nable to see each other, kept silent till the lighter,
slipping before the fitful breeze, passed out between almost invisible
headlands into the still deeper darkness of the gulf. For a time the
lantern on the jetty shone after them. The wind failed, then fanned up
again, but so faintly that the big, half-decked boat slipped along with
no more noise than if she had been suspended in the air.

"We are out in the gulf now," said the calm voice of Nostromo. A moment
after he added, "Senor Mitchell has lowered the light."

"Yes," said Decoud; "nobody can find us now."

A great recrudescence of obscurity embraced the boat. The sea in the
gulf was as black as the clouds above. Nostromo, after striking a couple
of matches to get a glimpse of the boat-compass he had with him in the
lighter, steered by the feel of the wind on his cheek.

It was a new experience for Decoud, this mysteriousness of the great
waters spread out strangely smooth, as if their restlessness had been
crushed by the weight of that dense night. The Placido was sleeping
profoundly under its black poncho.

The main thing now for success was to get away from the coast and gain
the middle of the gulf before day broke. The Isabels were somewhere
at hand. "On your left as you look forward, senor," said Nostromo,
suddenly. When his voice ceased, the enormous stillness, without light
or sound, seemed to affect Decoud's senses like a powerful drug. He
didn't even know at times whether he were asleep or awake. Like a man
lost in slumber, he heard nothing, he saw nothing. Even his hand
held before his face did not exist for his eyes. The change from the
agitation, the passions and the dangers, from the sights and sounds of
the shore, was so complete that it would have resembled death had it
not been for the survival of his thoughts. In this foretaste of eternal
peace they floated vivid and light, like unearthly clear dreams of
earthly things that may haunt the souls freed by death from the misty
atmosphere of regrets and hopes. Decoud shook himself, shuddered a bit,
though the air that drifted past him was warm. He had the strangest
sensation of his soul having just returned into his body from the
circumambient darkness in which land, sea, sky, the mountains, and the
rocks were as if they had not been.

Nostromo's voice was speaking, though he, at the tiller, was also as
if he were not. "Have you been asleep, Don Martin? Caramba! If it were
possible I would thin