Page 279 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

gulf before the Esmeralda rebels arrive; and by the time the
day breaks over the ocean we shall be out of sight, invisible,
hidden by Azuera, which itself looks from the Sulaco shore
like a faint blue cloud on the horizon.
‘The incorruptible Capataz de Cargadores is the man for
that work; and I, the man with a passion, but without a mis-
sion, I go with him to return—to play my part in the farce
to the end, and, if successful, to receive my reward, which
no one but Antonia can give me.
‘I shall not see her again now before I depart. I left her, as
I have said, by Don Jose’s bedside. The street was dark, the
houses shut up, and I walked out of the town in the night.
Not a single street-lamp had been lit for two days, and the
archway of the gate was only a mass of darkness in the
vague form of a tower, in which I heard low, dismal groans,
that seemed to answer the murmurs of a man’s voice.
‘I recognized something impassive and careless in its
tone, characteristic of that Genoese sailor who, like me, has
come casually here to be drawn into the events for which
his scepticism as well as mine seems to entertain a sort of
passive contempt. The only thing he seems to care for, as
far as I have been able to discover, is to be well spoken of.
An ambition fit for noble souls, but also a profitable one for
an exceptionally intelligent scoundrel. Yes. His very words,
‘To be well spoken of. Si, senor.’ He does not seem to make
any difference between speaking and thinking. Is it sheer
naiveness or the practical point of view, I wonder? Excep-
tional individualities always interest me, because they are
true to the general formula expressing the moral state of

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard