Page 230 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

confirmatory word, a grunt of assent, a simple nod even.
He could get nothing. His alarm increased, and in the
pauses he would dart his eyes here and there; then, loth
to give up, he would branch off into feeling allusion to the
dangers of his journey. The audacious Hernandez, leaving
his usual haunts, had crossed the Campo of Sulaco, and
was known to be lurking in the ravines of the coast range.
Yesterday, when distant only a few hours from Sulaco, the
hide merchant and his servants had seen three men on
the road arrested suspiciously, with their horses’ heads to-
gether. Two of these rode off at once and disappeared in a
shallow quebrada to the left. ‘We stopped,’ continued the
man from Esmeralda, ‘and I tried to hide behind a small
bush. But none of my mozos would go forward to find out
what it meant, and the third horseman seemed to be wait-
ing for us to come up. It was no use. We had been seen. So
we rode slowly on, trembling. He let us pass—a man on a
grey horse with his hat down on his eyes—without a word
of greeting; but by-and-by we heard him galloping after us.
We faced about, but that did not seem to intimidate him. He
rode up at speed, and touching my foot with the toe of his
boot, asked me for a cigar, with a blood-curdling laugh. He
did not seem armed, but when he put his hand back to reach
for the matches I saw an enormous revolver strapped to his
waist. I shuddered. He had very fierce whiskers, Don Car-
los, and as he did not offer to go on we dared not move. At
last, blowing the smoke of my cigar into the air through his
nostrils, he said, ‘Senor, it would be perhaps better for you
if I rode behind your party. You are not very far from Su-