Page 459 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

‘Perhaps he is right,’ the doctor, an hour later, said hur-
riedly to Mrs. Gould, whom he met in the corridor. ‘The
thing is done, and the shadow of the treasure may do just as
well as the substance. Let me try to serve you to the whole
extent of my evil reputation. I am off now to play my game
of betrayal with Sotillo, and keep him off the town.’
She put out both her hands impulsively. ‘Dr. Monygham,
you are running a terrible risk,’ she whispered, averting
from his face her eyes, full of tears, for a short glance at the
door of her husband’s room. She pressed both his hands,
and the doctor stood as if rooted to the spot, looking down
at her, and trying to twist his lips into a smile.
‘Oh, I know you will defend my memory,’ he uttered at
last, and ran tottering down the stairs across the patio, and
out of the house. In the street he kept up. a great pace with
his smart hobbling walk, a case of instruments under his
arm. He was known for being loco. Nobody interfered with
him. From under the seaward gate, across the dusty, arid
plain, interspersed with low bushes, he saw, more than a
mile away, the ugly enormity of the Custom House, and the
two or three other buildings which at that time constituted
the seaport of Sulaco. Far away to the south groves of palm
trees edged the curve of the harbour shore. The distant
peaks of the Cordillera had lost their identity of clearcut
shapes in the steadily deepening blue of the eastern sky.
The doctor walked briskly. A darkling shadow seemed to
fall upon him from the zenith. The sun had set. For a time
the snows of Higuerota continued to glow with the reflected
glory of the west. The doctor, holding a straight course for

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard