d kept
silent, under the influence of some indefinable form of resentment and
distrust. Let Don Martin speak of everything with his own lips--was what
he told himself mentally.

And now, with the means of gaining the Great Isabel thrown thus in his
way at the earliest possible moment, his excitement had departed, as
when the soul takes flight leaving the body inert upon an earth it knows
no more. Nostromo did not seem to know the gulf. For a long time even
his eyelids did not flutter once upon the glazed emptiness of his stare.
Then slowly, without a limb having stirred, without a twitch of muscle
or quiver of an eyelash, an expression, a living expression came upon
the still features, deep thought crept into the empty stare--as if an
outcast soul, a quiet, brooding soul, finding that untenanted body in
its way, had come in stealthily to take possession.

The Capataz frowned: and in the immense stillness of sea, islands, and
coast, of cloud forms on the sky and trails of light upon the water, the
knitting of that brow had the emphasis of a powerful gesture. Nothing
else budged for a long time; then the Capataz shook his head and again
surrendered himself to the universal repose of all visible things.
Suddenly he seized the oars, and with one movement made the dinghy spin
round, head-on to the Great Isabel. But before he began to pull he bent
once more over the brown stain on the gunwale.

"I know that thing," he muttered to himself, with a sagacious jerk of
the head. "That's blood."

His stroke was long, vigorous, and steady. Now and then he looked
over his shoulder at the Great Isabel, presenting its low cliff to his
anxious gaze like an impenetrable face. At last the stem touched the
strand. He flung rather than dragged the boat up the little beach. At
once, turning his back upon the sunset, he plunged with long strides
into the ravine, making the water of the stream spurt and fly upwards at
every step, as if spurning its shallow, clear, murmuring spirit with his
feet. He wanted to save every moment of daylight.

A mass of earth, grass, and smashed bushes had fallen down very
naturally from above upon the cavity under the leaning tree. Decoud had
attended to the concealment of the silver as instructed, using the spade
with some intelligence. But Nostromo's half-smile of approval changed
into a scornful curl of the lip by the sight of the spade itself flung
there in full view, as if in utter carelessness or sudden