“That is exactly what would happen to you. You would be betrayed.”
He thought with a sickening dread that the man was so well known that he could not escape recognition. The house of the Senor Administrador was beset by spies, no doubt. And even the very servants of the casa were not to be trusted. “Reflect, Capataz,” he said, impressively. . . . “What are you laughing at?”
“I am laughing to think that if somebody that did not approve of my presence in town, for instance—you understand, senor doctor—if somebody were to give me up to Pedrito, it would not be beyond my power to make friends even with him. It is true. What do you think of that?”
“You are a man of infinite resource, Capataz,” said Dr. Monygham, dismally. “I recognize that. But the town is full of talk about you; and those few Cargadores that are not in hiding with the railway people have been shouting ‘Viva Montero’ on the Plaza all day.”
“My poor Cargadores!” muttered Nostromo. “Betrayed! Betrayed!”
“I understand that on the wharf you were pretty free in laying about you with a stick amongst your poor Cargadores,” the doctor said in a grim tone, which showed that he was recovering from his exertions. “Make no mistake. Pedrito is furious at Senor Ribiera’s rescue, and at having lost the pleasure of shooting Decoud. Already there are rumours in the town of the treasure having been spirited away. To have missed that does not please Pedrito either; but let me tell you that if you had all that silver in your hand for ransom it would not save you.”
Turning swiftly, and catching the doctor by the shoulders, Nostromo thrust his face close to his.
“Maladetta! You follow me speaking of the treasure. You have sworn my ruin. You were the last man who looked upon me before I went out with it. And Sidoni the engine-driver says you have an evil eye.”
“He ought to know. I saved his broken leg for him last year,” the doctor said, stoically. He felt on his shoulders the weight of these hands famed amongst the populace for snapping thick ropes and bending horseshoes. “And to you I offer the best means of saving yourself—let me go—and of retrieving your great reputation. You boasted of making the Capataz de Cargadores famous from one end of America to the other about this wretched silver. But I bring you a better opportunity—let me go, hombre!”
Nostromo released him abruptly, and the doctor feared that the indispensable man would run off again. But he did not. He walked on slowly. The doctor hobbled by his side till, within a stone’s throw from the Casa Viola, Nostromo stopped again.