Page 478 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

der-blades. From there his eyes traced in one instantaneous
glance the hide rope going upwards from the tied wrists
over a heavy beam and down to a staple in the wall. He did
not want to look at the rigid legs, at the feet hanging down
nervelessly, with their bare toes some six inches above the
floor, to know that the man had been given the estrapade
till he had swooned. His first impulse was to dash forward
and sever the rope at one blow. He felt for his knife. He had
no knife—not even a knife. He stood quivering, and the
doctor, perched on the edge of the table, facing thought-
fully the cruel and lamentable sight, his chin in his hand,
uttered, without stirring—
‘Tortured—and shot dead through the breast—getting
cold.’
This information calmed the Capataz. One of the candles
flickering in the socket went out. ‘Who did this?’ he asked.
‘Sotillo, I tell you. Who else? Tortured—of course. But
why shot?’ The doctor looked fixedly at Nostromo, who
shrugged his shoulders slightly. ‘And mark, shot suddenly,
on impulse. It is evident. I wish I had his secret.’
Nostromo had advanced, and stooped slightly to look. ‘I
seem to have seen that face somewhere,’ he muttered. ‘Who
is he?’
The doctor turned his eyes upon him again. ‘I may yet
come to envying his fate. What do you think of that, Ca-
pataz, eh?’
But Nostromo did not even hear these words. Seizing the
remaining light, he thrust it under the drooping head. The
doctor sat oblivious, with a lost gaze. Then the heavy iron