Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

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

The Capataz seized hold of the stern and blew with force. A
queer, faint feeling had come over him while he swam. He had got
rid of his boots and coat in the water. He hung on for a time,
regaining his breath. In the distance the transports, more in a
bunch now, held on straight for Sulaco, with their air of
friendly contest, of nautical sport, of a regatta; and the united
smoke of their funnels drove like a thin, sulphurous fogbank
right over his head. It was his daring, his courage, his act that
had set these ships in motion upon the sea, hurrying on to save
the lives and fortunes of the Blancos, the taskmasters of the
people; to save the San Tome mine; to save the children.

With a vigorous and skilful effort he clambered over the stern.
The very boat! No doubt of it; no doubt whatever. It was the
dinghy of the lighter No. 3--the dinghy left with Martin Decoud
on the Great Isabel so that he should have some means to help
himself if nothing could be done for him from the shore. And here
she had come out to meet him empty and inexplicable. What had
become of Decoud? The Capataz made a minute examination. He
looked for some scratch, for some mark, for some sign. All he
discovered was a brown stain on the gunwale abreast of the
thwart. He bent his face over it and rubbed hard with his finger.
Then he sat down in the stern sheets, passive, with his knees
close together and legs aslant.

Streaming from head to foot, with his hair and whiskers hanging
lank and dripping and a lustreless stare fixed upon the bottom
boards, the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores resembled a drowned
corpse come up from the bottom to idle away the sunset hour in a
small boat. The excitement of his adventurous ride, the
excitement of the return in time, of achievement, of success, all
this excitement centred round the associated ideas of the great
treasure and of the only other man who knew of its existence, had
departed from him. To the very last moment he had been
cudgelling his brains as to how he could manage to visit the
Great Isabel without loss of time and undetected. For the idea of
secrecy had come to be connected with the treasure so closely
that even to Barrios himself he had refrained from mentioning the
existence of Decoud and of the silver on the island. The letters
he carried to the General, however, made brief mention of the
loss of the lighter, as having its bearing upon the situation in
Sulaco. In the circumstances, the one-eyed tiger-slayer, scenting
battle from afar, had not wasted his time in making inquiries
from the messenger. In fact, Barrios, talking with Nostromo,
assumed that both Don Martin Decoud and the ingots of San Tome
were lost together, and Nostromo, not questioned directly, had
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.