Page 331 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

Then all was still—as still as when you wake up in your
bed in a dark room from a bizarre and agitated dream. The
lighter rocked slightly; the rain was still falling. Two grop-
ing hands took hold of his bruised sides from behind, and
the Capataz’s voice whispered, in his ear, ‘Silence, for your
life! Silence! The steamer has stopped.’
Decoud listened. The gulf was dumb. He felt the water
nearly up to his knees. ‘Are we sinking?’ he asked in a faint
breath.
‘I don’t know,’ Nostromo breathed back to him. ‘Senor,
make not the slightest sound.’
Hirsch, when ordered forward by Nostromo, had not re-
turned into his first hiding-place. He had fallen near the
mast, and had no strength to rise; moreover, he feared to
move. He had given himself up for dead, but not on any ra-
tional grounds. It was simply a cruel and terrifying feeling.
Whenever he tried to think what would become of him his
teeth would start chattering violently. He was too absorbed
in the utter misery of his fear to take notice of anything.
Though he was stifling under the lighter’s sail which
Nostromo had unwittingly lowered on top of him, he did
not even dare to put out his head till the very moment of the
steamer striking. Then, indeed, he leaped right out, spurred
on to new miracles of bodily vigour by this new shape of
danger. The inrush of water when the lighter heeled over
unsealed his lips. His shriek, ‘Save me!’ was the first distinct
warning of the collision for the people on board the steam-
er. Next moment the wire shroud parted, and the released
anchor swept over the lighter’s forecastle. It came against

0 Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard