Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
fully eat the paper? The capataz de cargadores would have been just such a man. But the capataz of the cargadores was no more.
And Charles Gould, withdrawing his eyes from the wall, said, gently: "That Hirsch! What an extraordinary thing! Saved himself by clinging to the anchor, did he? I had no idea that he was still in Sulaco. I thought he had gone back overland to Esmeralda more than a week ago. He came here once to talk to me about his hide business and some other things. I made it clear to him that nothing could be done."
"He was afraid to start back on account of Hernandez being about," remarked the doctor.
"And but for him we might not have known anything of what has happened," marvelled Charles Gould.
Mrs. Gould cried out:
"Antonia must not know! She must not be told. Not now."
"Nobody's likely to carry the news," remarked the doctor. "It's no one's interest. Moreover, the people here are afraid of Hernandez as if he were the devil." He turned to Charles Gould. "It's even awkward, because if you wanted to communicate with the refugees you could find no messenger. When Hernandez was ranging hundreds of miles away from here the Sulaco populace used to shudder at the tales of him roasting his prisoners alive."
"Yes," murmured Charles Gould, "Captain Mitchell's capataz was the only man in the town who had seen Hernandez eye to eye. Father Corbelan employed him. He opened the communications first. It is a pity that—"
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