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

while the negro brakesmen sat carelessly on the brakes,looking straight forward, with the rims of their big hatsflapping in the wind. In return Giorgio would give a slightsideways jerk of the head, without unfolding his arms.On this memorable day of the riot his arms were notfolded on his chest. His hand grasped the barrel of the gungrounded on the threshold; he did not look up once at thewhite dome of Higuerota, whose cool purity seemed to holditself aloof from a hot earth. His eyes examined the plaincuriously. Tall trails of dust subsided here and there. In aspeckless sky the sun hung clear and blinding. Knots of menran headlong; others made a stand; and the irregular rattleof firearms came rippling to his ears in the fiery, still air.Single figures on foot raced desperately. Horsemen gallopedtowards each other, wheeled round together, separated atspeed. Giorgio saw one fall, rider and horse disappearingas if they had galloped into a chasm, and the movements ofthe animated scene were like the passages of a violent gameplayed upon the plain by dwarfs mounted and on foot, yellingwith tiny throats, under the mountain that seemed acolossal embodiment of silence. Never before had Giorgioseen this bit of plain so full of active life; his gaze could nottake in all its details at once; he shaded his eyes with hishand, till suddenly the thundering of many hoofs near bystartled him.A troop of horses had broken out of the fenced paddockof the Railway Company. They came on like a whirlwind,and dashed over the line snorting, kicking, squealing in acompact, piebald, tossing mob of bay, brown, grey backs,