ath. He picked up a blue poncho
lined with red from the table, and put it over his head. "Adios, look
after the things in my sleeping-room, and if you hear from me no more,
give up the box to Paquita. There is not much of value there, except my
new serape from Mexico, and a few silver buttons on my best jacket. No
matter! The things will look well enough on the next lover she gets, and
the man need not be afraid I shall linger on earth after I am dead, like
those Gringos that haunt the Azuera."

Dr. Monygham twisted his lips into a bitter smile. After old Giorgio,
with an almost imperceptible nod and without a word, had gone up the
narrow stairs, he said--

"Why, Capataz! I thought you could never fail in anything."

Nostromo, glancing contemptuously at the doctor, lingered in the doorway
rolling a cigarette, then struck a match, and, after lighting it, held
the burning piece of wood above his head till the flame nearly touched
his fingers.

"No wind!" he muttered to himself. "Look here, senor--do you know the
nature of my undertaking?"

Dr. Monygham nodded sourly.

"It is as if I were taking up a curse upon me, senor doctor. A man with
a treasure on this coast will have every knife raised against him in
every place upon the shore. You see that, senor doctor? I shall float
along with a spell upon my life till I meet somewhere the north-bound
steamer of the Company, and then indeed they will talk about the Capataz
of the Sulaco Cargadores from one end of America to another."

Dr. Monygham laughed his short, throaty laugh. Nostromo turned round in
the doorway.

"But if your worship can find any other man ready and fit for such
business I will stand back. I am not exactly tired of my life, though I
am so poor that I can carry all I have with myself on my horse's back."

"You gamble too much, and never say 'no' to a pretty face, Capataz,"
said Dr. Monygham, with sly simplicity. "That's not the way to make a
fortune. But nobody that I know ever suspected you of being poor. I
hope you have made a good bargain in case you come back safe from this
adventure."

"What bargain would your worship have made?" asked Nostromo, blowing the
smoke out of his lips through the doorway.

Dr. Monygham listened up the staircase for a moment before he answered,
with another of his short, abrupt laughs--

"Illustrious Capataz, for taking the curse of death upon my back, as you
call it, nothing else but the whole treasure would do