Page 498 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

Complete silence. He quaked. It was not thus that he had
imagined himself at that stage of the expedition. He had
seen himself triumphant, unquestioned, appeased, the idol
of the soldiers, weighing in secret complacency the agree-
able alternatives of power and wealth open to his choice.
Alas! How different! Distracted, restless, supine, burning
with fury, or frozen with terror, he felt a dread as fathomless
as the sea creep upon him from every side. That rogue of a
doctor had to come out with his information. That was clear.
It would be of no use to him—alone. He could do nothing
with it. Malediction! The doctor would never come out. He
was probably under arrest already, shut up together with
Don Carlos. He laughed aloud insanely. Ha! ha! ha! ha! It
was Pedrito Montero who would get the information. Ha!
ha! ha! ha!—and the silver. Ha!
All at once, in the midst of the laugh, he became motion-
less and silent as if turned into stone. He too, had a prisoner.
A prisoner who must, must know the real truth. He would
have to be made to speak. And Sotillo, who all that time had
not quite forgotten Hirsch, felt an inexplicable reluctance at
the notion of proceeding to extremities.
He felt a reluctance—part of that unfathomable dread
that crept on all sides upon him. He remembered reluctant-
ly, too, the dilated eyes of the hide merchant, his contortions,
his loud sobs and protestations. It was not compassion or
even mere nervous sensibility. The fact was that though So-
tillo did never for a moment believe his story—he could not
believe it; nobody could believe such nonsense—yet those
accents of despairing truth impressed him disagreeably.