“True to myself,” repeated Nostromo. “How do you know that I would not be true to myself if I told you to go to the devil with your propositions?”
“I do not know. Maybe you would,” the doctor said, with a roughness of tone intended to hide the sinking of his heart and the faltering of his voice. “All I know is, that you had better get away from here. Some of Sotillo’s men may turn up here looking for me.”
He slipped off the table, listening intently. The Capataz, too, stood up.
“Suppose I went to Cayta, what would you do meantime?” he asked.
“I would go to Sotillo directly you had left—in the way I am thinking of.”
“A very good way—if only that engineer-in-chief consents. Remind him, senor, that I looked after the old rich Englishman who pays for the railway, and that I saved the lives of some of his people that time when a gang of thieves came from the south to wreck one of his pay-trains. It was I who discovered it all at the risk of my life, by pretending to enter into their plans. Just as you are doing with Sotillo.”
“Yes. Yes, of course. But I can offer him better arguments,” the doctor said, hastily. “Leave it to me.”
“Ah, yes! True. I am nothing.”
“Not at all. You are everything.”
They moved a few paces towards the door. Behind them the late Senor Hirsch preserved the immobility of a disregarded man.