advantage of. He had persuaded the body of carga-

dores to side with the Blancos against the rest of the !c; he had had interviews with Don Jose"; he had been made use of by Father Corbelan for negotiating with Hernandez; it was known that Don Martin De- coinl hail admitted htm to a sort of intimacy so that he [had been free of the offices of the Porrcnir. All these things had flattered him in the usual way. What did ire about their politics. Nothing at all. And at the end of it all, Nostromo here and Nostromo there, wlu-rr is Nostromo? Nostromo can do this and that; v<>rk all day and ride about at night behold! he found himself a marked Ribierist for any sort of ven- geance Gamacho, for instance, would choose to take, now the Montero party had, after all, mastered the town. The Europeans had given up; the cabal- ileros had given up. Don Martin had indeed ex- plained 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 al- 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 subjec- tiveness, exasperated almost to insajjjty, beheld all his i *r r world without faith and courage. IK- had been be- I -d!! 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