a sailor, of course, I
suppose so. But as a man, don't you know, Gould, Decoud, and myself judged that
it didn't matter in the least who went. Any boatman would have done just as
well. Pray, what could a thief do with such a lot of ingots? If he ran off with
them he would have in the end to land somewhere, and how could he conceal his
cargo from the knowledge of the people ashore? We dismissed that consideration
from our minds. Moreover, Decoud was going. There have been occasions when the
Capataz has been more implicitly trusted.«
    »He took a slightly different view,« the doctor said. »I heard him declare
in this very room that it would be the most desperate affair of his life. He
made a sort of verbal will here in my hearing, appointing old Viola his
executor; and, by Jove! do you know, he - he's not grown rich by his fidelity to
you good people of the railway and the harbour. I suppose he obtains some - how
do you say that? - some spiritual value for his labours, or else I don't know
why the devil he should be faithful to you, Gould, Mitchell, or anybody else. He
knows this country well. He knows, for instance, that Gamacho, the Deputy from
Javira, has been nothing else but a tramposo of the commonest sort, a petty
pedlar of the Campo, till he managed to get enough goods on credit from Anzani
to open a little store in the wilds, and got himself elected by the drunken
mozos that hang about the Estancias and the poorest sort of rancheros who were
in his debt. And Gamacho, who to-morrow will be probably one of our high
officials, is a stranger, too - an Isleño. He might have been a Cargador on the
O.S.N. wharf had he not (the posadero of Rincon is ready to swear it) murdered a
pedlar in the woods and stolen his pack to begin life on. And do you think that
Gamacho, then, would have ever become a hero with the democracy of this place,
like our Capataz? Of course not. He isn't half the man. No; decidedly, I think
that Nostromo is a fool.«
    The doctor's talk was distasteful to the builder of railways. »It is
impossible to argue that point,« he said, philosophically. »Each man has his
gifts. You should have heard Gamacho haranguing his friends in the street