Nostromo - A Tale of the Seaboard.pdf - Planet eBook

The long building was surrounded by troops, which werealready piling arms by companies and preparing to pass thenight lying on the ground in their ponchos with their sacksunder their heads. Corporals moved with swinging lanternsposting sentries all round the walls wherever there was adoor or an opening. Sotillo was taking his measures to protecthis conquest as if it had indeed contained the treasure.His desire to make his fortune at one audacious stroke ofgenius had overmastered his reasoning faculties. He wouldnot believe in the possibility of failure; the mere hint of sucha thing made his brain reel with rage. Every circumstancepointing to it appeared incredible. The statement of Hirsch,which was so absolutely fatal to his hopes, could by no meansbe admitted. It is true, too, that Hirsch’s story had been toldso incoherently, with such excessive signs of distraction,that it really looked improbable. It was extremely difficult,as the saying is, to make head or tail of it. On the bridge ofthe steamer, directly after his rescue, Sotillo and his officers,in their impatience and excitement, would not give thewretched man time to collect such few wits as remained tohim. He ought to have been quieted, soothed, and reassured,whereas he had been roughly handled, cuffed, shaken, andaddressed in menacing tones. His struggles, his wriggles,his attempts to get down on his knees, followed by the mostviolent efforts to break away, as if he meant incontinentlyto jump overboard, his shrieks and shrinkings and coweringwild glances had filled them first with amazement, thenwith a doubt of his genuineness, as men are wont to suspectthe sincerity of every great passion. His Spanish, too, be-