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

shriek, and Decoud, from his back seat, had a view of thepeople behind the carriage trudging along the road outside,all turning their heads, in sombreros and rebozos, to look ata locomotive which rolled quickly out of sight behind GiorgioViola’s house, under a white trail of steam that seemedto vanish in the breathless, hysterically prolonged screamof warlike triumph. And it was all like a fleeting vision, theshrieking ghost of a railway engine fleeing across the frameof the archway, behind the startled movement of the peoplestreaming back from a military spectacle with silentfootsteps on the dust of the road. It was a material train returningfrom the Campo to the palisaded yards. The emptycars rolled lightly on the single track; there was no rumbleof wheels, no tremor of the ground. The engine-driver, runningpast the Casa Viola with the salute of an uplifted arm,checked his speed smartly before entering the yard; andwhen the ear-splitting screech of the steam-whistle for thebrakes had stopped, a series of hard, battering shocks, mingledwith the clanking of chain-couplings, made a tumultof blows and shaken fetters under the vault of the gate.