Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART SECOND: THE ISABELS 7. CHAPTER SEVEN (continued)

"No, you needn't explain," said Decoud, a little listlessly. "I
can see it well enough myself, that the possession of this
treasure is very much like a deadly disease for men situated as
we are. But it had to be removed from Sulaco, and you were the
man for the task."

"I was; but I cannot believe," said Nostromo, "that its loss
would have impoverished Don Carlos Gould very much. There is more
wealth in the mountain. I have heard it rolling down the shoots
on quiet nights when I used to ride to Rincon to see a certain
girl, after my work at the harbour was done. For years the rich
rocks have been pouring down with a noise like thunder, and the
miners say that there is enough at the heart of the mountain to
thunder on for years and years to come. And yet, the day before
yesterday, we have been fighting to save it from the mob, and
to-night I am sent out with it into this darkness, where there is
no wind to get away with; as if it were the last lot of silver on
earth to get bread for the hungry with. Ha! ha! Well, I am going
to make it the most famous and desperate affair of my life--wind
or no wind. It shall be talked about when the little children are
grown up and the grown men are old. Aha! the Monterists must not
get hold of it, I am told, whatever happens to Nostromo the
Capataz; and they shall not have it, I tell you, since it has
been tied for safety round Nostromo's neck."

"I see it," murmured Decoud. He saw, indeed, that his companion
had his own peculiar view of this enterprise.

Nostromo interrupted his reflections upon the way men's qualities
are made use of, without any fundamental knowledge of their
nature, by the proposal they should slip the long oars out and
sweep the lighter in the direction of the Isabels. It wouldn't do
for daylight to reveal the treasure floating within a mile or so
of the harbour entrance. The denser the darkness generally, the
smarter were the puffs of wind on which he had reckoned to make
his way; but tonight the gulf, under its poncho of clouds,
remained breathless, as if dead rather than asleep.