Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
advantage of. He had persuaded the body of cargadores to side with the Blancos against the rest of the !c; he had had interviews with Don José; he had been made use of by Father Corbelan for negotiating with Hernandez; it was known that Don Martin Decoud had admitted him to a sort of intimacy so that he had been free of the offices of the Porvenir. All these things had flattered him in the usual way. What did he care about their politics. Nothing at all. And at the end of it all, Nostromo here and Nostromo there, where is Nostromo? Nostromo can do this and that; work all day and ride about at night—behold! he found himself a marked Ribierist for any sort of vengeance Gamacho, for instance, would choose to take, now the Montero party had, after all, mastered the town. The Europeans had given up; the cabalileros had given up. Don Martin had indeed explained it was only temporary; that he was going to bring Barrios to the rescue. Where was that now—with Don Martin (whose ironic manner of talk had always made the capataz feel vaguely uneasy) stranded on the Great Isabel. Everybody had given up Even Don Carlos had given up. The hurried removal of the treasure out to sea meant nothing else than that. The capataz de cargadores, in a revulsion of subjectiveness, exasperated almost to insanity, beheld all his world without faith and courage. He had been betrayed!
With the boundless shadows of the sea behind him. out of his silence and immobility, facing the lofty shapes of the lower peaks crowded around the white, misty sheen of Higuerota, Nostromo laughed aloud
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