Page 185 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

CHAPTER FOUR

ERHAPS it was in the exercise of his calling that he had
Pcome to see the troops depart. The Porvenir of the day
after next would no doubt relate the event, but its editor,
leaning his side against the landau, seemed to look at noth-
ing. The front rank of the company of infantry drawn up
three deep across the shore end of the jetty when pressed
too close would bring their bayonets to the charge ferocious-
ly, with an awful rattle; and then the crowd of spectators
swayed back bodily, even under the noses of the big white
mules. Notwithstanding the great multitude there was only
a low, muttering noise; the dust hung in a brown haze, in
which the horsemen, wedged in the throng here and there,
towered from the hips upwards, gazing all one way over
the heads. Almost every one of them had mounted a friend,
who steadied himself with both hands grasping his shoul-
ders from behind; and the rims of their hats touching, made
like one disc sustaining the cones of two pointed crowns
with a double face underneath. A hoarse mozo would bawl
out something to an acquaintance in the ranks, or a wom-
an would shriek suddenly the word Adios! followed by the
Christian name of a man.
General Barrios, in a shabby blue tunic and white peg-
top trousers falling upon strange red boots, kept his head
uncovered and stooped slightly, propping himself up with a

1 Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard