Page 464 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

the cupolas, towers, and miradors rising above the trees, all
dark, as if surrendered already to the night. The thought
that it was no longer open to him to ride through the streets,
recognized by everyone, great and little, as he used to do
every evening on his way to play monte in the posada of the
Mexican Domingo; or to sit in the place of honour, listening
to songs and looking at dances, made it appear to him as a
town that had no existence.
For a long time he gazed on, then let the parted bushes
spring back, and, crossing over to the other side of the fort,
surveyed the vaster emptiness of the great gulf. The Isabels
stood out heavily upon the narrowing long band of red in
the west, which gleamed low between their black shapes,
and the Capataz thought of Decoud alone there with the
treasure. That man was the only one who cared whether he
fell into the hands of the Monterists or not, the Capataz re-
flected bitterly. And that merely would be an anxiety for his
own sake. As to the rest, they neither knew nor cared. What
he had heard Giorgio Viola say once was very true. Kings,
ministers, aristocrats, the rich in general, kept the people in
poverty and subjection; they kept them as they kept dogs, to
fight and hunt for their service.
The darkness of the sky had descended to the line of the
horizon, enveloping the whole gulf, the islets, and the lover
of Antonia alone with the treasure on the Great Isabel. The
Capataz, turning his back on these things invisible and ex-
isting, sat down and took his face between his fists. He felt
the pinch of poverty for the first time in his life. To find
himself without money after a run of bad luck at monte