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cacao, one that bore a golden-coloured fruit worth more than gold itself. The land was there waiting for those who would come and take it; it belonged to no one as yet. It would be his who should have the courage to plunge into the wilderness, clear the forest, plant cacao, millet, and manihot, and live for a few years on meal and wild game until the cacao began to bear fruit. Then there would be riches, more money than a man could spend, a house in the city, cigars, fine leather boots.
    From time to time, on the other hand, there would come word of someone who had died from a bullet or a snake-bite, who had been stabbed in a row in town or shot and killed from ambush. But what was a mere life when so much wealth was to be had? In Antonio Victor’s home town, life had been poverty-stricken and had held no hope for the future. The men, almost all of them, would leave, few to return. But those who did come back—for a brief visit, always—came back unreconciled to the life there after all the years of absence. For they came back rich, with rings on their fingers, gold watches, pearls in their neckties. They spent money right and left, threw it away on presents for their relatives, gifts for the churches and their patron saints, and donations for the feast-days at the end of the year. “He’s come back rich,” was all that you would hear about town. And every man who had come back only to leave again because he could no longer accustom himself to the tranquil life of the place was one more invitation to Antonio Victor. Ivone was the only thing that held him there. Her lips, the warmth of her breasts, the entreaty of her voice, her pleading eyes. But one day he had broken with it all and had gone away, leaving Ivone sobbing on the bridge where they had said good-bye.
    â€œI’ll be a rich man in a year,” he had promised her, “and then I’ll come for you.”
    The moon of Estancia was over the ship now, but it was no longer the golden moon that had bathed the lovers on the bridge. This was a red moon, and there was an old man who said that no one ever came back from the land of cacao.
    Antonio Victor had a feeling he had never experienced before. Could it be fear? Could it be homesickness? He himself did not know what it was. That moon brought back Ivone’s lips, pleading with him not to go away; her eyes, filled with tears that night they had said good-bye. There had been no moon that night; there had been no one on the bridge fishing. It had been dark, with the river murmuring down below, as she met him there, her body warm-glowing, her face wet with tears.
    â€œYou have made up your mind to go?” There was a long minute of silence, a gloomy silence. “You will never come back.”
    â€œI swear I will.”
    She had shaken her head by way of negation; and then, afterwards, she had lain down on the river bank and had called to him. She had let him possess her without saying a word, without so much as a moan. When it was over, she had lowered her calico dress, its faded flowers stained now with blood, had covered her face with her hand, and had said to him in a broken voice:
    â€œYou will never come back. Another would have had me one of these days, and it is better that it be you. That way you will know how much I care for you.”
    â€œI swear I’ll come back.”
    â€œYou will never come back.”
    Despite the pleasure that her body gave him, he was deeply moved at having possessed her in this manner and by the thought that he was leaving a child behind him. He told himself that he was going to make money for her and for the child, and that he would be back within a year. Land was easily had in Ilhéos; he would plant cacao, would harvest the fruit, and then would come back for Ivone and the young one. True, her father had not returned and no one knew where he was. And here was an old man saying that no one ever came back from that country, not