For a moment, before this extraordinary find, they forgot their own
concerns and sensations. Senor Hirsch’s sensations as he lay there must
have been those of extreme terror. For a long time he refused to give
a sign of life, till at last Decoud’s objurgations, and, perhaps more,
Nostromo’s impatient suggestion that he should be thrown overboard, as
he seemed to be dead, induced him to raise one eyelid first, and then
the other.
It appeared that he had never found a safe opportunity to leave Sulaco.
He lodged with Anzani, the universal storekeeper, on the Plaza Mayor.
But when the riot broke out he had made his escape from his host’s house
before daylight, and in such a hurry that he had forgotten to put on his
shoes. He had run out impulsively in his socks, and with his hat in his
hand, into the garden of Anzani’s house. Fear gave him the necessary
agility to climb over several low walls, and afterwards he blundered
into the overgrown cloisters of the ruined Franciscan convent in one of
the by-streets. He forced himself into the midst of matted bushes with
the recklessness of desperation, and this accounted for his scratched
body and his torn clothing. He lay hidden there all day, his tongue
cleaving to the roof of his mouth with all the intensity of thirst
engendered by heat and fear. Three times different bands of men invaded
the place with shouts and imprecations, looking for Father Corbelan; but
towards the evening, still lying on his face in the bushes, he thought
he would die from the fear of silence. He was not very clear as to what
had induced him to leave the place, but evidently he had got out
and slunk successfully out of town along the deserted back lanes. He
wandered in the darkness near the railway, so maddened by apprehension
that he dared not even approach the fires of the pickets of Italian
workmen guarding the line. He had a vague idea evidently of finding
refuge in the railway yards, but the dogs rushed upon him, barking; men
began to shout; a shot was fired at random. He fled away from the gates.
By the merest accident, as it happened, he took the direction of the
O.S.N. Company’s offices. Twice he stumbled upon the bodies of men
killed during the day. But everything living frightened him much more.
He crouched, crept, crawled, made dashes, guided by a sort of animal
instinct, keeping away from every light and from every sound of voices.
His idea was to throw himself at the feet of Captain Mitchell and
beg for shelter in the Company’s offices. It was all dark there as
he approached on his hands and knees, but suddenly someone on guard
challenged loudly, “Quien vive?” There were more dead men lying about,
and he flattened himself down at once by the side of a cold corpse. He
heard a voice saying, “Here is one of those wounded rascals crawling
about. Shall I go and finish him?” And another voice objected that it
was not safe to go out without a lantern upon such an errand; perhaps it
was only some negro Liberal looking for a chance to stick a knife into
the stomach of an honest man. Hirsch didn’t stay to hear any more, but
crawling away to the end of the wharf, hid himself amongst a lot of
empty casks. After a while some people came along, talking, and with
glowing cigarettes. He did not stop to ask himself whether they would be
likely to do him any harm, but bolted incontinently along the jetty,
saw a lighter lying moored at the end, and threw himself into it. In his
desire to find cover he crept right forward under the half-deck, and he
had remained there more dead than alive, suffering agonies of hunger
and thirst, and almost fainting with terror, when he heard numerous
footsteps and the voices of the Europeans who came in a body escorting
the wagonload of treasure, pushed along the rails by a squad of
Cargadores. He understood perfectly what was being done from the talk,
but did not disclose his presence from the fear that he would not
be allowed to remain. His only idea at the time, overpowering and
masterful, was to get away from this terrible Sulaco. And now he
regretted it very much. He had heard Nostromo talk to Decoud, and wished
himself back on shore. He did not desire to be involved in any desperate
affair--in a situation where one could not run away. The involuntary
groans of his anguished spirit had betrayed him to the sharp ears of the
Capataz.
They had propped him up in a sitting posture against the side of the
lighter, and he went on with the moaning account of his adventures till
his voice broke, his head fell forward. “Water,” he whispered, with
difficulty. Decoud held one of the cans to his lips. He revived after
an extraordinarily short time, and scrambled up to his feet wildly.
Nostromo, in an angry and threatening voice, ordered him forward. Hirsch
was one of those men whom fear lashes like a whip, and he must have
had an appalling idea of the Capataz’s ferocity. He displayed an
extraordinary agility in disappearing forward into the darkness. They
heard him getting over the tarpaulin; then there was the sound of a
heavy fall, followed by a weary sigh. Afterwards all was still in
the fore-part of the lighter, as though he had killed himself in his
headlong tumble. Nostromo shouted in a menacing voice--
“Lie still there! Do not move a limb. If I hear as much as a loud breath
from you I shall come over there and put a bullet through your head.”
The mere presence of a coward, however passive, brings an element of
treachery into a dangerous situation. Nostromo’s nervous impatience
passed into gloomy thoughtfulness. Decoud, in an undertone, as if
speaking to himself, remarked that, after all, this bizarre event made
no great difference. He could not conceive what harm the man could
do. At most he would be in the way, like an inanimate and useless
object--like a block of wood, for instance.
“I would think twice before getting rid of a piece of wood,” said
Nostromo, calmly. “Something may happen unexpectedly where you could
make use of it. But in an affair like ours a man like this ought to be
thrown overboard. Even if he were as brave as a lion we would not want
him here. We are not running away for our lives. Senor, there is no harm
in a brave man trying to save himself with ingenuity and courage; but
you have heard his tale, Don Martin. His being here is a miracle of
fear--” Nostromo paused. “There is no room for fear in this lighter,” he
added through his teeth.
Decoud had no answer to make. It was not a position for argument, for a
display of scruples or feelings. There were a thousand ways in which
a panic-stricken man could make himself dangerous. It was evident
that Hirsch could not be spoken to, reasoned with, or persuaded into a
rational line of conduct. The story of his own escape demonstrated that
clearly enough. Decoud thought that it was a thousand pities the wretch
had not died of fright. Nature, who had made him what he was, seemed to
have calculated cruelly how much he could bear in the way of atrocious
anguish without actually expiring. Some compassion was due to so much
terror. Decoud, though imaginative enough for sympathy, resolved not
to interfere with any action that Nostromo would take. But Nostromo did
nothing. And the fate of Senor Hirsch remained suspended in the darkness
of the gulf at the mercy of events which could not be foreseen.
The Capataz, extending his hand, put out the candle suddenly. It was to
Decoud as if his companion had destroyed, by a single touch, the world
of affairs, of loves, of revolution, where his complacent superiority
analyzed fearlessly all motives and all passions, including his own.
He gasped a little. Decoud was affected by the novelty of his position.
Intellectually self-confident, he suffered from being deprived of the
only weapon he could use with effect. No intelligence could penetrate
the darkness of the Placid Gulf. There remained only one thing he was
certain of, and that was the overweening vanity of his companion. It was
direct, uncomplicated, naive, and effectual. Decoud, who had been
making use of him, had tried to understand his man thoroughly. He
had discovered a complete singleness of motive behind the varied
manifestations of a consistent character. This was why the man remained
so astonishingly simple in the jealous greatness of his conceit. And now
there was a complication. It was evident that he resented having been
given a task in which there were so many chances of failure. “I wonder,”
thought Decoud, “how he would behave if I were not here.”
He heard Nostromo mutter again, “No! there is no room for fear on this
lighter. Courage itself does not seem good enough. I have a good eye and
a steady hand; no man can say he ever saw me tired or uncertain what to
do; but por Dios, Don Martin, I have been sent out into this black calm
on a business where neither a good eye, nor a steady hand, nor judgment
are any use. . . .” He swore a string of oaths in Spanish and Italian
under his breath. “Nothing but sheer desperation will do for this
affair.”
These words were in strange contrast to the prevailing peace--to
this almost solid stillness of the gulf. A shower fell with an abrupt
whispering sound all round the boat, and Decoud took off his hat, and,
letting his head get wet, felt greatly refreshed. Presently a steady
little draught of air caressed his cheek. The lighter began to move,
but the shower distanced it. The drops ceased to fall upon his head and
hands, the whispering died out in the distance. Nostromo emitted a grunt
of satisfaction, and grasping the tiller, chirruped softly, as sailors
do, to encourage the wind. Never for the last three days had Decoud felt
less the need for what the Capataz would call desperation.
“I fancy I hear another shower on the water,” he observed in a tone of
quiet content. “I hope it will catch us up.”
Nostromo ceased chirruping at once. “You hear another shower?” he said,
doubtfully. A sort of thinning of the darkness seemed to have taken
place, and Decoud could see now the outline of his companion’s figure,
and even the sail came out of the night like a square block of dense
snow.
The sound which Decoud had detected came along the water harshly.
Nostromo recognized that noise partaking of a hiss and a rustle which
spreads out on all sides of a steamer making her way through a smooth
water on a quiet night. It could be nothing else but the captured
transport with troops from Esmeralda. She carried no lights. The noise
of her steaming, growing louder every minute, would stop at times
altogether, and then begin again abruptly, and sound startlingly nearer;
as if that invisible vessel, whose position could not be precisely
guessed, were making straight for the lighter. Meantime, that last kept
on sailing slowly and noiselessly before a breeze so faint that it was
only by leaning over the side and feeling the water slip through his
fingers that Decoud convinced himself they were moving at all. His
drowsy feeling had departed. He was glad to know that the lighter
was moving. After so much stillness the noise of the steamer seemed
uproarious and distracting. There was a weirdness in not being able to
see her. Suddenly all was still. She had stopped, but so close to them
that the steam, blowing off, sent its rumbling vibration right over
their heads.
“They are trying to make out where they are,” said Decoud in a whisper.
Again he leaned over and put his fingers into the water. “We are moving
quite smartly,” he informed Nostromo.
“We seem to be crossing her bows,” said the Capataz in a cautious tone.
“But this is a blind game with death. Moving on is of no use. We mustn’t
be seen or heard.”
His whisper was hoarse with excitement. Of all his face there was
nothing visible but a gleam of white eyeballs. His fingers gripped
Decoud’s shoulder. “That is the only way to save this treasure from this
steamer full of soldiers. Any other would have carried lights. But you
observe there is not a gleam to show us where she is.”
Decoud stood as if paralyzed; only his thoughts were wildly active. In
the space of a second he remembered the desolate glance of Antonia as he
left her at the bedside of her father in the gloomy house of Avellanos,
with shuttered windows, but all the doors standing open, and deserted by
all the servants except an old negro at the gate. He remembered the
Casa Gould on his last visit, the arguments, the tones of his voice,
the impenetrable attitude of Charles, Mrs. Gould’s face so blanched
with anxiety and fatigue that her eyes seemed to have changed colour,
appearing nearly black by contrast. Even whole sentences of the
proclamation which he meant to make Barrios issue from his headquarters
at Cayta as soon as he got there passed through his mind; the very germ
of the new State, the Separationist proclamation which he had tried
before he left to read hurriedly to Don Jose, stretched out on his
bed under the fixed gaze of his daughter. God knows whether the
old statesman had understood it; he was unable to speak, but he had
certainly lifted his arm off the coverlet; his hand had moved as if
to make the sign of the cross in the air, a gesture of blessing, of
consent. Decoud had that very draft in his pocket, written in pencil
on several loose sheets of paper, with the heavily-printed heading,
“Administration of the San Tome Silver Mine. Sulaco. Republic of
Costaguana.” He had written it furiously, snatching page after page
on Charles Gould’s table. Mrs. Gould had looked several times over
his shoulder as he wrote; but the Senor Administrador, standing
straddle-legged, would not even glance at it when it was finished. He
had waved it away firmly. It must have been scorn, and not caution,
since he never made a remark about the use of the Administration’s paper
for such a compromising document. And that showed his disdain, the true
English disdain of common prudence, as if everything outside the range
of their own thoughts and feelings were unworthy of serious recognition.
Decoud had the time in a second or two to become furiously angry with
Charles Gould, and even resentful against Mrs. Gould, in whose care,
tacitly it is true, he had left the safety of Antonia. Better perish a
thousand times than owe your preservation to such people, he exclaimed
mentally. The grip of Nostromo’s fingers never removed from his
shoulder, tightening fiercely, recalled him to himself.
“The darkness is our friend,” the Capataz murmured into his ear. “I am
going to lower the sail, and trust our escape to this black gulf. No
eyes could make us out lying silent with a naked mast. I will do it
now, before this steamer closes still more upon us. The faint creak of a
block would betray us and the San Tome treasure into the hands of those
thieves.”
He moved about as warily as a cat. Decoud heard no sound; and it was
only by the disappearance of the square blotch of darkness that he knew
the yard had come down, lowered as carefully as if it had been made of
glass. Next moment he heard Nostromo’s quiet breathing by his side.
“You had better not move at all from where you are, Don Martin,” advised
the Capataz, earnestly. “You might stumble or displace something which
would make a noise. The sweeps and the punting poles are lying about.
Move not for your life. Por Dios, Don Martin,” he went on in a keen but
friendly whisper, “I am so desperate that if I didn’t know your worship
to be a man of courage, capable of standing stock still whatever
happens, I would drive my knife into your heart.”
A deathlike stillness surrounded the lighter. It was difficult to
believe that there was near a steamer full of men with many pairs of
eyes peering from her bridge for some hint of land in the night. Her
steam had ceased blowing off, and she remained stopped too far off
apparently for any other sound to reach the lighter.
“Perhaps you would, Capataz,” Decoud began in a whisper. “However, you
need not trouble. There are other things than the fear of your knife
to keep my heart steady. It shall not betray you. Only, have you
forgotten--”
“I spoke to you openly as to a man as desperate as myself,” explained
the Capataz. “The silver must be saved from the Monterists. I told
Captain Mitchell three times that I preferred to go alone. I told Don
Carlos Gould, too. It was in the Casa Gould. They had sent for me. The
ladies were there; and when I tried to explain why I did not wish to
have you with me, they promised me, both of them, great rewards for your
safety. A strange way to talk to a man you are sending out to an almost
certain death. Those gentlefolk do not seem to have sense enough to
understand what they are giving one to do. I told them I could do
nothing for you. You would have been safer with the bandit Hernandez.
It would have been possible to ride out of the town with no greater risk
than a chance shot sent after you in the dark. But it was as if they had
been deaf. I had to promise I would wait for you under the harbour gate.
I did wait. And now because you are a brave man you are as safe as the
silver. Neither more nor less.”
At that moment, as if by way of comment upon Nostromo’s words, the
invisible steamer went ahead at half speed only, as could be judged
by the leisurely beat of her propeller. The sound shifted its place
markedly, but without coming nearer. It even grew a little more distant
right abeam of the lighter, and then ceased again.
“They are trying for a sight of the Isabels,” muttered Nostromo, “in
order to make for the harbour in a straight line and seize the Custom
House with the treasure in it. Have you ever seen the Commandant of
Esmeralda, Sotillo? A handsome fellow, with a soft voice. When I first
came here I used to see him in the Calle talking to the senoritas at the
windows of the houses, and showing his white teeth all the time. But
one of my Cargadores, who had been a soldier, told me that he had once
ordered a man to be flayed alive in the remote Campo, where he was sent
recruiting amongst the people of the Estancias. It has never entered his
head that the Compania had a man capable of baffling his game.”
The murmuring loquacity of the Capataz disturbed Decoud like a hint
of weakness. And yet, talkative resolution may be as genuine as grim
silence.
“Sotillo is not baffled so far,” he said. “Have you forgotten that crazy
man forward?”
Nostromo had not forgotten Senor Hirsch. He reproached himself bitterly
for not having visited the lighter carefully before leaving the wharf.
He reproached himself for not having stabbed and flung Hirsch overboard
at the very moment of discovery without even looking at his face. That
would have been consistent with the desperate character of the affair.
Whatever happened, Sotillo was already baffled. Even if that wretch, now
as silent as death, did anything to betray the nearness of the lighter,
Sotillo--if Sotillo it was in command of the troops on board--would be
still baffled of his plunder.
“I have an axe in my hand,” Nostromo whispered, wrathfully, “that in
three strokes would cut through the side down to the water’s edge.
Moreover, each lighter has a plug in the stern, and I know exactly where
it is. I feel it under the sole of my foot.”
Decoud recognized the ring of genuine determination in the nervous
murmurs, the vindictive excitement of the famous Capataz. Before the
steamer, guided by a shriek or two (for there could be no more than
that, Nostromo said, gnashing his teeth audibly), could find the lighter
there would be plenty of time to sink this treasure tied up round his
neck.
The last words he hissed into Decoud’s ear. Decoud said nothing. He was
perfectly convinced. The usual characteristic quietness of the man was
gone. It was not equal to the situation as he conceived it. Something
deeper, something unsuspected by everyone, had come to the surface.
Decoud, with careful movements, slipped off his overcoat and divested
himself of his boots; he did not consider himself bound in honour to
sink with the treasure. His object was to get down to Barrios, in Cayta,
as the Capataz knew very well; and he, too, meant, in his own way,
to put into that attempt all the desperation of which he was capable.
Nostromo muttered, “True, true! You are a politician, senor. Rejoin the
army, and start another revolution.” He pointed out, however, that there
was a little boat belonging to every lighter fit to carry two men, if
not more. Theirs was towing behind.
Of that Decoud had not been aware. Of course, it was too dark to see,
and it was only when Nostromo put his hand upon its painter fastened to
a cleat in the stern that he experienced a full measure of relief. The
prospect of finding himself in the water and swimming, overwhelmed
by ignorance and darkness, probably in a circle, till he sank from
exhaustion, was revolting. The barren and cruel futility of such an end
intimidated his affectation of careless pessimism. In comparison to it,
the chance of being left floating in a boat, exposed to thirst, hunger,
discovery, imprisonment, execution, presented itself with an aspect of
amenity worth securing even at the cost of some self-contempt. He did
not accept Nostromo’s proposal that he should get into the boat at
once. “Something sudden may overwhelm us, senor,” the Capataz remarked
promising faithfully, at the same time, to let go the painter at the
moment when the necessity became manifest.
But Decoud assured him lightly that he did not mean to take to the boat
till the very last moment, and that then he meant the Capataz to come
along, too. The darkness of the gulf was no longer for him the end of
all things. It was part of a living world since, pervading it, failure
and death could be felt at your elbow. And at the same time it was a
shelter. He exulted in its impenetrable obscurity. “Like a wall, like a
wall,” he muttered to himself.
The only thing which checked his confidence was the thought of Senor
Hirsch. Not to have bound and gagged him seemed to Decoud now the height
of improvident folly. As long as the miserable creature had the power to
raise a yell he was a constant danger. His abject terror was mute now,
but there was no saying from what cause it might suddenly find vent in
shrieks.
This very madness of fear which both Decoud and Nostromo had seen in
the wild and irrational glances, and in the continuous twitchings of
his mouth, protected Senor Hirsch from the cruel necessities of this
desperate affair. The moment of silencing him for ever had passed. As
Nostromo remarked, in answer to Decoud’s regrets, it was too late! It
could not be done without noise, especially in the ignorance of the
man’s exact position. Wherever he had elected to crouch and tremble, it
was too hazardous to go near him. He would begin probably to yell for
mercy. It was much better to leave him quite alone since he was keeping
so still. But to trust to his silence became every moment a greater
strain upon Decoud’s composure.
“I wish, Capataz, you had not let the right moment pass,” he murmured.
“What! To silence him for ever? I thought it good to hear first how he
came to be here. It was too strange. Who could imagine that it was
all an accident? Afterwards, senor, when I saw you giving him water to
drink, I could not do it. Not after I had seen you holding up the can to
his lips as though he were your brother. Senor, that sort of necessity
must not be thought of too long. And yet it would have been no cruelty
to take away from him his wretched life. It is nothing but fear. Your
compassion saved him then, Don Martin, and now it is too late. It
couldn’t be done without noise.”
In the steamer they were keeping a perfect silence, and the stillness
was so profound that Decoud felt as if the slightest sound conceivable
must travel unchecked and audible to the end of the world. What if
Hirsch coughed or sneezed? To feel himself at the mercy of such an
idiotic contingency was too exasperating to be looked upon with irony.
Nostromo, too, seemed to be getting restless. Was it possible, he
asked himself, that the steamer, finding the night too dark altogether,
intended to remain stopped where she was till daylight? He began to
think that this, after all, was the real danger. He was afraid that
the darkness, which was his protection, would, in the end, cause his
undoing.
Sotillo, as Nostromo had surmised, was in command on board the
transport. The events of the last forty-eight hours in Sulaco were not
known to him; neither was he aware that the telegraphist in Esmeralda
had managed to warn his colleague in Sulaco. Like a good many officers
of the troops garrisoning the province, Sotillo had been influenced
in his adoption of the Ribierist cause by the belief that it had the
enormous wealth of the Gould Concession on its side. He had been one
of the frequenters of the Casa Gould, where he had aired his Blanco
convictions and his ardour for reform before Don Jose Avellanos, casting
frank, honest glances towards Mrs. Gould and Antonia the while. He was
known to belong to a good family persecuted and impoverished during the
tyranny of Guzman Bento. The opinions he expressed appeared eminently
natural and proper in a man of his parentage and antecedents. And he
was not a deceiver; it was perfectly natural for him to express elevated
sentiments while his whole faculties were taken up with what seemed then
a solid and practical notion--the notion that the husband of Antonia
Avellanos would be, naturally, the intimate friend of the Gould
Concession. He even pointed this out to Anzani once, when negotiating
the sixth or seventh small loan in the gloomy, damp apartment with
enormous iron bars, behind the principal shop in the whole row under the
Arcades. He hinted to the universal shopkeeper at the excellent terms
he was on with the emancipated senorita, who was like a sister to the
Englishwoman. He would advance one leg and put his arms akimbo, posing
for Anzani’s inspection, and fixing him with a haughty stare.
“Look, miserable shopkeeper! How can a man like me fail with any woman,
let alone an emancipated girl living in scandalous freedom?” he seemed
to say.
His manner in the Casa Gould was, of course, very different--devoid of
all truculence, and even slightly mournful. Like most of his countrymen,
he was carried away by the sound of fine words, especially if uttered
by himself. He had no convictions of any sort upon anything except as to
the irresistible power of his personal advantages. But that was so
firm that even Decoud’s appearance in Sulaco, and his intimacy with
the Goulds and the Avellanos, did not disquiet him. On the contrary,
he tried to make friends with that rich Costaguanero from Europe in the
hope of borrowing a large sum by-and-by. The only guiding motive of
his life was to get money for the satisfaction of his expensive tastes,
which he indulged recklessly, having no self-control. He imagined
himself a master of intrigue, but his corruption was as simple as an
animal instinct. At times, in solitude, he had his moments of ferocity,
and also on such occasions as, for instance, when alone in a room with
Anzani trying to get a loan.
He had talked himself into the command of the Esmeralda garrison. That
small seaport had its importance as the station of the main submarine
cable connecting the Occidental Provinces with the outer world, and the
junction with it of the Sulaco branch. Don Jose Avellanos proposed him,
and Barrios, with a rude and jeering guffaw, had said, “Oh, let Sotillo
go. He is a very good man to keep guard over the cable, and the ladies
of Esmeralda ought to have their turn.” Barrios, an indubitably brave
man, had no great opinion of Sotillo.
It was through the Esmeralda cable alone that the San Tome mine could
be kept in constant touch with the great financier, whose tacit approval
made the strength of the Ribierist movement. This movement had its
adversaries even there. Sotillo governed Esmeralda with repressive
severity till the adverse course of events upon the distant theatre
of civil war forced upon him the reflection that, after all, the great
silver mine was fated to become the spoil of the victors. But caution
was necessary. He began by assuming a dark and mysterious attitude
towards the faithful Ribierist municipality of Esmeralda. Later on, the
information that the commandant was holding assemblies of officers in
the dead of night (which had leaked out somehow) caused those gentlemen
to neglect their civil duties altogether, and remain shut up in their
houses. Suddenly one day all the letters from Sulaco by the overland
courier were carried off by a file of soldiers from the post office to
the Commandancia, without disguise, concealment, or apology. Sotillo had
heard through Cayta of the final defeat of Ribiera.
This was the first open sign of the change in his convictions. Presently
notorious democrats, who had been living till then in constant fear of
arrest, leg irons, and even floggings, could be observed going in and
out at the great door of the Commandancia, where the horses of the
orderlies doze under their heavy saddles, while the men, in ragged
uniforms and pointed straw hats, lounge on a bench, with their naked
feet stuck out beyond the strip of shade; and a sentry, in a red baize
coat with holes at the elbows, stands at the top of the steps glaring
haughtily at the common people, who uncover their heads to him as they
pass.
Sotillo’s ideas did not soar above the care for his personal safety and
the chance of plundering the town in his charge, but he feared that such
a late adhesion would earn but scant gratitude from the victors. He had
believed just a little too long in the power of the San Tome mine. The
seized correspondence had confirmed his previous information of a
large amount of silver ingots lying in the Sulaco Custom House. To gain
possession of it would be a clear Monterist move; a sort of service that
would have to be rewarded. With the silver in his hands he could make
terms for himself and his soldiers. He was aware neither of the riots,
nor of the President’s escape to Sulaco and the close pursuit led by
Montero’s brother, the guerrillero. The game seemed in his own hands.
The initial moves were the seizure of the cable telegraph office and the
securing of the Government steamer lying in the narrow creek which is
the harbour of Esmeralda. The last was effected without difficulty by
a company of soldiers swarming with a rush over the gangways as she
lay alongside the quay; but the lieutenant charged with the duty of
arresting the telegraphist halted on the way before the only cafe in
Esmeralda, where he distributed some brandy to his men, and refreshed
himself at the expense of the owner, a known Ribierist. The whole party
became intoxicated, and proceeded on their mission up the street yelling
and firing random shots at the windows. This little festivity, which
might have turned out dangerous to the telegraphist’s life, enabled him
in the end to send his warning to Sulaco. The lieutenant, staggering
upstairs with a drawn sabre, was before long kissing him on both
cheeks in one of those swift changes of mood peculiar to a state of
drunkenness. He clasped the telegraphist close round the neck, assuring
him that all the officers of the Esmeralda garrison were going to be
made colonels, while tears of happiness streamed down his sodden face.
Thus it came about that the town major, coming along later, found the
whole party sleeping on the stairs and in passages, and the telegraphist
(who scorned this chance of escape) very busy clicking the key of the
transmitter. The major led him away bareheaded, with his hands tied
behind his back, but concealed the truth from Sotillo, who remained in
ignorance of the warning despatched to Sulaco.
The colonel was not the man to let any sort of darkness stand in the way
of the planned surprise. It appeared to him a dead certainty; his heart
was set upon his object with an ungovernable, childlike impatience. Ever
since the steamer had rounded Punta Mala, to enter the deeper shadow
of the gulf, he had remained on the bridge in a group of officers as
excited as himself. Distracted between the coaxings and menaces of
Sotillo and his Staff, the miserable commander of the steamer kept her
moving with as much prudence as they would let him exercise. Some of
them had been drinking heavily, no doubt; but the prospect of laying
hands on so much wealth made them absurdly foolhardy, and, at the same
time, extremely anxious. The old major of the battalion, a stupid,
suspicious man, who had never been afloat in his life, distinguished
himself by putting out suddenly the binnacle light, the only one allowed
on board for the necessities of navigation. He could not understand of
what use it could be for finding the way. To the vehement protestations
of the ship’s captain, he stamped his foot and tapped the handle of
his sword. “Aha! I have unmasked you,” he cried, triumphantly. “You are
tearing your hair from despair at my acuteness. Am I a child to believe
that a light in that brass box can show you where the harbour is? I am
an old soldier, I am. I can smell a traitor a league off. You wanted
that gleam to betray our approach to your friend the Englishman. A thing
like that show you the way! What a miserable lie! Que picardia! You
Sulaco people are all in the pay of those foreigners. You deserve to
be run through the body with my sword.” Other officers, crowding round,
tried to calm his indignation, repeating persuasively, “No, no! This is
an appliance of the mariners, major. This is no treachery.” The captain
of the transport flung himself face downwards on the bridge, and refused
to rise. “Put an end to me at once,” he repeated in a stifled voice.
Sotillo had to interfere.
The uproar and confusion on the bridge became so great that the helmsman
fled from the wheel. He took refuge in the engine-room, and alarmed the
engineers, who, disregarding the threats of the soldiers set on guard
over them, stopped the engines, protesting that they would rather be
shot than run the risk of being drowned down below.
This was the first time Nostromo and Decoud heard the steamer stop.
After order had been restored, and the binnacle lamp relighted, she went
ahead again, passing wide of the lighter in her search for the Isabels.
The group could not be made out, and, at the pitiful entreaties of the
captain, Sotillo allowed the engines to be stopped again to wait for one
of those periodical lightenings of darkness caused by the shifting of
the cloud canopy spread above the waters of the gulf.
Sotillo, on the bridge, muttered from time to time angrily to the
captain. The other, in an apologetic and cringing tone, begged su merced
the colonel to take into consideration the limitations put upon human
faculties by the darkness of the night. Sotillo swelled with rage and
impatience. It was the chance of a lifetime.
“If your eyes are of no more use to you than this, I shall have them put
out,” he yelled.
The captain of the steamer made no answer, for just then the mass of the
Great Isabel loomed up darkly after a passing shower, then vanished, as
if swept away by a wave of greater obscurity preceding another downpour.
This was enough for him. In the voice of a man come back to life again,
he informed Sotillo that in an hour he would be alongside the Sulaco
wharf. The ship was put then full speed on the course, and a great
bustle of preparation for landing arose among the soldiers on her deck.
It was heard distinctly by Decoud and Nostromo. The Capataz understood
its meaning. They had made out the Isabels, and were going on now in
a straight line for Sulaco. He judged that they would pass close; but
believed that lying still like this, with the sail lowered, the lighter
could not be seen. “No, not even if they rubbed sides with us,” he
muttered.
The rain began to fall again; first like a wet mist, then with a heavier
touch, thickening into a smart, perpendicular downpour; and the hiss and
thump of the approaching steamer was coming extremely near. Decoud,
with his eyes full of water, and lowered head, asked himself how long
it would be before she drew past, when unexpectedly he felt a lurch.
An inrush of foam broke swishing over the stern, simultaneously with
a crack of timbers and a staggering shock. He had the impression of
an angry hand laying hold of the lighter and dragging it along to
destruction. The shock, of course, had knocked him down, and he found
himself rolling in a lot of water at the bottom of the lighter. A
violent churning went on alongside; a strange and amazed voice cried out
something above him in the night. He heard a piercing shriek for help
from Senor Hirsch. He kept his teeth hard set all the time. It was a
collision!
The steamer had struck the lighter obliquely, heeling her over till she
was half swamped, starting some of her timbers, and swinging her head
parallel to her own course with the force of the blow. The shock of
it on board of her was hardly perceptible. All the violence of that
collision was, as usual, felt only on board the smaller craft. Even
Nostromo himself thought that this was perhaps the end of his desperate
adventure. He, too, had been flung away from the long tiller, which
took charge in the lurch. Next moment the steamer would have passed on,
leaving the lighter to sink or swim after having shouldered her thus out
of her way, and without even getting a glimpse of her form, had it not
been that, being deeply laden with stores and the great number of people
on board, her anchor was low enough to hook itself into one of the wire
shrouds of the lighter’s mast. For the space of two or three gasping
breaths that new rope held against the sudden strain. It was this that
gave Decoud the sensation of the snatching pull, dragging the lighter
away to destruction. The cause of it, of course, was inexplicable to
him. The whole thing was so sudden that he had no time to think. But all
his sensations were perfectly clear; he had kept complete possession of
himself; in fact, he was even pleasantly aware of that calmness at the
very moment of being pitched head first over the transom, to struggle
on his back in a lot of water. Senor Hirsch’s shriek he had heard and
recognized while he was regaining his feet, always with that mysterious
sensation of being dragged headlong through the darkness. Not a word,
not a cry escaped him; he had no time to see anything; and following
upon the despairing screams for help, the dragging motion ceased so
suddenly that he staggered forward with open arms and fell against the
pile of the treasure boxes. He clung to them instinctively, in the
vague apprehension of being flung about again; and immediately he heard
another lot of shrieks for help, prolonged and despairing, not near
him at all, but unaccountably in the distance, away from the lighter
altogether, as if some spirit in the night were mocking at Senor
Hirsch’s terror and despair.
Then all was still--as still as when you wake up in your bed in a dark
room from a bizarre and agitated dream. The lighter rocked slightly; the
rain was still falling. Two groping hands took hold of his bruised sides
from behind, and the Capataz’s voice whispered, in his ear, “Silence,
for your life! Silence! The steamer has stopped.”
Decoud listened. The gulf was dumb. He felt the water nearly up to his
knees. “Are we sinking?” he asked in a faint breath.
“I don’t know,” Nostromo breathed back to him. “Senor, make not the
slightest sound.”
Hirsch, when ordered forward by Nostromo, had not returned into his
first hiding-place. He had fallen near the mast, and had no strength to
rise; moreover, he feared to move. He had given himself up for dead,
but not on any rational grounds. It was simply a cruel and terrifying
feeling. Whenever he tried to think what would become of him his teeth
would start chattering violently. He was too absorbed in the utter
misery of his fear to take notice of anything.
Though he was stifling under the lighter’s sail which Nostromo had
unwittingly lowered on top of him, he did not even dare to put out his
head till the very moment of the steamer striking. Then, indeed, he
leaped right out, spurred on to new miracles of bodily vigour by this
new shape of danger. The inrush of water when the lighter heeled over
unsealed his lips. His shriek, “Save me!” was the first distinct warning
of the collision for the people on board the steamer. Next moment the
wire shroud parted, and the released anchor swept over the lighter’s
forecastle. It came against the breast of Senor Hirsch, who simply
seized hold of it, without in the least knowing what it was, but curling
his arms and legs upon the part above the fluke with an invincible,
unreasonable tenacity. The lighter yawed off wide, and the steamer,
moving on, carried him away, clinging hard, and shouting for help. It
was some time, however, after the steamer had stopped that his position
was discovered. His sustained yelping for help seemed to come from
somebody swimming in the water. At last a couple of men went over the
bows and hauled him on board. He was carried straight off to Sotillo on
the bridge. His examination confirmed the impression that some craft had
been run over and sunk, but it was impracticable on such a dark night
to look for the positive proof of floating wreckage. Sotillo was more
anxious than ever now to enter the harbour without loss of time; the
idea that he had destroyed the principal object of his expedition was
too intolerable to be accepted. This feeling made the story he had heard
appear the more incredible. Senor Hirsch, after being beaten a little
for telling lies, was thrust into the chartroom. But he was beaten only
a little. His tale had taken the heart out of Sotillo’s Staff, though
they all repeated round their chief, “Impossible! impossible!” with the
exception of the old major, who triumphed gloomily.
“I told you; I told you,” he mumbled. “I could smell some treachery,
some diableria a league off.”
Meantime, the steamer had kept on her way towards Sulaco, where only the
truth of that matter could be ascertained. Decoud and Nostromo heard the
loud churning of her propeller diminish and die out; and then, with no
useless words, busied themselves in making for the Isabels. The last
shower had brought with it a gentle but steady breeze. The danger was
not over yet, and there was no time for talk. The lighter was leaking
like a sieve. They splashed in the water at every step. The Capataz put
into Decoud’s hands the handle of the pump which was fitted at the side
aft, and at once, without question or remark, Decoud began to pump in
utter forgetfulness of every desire but that of keeping the treasure
afloat. Nostromo hoisted the sail, flew back to the tiller, pulled at
the sheet like mad. The short flare of a match (they had been kept
dry in a tight tin box, though the man himself was completely wet),
disclosed to the toiling Decoud the eagerness of his face, bent low over
the box of the compass, and the attentive stare of his eyes. He knew
now where he was, and he hoped to run the sinking lighter ashore in
the shallow cove where the high, cliff-like end of the Great Isabel is
divided in two equal parts by a deep and overgrown ravine.
Decoud pumped without intermission. Nostromo steered without relaxing
for a second the intense, peering effort of his stare. Each of them was
as if utterly alone with his task. It did not occur to them to speak.
There was nothing in common between them but the knowledge that the
damaged lighter must be slowly but surely sinking. In that knowledge,
which was like the crucial test of their desires, they seemed to have
become completely estranged, as if they had discovered in the very shock
of the collision that the loss of the lighter would not mean the same
thing to them both. This common danger brought their differences in aim,
in view, in character, and in position, into absolute prominence in the
private vision of each. There was no bond of conviction, of common
idea; they were merely two adventurers pursuing each his own adventure,
involved in the same imminence of deadly peril. Therefore they had
nothing to say to each other. But this peril, this only incontrovertible
truth in which they shared, seemed to act as an inspiration to their
mental and bodily powers.
There was certainly something almost miraculous in the way the Capataz
made the cove with nothing but the shadowy hint of the island’s shape
and the vague gleam of a small sandy strip for a guide. Where the ravine
opens between the cliffs, and a slender, shallow rivulet meanders out
of the bushes to lose itself in the sea, the lighter was run ashore; and
the two men, with a taciturn, undaunted energy, began to discharge her
precious freight, carrying each ox-hide box up the bed of the rivulet
beyond the bushes to a hollow place which the caving in of the soil had
made below the roots of a large tree. Its big smooth trunk leaned like
a falling column far over the trickle of water running amongst the loose
stones.
A couple of years before Nostromo had spent a whole Sunday, all alone,
exploring the island. He explained this to Decoud after their task was
done, and they sat, weary in every limb, with their legs hanging down
the low bank, and their backs against the tree, like a pair of blind
men aware of each other and their surroundings by some indefinable sixth
sense.
“Yes,” Nostromo repeated, “I never forget a place I have carefully
looked at once.” He spoke slowly, almost lazily, as if there had been a
whole leisurely life before him, instead of the scanty two hours before
daylight. The existence of the treasure, barely concealed in this
improbable spot, laid a burden of secrecy upon every contemplated step,
upon every intention and plan of future conduct. He felt the partial
failure of this desperate affair entrusted to the great reputation
he had known how to make for himself. However, it was also a partial
success. His vanity was half appeased. His nervous irritation had
subsided.
“You never know what may be of use,” he pursued with his usual quietness
of tone and manner. “I spent a whole miserable Sunday in exploring this
crumb of land.”
“A misanthropic sort of occupation,” muttered Decoud, viciously. “You
had no money, I suppose, to gamble with, and to fling about amongst the
girls in your usual haunts, Capataz.”
“_E vero!_” exclaimed the Capataz, surprised into the use of his native
tongue by so much perspicacity. “I had not! Therefore I did not want
to go amongst those beggarly people accustomed to my generosity. It is
looked for from the Capataz of the Cargadores, who are the rich men,
and, as it were, the Caballeros amongst the common people. I don’t care
for cards but as a pastime; and as to those girls that boast of having
opened their doors to my knock, you know I wouldn’t look at any one of
them twice except for what the people would say. They are queer, the
good people of Sulaco, and I have got much useful information simply by
listening patiently to the talk of the women that everybody believed
I was in love with. Poor Teresa could never understand that. On that
particular Sunday, senor, she scolded so that I went out of the house
swearing that I would never darken their door again unless to fetch
away my hammock and my chest of clothes. Senor, there is nothing more
exasperating than to hear a woman you respect rail against your good
reputation when you have not a single brass coin in your pocket. I
untied one of the small boats and pulled myself out of the harbour with
nothing but three cigars in my pocket to help me spend the day on this
island. But the water of this rivulet you hear under your feet is cool
and sweet and good, senor, both before and after a smoke.” He was silent
for a while, then added reflectively, “That was the first Sunday after
I brought down the white-whiskered English rico all the way down the
mountains from the Paramo on the top of the Entrada Pass--and in the
coach, too! No coach had gone up or down that mountain road within the
memory of man, senor, till I brought this one down in charge of fifty
peons working like one man with ropes, pickaxes, and poles under my
direction. That was the rich Englishman who, as people say, pays for the
making of this railway. He was very pleased with me. But my wages were
not due till the end of the month.”
He slid down the bank suddenly. Decoud heard the splash of his feet in
the brook and followed his footsteps down the ravine. His form was lost
among the bushes till he had reached the strip of sand under the cliff.
As often happens in the gulf when the showers during the first part
of the night had been frequent and heavy, the darkness had thinned
considerably towards the morning though there were no signs of daylight
as yet.
The cargo-lighter, relieved of its precious burden, rocked feebly,
half-afloat, with her fore-foot on the sand. A long rope stretched
away like a black cotton thread across the strip of white beach to
the grapnel Nostromo had carried ashore and hooked to the stem of a
tree-like shrub in the very opening of the ravine.
There was nothing for Decoud but to remain on the island. He received
from Nostromo’s hands whatever food the foresight of Captain Mitchell
had put on board the lighter and deposited it temporarily in the little
dinghy which on their arrival they had hauled up out of sight amongst
the bushes. It was to be left with him. The island was to be a
hiding-place, not a prison; he could pull out to a passing ship. The
O.S.N. Company’s mail boats passed close to the islands when going into
Sulaco from the north. But the Minerva, carrying off the ex-president,
had taken the news up north of the disturbances in Sulaco. It was
possible that the next steamer down would get instructions to miss the
port altogether since the town, as far as the Minerva’s officers knew,
was for the time being in the hands of the rabble. This would mean that
there would be no steamer for a month, as far as the mail service went;
but Decoud had to take his chance of that. The island was his only
shelter from the proscription hanging over his head. The Capataz was,
of course, going back. The unloaded lighter leaked much less, and he
thought that she would keep afloat as far as the harbour.
He passed to Decoud, standing knee-deep alongside, one of the two spades
which belonged to the equipment of each lighter for use when ballasting
ships. By working with it carefully as soon as there was daylight enough
to see, Decoud could loosen a mass of earth and stones overhanging the
cavity in which they had deposited the treasure, so that it would look
as if it had fallen naturally. It would cover up not only the cavity,
but even all traces of their work, the footsteps, the displaced stones,
and even the broken bushes.
“Besides, who would think of looking either for you or the treasure
here?” Nostromo continued, as if he could not tear himself away from the
spot. “Nobody is ever likely to come here. What could any man want
with this piece of earth as long as there is room for his feet on the
mainland! The people in this country are not curious. There are even
no fishermen here to intrude upon your worship. All the fishing that
is done in the gulf goes on near Zapiga, over there. Senor, if you are
forced to leave this island before anything can be arranged for you, do
not try to make for Zapiga. It is a settlement of thieves and matreros,
where they would cut your throat promptly for the sake of your gold
watch and chain. And, senor, think twice before confiding in any one
whatever; even in the officers of the Company’s steamers, if you ever
get on board one. Honesty alone is not enough for security. You must
look to discretion and prudence in a man. And always remember, senor,
before you open your lips for a confidence, that this treasure may be
left safely here for hundreds of years. Time is on its side, senor. And
silver is an incorruptible metal that can be trusted to keep its value
for ever. . . . An incorruptible metal,” he repeated, as if the idea had
given him a profound pleasure.
“As some men are said to be,” Decoud pronounced, inscrutably, while
the Capataz, who busied himself in baling out the lighter with a wooden
bucket, went on throwing the water over the side with a regular splash.
Decoud, incorrigible in his scepticism, reflected, not cynically, but
with general satisfaction, that this man was made incorruptible by his
enormous vanity, that finest form of egoism which can take on the aspect
of every virtue.
Nostromo ceased baling, and, as if struck with a sudden thought, dropped
the bucket with a clatter into the lighter.
“Have you any message?” he asked in a lowered voice. “Remember, I shall
be asked questions.”
“You must find the hopeful words that ought to be spoken to the people
in town. I trust for that your intelligence and your experience,
Capataz. You understand?”
“Si, senor. . . . For the ladies.”
“Yes, yes,” said Decoud, hastily. “Your wonderful reputation will make
them attach great value to your words; therefore be careful what you
say. I am looking forward,” he continued, feeling the fatal touch of
contempt for himself to which his complex nature was subject, “I am
looking forward to a glorious and successful ending to my mission. Do
you hear, Capataz? Use the words glorious and successful when you
speak to the senorita. Your own mission is accomplished gloriously and
successfully. You have indubitably saved the silver of the mine. Not
only this silver, but probably all the silver that shall ever come out
of it.”
Nostromo detected the ironic tone. “I dare say, Senor Don Martin,” he
said, moodily. “There are very few things that I am not equal to.
Ask the foreign signori. I, a man of the people, who cannot always
understand what you mean. But as to this lot which I must leave here,
let me tell you that I would believe it in greater safety if you had not
been with me at all.”
An exclamation escaped Decoud, and a short pause followed. “Shall I go
back with you to Sulaco?” he asked in an angry tone.
“Shall I strike you dead with my knife where you stand?” retorted
Nostromo, contemptuously. “It would be the same thing as taking you to
Sulaco. Come, senor. Your reputation is in your politics, and mine is
bound up with the fate of this silver. Do you wonder I wish there
had been no other man to share my knowledge? I wanted no one with me,
senor.”
“You could not have kept the lighter afloat without me,” Decoud almost
shouted. “You would have gone to the bottom with her.”
“Yes,” uttered Nostromo, slowly; “alone.”
Here was a man, Decoud reflected, that seemed as though he would have
preferred to die rather than deface the perfect form of his egoism. Such
a man was safe. In silence he helped the Capataz to get the grapnel on
board. Nostromo cleared the shelving shore with one push of the heavy
oar, and Decoud found himself solitary on the beach like a man in a
dream. A sudden desire to hear a human voice once more seized upon his
heart. The lighter was hardly distinguishable from the black water upon
which she floated.
“What do you think has become of Hirsch?” he shouted.
“Knocked overboard and drowned,” cried Nostromo’s voice confidently out
of the black wastes of sky and sea around the islet. “Keep close in the
ravine, senor. I shall try to come out to you in a night or two.”
A slight swishing rustle showed that Nostromo was setting the sail. It
filled all at once with a sound as of a single loud drum-tap. Decoud
went back to the ravine. Nostromo, at the tiller, looked back from time
to time at the vanishing mass of the Great Isabel, which, little by
little, merged into the uniform texture of the night. At last, when
he turned his head again, he saw nothing but a smooth darkness, like a
solid wall.
Then he, too, experienced that feeling of solitude which had weighed
heavily on Decoud after the lighter had slipped off the shore. But while
the man on the island was oppressed by a bizarre sense of unreality
affecting the very ground upon which he walked, the mind of the Capataz
of the Cargadores turned alertly to the problem of future conduct.
Nostromo’s faculties, working on parallel lines, enabled him to steer
straight, to keep a look-out for Hermosa, near which he had to pass, and
to try to imagine what would happen tomorrow in Sulaco. To-morrow, or,
as a matter of fact, to-day, since the dawn was not very far, Sotillo
would find out in what way the treasure had gone. A gang of Cargadores
had been employed in loading it into a railway truck from the Custom
House store-rooms, and running the truck on to the wharf. There would
be arrests made, and certainly before noon Sotillo would know in what
manner the silver had left Sulaco, and who it was that took it out.
Nostromo’s intention had been to sail right into the harbour; but at
this thought by a sudden touch of the tiller he threw the lighter into
the wind and checked her rapid way. His re-appearance with the very
boat would raise suspicions, would cause surmises, would absolutely
put Sotillo on the track. He himself would be arrested; and once in
the Calabozo there was no saying what they would do to him to make
him speak. He trusted himself, but he stood up to look round. Near by,
Hermosa showed low its white surface as flat as a table, with the slight
run of the sea raised by the breeze washing over its edges noisily. The
lighter must be sunk at once.
He allowed her to drift with her sail aback. There was already a good
deal of water in her. He allowed her to drift towards the harbour
entrance, and, letting the tiller swing about, squatted down and
busied himself in loosening the plug. With that out she would fill very
quickly, and every lighter carried a little iron ballast--enough to make
her go down when full of water. When he stood up again the noisy wash
about the Hermosa sounded far away, almost inaudible; and already he
could make out the shape of land about the harbour entrance. This was a
desperate affair, and he was a good swimmer. A mile was nothing to him,
and he knew of an easy place for landing just below the earthworks of
the old abandoned fort. It occurred to him with a peculiar fascination
that this fort was a good place in which to sleep the day through after
so many sleepless nights.
With one blow of the tiller he unshipped for the purpose, he knocked the
plug out, but did not take the trouble to lower the sail. He felt the
water welling up heavily about his legs before he leaped on to the
taffrail. There, upright and motionless, in his shirt and trousers only,
he stood waiting. When he had felt her settle he sprang far away with a
mighty splash.
At once he turned his head. The gloomy, clouded dawn from behind the
mountains showed him on the smooth waters the upper corner of the sail,
a dark wet triangle of canvas waving slightly to and fro. He saw it
vanish, as if jerked under, and then struck out for the shore.