Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

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

The Capataz picked up the spade, and with the feel of the handle
in his palm the desire of having a look at the horse-hide boxes
of treasure came upon him suddenly. In a very few strokes he
uncovered the edges and corners of several; then, clearing away
more earth, became aware that one of them had been slashed with a
knife.

He exclaimed at that discovery in a stifled voice, and dropped on
his knees with a look of irrational apprehension over one
shoulder, then over the other. The stiff hide had closed, and he
hesitated before he pushed his hand through the long slit and
felt the ingots inside. There they were. One, two, three. Yes,
four gone. Taken away. Four ingots. But who? Decoud? Nobody
else. And why? For what purpose? For what cursed fancy? Let him
explain. Four ingots carried off in a boat, and--blood!

In the face of the open gulf, the sun, clear, unclouded,
unaltered, plunged into the waters in a grave and untroubled
mystery of self-immolation consummated far from all mortal eyes,
with an infinite majesty of silence and peace. Four ingots
short!--and blood!

The Capataz got up slowly.

"He might simply have cut his hand," he muttered. "But,
then----"

He sat down on the soft earth, unresisting, as if he had been
chained to the treasure, his drawn-up legs clasped in his hands
with an air of hopeless submission, like a slave set on guard.
Once only he lifted his head smartly: the rattle of hot musketry
fire had reached his ears, like pouring from on high a stream of
dry peas upon a drum. After listening for a while, he said, half
aloud--

"He will never come back to explain."

And he lowered his head again.

"Impossible!" he muttered, gloomily.

The sounds of firing died out. The loom of a great conflagration
in Sulaco flashed up red above the coast, played on the clouds at
the head of the gulf, seemed to touch with a ruddy and sinister
reflection the forms of the Three Isabels. He never saw it,
though he raised his head.