This word, recurring often, becomes a kind of catchphrase by which Nostromo expresses his condition to himself. On the surface he means that the Ribierists betrayed him by luring him into their service, then making no provision for his safety when things turned bad. (His view is somewhat in error, as he doesn't know that he could take safe refuge at the Goulds' house.) Allegorically, however, there is a level at which the People as a whole have been "betrayed" by their service to the vast dream-ideals of the rulers, which always claim to act for their benefit (the elevation of mankind) but which always leave them poor and forgotten. There is also a thematic level, at which anyone subscribing to a dream-ideal, like Nostromo's of reputation, is "betrayed" when the ideal proves to be an evanescent illusion.