Nostromo - A Tale of the Seaboard.pdf - Planet eBook

lackish-brown, of coppery-brown backs, as the two shifts,stripped to linen drawers and leather skull-caps, mingledtogether with a confusion of naked limbs, of shoulderedpicks, swinging lamps, in a great shuffle of sandalled feeton the open plateau before the entrance of the main tunnel.It was a time of pause. The Indian boys leaned idly againstthe long line of little cradle wagons standing empty; thescreeners and ore-breakers squatted on their heels smokinglong cigars; the great wooden shoots slanting over theedge of the tunnel plateau were silent; and only the ceaseless,violent rush of water in the open flumes could be heard,murmuring fiercely, with the splash and rumble of revolvingturbine-wheels, and the thudding march of the stampspounding to powder the treasure rock on the plateau below.The heads of gangs, distinguished by brass medals hangingon their bare breasts, marshalled their squads; and at lastthe mountain would swallow one-half of the silent crowd,while the other half would move off in long files down thezigzag paths leading to the bottom of the gorge. It was deep;and, far below, a thread of vegetation winding between theblazing rock faces resembled a slender green cord, in whichthree lumpy knots of banana patches, palm-leaf roots, andshady trees marked the Village One, Village Two, VillageThree, housing the miners of the Gould Concession.Whole families had been moving from the first towardsthe spot in the Higuerota range, whence the rumour of workand safety had spread over the pastoral Campo, forcing itsway also, even as the waters of a high flood, into the nooksand crannies of the distant blue walls of the Sierras. Father