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

He nodded serenely. ‘Bueno,’ he said. ‘There is no answer.’Then, in his quiet, kindly way, he engaged in a cautiousconversation with the man, who was willing to talk cheerily,as if something lucky had happened to him recently. Hehad seen from a distance Sotillo’s infantry camped alongthe shore of the harbour on each side of the Custom House.They had done no damage to the buildings. The foreignersof the railway remained shut up within the yards. They wereno longer anxious to shoot poor people. He cursed the foreigners;then he reported Montero’s entry and the rumoursof the town. The poor were going to be made rich now. Thatwas very good. More he did not know, and, breaking intopropitiatory smiles, he intimated that he was hungry andthirsty. The old major directed him to go to the alcalde ofthe first village. The man rode off, and Don Pepe, stridingslowly in the direction of a little wooden belfry, looked overa hedge into a little garden, and saw Father Roman sitting ina white hammock slung between two orange trees in frontof the presbytery.An enormous tamarind shaded with its dark foliage thewhole white framehouse. A young Indian girl with longhair, big eyes, and small hands and feet, carried out a woodenchair, while a thin old woman, crabbed and vigilant,watched her all the time from the verandah.Don Pepe sat down in the chair and lighted a cigar; thepriest drew in an immense quantity of snuff out of the hollowof his palm. On his reddish-brown face, worn, hollowedas if crumbled, the eyes, fresh and candid, sparkled like twoblack diamonds.