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

the most distinguished Costaguaneros had been imprisonedand executed upon that accusation. The procedurehad dragged on for years, decimating the better class likea pestilence. The mere expression of sorrow for the fate ofexecuted kinsmen had been punished with death. Don JoseAvellanos was perhaps the only one living who knew thewhole story of those unspeakable cruelties. He had sufferedfrom them himself, and he, with a shrug of the shouldersand a nervous, jerky gesture of the arm, was wont to putaway from him, as it were, every allusion to it. But whateverthe reason, Dr. Monygham, a personage in the administrationof the Gould Concession, treated with reverent awe bythe miners, and indulged in his peculiarities by Mrs. Gould,remained somehow outside the pale.It was not from any liking for the doctor that the engineer-in-chiefhad lingered in the inn upon the plain. Heliked old Viola much better. He had come to look uponthe Albergo d’ltalia Una as a dependence of the railway.Many of his subordinates had their quarters there. Mrs.Gould’s interest in the family conferred upon it a sort ofdistinction. The engineer-in-chief, with an army of workersunder his orders, appreciated the moral influence of the oldGaribaldino upon his countrymen. His austere, old-worldRepublicanism had a severe, soldier-like standard of faithfulnessand duty, as if the world were a battlefield wheremen had to fight for the sake of universal love and brotherhood,instead of a more or less large share of booty.‘Poor old chap!’ he said, after he had heard the doctor’saccount of Teresa. ‘He’ll never be able to keep the place go-