do you want more? He knew least about himself. They found
him clinging to their anchor. He must have caught at it just as
the lighter went to the bottom."

"Went to the bottom?" repeated Nostromo, slowly. "Sotillo
believes that? Bueno!"

The doctor, a little impatiently, was unable to imagine what else
could anybody believe. Yes, Sotillo believed that the lighter was
sunk, and the Capataz de Cargadores, together with Martin Decoud
and perhaps one or two other political fugitives, had been
drowned.

"I told you well, senor doctor," remarked Nostromo at that point,
"that Sotillo did not know everything."

"Eh? What do you mean?"

"He did not know I was not dead."

"Neither did we."

"And you did not care--none of you caballeros on the wharf--once
you got off a man of flesh and blood like yourselves on a fool's
business that could not end well."

"You forget, Capataz, I was not on the wharf. And I did not think
well of the business. So you need not taunt me. I tell you what,
man, we had but little leisure to think of the dead. Death stands
near behind us all. You were gone."

"I went, indeed!" broke in Nostromo. "And for the sake of
what--tell me?"