Page 368 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

The long building was surrounded by troops, which were
already piling arms by companies and preparing to pass the
night lying on the ground in their ponchos with their sacks
under their heads. Corporals moved with swinging lanterns
posting sentries all round the walls wherever there was a
door or an opening. Sotillo was taking his measures to pro-
tect his conquest as if it had indeed contained the treasure.
His desire to make his fortune at one audacious stroke of
genius had overmastered his reasoning faculties. He would
not believe in the possibility of failure; the mere hint of such
a thing made his brain reel with rage. Every circumstance
pointing to it appeared incredible. The statement of Hirsch,
which was so absolutely fatal to his hopes, could by no means
be admitted. It is true, too, that Hirsch’s story had been told
so incoherently, with such excessive signs of distraction,
that it really looked improbable. It was extremely difficult,
as the saying is, to make head or tail of it. On the bridge of
the steamer, directly after his rescue, Sotillo and his offi-
cers, in their impatience and excitement, would not give the
wretched man time to collect such few wits as remained to
him. He ought to have been quieted, soothed, and reassured,
whereas he had been roughly handled, cuffed, shaken, and
addressed in menacing tones. His struggles, his wriggles,
his attempts to get down on his knees, followed by the most
violent efforts to break away, as if he meant incontinently
to jump overboard, his shrieks and shrinkings and cower-
ing wild glances had filled them first with amazement, then
with a doubt of his genuineness, as men are wont to suspect
the sincerity of every great passion. His Spanish, too, be-