Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART SECOND: THE ISABELS 7. CHAPTER SEVEN (continued)

"Yes," said Decoud; "nobody can find us now."

A great recrudescence of obscurity embraced the boat. The sea in
the gulf was as black as the clouds above. Nostromo, after
striking a couple of matches to get a glimpse of the boat-compass
he had with him in the lighter, steered by the feel of the wind
on his cheek.

It was a new experience for Decoud, this mysteriousness of the
great waters spread out strangely smooth, as if their
restlessness had been crushed by the weight of that dense night.
The Placido was sleeping profoundly under its black poncho.

The main thing now for success was to get away from the coast and
gain the middle of the gulf before day broke. The Isabels were
somewhere at hand. "On your left as you look forward, senor,"
said Nostromo, suddenly. When his voice ceased, the enormous
stillness, without light or sound, seemed to affect Decoud's
senses like a powerful drug. He didn't even know at times whether
he were asleep or awake. Like a man lost in slumber, he heard
nothing, he saw nothing. Even his hand held before his face did
not exist for his eyes. The change from the agitation, the
passions and the dangers, from the sights and sounds of the
shore, was so complete that it would have resembled death had it
not been for the survival of his thoughts. In this foretaste of
eternal peace they floated vivid and light, like unearthly clear
dreams of earthly things that may haunt the souls freed by death
from the misty atmosphere of regrets and hopes. Decoud shook
himself, shuddered a bit, though the air that drifted past him
was warm. He had the strangest sensation of his soul having just
returned into his body from the circumambient darkness in which
land, sea, sky, the mountains, and the rocks were as if they had
not been.

Nostromo's voice was speaking, though he, at the tiller, was also
as if he were not. "Have you been asleep, Don Martin? Caramba! If
it were possible I would think that I, too, have dozed off. I
have a strange notion somehow of having dreamt that there was a
sound of blubbering, a sound a sorrowing man could make,
somewhere near this boat. Something between a sigh and a sob."