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

fetters were struck off by the light of a candle, which, aftermonths of gloom, hurt his eyes so much that he had tocover his face with his hands. He was raised up. His heartwas beating violently with the fear of this liberty. When hetried to walk the extraordinary lightness of his feet madehim giddy, and he fell down. Two sticks were thrust intohis hands, and he was pushed out of the passage. It wasdusk; candles glimmered already in the windows of the officers’quarters round the courtyard; but the twilight skydazed him by its enormous and overwhelming brilliance.A thin poncho hung over his naked, bony shoulders; therags of his trousers came down no lower than his knees; aneighteen months’ growth of hair fell in dirty grey locks oneach side of his sharp cheek-bones. As he dragged himselfpast the guard-room door, one of the soldiers, lolling outside,moved by some obscure impulse, leaped forward witha strange laugh and rammed a broken old straw hat on hishead. And Dr. Monygham, after having tottered, continuedon his way. He advanced one stick, then one maimedfoot, then the other stick; the other foot followed only a veryshort distance along the ground, toilfully, as though it werealmost too heavy to be moved at all; and yet his legs underthe hanging angles of the poncho appeared no thicker thanthe two sticks in his hands. A ceaseless trembling agitatedhis bent body, all his wasted limbs, his bony head, the conical,ragged crown of the sombrero, whose ample flat rimrested on his shoulders.In such conditions of manner and attire did Dr.Monygham go forth to take possession of his liberty. And