A Tale of the Seaboard Joseph Conrad - Penn State University

Nostromo
value there, except my new serape from Mexico, and a few silver
buttons on my best jacket. No matter! The things will look well
enough on the next lover she gets, and the man need not be afraid I
shall linger on earth after I am dead, like those Gringos that haunt
the Azuera.”
Dr. Monygham twisted his lips into a bitter smile. After old
Giorgio, with an almost imperceptible nod and without a word,
had gone up the narrow stairs, he said—
“Why, Capataz! I thought you could never fail in anything.”
Nostromo, glancing contemptuously at the doctor, lingered in
the doorway rolling a cigarette, then struck a match, and, after lighting
it, held the burning piece of wood above his head till the flame
nearly touched his fingers.
“No wind!” he muttered to himself. “Look here, señor—do you
know the nature of my undertaking”
Dr. Monygham nodded sourly.
“It is as if I were taking up a curse upon me, señor doctor. A man with
a treasure on this coast will have every knife raised against him in every
place upon the shore. You see that, señor doctor I shall float along with
a spell upon my life till I meet somewhere the north-bound steamer of
the Company, and then indeed they will talk about the Capataz of the
Sulaco Cargadores from one end of America to another.”
Dr. Monygham laughed his short, throaty laugh. Nostromo turned
round in the doorway.
“But if your worship can find any other man ready and fit for
such business I will stand back. I am not exactly tired of my life,
though I am so poor that I can carry all I have with myself on my
horse’s back.”
“You gamble too much, and never say ‘no’ to a pretty face,
Capataz,” said Dr. Monygham, with sly simplicity. “That’s not the
way to make a fortune. But nobody that I know ever suspected you
of being poor. I hope you have made a good bargain in case you
come back safe from this adventure.”
“What bargain would your worship have made” asked Nostromo,
blowing the smoke out of his lips through the doorway.
Dr. Monygham listened up the staircase for a moment before he
answered, with another of his short, abrupt laughs—
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