Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
The mosquitos bit like fury. We have been infested here with mosquitos before the late improvements—a peculiar harbor brand, sir, renowned for its ferocity. They were like a cloud about my head, and I shouldn't wonder that but for their attacks I would have dozed off as I walked up and down and got a heavy fall. I kept on smoking cigar after cigar, more to protect myself from being eaten up alive than from any real relish for the weed. Then, sir, when perhaps for the twentieth time I was approaching my watch to the lighted end in order to see the time, and observing with surprise that it wanted yet ten minutes to midnight, I heard the plash of a ship's propeller, an unmistakable sound to a sailor's ear on such a calm night. It was faint indeed, because they were advancing with precaution and dead slow, both on account of the darkness and from their desire of not revealing too soon their presence—a very unnecessary care, because, I verily believe, in all the enormous extent of this harbor I was the only living soul about. Even the usual staff of watchmen and others had been absent from their posts for several nights owing to the disturbances. I stood stock-still after dropping and stamping out my cigar—a circumstance highly agreeable, I should think, to the mosquitos, if I may judge from the state of my face next morning. But that was a trifling inconvenience in comparison with the brutal proceedings I became victim of on the part of Sotillo. Something utterly inconceivable, sir. More like the proceedings of a maniac than the action of a sane man, however lost to all sense of honor and decency. But Sotillo was furious at the failure of his thievish scheme."
362
