Page 135 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

hair and short whiskers, he would mutter—
‘Ah, that! That, sir, was a mistake.’
The reception of the first consignment of San Tome
silver for shipment to San Francisco in one of the O.S.N.
Co.’s mail-boats had, of course, ‘marked an epoch’ for Cap-
tain Mitchell. The ingots packed in boxes of stiff ox-hide
with plaited handles, small enough to be carried easily by
two men, were brought down by the serenos of the mine
walking in careful couples along the half-mile or so of
steep, zigzag paths to the foot of the mountain. There they
would be loaded into a string of two-wheeled carts, resem-
bling roomy coffers with a door at the back, and harnessed
tandem with two mules each, waiting under the guard of
armed and mounted serenos. Don Pepe padlocked each
door in succession, and at the signal of his whistle the string
of carts would move off, closely surrounded by the clank of
spur and carbine, with jolts and cracking of whips, with a
sudden deep rumble over the boundary bridge (“into the
land of thieves and sanguinary macaques,’ Don Pepe de-
fined that crossing); hats bobbing in the first light of the
dawn, on the heads of cloaked figures; Winchesters on
hip; bridle hands protruding lean and brown from under
the falling folds of the ponchos. The convoy skirting a lit-
tle wood, along the mine trail, between the mud huts and
low walls of Rincon, increased its pace on the camino real,
mules urged to speed, escort galloping, Don Carlos riding
alone ahead of a dust storm affording a vague vision of long
ears of mules, of fluttering little green and white flags stuck
upon each cart; of raised arms in a mob of sombreros with

1 Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard