tray the treasure. And Nostromo had made up his
mind that the treasure should not be betrayed.

The word had fixed itself tenaciously in his intelligence. His
imagination had seized upon the clear and simple notion of betrayal to
account for the dazed feeling of enlightenment as to being done for, of
having inadvertently gone out of his existence on an issue in which his
personality had not been taken into account. A man betrayed is a man
destroyed. Signora Teresa (may God have her soul!) had been right. He
had never been taken into account. Destroyed! Her white form sitting
up bowed in bed, the falling black hair, the wide-browed suffering
face raised to him, the anger of her denunciations appeared to him now
majestic with the awfulness of inspiration and of death. For it was not
for nothing that the evil bird had uttered its lamentable shriek over
his head. She was dead--may God have her soul!

Sharing in the anti-priestly freethought of the masses, his mind used
the pious formula from the superficial force of habit, but with a
deep-seated sincerity. The popular mind is incapable of scepticism;
and that incapacity delivers their helpless strength to the wiles of
swindlers and to the pitiless enthusiasms of leaders inspired by visions
of a high destiny. She was dead. But would God consent to receive her
soul? She had died without confession or absolution, because he had
not been willing to spare her another moment of his time. His scorn of
priests as priests remained; but after all, it was impossible to know
whether what they affirmed was not true. Power, punishment, pardon,
are simple and credible notions. The magnificent Capataz de Cargadores,
deprived of certain simple realities, such as the admiration of women,
the adulation of men, the admired publicity of his life, was ready to
feel the burden of sacrilegious guilt descend upon his shoulders.

Bareheaded, in a thin shirt and drawers, he felt the lingering warmth of
the fine sand under the soles of his feet. The narrow strand gleamed
far ahead in a long curve, defining the outline of this wild side of the
harbour. He flitted along the shore like a pursued shadow between the
sombre palm-groves and the sheet of water lying as still as death on his
right hand. He strode with headlong haste in the silence and solitude
as though he had forgotten all prudence and caution. But he knew that on
this side of the water he ran no risk of discovery. The only inhabitant
was a