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

such a fool as when I started. I have learned one thing since,and that is that you are a dangerous man.’Dr. Monygham was too startled to do more thanexclaim—‘What is it you say?’‘If he could speak he would say the same thing,’ pursuedNostromo, with a nod of his shadowy head silhouettedagainst the starlit window.‘I do not understand you,’ said Dr. Monygham, faintly.‘No? Perhaps, if you had not confirmed Sotillo in hismadness, he would have been in no haste to give the estrapadeto that miserable Hirsch.’The doctor started at the suggestion. But his devotion, absorbingall his sensibilities, had left his heart steeled againstremorse and pity. Still, for complete relief, he felt the necessityof repelling it loudly and contemptuously.‘Bah! You dare to tell me that, with a man like Sotillo. Iconfess I did not give a thought to Hirsch. If I had it wouldhave been useless. Anybody can see that the luckless wretchwas doomed from the moment he caught hold of the anchor.He was doomed, I tell you! Just as I myself am doomed—most probably.’This is what Dr. Monygham said in answer to Nostromo’sremark, which was plausible enough to prick his conscience.He was not a callous man. But the necessity, the magnitude,the importance of the task he had taken upon himselfdwarfed all merely humane considerations. He had undertakenit in a fanatical spirit. He did not like it. To lie, todeceive, to circumvent even the basest of mankind was odi-