Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
taken a great liking to the capataz. During all the passage round the coast the general kept Nostromo near his person, addressing him frequently in that abrupt and boisterous manner which was the sign of his high favor.
Nostromo's eyes were the first to catch, wide on the bow, the tiny, elusive dark speck which, alone with the forms of the three Isabels right ahead, appeared on the flat, shimmering emptiness of the gulf. There are times when no fact should be neglected as insignificant; a small boat so far from the land might have had some meaning worth finding out. At a nod of consent from Barrios the transport swept out of her course, passing near enough to ascertain that no one manned the little cockle-shell. It was merely a common small boat gone adrift with her oars in her. But Nostromo, to whose mind Decoud had been insistently present for days, had long before recognized with excitement the dinghy of the lighter.
There could be no question of stopping to pick up that thing. Every minute of time was momentous with the lives and future of a whole town. The head of the leading ship, with the general on board, fell off to her course. Behind her, the fleet of transports, scattered haphazard over a mile or so in the offing, like the finish of an ocean race, pressed on, all black and smoking on the western sky.
"Mi general," Nostromo's voice rang out, loud but quiet, from behind a group of officers, "I should like to save that little boat. For Dios, I know her. She belongs to my company."
"And, por Dios," guffawed Barrios, in a noisy, good-
548
