Page 518 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

laying about you with a stick amongst your poor Carga-
dores,’ the doctor said in a grim tone, which showed that
he was recovering from his exertions. ‘Make no mistake.
Pedrito is furious at Senor Ribiera’s rescue, and at having
lost the pleasure of shooting Decoud. Already there are ru-
mours in the town of the treasure having been spirited away.
To have missed that does not please Pedrito either; but let
me tell you that if you had all that silver in your hand for
ransom it would not save you.’
Turning swiftly, and catching the doctor by the shoul-
ders, Nostromo thrust his face close to his.
‘Maladetta! You follow me speaking of the treasure. You
have sworn my ruin. You were the last man who looked
upon me before I went out with it. And Sidoni the engine-
driver says you have an evil eye.’
‘He ought to know. I saved his broken leg for him last
year,’ the doctor said, stoically. He felt on his shoulders
the weight of these hands famed amongst the populace for
snapping thick ropes and bending horseshoes. ‘And to you
I offer the best means of saving yourself—let me go—and of
retrieving your great reputation. You boasted of making the
Capataz de Cargadores famous from one end of America to
the other about this wretched silver. But I bring you a better
opportunity—let me go, hombre!’
Nostromo released him abruptly, and the doctor feared
that the indispensable man would run off again. But he did
not. He walked on slowly. The doctor hobbled by his side
till, within a stone’s throw from the Casa Viola, Nostromo
stopped again.

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