, but he paid all the price
back within the next three years. Business was booming all along this
seaboard, sir. Moreover, that man always succeeded in everything
except in saving the silver. Poor Dona Antonia, fresh from her terrible
experiences in the woods of Los Hatos, had an interview with him, too.
Wanted to hear about Decoud: what they said, what they did, what they
thought up to the last on that fatal night. Mrs. Gould told me his
manner was perfect for quietness and sympathy. Miss Avellanos burst into
tears only when he told her how Decoud had happened to say that his plan
would be a glorious success. . . . And there's no doubt, sir, that it
is. It is a success."

The cycle was about to close at last. And while the privileged
passenger, shivering with the pleasant anticipations of his berth,
forgot to ask himself, "What on earth Decoud's plan could be?" Captain
Mitchell was saying, "Sorry we must part so soon. Your intelligent
interest made this a pleasant day to me. I shall see you now on board.
You had a glimpse of the 'Treasure House of the World.' A very good name
that." And the coxswain's voice at the door, announcing that the gig was
ready, closed the cycle.

Nostromo had, indeed, found the lighter's boat, which he had left on
the Great Isabel with Decoud, floating empty far out in the gulf. He was
then on the bridge of the first of Barrios's transports, and within an
hour's steaming from Sulaco. Barrios, always delighted with a feat of
daring and a good judge of courage, had taken a great liking to the
Capataz. During the passage round the coast the General kept Nostromo
near his person, addressing him frequently in that abrupt and boisterous
manner which was the sign of his high favour.

Nostromo's eyes were the first to catch, broad on the bow, the tiny,
elusive dark speck, which, alone with the forms of the Three Isabels
right ahead, appeared on the flat, shimmering emptiness of the gulf.
There are times when no fact should be neglected as insignificant;
a small boat so far from the land might have had some meaning worth
finding out. At a nod of consent from Barrios the transport swept out
of her course, passing near enough to ascertain that no one manned the
little cockle-shell. It was merely a common small boat gone adrift with
her oars in her. But Nostromo, to whose mind Decoud had been insistently
present for days, had long before recognized with excitement the dinghy
of the lighter.

There c