Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART THIRD: THE LIGHTHOUSE 9. CHAPTER NINE (continued)

"Speak--thief--scoundrel--picaro--or--"

Sotillo had seized the riding-whip, and stood with his arm lifted
up. For a word, for one little word, he felt he would have knelt,
cringed, grovelled on the floor before the drowsy, conscious
stare of those fixed eyeballs starting out of the grimy,
dishevelled head that drooped very still with its mouth closed
askew. The colonel ground his teeth with rage and struck. The
rope vibrated leisurely to the blow, like the long string of a
pendulum starting from a rest. But no swinging motion was
imparted to the body of Senor Hirsch, the well-known hide
merchant on the coast. With a convulsive effort of the twisted
arms it leaped up a few inches, curling upon itself like a fish
on the end of a line. Senor Hirsch's head was flung back on his
straining throat; his chin trembled. For a moment the rattle of
his chattering teeth pervaded the vast, shadowy room, where the
candles made a patch of light round the two flames burning side
by side. And as Sotillo, staying his raised hand, waited for him
to speak, with the sudden flash of a grin and a straining forward
of the wrenched shoulders, he spat violently into his face.

The uplifted whip fell, and the colonel sprang back with a low
cry of dismay, as if aspersed by a jet of deadly venom. Quick as
thought he snatched up his revolver, and fired twice. The report
and the concussion of the shots seemed to throw him at once from
ungovernable rage into idiotic stupor. He stood with drooping jaw
and stony eyes. What had he done, Sangre de Dios! What had he
done? He was basely appalled at his impulsive act, sealing for
ever these lips from which so much was to be extorted. What could
he say? How could he explain? Ideas of headlong flight somewhere,
anywhere, passed through his mind; even the craven and absurd
notion of hiding under the table occurred to his cowardice. It
was too late; his officers had rushed in tumultuously, in a great
clatter of scabbards, clamouring, with astonishment and wonder.
But since they did not immediately proceed to plunge their swords
into his breast, the brazen side of his character asserted
itself. Passing the sleeve of his uniform over his face he pulled
himself together, His truculent glance turned slowly here and
there, checked the noise where it fell; and the stiff body of the
late Senor Hirsch, merchant, after swaying imperceptibly, made a
half turn, and came to a rest in the midst of awed murmurs and
uneasy shuffling.