Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
motion. Those dark, shifting patches, alternately catching and eluding the eye, altered their place always away from the harbor with a suggestion of consecutive order and purpose. A light dawned upon him. It was a column of infantry on a night march towards the higher broken country at the foot of the hills. But he was too much in the dark about everything for wonder and speculation.
The plain had resumed its shadowy immobility. He descended the ridge, and found himself in the open solitude between the harbor and the town. Its spaciousness, extended indefinitely by an effect of obscurity, rendered more sensible his profound isolation. His pace became slower. No one waited for him; no one thought of him; no one expected or wished his return. " Betrayed! Betrayed!" he muttered to himself. No one cared. He might have been drowned by this time. No one would have cared unless, perhaps, the children, he thought to himself. But they were with the English signora, and not thinking of him at all.
He wavered in his purpose of making straight for the Casa Viola. To what end? What could he expect there? His life seemed to fail him in all its details, even to the scornful reproaches of Teresa. He was aware painfully of his reluctance. Was it that remorse which she had prophesied with what he saw now was her last breath?
Meantime he had deviated from the straight course, inclining by a sort of instinct to the left, towards the jetty and the harbor, the scene of his daily labors. The great length of the custom-house loomed up all
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