f the waist and a leisurely growling yawn of
white teeth, as natural and free from evil in the moment of waking as a
magnificent and unconscious wild beast. Then, in the suddenly steadied
glance fixed upon nothing from under a thoughtful frown, appeared the
man.

CHAPTER EIGHT

After landing from his swim Nostromo had scrambled up, all dripping,
into the main quadrangle of the old fort; and there, amongst ruined bits
of walls and rotting remnants of roofs and sheds, he had slept the day
through. He had slept in the shadow of the mountains, in the white blaze
of noon, in the stillness and solitude of that overgrown piece of land
between the oval of the harbour and the spacious semi-circle of the
gulf. He lay as if dead. A rey-zamuro, appearing like a tiny black speck
in the blue, stooped, circling prudently with a stealthiness of flight
startling in a bird of that great size. The shadow of his pearly-white
body, of his black-tipped wings, fell on the grass no more silently than
he alighted himself on a hillock of rubbish within three yards of that
man, lying as still as a corpse. The bird stretched his bare neck,
craned his bald head, loathsome in the brilliance of varied colouring,
with an air of voracious anxiety towards the promising stillness of that
prostrate body. Then, sinking his head deeply into his soft plumage, he
settled himself to wait. The first thing upon which Nostromo's eyes
fell on waking was this patient watcher for the signs of death and
corruption. When the man got up the vulture hopped away in great,
side-long, fluttering jumps. He lingered for a while, morose and
reluctant, before he rose, circling noiselessly with a sinister droop of
beak and claws.

Long after he had vanished, Nostromo, lifting his eyes up to the sky,
muttered, "I am not dead yet."

The Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores had lived in splendour and
publicity up to the very moment, as it were, when he took charge of the
lighter containing the treasure of silver ingots.

The last act he had performed in Sulaco was in complete harmony with his
vanity, and as such perfectly genuine. He had given his last dollar to
an old woman moaning with the grief and fatigue of a dismal search
under the arch of the ancient gate. Performed in obscurity and without
witnesses, it had still the characteristics of splendour and publicity,
and was in strict keeping with his reputation. But this awakening in
solitude, except for the watchful vultu