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Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard 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 is 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 that he knew the yard had come down, lowered as carefully as if it had been made of glass. Next moment he heard Nostromo's quiet breathing by his side.

"You had better not move at all from where you are, Don Martin," advised the capataz, earnestly. "You might stumble or displace something which would make a noise. The sweeps and the punting- poles are lying about. Move not for your life. . . . For Dios, Don Martin," he went on, in a keen but friendly whisper, "I am so desperate that if I didn't know your worship to be a man of courage, capable of standing stock-still whatever happens, I would drive my knife into your heart."

A death-like stillness surrounded the lighter. It was difficult to believe that there was near a steamer full of men, with many pairs of eyes peering from her bridge for some hint of land in the night. Her steam had ceased blowing off and she remained stopped, too far off, apparently, for any other sound to reach the lighter.