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

confines of waking and sleep with resolutely open eyes anda faint but amiable curl upon his lips, from between whichstuck out the eighteenth or twentieth cigar of that memorableday.‘He appeared to me in this very room like a hauntingghost, sir’—Captain Mitchell was talking of his Nostromowith true warmth of feeling and a touch of wistful pride.‘You may imagine, sir, what an effect it produced on me. Hehad come round by sea with Barrios, of course. And thefirst thing he told me after I became fit to hear him wasthat he had picked up the lighter’s boat floating in the gulf!He seemed quite overcome by the circumstance. And a remarkableenough circumstance it was, when you rememberthat it was then sixteen days since the sinking of the silver.At once I could see he was another man. He stared at thewall, sir, as if there had been a spider or something runningabout there. The loss of the silver preyed on his mind. Thefirst thing he asked me about was whether Dona Antoniahad heard yet of Decoud’s death. His voice trembled. I hadto tell him that Dona Antonia, as a matter of fact, was notback in town yet. Poor girl! And just as I was making readyto ask him a thousand questions, with a sudden, ‘Pardonme, senor,’ he cleared out of the office altogether. I did notsee him again for three days. I was terribly busy, you know.It seems that he wandered about in and out of the town, andon two nights turned up to sleep in the baracoons of therailway people. He seemed absolutely indifferent to whatwent on. I asked him on the wharf, ‘When are you going totake hold again, Nostromo? There will be plenty of work for