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

swift pasotrote, straight out of some green meadow at theother side of the world.His way would lie along the old Spanish road—the CaminoReal of popular speech—the only remaining vestige of afact and name left by that royalty old Giorgio Viola hated,and whose very shadow had departed from the land; for thebig equestrian statue of Charles IV at the entrance of theAlameda, towering white against the trees, was only knownto the folk from the country and to the beggars of the townthat slept on the steps around the pedestal, as the Horse ofStone. The other Carlos, turning off to the left with a rapidclatter of hoofs on the disjointed pavement —Don CarlosGould, in his English clothes, looked as incongruous, butmuch more at home than the kingly cavalier reining in hissteed on the pedestal above the sleeping leperos, with hismarble arm raised towards the marble rim of a plumed hat.The weather-stained effigy of the mounted king, with itsvague suggestion of a saluting gesture, seemed to present aninscrutable breast to the political changes which had robbedit of its very name; but neither did the other horseman, wellknown to the people, keen and alive on his well-shaped, slatecolouredbeast with a white eye, wear his heart on the sleeveof his English coat. His mind preserved its steady poise asif sheltered in the passionless stability of private and publicdecencies at home in Europe. He accepted with a like calmthe shocking manner in which the Sulaco ladies smotheredtheir faces with pearl powder till they looked like whiteplaster casts with beautiful living eyes, the peculiar gossipof the town, and the continuous political changes, the