Page 348 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

losing party. But I did not tell them anything about Sotil-
lo, for fear they would take it into their heads to try to get
hold of the harbour again, either to oppose him or welcome
him—there’s no saying which. There was Gould’s silver, on
which rests the remnant of our hopes. Decoud’s retreat had
to be thought of, too. I think the railway has done pretty
well by its friends without compromising itself hopelessly.
Now the parties must be left to themselves.’
‘Costaguana for the Costaguaneros,’ interjected the doc-
tor, sardonically. ‘It is a fine country, and they have raised
a fine crop of hates, vengeance, murder, and rapine—those
sons of the country.’
‘Well, I am one of them,’ Charles Gould’s voice sounded,
calmly, ‘and I must be going on to see to my own crop of
trouble. My wife has driven straight on, doctor?’
‘Yes. All was quiet on this side. Mrs. Gould has taken the
two girls with her.’
Charles Gould rode on, and the engineer-in-chief fol-
lowed the doctor indoors.
‘That man is calmness personified,’ he said, appreciative-
ly, dropping on a bench, and stretching his well-shaped legs
in cycling stockings nearly across the doorway. ‘He must be
extremely sure of himself.’
‘If that’s all he is sure of, then he is sure of nothing,’ said
the doctor. He had perched himself again on the end of the
table. He nursed his cheek in the palm of one hand, while the
other sustained the elbow. ‘It is the last thing a man ought
to be sure of.’ The candle, half-consumed and burning dim-
ly with a long wick, lighted up from below his inclined face,