Page 192 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

The carriage rolled noiselessly on the soft track, the shad-
ows fell long on the dusty little plain interspersed with dark
bushes, mounds of turned-up earth, low wooden buildings
with iron roofs of the Railway Company; the sparse row of
telegraph poles strode obliquely clear of the town, bearing a
single, almost invisible wire far into the great campo—like
a slender, vibrating feeler of that progress waiting outside
for a moment of peace to enter and twine itself about the
weary heart of the land.
The cafe window of the Albergo d’ltalia Una was full of
sunburnt, whiskered faces of railway men. But at the other
end of the house, the end of the Signori Inglesi, old Gior-
gio, at the door with one of his girls on each side, bared his
bushy head, as white as the snows of Higuerota. Mrs. Gould
stopped the carriage. She seldom failed to speak to her pro-
tege; moreover, the excitement, the heat, and the dust had
made her thirsty. She asked for a glass of water. Giorgio sent
the children indoors for it, and approached with pleasure
expressed in his whole rugged countenance. It was not of-
ten that he had occasion to see his benefactress, who was
also an Englishwoman—another title to his regard. He of-
fered some excuses for his wife. It was a bad day with her;
her oppressions—he tapped his own broad chest. She could
not move from her chair that day.
Decoud, ensconced in the corner of his seat, observed
gloomily Mrs. Gould’s old revolutionist, then, offhand—
‘Well, and what do you think of it all, Garibaldino?’
Old Giorgio, looking at him with some curiosity, said
civilly that the troops had marched very well. One-eyed

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