Page 283 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

the table as if struck by a bullet. The next moment he sat up,
confused, with the idea that he had heard his pencil roll
on the floor. The low door of the cafe, wide open, was filled
with the glare of a torch in which was visible half of a horse,
switching its tail against the leg of a rider with a long iron
spur strapped to the naked heel. The two girls were gone,
and Nostromo, standing in the middle of the room, looked
at him from under the round brim of the sombrero low
down over his brow.
‘I have brought that sour-faced English doctor in Senora
Gould’s carriage,’ said Nostromo. ‘I doubt if, with all his
wisdom, he can save the Padrona this time. They have sent
for the children. A bad sign that.’
He sat down on the end of a bench. ‘She wants to give
them her blessing, I suppose.’
Dazedly Decoud observed that he must have fallen sound
asleep, and Nostromo said, with a vague smile, that he had
looked in at the window and had seen him lying still across
the table with his head on his arms. The English senora had
also come in the carriage, and went upstairs at once with
the doctor. She had told him not to wake up Don Martin
yet; but when they sent for the children he had come into
the cafe.
The half of the horse with its half of the rider swung
round outside the door; the torch of tow and resin in the
iron basket which was carried on a stick at the saddle-bow
flared right into the room for a moment, and Mrs. Gould
entered hastily with a very white, tired face. The hood of her
dark, blue cloak had fallen back. Both men rose.

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard