Page 403 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

apprehensively. Three women—of whom one was carrying
a child—and a couple of men in civilian dress—one armed
with a sabre and another with a gun—were grouped about
a donkey carrying two bundles tied up in blankets. Further
on Ignacio shouted again to pass a carreta, a long wooden
box on two high wheels, with the door at the back swing-
ing open. Some ladies in it must have recognized the white
mules, because they screamed out, ‘Is it you, Dona Emilia?’
At the turn of the road the glare of a big fire filled the
short stretch vaulted over by the branches meeting over-
head. Near the ford of a shallow stream a roadside rancho
of woven rushes and a roof of grass had been set on fire by
accident, and the flames, roaring viciously, lit up an open
space blocked with horses, mules, and a distracted, shout-
ing crowd of people. When Ignacio pulled up, several ladies
on foot assailed the carriage, begging Antonia for a seat. To
their clamour she answered by pointing silently to her fa-
ther.
‘I must leave you here,’ said Charles Gould, in the up-
roar. The flames leaped up sky-high, and in the recoil from
the scorching heat across the road the stream of fugitives
pressed against the carriage. A middle-aged lady dressed
in black silk, but with a coarse manta over her head and a
rough branch for a stick in her hand, staggered against the
front wheel. Two young girls, frightened and silent, were
clinging to her arms. Charles Gould knew her very well.
‘Misericordia! We are getting terribly bruised in this
crowd!’ she exclaimed, smiling up courageously to him.
‘We have started on foot. All our servants ran away yester-

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