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

felt a box of matches under his fingers. He fancied he hadheard a quiet sigh. He listened for a moment, holding hisbreath; then, with trembling hands, tried to strike a light.The tiny piece of wood flamed up quite blindingly at theend of his fingers, raised above his blinking eyes. A concentratedglare fell upon the leonine white head of old Giorgioagainst the black fire-place—showed him leaning forwardin a chair in staring immobility, surrounded, overhung, bygreat masses of shadow, his legs crossed, his cheek in hishand, an empty pipe in the corner of his mouth. It seemedhours before he attempted to turn his face; at the very momentthe match went out, and he disappeared, overwhelmedby the shadows, as if the walls and roof of the desolate househad collapsed upon his white head in ghostly silence.Nostromo heard him stir and utter dispassionately thewords—‘It may have been a vision.’‘No,’ he said, softly. ‘It is no vision, old man.’A strong chest voice asked in the dark—‘Is that you I hear, Giovann’ Battista?’‘Si, viejo. Steady. Not so loud.’After his release by Sotillo, Giorgio Viola, attended to thevery door by the good-natured engineer-in-chief, had reenteredhis house, which he had been made to leave almost atthe very moment of his wife’s death. All was still. The lampabove was burning. He nearly called out to her by name;and the thought that no call from him would ever againevoke the answer of her voice, made him drop heavily intothe chair with a loud groan, wrung out by the pain as of a