Page 365 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

ed here with mosquitoes before the late improvements; a
peculiar harbour brand, sir, renowned for its ferocity. They
were like a cloud about my head, and I shouldn’t wonder
that but for their attacks I would have dozed off as I walked
up and down, and got a heavy fall. I kept on smoking cigar
after cigar, more to protect myself from being eaten up alive
than from any real relish for the weed. Then, sir, when per-
haps for the twentieth time I was approaching my watch to
the lighted end in order to see the time, and observing with
surprise that it wanted yet ten minutes to midnight, I heard
the splash of a ship’s propeller—an unmistakable sound to
a sailor’s ear on such a calm night. It was faint indeed, be-
cause they were advancing with precaution and dead slow,
both on account of the darkness and from their desire of
not revealing too soon their presence: a very unnecessary
care, because, I verily believe, in all the enormous extent
of this harbour I was the only living soul about. Even the
usual staff of watchmen and others had been absent from
their posts for several nights owing to the disturbances. I
stood stock still, after dropping and stamping out my ci-
gar—a circumstance highly agreeable, I should think, to
the mosquitoes, if I may judge from the state of my face next
morning. But that was a trifling inconvenience in compari-
son with the brutal proceedings I became victim of on the
part of Sotillo. Something utterly inconceivable, sir; more
like the proceedings of a maniac than the action of a sane
man, however lost to all sense of honour and decency. But
Sotillo was furious at the failure of his thievish scheme.’
In this Captain Mitchell was right. Sotillo was indeed

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard