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

der his white moustache, and his eyes began to roll fiercely.Several bullets struck the end of the wall together; piecesof plaster could be heard falling outside; a voice screamed‘Here they come!’ and after a moment of uneasy silencethere was a rush of running feet along the front.Then the tension of old Giorgio’s attitude relaxed, and asmile of contemptuous relief came upon his lips of an oldfighter with a leonine face. These were not a people strivingfor justice, but thieves. Even to defend his life againstthem was a sort of degradation for a man who had been oneof Garibaldi’s immortal thousand in the conquest of Sicily.He had an immense scorn for this outbreak of scoundrelsand leperos, who did not know the meaning of the word‘liberty.’He grounded his old gun, and, turning his head, glancedat the coloured lithograph of Garibaldi in a black frame onthe white wall; a thread of strong sunshine cut it perpendicularly.His eyes, accustomed to the luminous twilight, madeout the high colouring of the face, the red of the shirt, theoutlines of the square shoulders, the black patch of the Bersaglierehat with cock’s feathers curling over the crown. Animmortal hero! This was your liberty; it gave you not onlylife, but immortality as well!For that one man his fanaticism had suffered no diminution.In the moment of relief from the apprehension ofthe greatest danger, perhaps, his family had been exposedto in all their wanderings, he had turned to the picture ofhis old chief, first and only, then laid his hand on his wife’sshoulder.