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

without a woman in an open shed, with a perpetual fire ofdry sticks smouldering near an old canoe lying bottom upon the beach. He could be easily avoided.The barking of the dogs about that man’s ranche wasthe first thing that checked his speed. He had forgottenthe dogs. He swerved sharply, and plunged into the palmgrove,as into a wilderness of columns in an immense hall,whose dense obscurity seemed to whisper and rustle faintlyhigh above his head. He traversed it, entered a ravine, andclimbed to the top of a steep ridge free of trees and bushes.From there, open and vague in the starlight, he saw theplain between the town and the harbour. In the woodsabove some night-bird made a strange drumming noise.Below beyond the palmaria on the beach, the Indian’s dogscontinued to bark uproariously. He wondered what had upsetthem so much, and, peering down from his elevation,was surprised to detect unaccountable movements of theground below, as if several oblong pieces of the plain hadbeen in motion. Those dark, shifting patches, alternatelycatching and eluding the eye, altered their place alwaysaway from the harbour, with a suggestion of consecutive orderand purpose. A light dawned upon him. It was a columnof infantry on a night march towards the higher brokencountry at the foot of the hills. But he was too much in thedark about everything for wonder and speculation.The plain had resumed its shadowy immobility. He descendedthe ridge and found himself in the open solitude,between the harbour and the town. Its spaciousness, extendedindefinitely by an effect of obscurity, rendered more