Page 373 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

had been leaning in the doorway trembling visibly, venture
again within. The soldiers, picking up from the floor the ri-
fles they had dropped to grapple with the prisoner, filed out
of the room. The officers remained leaning on their swords
and looking on.
‘The watch! the watch!’ raved the colonel, pacing to and
fro like a tiger in a cage. ‘Give me that man’s watch.’
It was true, that when searched for arms in the hall
downstairs, before being taken into Sotillo’s presence, Cap-
tain Mitchell had been relieved of his watch and chain; but
at the colonel’s clamour it was produced quickly enough, a
corporal bringing it up, carried carefully in the palms of his
joined hands. Sotillo snatched it, and pushed the clenched
fist from which it dangled close to Captain Mitchell’s face.
‘Now then! You arrogant Englishman! You dare to call
the soldiers of the army thieves! Behold your watch.’
He flourished his fist as if aiming blows at the prisoner’s
nose. Captain Mitchell, helpless as a swathed infant, looked
anxiously at the sixty-guinea gold half-chronometer, pre-
sented to him years ago by a Committee of Underwriters for
saving a ship from total loss by fire. Sotillo, too, seemed to
perceive its valuable appearance. He became silent suddenly,
stepped aside to the table, and began a careful examination
in the light of the candles. He had never seen anything so
fine. His officers closed in and craned their necks behind
his back.
He became so interested that for an instant he forgot his
precious prisoner. There is always something childish in
the rapacity of the passionate, clear-minded, Southern rac-

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard