Page 407 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

CHAPTER FOUR

HARLES GOULD turned towards the town. Before
Chim the jagged peaks of the Sierra came out all black
in the clear dawn. Here and there a muffled lepero whisked
round the corner of a grass-grown street before the ring-
ing hoofs of his horse. Dogs barked behind the walls of the
gardens; and with the colourless light the chill of the snows
seemed to fall from the mountains upon the disjointed
pavements and the shuttered houses with broken cornices
and the plaster peeling in patches between the flat pilasters
of the fronts. The daybreak struggled with the gloom under
the arcades on the Plaza, with no signs of country people
disposing their goods for the day’s market, piles of fruit,
bundles of vegetables ornamented with flowers, on low
benches under enormous mat umbrellas; with no cheery
early morning bustle of villagers, women, children, and
loaded donkeys. Only a few scattered knots of revolution-
ists stood in the vast space, all looking one way from under
their slouched hats for some sign of news from Rincon.
The largest of those groups turned about like one man as
Charles Gould passed, and shouted, ‘Viva la libertad!’ after
him in a menacing tone.
Charles Gould rode on, and turned into the archway of
his house. In the patio littered with straw, a practicante, one
of Dr. Monygham’s native assistants, sat on the ground with

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