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 self without money after a run of bad luck at monte in the low, smoky room of Domingo's posada, where the fraternity of cargadores gambled, sang, and danced of an evening; to remain with empty pockets after a burst of public generosity to some peyne d'oro girl or other (for whom he did not care), had none of the humiliation of destitution. He remained rich in glory and reputation. But since it was no longer possible for him to parade the streets of the town and be hailed with respect in the usual haunts of his leisure, this sailor felt himself destitute indeed.

His mouth was dry. It was dry with heavy sleep and extremely anxious thinking as it had never been dry before. It may be said that Nostromo tasted the dust and ashes of the fruit of life into which he had bitten deeply in his hunger for praise. Without removing his head from between his fists he tried to spit before him—"Tfui"—and muttered a curse upon the selfishness of all the rich people.

In this harbor, at the foot of immense mountains that outlined their peaks among the kindled swarm of stars; on this smooth, half-wild sheet of black water, serene in its loneliness, whose future of crowded prosperity was being settled not so much by the industry as by the fears, necessities and crimes of men short-sighted in good and evil, the two solitary foreign ships had hoisted their riding-lights, according to rule. But Nostromo gave no second look to the harbor. Those two ships were present enough to his mind. Either would have been a refuge. It would have been no feat for him to swim off to them. One of them was an Italian bark which had brought a cargo