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

the white gleam of ranging eyes; and Don Pepe, hardly visiblein the rear of that rattling dust trail, with a stiff seat andimpassive face, rising and falling rhythmically on an eweneckedsilver-bitted black brute with a hammer head.The sleepy people in the little clusters of huts, in thesmall ranches near the road, recognized by the headlongsound the charge of the San Tome silver escort towards thecrumbling wall of the city on the Campo side. They came tothe doors to see it dash by over ruts and stones, with a clatterand clank and cracking of whips, with the reckless rushand precise driving of a field battery hurrying into action,and the solitary English figure of the Senor Administradorriding far ahead in the lead.In the fenced roadside paddocks loose horses gallopedwildly for a while; the heavy cattle stood up breast deep inthe grass, lowing mutteringly at the flying noise; a meek Indianvillager would glance back once and hasten to shovehis loaded little donkey bodily against a wall, out of theway of the San Tome silver escort going to the sea; a smallknot of chilly leperos under the Stone Horse of the Alamedawould mutter: ‘Caramba!’ on seeing it take a wide curve ata gallop and dart into the empty Street of the Constitution;for it was considered the correct thing, the only proper styleby the mule-drivers of the San Tome mine to go throughthe waking town from end to end without a check in thespeed as if chased by a devil.The early sunshine glowed on the delicate primrose,pale pink, pale blue fronts of the big houses with all theirgates shut yet, and no face behind the iron bars of the win-