did not even know that my Capataz de Cargadores was
alive. I had no idea. It was Dr. Monygham who came upon him, by chance,
in the Custom House, evacuated an hour or two before by the wretched
Sotillo. I was never told; never given a hint, nothing--as if I were
unworthy of confidence. Monygham arranged it all. He went to the railway
yards, and got admission to the engineer-in-chief, who, for the sake of
the Goulds as much as for anything else, consented to let an engine
make a dash down the line, one hundred and eighty miles, with Nostromo
aboard. It was the only way to get him off. In the Construction Camp
at the railhead, he obtained a horse, arms, some clothing, and started
alone on that marvellous ride--four hundred miles in six days, through
a disturbed country, ending by the feat of passing through the Monterist
lines outside Cayta. The history of that ride, sir, would make a
most exciting book. He carried all our lives in his pocket. Devotion,
courage, fidelity, intelligence were not enough. Of course, he was
perfectly fearless and incorruptible. But a man was wanted that would
know how to succeed. He was that man, sir. On the fifth of May, being
practically a prisoner in the Harbour Office of my Company, I suddenly
heard the whistle of an engine in the railway yards, a quarter of a mile
away. I could not believe my ears. I made one jump on to the balcony,
and beheld a locomotive under a great head of steam run out of the yard
gates, screeching like mad, enveloped in a white cloud, and then, just
abreast of old Viola's inn, check almost to a standstill. I made out,
sir, a man--I couldn't tell who--dash out of the Albergo d'ltalia Una,
climb into the cab, and then, sir, that engine seemed positively to leap
clear of the house, and was gone in the twinkling of an eye. As you blow
a candle out, sir! There was a first-rate driver on the foot-plate, sir,
I can tell you. They were fired heavily upon by the National Guards in
Rincon and one other place. Fortunately the line had not been torn
up. In four hours they reached the Construction Camp. Nostromo had his
start. . . . The rest you know. You've got only to look round you. There
are people on this Alameda that ride in their carriages, or even are
alive at all to-day, because years ago I engaged a runaway Italian
sailor for a foreman of our wharf simply on the strength of his looks.
And that's a fact. You can't get over it, sir. On the seventeenth of
May, just twelve d