Page 480 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

membered that much. What do you want more? He knew
least about himself. They found him clinging to their an-
chor. He must have caught at it just as the lighter went to
the bottom.’
‘Went to the bottom?’ repeated Nostromo, slowly. ‘Sotillo
believes that? Bueno!’
The doctor, a little impatiently, was unable to imagine
what else could anybody believe. Yes, Sotillo believed that
the lighter was sunk, and the Capataz de Cargadores, to-
gether with Martin Decoud and perhaps one or two other
political fugitives, had been drowned.
‘I told you well, senor doctor,’ remarked Nostromo at that
point, ‘that Sotillo did not know everything.’
‘Eh? What do you mean?’
‘He did not know I was not dead.’
‘Neither did we.’
‘And you did not care—none of you caballeros on the
wharf—once you got off a man of flesh and blood like your-
selves on a fool’s business that could not end well.’
‘You forget, Capataz, I was not on the wharf. And I did
not think well of the business. So you need not taunt me. I
tell you what, man, we had but little leisure to think of the
dead. Death stands near behind us all. You were gone.’
‘I went, indeed!’ broke in Nostromo. ‘And for the sake of
what—tell me?’
‘Ah! that is your own affair,’ the doctor said, roughly. ‘Do
not ask me.’
Their flowing murmurs paused in the dark. Perched on
the edge of the table with slightly averted faces, they felt