Page 125 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

Tome mine should think earnestly of everlasting punish-
ment instead of inquiring into the magnitude of the earth,
with its countries and populations altogether beyond your
understanding.’
With a ‘Good-night, Padre,’ ‘Good-night, Don Pepe,’ the
Gobernador would go off, holding up his sabre against his
side, his body bent forward, with a long, plodding stride in
the dark. The jocularity proper to an innocent card game
for a few cigars or a bundle of yerba was replaced at once by
the stern duty mood of an officer setting out to visit the out-
posts of an encamped army. One loud blast of the whistle
that hung from his neck provoked instantly a great shrilling
of responding whistles, mingled with the barking of dogs,
that would calm down slowly at last, away up at the head
of the gorge; and in the stillness two serenos, on guard by
the bridge, would appear walking noiselessly towards him.
On one side of the road a long frame building—the store—
would be closed and barricaded from end to end; facing it
another white frame house, still longer, and with a veran-
dah—the hospital—would have lights in the two windows
of Dr. Monygham’s quarters. Even the delicate foliage of a
clump of pepper trees did not stir, so breathless would be
the darkness warmed by the radiation of the over-heated
rocks. Don Pepe would stand still for a moment with the
two motionless serenos before him, and, abruptly, high
up on the sheer face of the mountain, dotted with single
torches, like drops of fire fallen from the two great blaz-
ing clusters of lights above, the ore shoots would begin to
rattle. The great clattering, shuffling noise, gathering speed

1 Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard