`No,' assented the doctor, with the same grim composure. `I don't see why you should. It wouldn't help a single human being in the world if you thought ever so hard upon any subject whatever.'
`No,' said Captain Mitchell, simply, and with evident depression. `Aman locked up in a confounded dark hole is not much use to anybody.'
`As to old Viola,' the doctor continued, as though he had not heard, `Sotillo released him for the same reason he is presently going to release you.'
`Eh? What?' exclaimed Captain Mitchell, staring like an owl in the darkness.
`What is there in common between me and old Viola? More likely because the old chap has no watch and chain for the pickpocket to steal. And Itell you what, Dr Monygham,' he went on with rising choler, `he will find it more difficult than he thinks to get rid of me. He will burn his fingers over that job yet, I can tell you. To begin with, I won't go without my watch, and as to the rest -- we shall see. I dare say it is no great matter for you to be locked up. But Joe Mitchell is a different kind of man, sir.
I don't mean to submit tamely to insult and robbery. I am a public character, sir.'
And then Captain Mitchell became aware that the bars of the opening had become visible, a black grating upon a square of grey. The coming of the day silenced Captain Mitchell as if by the reflection that now in all the future days he would be deprived of the invaluable services of his Capataz. He leaned against the wall with his arms folded on his breast, and the doctor walked up and down the whole length of the place with his peculiar hobbling gait, as if slinking about on damaged feet. At the end farthest from the grating he would be lost altogether in the darkness.
Only the slight limping shuffle could be heard. There was an air of moody detachment in that painful prowl kept up without a pause. When the door of the prison was suddenly flung open and his name shouted out he showed no surprise. He swerved sharply in his walk, and passed out at once, as though much depended upon his speed; but Captain Mitchell remained for some time with his shoulders against the wall, quite undecided in the bitterness of his spirit whether it wouldn't be better to refuse to stir a limb in the way of protest. He had half a mind to get himself carried out, but after the officer at the door had shouted three or four times in tones of remonstrance and surprise he condescended to walk out.
Sotillo's manner had changed. The colonel's offhand civility was slightly irresolute, as though he were in doubt if civility were the proper course in this case. He observed Captain Mitchell attentively before he spoke from the big armchair behind the table in a condescending voice:
`I have concluded not to detain you, Senor Mitchell. I am of a forgiving disposition. I make allowances. Let this be a lesson to you, however.'
The peculiar dawn of Sulaco, which seems to break far away to the westward and creep back into the shade of the mountains, mingled with the reddish light of the candles. Captain Mitchell, in sign of contempt and indifference, let his eyes roam all over the room, and he gave a hard stare to the doctor, perched already on the casement of one of the windows, with his eyelids lowered, careless and thoughtful -- or perhaps ashamed.
Sotilla, ensconced in the vast armchair, 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, Senor Mitchell, is your watch. Learn how hasty and unjust has been your judgement 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 downstairs for the Senor 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, Senor Mitchell? You may depart to your affairs. You are beneath my notice.
My attention is claimed by matters of the very highest importance.'
Captain Mitchell was very nearly provoked to an answer. It displeased him to be liberated insultingly; but want of sleep, prolonged anxieties, a profound disappointment with the fatal ending of the silver-saving business weighed upon his spirits. It was as much as he could do to conceal his uneasiness, not about himself perhaps, but about things in general. It occurred to him distinctly that something underhand was going on. As he went out he ignored the doctor pointedly.
`A brute!' said Sotillo, as the door shut.
Dr Monygham slipped off the window-sill, and, thrusting his hands into the pockets of the long, grey dust coat he was wearing, made a few steps into the room.
Sotillo got up, too, and, putting himself in the way, examined him from head to foot.
`So your countrymen do not confide in you very much, Senor Doctor. They do not love you, eh? Why is that, I wonder?'
The doctor, lifting his head, answered by a long, lifeless stare and the words, `Perhaps because I have lived too long in Costaguana.'
Sotillo had a gleam of white teeth under the black moustache.
`Aha! But you love yourself,' he said, encouragingly.
`If you leave them alone,' the doctor said, looking with the same lifeless stare at Sotillo's handsome face, `they will betray themselves very soon.