Page 429 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

tal morning, followed the firing squad; and, peeping from
behind one of the cypresses growing along the wall of the
Franciscan Convent, had seen, with his eyes starting out of
his head, Don Enrique throw up his hands and fall with
his face in the dust. Charles Gould noted particularly the
big patriarchal head of that witness in the rear of the other
servants. But he was surprised to see a shrivelled old hag or
two, of whose existence within the walls of his house he had
not been aware. They must have been the mothers, or even
the grandmothers of some of his people. There were a few
children, too, more or less naked, crying and clinging to the
legs of their elders. He had never before noticed any sign of
a child in his patio. Even Leonarda, the camerista, came in
a fright, pushing through, with her spoiled, pouting face of
a favourite maid, leading the Viola girls by the hand. The
crockery rattled on table and sideboard, and the whole
house seemed to sway in the deafening wave of sound.

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard