Page 360 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

the engineer. ‘When this question of the silver arose, Cap-
tain Mitchell naturally was very warmly of the opinion that
his Capataz was the only man fit for the trust. As a sailor, of
course, I suppose so. But as a man, don’t you know, Gould,
Decoud, and myself judged that it didn’t matter in the least
who went. Any boatman would have done just as well. Pray,
what could a thief do with such a lot of ingots? If he ran off
with them he would have in the end to land somewhere, and
how could he conceal his cargo from the knowledge of the
people ashore? We dismissed that consideration from our
minds. Moreover, Decoud was going. There have been occa-
sions when the Capataz has been more implicitly trusted.’
‘He took a slightly different view,’ the doctor said. ‘I heard
him declare in this very room that it would be the most des-
perate affair of his life. He made a sort of verbal will here in
my hearing, appointing old Viola his executor; and, by Jove!
do you know, he—he’s not grown rich by his fidelity to you
good people of the railway and the harbour. I suppose he
obtains some—how do you say that?—some spiritual val-
ue for his labours, or else I don’t know why the devil he
should be faithful to you, Gould, Mitchell, or anybody else.
He knows this country well. He knows, for instance, that
Gamacho, the Deputy from Javira, has been nothing else
but a ‘tramposo’ of the commonest sort, a petty pedlar of
the Campo, till he managed to get enough goods on cred-
it from Anzani to open a little store in the wilds, and got
himself elected by the drunken mozos that hang about the
Estancias and the poorest sort of rancheros who were in his
debt. And Gamacho, who to-morrow will be probably one