Page 490 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

such a fool as when I started. I have learned one thing since,
and that is that you are a dangerous man.’
Dr. Monygham was too startled to do more than
exclaim—
‘What is it you say?’
‘If he could speak he would say the same thing,’ pursued
Nostromo, with a nod of his shadowy head silhouetted
against the starlit window.
‘I do not understand you,’ said Dr. Monygham, faintly.
‘No? Perhaps, if you had not confirmed Sotillo in his
madness, he would have been in no haste to give the estra-
pade to that miserable Hirsch.’
The doctor started at the suggestion. But his devotion, ab-
sorbing all his sensibilities, had left his heart steeled against
remorse and pity. Still, for complete relief, he felt the neces-
sity of repelling it loudly and contemptuously.
‘Bah! You dare to tell me that, with a man like Sotillo. I
confess I did not give a thought to Hirsch. If I had it would
have been useless. Anybody can see that the luckless wretch
was doomed from the moment he caught hold of the anchor.
He was doomed, I tell you! Just as I myself am doomed—
most probably.’
This is what Dr. Monygham said in answer to Nostromo’s
remark, which was plausible enough to prick his conscience.
He was not a callous man. But the necessity, the magni-
tude, the importance of the task he had taken upon himself
dwarfed all merely humane considerations. He had under-
taken it in a fanatical spirit. He did not like it. To lie, to
deceive, to circumvent even the basest of mankind was odi-