Page 560 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

He had made up his mind that nothing should be al-
lowed now to rob him of his bargain. Nothing. Decoud had
died. But how? That he was dead he had not a shadow of a
doubt. But four ingots? … What for? Did he mean to come
for more—some other time?
The treasure was putting forth its latent power. It trou-
bled the clear mind of the man who had paid the price. He
was sure that Decoud was dead. The island seemed full of
that whisper. Dead! Gone! And he caught himself listening
for the swish of bushes and the splash of the footfalls in the
bed of the brook. Dead! The talker, the novio of Dona An-
tonia!
‘Ha!’ he murmured, with his head on his knees, under
the livid clouded dawn breaking over the liberated Sulaco
and upon the gulf as gray as ashes. ‘It is to her that he will
fly. To her that he will fly!’
And four ingots! Did he take them in revenge, to cast a
spell, like the angry woman who had prophesied remorse
and failure, and yet had laid upon him the task of saving
the children? Well, he had saved the children. He had de-
feated the spell of poverty and starvation. He had done it all
alone—or perhaps helped by the devil. Who cared? He had
done it, betrayed as he was, and saving by the same stroke
the San Tome mine, which appeared to him hateful and im-
mense, lording it by its vast wealth over the valour, the toil,
the fidelity of the poor, over war and peace, over the labours
of the town, the sea, and the Campo.
The sun lit up the sky behind the peaks of the Cordillera.
The Capataz looked down for a time upon the fall of loose