Page 136 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

the white gleam of ranging eyes; and Don Pepe, hardly vis-
ible in the rear of that rattling dust trail, with a stiff seat and
impassive face, rising and falling rhythmically on an ewe-
necked silver-bitted black brute with a hammer head.
The sleepy people in the little clusters of huts, in the
small ranches near the road, recognized by the headlong
sound the charge of the San Tome silver escort towards the
crumbling wall of the city on the Campo side. They came to
the doors to see it dash by over ruts and stones, with a clat-
ter and clank and cracking of whips, with the reckless rush
and precise driving of a field battery hurrying into action,
and the solitary English figure of the Senor Administrador
riding far ahead in the lead.
In the fenced roadside paddocks loose horses galloped
wildly for a while; the heavy cattle stood up breast deep in
the grass, lowing mutteringly at the flying noise; a meek In-
dian villager would glance back once and hasten to shove
his loaded little donkey bodily against a wall, out of the
way of the San Tome silver escort going to the sea; a small
knot of chilly leperos under the Stone Horse of the Alameda
would mutter: ‘Caramba!’ on seeing it take a wide curve at
a gallop and dart into the empty Street of the Constitution;
for it was considered the correct thing, the only proper style
by the mule-drivers of the San Tome mine to go through
the waking town from end to end without a check in the
speed as if chased by a devil.
The early sunshine glowed on the delicate primrose,
pale pink, pale blue fronts of the big houses with all their
gates shut yet, and no face behind the iron bars of the win-

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