"
An exclamation escaped Decoud, and a short pause followed. "Shall I go
back with you to Sulaco?" he asked in an angry tone.
"Shall I strike you dead with my knife where you stand?" retorted
Nostromo, contemptuously. "It would be the same thing as taking you to
Sulaco. Come, senor. Your reputation is in your politics, and mine is
bound up with the fate of this silver. Do you wonder I wish there
had been no other man to share my knowledge? I wanted no one with me,
senor."
"You could not have kept the lighter afloat without me," Decoud almost
shouted. "You would have gone to the bottom with her."
"Yes," uttered Nostromo, slowly; "alone."
Here was a man, Decoud reflected, that seemed as though he would have
preferred to die rather than deface the perfect form of his egoism. Such
a man was safe. In silence he helped the Capataz to get the grapnel on
board. Nostromo cleared the shelving shore with one push of the heavy
oar, and Decoud found himself solitary on the beach like a man in a
dream. A sudden desire to hear a human voice once more seized upon his
heart.
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