desperate undertaking of his life.

Thinking these thoughts, Nostromo passed again through the cavernous
hall, where the smoke was considerably thinned, and went up the stairs,
not so warm to his feet now, towards the streak of light at the top. The
doctor appeared in it for a moment, agitated and impatient.

"Come up! Come up!"

At the moment of crossing the doorway the Capataz experienced a shock of
surprise. The man had not moved. He saw his shadow in the same place.
He started, then stepped in with a feeling of being about to solve a
mystery.

It was very simple. For an infinitesimal fraction of a second, against
the light of two flaring and guttering candles, through a blue, pungent,
thin haze which made his eyes smart, he saw the man standing, as he
had imagined him, with his back to the door, casting an enormous and
distorted shadow upon the wall. Swifter than a flash of lightning
followed the impression of his constrained, toppling attitude--the
shoulders projecting forward, the head sunk low upon the breast. Then
he distinguished the arms behind his back, and wrenched so terribly that
the two clenched fists, lashed together, had been forced up higher than
the shoulder-blades. From there his eyes traced in one instantaneous
glance the hide rope going upwards from the tied wrists over a heavy
beam and down to a staple in the wall. He did not want to look at the
rigid legs, at the feet hanging down nervelessly, with their bare toes
some six inches above the floor, to know that the man had been given the
estrapade till he had swooned. His first impulse was to dash forward and
sever the rope at one blow. He felt for his knife. He had no knife--not
even a knife. He stood quivering, and the doctor, perched on the edge of
the table, facing thoughtfully the cruel and lamentable sight, his chin
in his hand, uttered, without stirring--

"Tortured--and shot dead through the breast--getting cold."

This information calmed the Capataz. One of the candles flickering in
the socket went out. "Who did this?" he asked.

"Sotillo, I tell you. Who else? Tortured--of course. But why shot?" The
doctor looked fixedly at Nostromo, who shrugged his shoulders slightly.
"And mark, shot suddenly, on impulse. It is evident. I wish I had his
secret."

Nostromo had advanced, and stooped slightly to look. "I seem to have
seen that face somewhere," he muttered. "Who is he?"

The doctor turned his eyes upon him again. "I may yet come