e doctor remained silent in the dark.

"Yes, that is exactly what I did say," he uttered at last, in a tone
which would have made it clear enough to a third party that the pause
was not of a reluctant but of a reflective character. Captain Mitchell
thought that he had never heard anything so brazenly impudent in his
life.

"Well, well!" he muttered to himself, but he had not the heart to voice
his thoughts. They were swept away by others full of astonishment and
regret. A heavy sense of discomfiture crushed him: the loss of the
silver, the death of Nostromo, which was really quite a blow to his
sensibilities, because he had become attached to his Capataz as people
get attached to their inferiors from love of ease and almost unconscious
gratitude. And when he thought of Decoud being drowned, too, his
sensibility was almost overcome by this miserable end. What a heavy
blow for that poor young woman! Captain Mitchell did not belong to the
species of crabbed old bachelors; on the contrary, he liked to see young
men paying attentions to young women. It seemed to him a natural and
proper thing. Proper especially. As to sailors, it was different; it was
not their place to marry, he maintained, but it was on moral grounds as
a matter of self-denial, for, he explained, life on board ship is not
fit for a woman even at best, and if you leave her on shore, first of
all it is not fair, and next she either suffers from it or doesn't care
a bit, which, in both cases, is bad. He couldn't have told what upset
him most--Charles Gould's immense material loss, the death of Nostromo,
which was a heavy loss to himself, or the idea of that beautiful and
accomplished young woman being plunged into mourning.

"Yes," the doctor, who had been apparently reflecting, began again, "he
believed me right enough. I thought he would have hugged me. 'Si, si,'
he said, 'he will write to that partner of his, the rich Americano in
San Francisco, that it is all lost. Why not? There is enough to share
with many people.'"

"But this is perfectly imbecile!" cried Captain Mitchell.

The doctor remarked that Sotillo was imbecile, and that his imbecility
was ingenious enough to lead him completely astray. He had helped him
only but a little way.

"I mentioned," the doctor said, "in a sort of casual way, that treasure
is generally buried in the earth rather than set afloat upon the sea.
At this my Sotillo slapped his forehead. 'Por Dios, yes,' he said; 'they