re, amongst the ruins of the
fort, had no such characteristics. His first confused feeling was
exactly this--that it was not in keeping. It was more like the end of
things. The necessity of living concealed somehow, for God knows how
long, which assailed him on his return to consciousness, made everything
that had gone before for years appear vain and foolish, like a
flattering dream come suddenly to an end.

He climbed the crumbling slope of the rampart, and, putting aside the
bushes, looked upon the harbour. He saw a couple of ships at anchor upon
the sheet of water reflecting the last gleams of light, and Sotillo's
steamer moored to the jetty. And behind the pale long front of the
Custom House, there appeared the extent of the town like a grove of
thick timber on the plain with a gateway in front, and 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 reflected 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 existing, 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