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

the cathedral. Three single strokes, one after another, burstout explosively, dying away in deep and mellow vibrations.And then all the bells in the tower of every church, convent,or chapel in town, even those that had remained shut up foryears, pealed out together with a crash. In this furious floodof metallic uproar there was a power of suggesting imagesof strife and violence which blanched Mrs. Gould’s cheek.Basilio, who had been waiting at table, shrinking withinhimself, clung to the sideboard with chattering teeth. It wasimpossible to hear yourself speak.‘Shut these windows!’ Charles Gould yelled at him, angrily.All the other servants, terrified at what they took for thesignal of a general massacre, had rushed upstairs, tumblingover each other, men and women, the obscure and generallyinvisible population of the ground floor on the four sides ofthe patio. The women, screaming ‘Misericordia!’ ran rightinto the room, and, falling on their knees against the walls,began to cross themselves convulsively. The staring headsof men blocked the doorway in an instant—mozos from thestable, gardeners, nondescript helpers living on the crumbsof the munificent house—and Charles Gould beheld all theextent of his domestic establishment, even to the gatekeeper.This was a half-paralyzed old man, whose long whitelocks fell down to his shoulders: an heirloom taken up byCharles Gould’s familial piety. He could remember HenryGould, an Englishman and a Costaguanero of the secondgeneration, chief of the Sulaco province; he had been hispersonal mozo years and years ago in peace and war; hadbeen allowed to attend his master in prison; had, on the fa-