Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
you found out that I had orders from Don Carlos Gould
to lower the cases quietly overboard somewhere in a
line between the end of the jetty and the entrance.
The depth is not too great there. He has no divers,
but he has a ship, boats, ropes, chains, sailors of a
sort. Let him fish for the silver. Let him set his
fools to drag backward and forward and crosswise
while he sits and watches till his eyes drop out of his
head."
"Really, this is an admirable idea," muttered the doctor.
"Si. You tell him that, and see whether he will not believe you! He will spend days in rage and torment—and still he will believe. He will have no thought for anything else. He will not give up till he is driven off-why, he may even forget to kill you. He shall neither eat nor sleep. He—"
"The very thing! The very thing!" the doctor repeated in an excited whisper. "Capataz, I begin to believe that you are a great genius in your way." Nostromo had paused; then began again in a changed tone, sombre, speaking to himself as though he had forgotten the doctor's existence.
"There is something in a treasure that fastens upon a man's mind. He will pray and blaspheme and still persevere, and will curse the day he ever heard of it, and will let his last hour come upon him unawares, still believing that he missed it only by a foot. He will see it every time he closes his eyes. He will never forget it till he is dead—and even then— Doctor, did you ever hear of the miserable gringos on Azuera, that cannot die? Ha! ha! Sailors like myself. There is
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