Page 623 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

Alas! it holds me yet!’
Mrs. Gould bent low, fascinated—cold with apprehen-
sion.
‘What became of Don Martin on that night, Nostromo?’
‘Who knows? I wondered what would become of me.
Now I know. Death was to come upon me unawares. He
went away! He betrayed me. And you think I have killed
him! You are all alike, you fine people. The silver has killed
me. It has held me. It holds me yet. Nobody knows where it
is. But you are the wife of Don Carlos, who put it into my
hands and said, ‘Save it on your life.’ And when I returned,
and you all thought it was lost, what do I hear? ‘It was noth-
ing of importance. Let it go. Up, Nostromo, the faithful,
and ride away to save us, for dear life!’’
‘Nostromo!’ Mrs. Gould whispered, bending very low. ‘I,
too, have hated the idea of that silver from the bottom of
my heart.’
‘Marvellous!—that one of you should hate the wealth that
you know so well how to take from the hands of the poor.
The world rests upon the poor, as old Giorgio says. You have
been always good to the poor. But there is something ac-
cursed in wealth. Senora, shall I tell you where the treasure
is? To you alone…. Shining! Incorruptible!’
A pained, involuntary reluctance lingered in his tone, in
his eyes, plain to the woman with the genius of sympathetic
intuition. She averted her glance from the miserable subjec-
tion of the dying man, appalled, wishing to hear no more
of the silver.
‘No, Capataz,’ she said. ‘No one misses it now. Let it be

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard