Page:Nostromo (1904).djvu/400

 he gave a hard stare at the doctor, perched already on the casement of one of the windows, with his eyelids lowered, careless and thoughtful or perhaps ashamed.

Sotillo, ensconced in the vast arm-chair, remarked: "I should have thought that the feelings of a caballero would have dictated to you an appropriate reply."

He waited for it, but Captain Mitchell remaining mute, more from extreme resentment than from reasoned intention, Sotillo hesitated, glanced towards the doctor, who looked up and nodded, then went on with a slight effort:

"Here, Serior Mitchell, is your watch. Learn how hasty and unjust has been your judgment of my patriotic soldiers."

Lying back in his seat he extended his arm over the table and pushed the watch away slightly. Captain Mitchell walked up with undisguised eagerness, put it to his ear, then slipped it into his pocket coolly.

Sotillo seemed to overcome an immense reluctance. Again he looked aside at the doctor, who stared at him unwinkingly.

But as Captain Mitchell was turning away, without as much as a nod or a glance, he hastened to say:

"You may go and wait down-stairs for the Señor Doctor, whom I am going to liberate too. You foreigners are insignificant to my mind."

He forced a slight discordant laugh out of himself, while Captain Mitchell for the first time looked at him with some interest.

"The law shall take note later on of your transgressions," Sotillo hurried on. "But as for me, you can live free, unguarded, unobserved. Do you hear,