Page 547 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

should be neglected as insignificant; a small boat so far
from the land might have had some meaning worth finding
out. At a nod of consent from Barrios the transport swept
out of her course, passing near enough to ascertain that no
one manned the little cockle-shell. It was merely a common
small boat gone adrift with her oars in her. But Nostromo,
to whose mind Decoud had been insistently present for
days, had long before recognized with excitement the din-
ghy of the lighter.
There could be no question of stopping to pick up that
thing. Every minute of time was momentous with the lives
and futures of a whole town. The head of the leading ship,
with the General on board, fell off to her course. Behind her,
the fleet of transports, scattered haphazard over a mile or so
in the offing, like the finish of an ocean race, pressed on, all
black and smoking on the western sky.
‘Mi General,’ Nostromo’s voice rang out loud, but quiet,
from behind a group of officers, ‘I should like to save that
little boat. Por Dios, I know her. She belongs to my Com-
pany.’
‘And, por Dios,’ guffawed Barrios, in a noisy, goodhu-
moured voice, ‘you belong to me. I am going to make you
a captain of cavalry directly we get within sight of a horse
again.’
‘I can swim far better than I can ride, mi General,’ cried
Nostromo, pushing through to the rail with a set stare in
his eyes. ‘Let me——‘
‘Let you? What a conceited fellow that is,’ bantered the
General, jovially, without even looking at him. ‘Let him go!

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard