Page 428 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

the cathedral. Three single strokes, one after another, burst
out explosively, dying away in deep and mellow vibrations.
And then all the bells in the tower of every church, convent,
or chapel in town, even those that had remained shut up for
years, pealed out together with a crash. In this furious flood
of metallic uproar there was a power of suggesting images
of strife and violence which blanched Mrs. Gould’s cheek.
Basilio, who had been waiting at table, shrinking within
himself, clung to the sideboard with chattering teeth. It was
impossible to hear yourself speak.
‘Shut these windows!’ Charles Gould yelled at him, angri-
ly. All the other servants, terrified at what they took for the
signal of a general massacre, had rushed upstairs, tumbling
over each other, men and women, the obscure and generally
invisible population of the ground floor on the four sides of
the patio. The women, screaming ‘Misericordia!’ ran right
into the room, and, falling on their knees against the walls,
began to cross themselves convulsively. The staring heads
of men blocked the doorway in an instant—mozos from the
stable, gardeners, nondescript helpers living on the crumbs
of the munificent house—and Charles Gould beheld all the
extent of his domestic establishment, even to the gatekeep-
er. This was a half-paralyzed old man, whose long white
locks fell down to his shoulders: an heirloom taken up by
Charles Gould’s familial piety. He could remember Henry
Gould, an Englishman and a Costaguanero of the second
generation, chief of the Sulaco province; he had been his
personal mozo years and years ago in peace and war; had
been allowed to attend his master in prison; had, on the fa-