Page 362 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

CHAPTER TWO

APTAIN MITCHELL, pacing the wharf, was asking
Chimself the same question. There was always the doubt
whether the warning of the Esmeralda telegraphist—a
fragmentary and interrupted message—had been properly
understood. However, the good man had made up his mind
not to go to bed till daylight, if even then. He imagined
himself to have rendered an enormous service to Charles
Gould. When he thought of the saved silver he rubbed his
hands together with satisfaction. In his simple way he was
proud at being a party to this extremely clever expedient. It
was he who had given it a practical shape by suggesting the
possibility of intercepting at sea the north-bound steamer.
And it was advantageous to his Company, too, which would
have lost a valuable freight if the treasure had been left
ashore to be confiscated. The pleasure of disappointing the
Monterists was also very great. Authoritative by tempera-
ment and the long habit of command, Captain Mitchell was
no democrat. He even went so far as to profess a contempt
for parliamentarism itself. ‘His Excellency Don Vincente
Ribiera,’ he used to say, ‘whom I and that fellow of mine,
Nostromo, had the honour, sir, and the pleasure of saving
from a cruel death, deferred too much to his Congress. It
was a mistake—a distinct mistake, sir.’
The guileless old seaman superintending the O.S.N. ser-

1