Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
away from the others with his chin on his breast and his arms crossed. Mitchell's astonishment knew no bounds. He cried out; the other two exclaimed also. But he was hurried on, diagonally, across the big, cavern-like hall. Lots of thoughts, surmises, hints of caution, and so on, crowded his head to distraction.
"Is he actually keeping you?" shouted the chief engineer, whose single eye-glass glittered in the firelight.
An officer from the top of the stairs was shouting urgently, "Bring them all up—all three."
In the clamor of voices and the rattle of arms Captain Mitchell made himself heard imperfectly. "By Heavens! The fellow has stolen my watch!"
The engineer-in-chief on the staircase resisted the pressure long enough to shout, "What? What did you say?"
"My chronometer!" Captain Mitchell yelled violently, at the very moment of being thrust head-foremost through a small door into a sort of cell perfectly black and so narrow that he fetched up against the opposite wall. The door had been instantly slammed. He knew where they had put him. This was the strong-room of the custom-house, whence the silver had been removed only a few hours earlier. It was almost as narrow as a corridor, with a small, square aperture barred by a heavy grating at the distant end. Captain Mitchell staggered for a few steps, then sat down on the earthen floor with his back to the wall. Nothing, even a gleam of light from anywhere, interfered with Captain Mitchell's meditation. He did some hard but not very extensive thinking. It was not of a gloomy cast. The old sailor, with all his small weak-
375
