Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
tily, and made a sign for- Captain Mitchell to be led away.
"What about my watch?" cried Captain Mitchell, hanging back from the efforts of the men pulling him towards the door.
Sotillo turned to his officers. "No! But only listen to this picaro, caballeros," he pronounced, with affected scorn, and was answered by a chorus of derisive laughter. "He demands his watch!" . . . He ran up again to Captain Mitchell, for the desire to relieve his feelings by inflicting blows and pain upon this Englishman was very strong within him. " Your watch! You are a prisoner in war-time, Mitchell in ar-time! You have no rights and no property. Caramba! The very breath in your body belongs to me. Remember that."
"Bosh!" said Captain Mitchell, concealing a disagreeable impression.
Down below, in a great hall with an earthen floor and with a tall mound thrown up by white ants in a corner, the soldiers had kindled a small fire with broken chairs and tables near the arched gateway, through which the faint murmur of the harbor waters on the beach could be heard. While Captain Mitchell was being led down the staircase an officer passed him, running up to report to Sotillo the capture of more prisoners. A lot of smoke hung about in the vast gloomy place, the fire crackled, and as if through a haze Captain Mitchell made out, surrounded by short soldiers with fixed bayonets, the heads of three tall prisoners: the doctor, the engineer-in-chief, and the white leonine mane of old Viola, who stood half turned
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