e liked
to keep it. The other listened attentively, but made no response.

When the carriage moved on he took off his hat again, a grey sombrero
with a silver cord and tassels. The bright colours of a Mexican serape
twisted on the cantle, the enormous silver buttons on the embroidered
leather jacket, the row of tiny silver buttons down the seam of the
trousers, the snowy linen, a silk sash with embroidered ends, the silver
plates on headstall and saddle, proclaimed the unapproachable style of
the famous Capataz de Cargadores--a Mediterranean sailor--got up with
more finished splendour than any well-to-do young ranchero of the Campo
had ever displayed on a high holiday.

"It is a great thing for me," murmured old Giorgio, still thinking of
the house, for now he had grown weary of change. "The signora just said
a word to the Englishman."

"The old Englishman who has enough money to pay for a railway? He is
going off in an hour," remarked Nostromo, carelessly. "_Buon viaggio_,
then. I've guarded his bones all the way from the Entrada pass down to
the plain and into Sulaco, as though he had been my own father."

Old Giorgio only moved his head sideways absently. Nostromo pointed
after the Goulds' carriage, nearing the grass-grown gate in the old town
wall that was like a wall of matted jungle.

"And I have sat alone at night with my revolver in the Company's
warehouse time and again by the side of that other Englishman's heap of
silver, guarding it as though it had been my own."

Viola seemed lost in thought. "It is a great thing for me," he repeated
again, as if to himself.

"It is," agreed the magnificent Capataz de Cargadores, calmly. "Listen,
Vecchio--go in and bring me, out a cigar, but don't look for it in my
room. There's nothing there."

Viola stepped into the cafe and came out directly, still absorbed in his
idea, and tendered him a cigar, mumbling thoughtfully in his moustache,
"Children growing up--and girls, too! Girls!" He sighed and fell silent.

"What, only one?" remarked Nostromo, looking down with a sort of comic
inquisitiveness at the unconscious old man. "No matter," he added, with
lofty negligence; "one is enough till another is wanted."

He lit it and let the match drop from his passive fingers. Giorgio Viola
looked up, and said abruptly--

"My son would have been just such a fine young man as you, Gian'
Battista, if he had lived."

"What? Your son? But you are right, padrone. If he had be