Page 294 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

‘What bargain would your worship have made?’ asked
Nostromo, blowing the smoke out of his lips through the
doorway.
Dr. Monygham listened up the staircase for a moment
before he answered, with another of his short, abrupt
laughs—
‘Illustrious Capataz, for taking the curse of death upon
my back, as you call it, nothing else but the whole treasure
would do.’
Nostromo vanished out of the doorway with a grunt of
discontent at this jeering answer. Dr. Monygham heard
him gallop away. Nostromo rode furiously in the dark.
There were lights in the buildings of the O.S.N. Company
near the wharf, but before he got there he met the Gould
carriage. The horseman preceded it with the torch, whose
light showed the white mules trotting, the portly Ignacio
driving, and Basilio with the carbine on the box. From the
dark body of the landau Mrs. Gould’s voice cried, ‘They are
waiting for you, Capataz!’ She was returning, chilly and ex-
cited, with Decoud’s pocket-book still held in her hand. He
had confided it to her to send to his sister. ‘Perhaps my last
words to her,’ he had said, pressing Mrs. Gould’s hand.
The Capataz never checked his speed. At the head of the
wharf vague figures with rifles leapt to the head of his horse;
others closed upon him—cargadores of the company post-
ed by Captain Mitchell on the watch. At a word from him
they fell back with subservient murmurs, recognizing his
voice. At the other end of the jetty, near a cargo crane, in a
dark group with glowing cigars, his name was pronounced