Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

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

"I understand that on the wharf you were pretty free in laying
about you with a stick amongst your poor Cargadores," the doctor
said in a grim tone, which showed that he was recovering from his
exertions. "Make no mistake. Pedrito is furious at Senor
Ribiera's rescue, and at having lost the pleasure of shooting
Decoud. Already there are rumours in the town of the treasure
having been spirited away. To have missed that does not please
Pedrito either; but let me tell you that if you had all that
silver in your hand for ransom it would not save you."

Turning swiftly, and catching the doctor by the shoulders,
Nostromo thrust his face close to his.

"Maladetta! You follow me speaking of the treasure. You have
sworn my ruin. You were the last man who looked upon me before I
went out with it. And Sidoni the engine-driver says you have an
evil eye."

"He ought to know. I saved his broken leg for him last year," the
doctor said, stoically. He felt on his shoulders the weight of
these hands famed amongst the populace for snapping thick ropes
and bending horseshoes. "And to you I offer the best means of
saving yourself--let me go--and of retrieving your great
reputation. You boasted of making the Capataz de Cargadores
famous from one end of America to the other about this wretched
silver. But I bring you a better opportunity--let me go, hombre!"

Nostromo released him abruptly, and the doctor feared that the
indispensable man would run off again. But he did not. He walked
on slowly. The doctor hobbled by his side till, within a stone's
throw from the Casa Viola, Nostromo stopped again.

Silent in inhospitable darkness, the Casa Viola seemed to have
changed its nature; his home appeared to repel him with an air of
hopeless and inimical mystery. The doctor said--

"You will be safe there. Go in, Capataz."

"How can I go in?" Nostromo seemed to ask himself in a low,
inward tone. "She cannot unsay what she said, and I cannot undo
what I have done."