Nostromo - A Tale of the Seaboard.pdf - Planet eBook

without loss of time and undetected. For the idea of secrecyhad come to be connected with the treasure so closely thateven to Barrios himself he had refrained from mentioningthe existence of Decoud and of the silver on the island. Theletters he carried to the General, however, made brief mentionof the loss of the lighter, as having its bearing uponthe situation in Sulaco. In the circumstances, the one-eyedtiger-slayer, scenting battle from afar, had not wasted histime in making inquiries from the messenger. In fact, Barrios,talking with Nostromo, assumed that both Don MartinDecoud and the ingots of San Tome were lost together, andNostromo, not questioned directly, had kept silent, underthe influence of some indefinable form of resentment anddistrust. Let Don Martin speak of everything with his ownlips—was what he told himself mentally.And now, with the means of gaining the Great Isabelthrown thus in his way at the earliest possible moment,his excitement had departed, as when the soul takes flightleaving the body inert upon an earth it knows no more.Nostromo did not seem to know the gulf. For a long timeeven his eyelids did not flutter once upon the glazed emptinessof 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 outcastsoul, a quiet, brooding soul, finding that untenanted bodyin its way, had come in stealthily to take possession.The Capataz frowned: and in the immense stillness ofsea, islands, and coast, of cloud forms on the sky and trails