Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART THIRD: THE LIGHTHOUSE 10. CHAPTER TEN (continued)

"Ha!" he murmured, with his head on his knees, under the livid
clouded dawn breaking over the liberated Sulaco and upon the gulf
as gray as ashes. "It is to her that he will fly. To her that he
will fly!"

And four ingots! Did he take them in revenge, to cast a spell,
like the angry woman who had prophesied remorse and failure, and
yet had laid upon him the task of saving the children? Well, he
had saved the children. He had defeated the spell of poverty and
starvation. He had done it all alone--or perhaps helped by the
devil. Who cared? He had done it, betrayed as he was, and saving
by the same stroke the San Tome mine, which appeared to him
hateful and immense, lording it by its vast wealth over the
valour, the toil, the fidelity of the poor, over war and peace,
over the labours of the town, the sea, and the Campo.

The sun lit up the sky behind the peaks of the Cordillera. The
Capataz looked down for a time upon the fall of loose earth,
stones, and smashed bushes, concealing the hiding-place of the
silver.

"I must grow rich very slowly," he meditated, aloud.