."

Nostromo vanished out of the doorway with a grunt of discontent at
this jeering answer. Dr. Monygham heard him gallop away. Nostromo rode
furiously in the dark. There were lights in the buildings of the
O.S.N. Company near the wharf, but before he got there he met the Gould
carriage. The horseman preceded it with the torch, whose light showed
the white mules trotting, the portly Ignacio driving, and Basilio with
the carbine on the box. From the dark body of the landau Mrs. Gould's
voice cried, "They are waiting for you, Capataz!" She was returning,
chilly and excited, with Decoud's pocket-book still held in her hand. He
had confided it to her to send to his sister. "Perhaps my last words to
her," he had said, pressing Mrs. Gould's hand.

The Capataz never checked his speed. At the head of the wharf vague
figures with rifles leapt to the head of his horse; others closed upon
him--cargadores of the company posted by Captain Mitchell on the watch.
At a word from him they fell back with subservient murmurs, recognizing
his voice. At the other end of the jetty, near a cargo crane, in a dark
group with glowing cigars, his name was pronounced in a tone of relief.
Most of the Europeans in Sulaco were there, rallied round Charles Gould,
as if the silver of the mine had been the emblem of a common cause, the
symbol of the supreme importance of material interests. They had loaded
it into the lighter with their own hands. Nostromo recognized Don Carlos
Gould, a thin, tall shape standing a little apart and silent, to whom
another tall shape, the engineer-in-chief, said aloud, "If it must be
lost, it is a million times better that it should go to the bottom of
the sea."

Martin Decoud called out from the lighter, "_Au revoir_, messieurs, till
we clasp hands again over the new-born Occidental Republic." Only a
subdued murmur responded to his clear, ringing tones; and then it seemed
to him that the wharf was floating away into the night; but it was
Nostromo, who was already pushing against a pile with one of the heavy
sweeps. Decoud did not move; the effect was that of being launched
into space. After a splash or two there was not a sound but the thud
of Nostromo's feet leaping about the boat. He hoisted the big sail; a
breath of wind fanned Decoud's cheek. Everything had vanished but the
light of the lantern Captain Mitchell had hoisted upon the post at the
end of the jetty to guide Nostromo out of the harbour.

The two men, u