第76章

Like a mysterious stirring of the darkness behind the headlight of the engine, the train passed in a gust of hollow uproar, by the end of the house, which seemed to vibrate all over in response. And nothing was clearly visible but, on the end of the last flat car, a Negro, in white trousers and naked to the waist, swinging a blazing torch basket incessantly with a circular movement of his bare arm. Decoud did not stir.

Behind him, on the back of the chair from which he had risen, hung his elegant Parisian overcoat, with a pearl-grey silk lining. But when he turned back to come to the table the candlelight fell upon a face that was grimy and scratched. His rosy lips were blackened with heat, the smoke of gun-powder.

Dirt and rust tarnished the lustre of his short beard. His shirt collar and cuffs were crumpled; the blue silken tie hung down his breast like a rag; a greasy smudge crossed his white brow. He had not taken off his clothing nor used water; except to snatch a hasty drink greedily, for some forty hours. An awful restlessness had made him its own, had marked him with all the signs of desperate strife, and put a dry, sleepless stare into his eyes. He murmured to himself in a hoarse voice, `I wonder if there's any bread here,' looked vaguely about him, then dropped into the chair and took the pencil up again. He became aware he had not eaten anything for many hours.

It occurred to him that no one could understand him so well as his sister.

In the most sceptical heart there lurks at such moments, when the chances of existence are involved, a desire to leave a correct impression of the feelings, like a light by which the action may be seen when personality is gone, gone where no light of investigation can ever reach the truth which every death takes out of the world. Therefore, instead of looking for something to eat, or trying to snatch an hour or so of sleep, Decoud was filling the pages of a large pocket-book with a letter to his sister.

In the intimacy of that intercourse he could not keep out his weariness, his great fatigue, the close touch of his bodily sensations. He began again as if he were talking to her. With almost an illusion of her presence, he wrote the phrase, `I am very hungry.'

I have the feeling of a great solitude around me [he continued]. Is it, perhaps, because I am the only man with a definite idea in his head, in the complete collapse of every resolve, intention, and hope about me?

But the solitude is also very real. All the engineers are out, and have been for two days, looking after the property of the National Central Railway, of that great Costaguana undertaking which is to put money into the pockets of Englishmen, Frenchmen, Americans, Germans, and God knows who else. The silence about me is ominous. There is above the middle part of this house a sort of first floor, with narrow openings like loopholes for windows, probably used in old times for the better defence against the savages, when the persistent barbarism of our native continent did not wear the black coats of politicians, but went about yelling, half-naked, with bows and arrows in its hands. The woman of the house is dying up there, I believe, all alone with her old husband. There is a narrow staircase, the sort of staircase one man could easily defend against a mob, leading up there, and I have just heard, through the thickness of the wall, the old fellow going down into their kitchen for something or other. It was a sort of noise a mouse might make behind the plaster of a wall. All the servants they had ran away yesterday and have not returned yet, if ever they do.

For the rest, there are only two children here, two girls. The father has sent them downstairs, and they have crept into this cafe, perhaps because I am here. They huddle together in a corner, in each other's arms; I just noticed them a few minutes ago, and I feel more lonely than ever.

Decoud turned half round in his chair, and asked, `Is there any bread here?'

Linda's dark head was shaken negatively in response, above the fair head of her sister nestling on her breast.

`You couldn't get me some bread?' insisted Decoud. The child did not move; he saw her large eyes stare at him very dark from the corner. `You're not afraid of me?' he said.

`No,' said Linda, `we are not afraid of you. You came here with Gian'

Battista.'

`You mean Nostromo?' said Decoud.

`The English call him so, but that is no name either for man or beast,'

said the girl, passing her hand gently over her sister's hair.

`But he lets people call him so,' remarked Decoud.

`Not in this house,' retorted the child.

`Ah! well, I shall call him the Capataz then.'

Decoud gave up the point, and after writing steadily for a while turned round again.

`When do you expect him back?' he asked.

`After he brought you here he rode off to fetch the Senor Doctor from the town for mother. He will be back soon.'

`He stands a good chance of getting shot somewhere on the road,' Decoud murmured to himself audibly; and Linda declared in her high-pitched voice:

`Nobody would dare to fire a shot at Gian' Battista.'

`You believe that,' asked Decoud, `do you?'

`I know it,' said the child, with conviction. `There is no one in this place brave enough to attack Gian' Battista.'

`It doesn't require much bravery to pull a trigger behind a bush,' muttered Decoud to himself. `Fortunately, the night is dark, or there would be but little chance of saving the silver of the mine.'

He turned again to his pocket-book, glanced back through the pages, and again started his pencil.