able attitude of Charles, Mrs. Gould's face so blanched
with anxiety and fatigue that her eyes seemed to have changed colour,
appearing nearly black by contrast. Even whole sentences of the
proclamation which he meant to make Barrios issue from his headquarters
at Cayta as soon as he got there passed through his mind; the very germ
of the new State, the Separationist proclamation which he had tried
before he left to read hurriedly to Don Jose, stretched out on his
bed under the fixed gaze of his daughter. God knows whether the
old statesman had understood it; he was unable to speak, but he had
certainly lifted his arm off the coverlet; his hand had moved as if
to make the sign of the cross in the air, a gesture of blessing, of
consent. Decoud had that very draft in his pocket, written in pencil
on several loose sheets of paper, with the heavily-printed heading,
"Administration of the San Tome Silver Mine. Sulaco. Republic of
Costaguana." He had written it furiously, snatching page after page
on Charles Gould's table. Mrs. Gould had looked several times over
his shoulder as he wrote; but the Senor Administrador, standing
straddle-legged, would not even glance at it when it was finished. He
had waved it away firmly. It must have been scorn, and not caution,
since he never made a remark about the use of the Administration's paper
for such a compromising document. And that showed his disdain, the true
English disdain of common prudence, as if everything outside the range
of their own thoughts and feelings were unworthy of serious recognition.
Decoud had the time in a second or two to become furiously angry with
Charles Gould, and even resentful against Mrs. Gould, in whose care,
tacitly it is true, he had left the safety of Antonia. Better perish a
thousand times than owe your preservation to such people, he exclaimed
mentally. The grip of Nostromo's fingers never removed from his
shoulder, tightening fiercely, recalled him to himself.

"The darkness is our friend," the Capataz murmured into his ear. "I am
going to lower the sail, and trust our escape to this black gulf. No
eyes could make us out lying silent with a naked mast. I will do it
now, before this steamer closes still more upon us. The faint creak of a
block would betray us and the San Tome treasure into the hands of those
thieves."

He moved about as warily as a cat. Decoud heard no sound; and it was
only by the disappearance of the square blotch of darkness tha