Page 454 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

as a great captain of industry and a person of weighty coun-
sel, whose popular designation would be soon replaced by
a more solid title. ‘Eh, Don Carlos? No! What do you say?
Conde de Sulaco—Eh?—or marquis …’
He ceased. The air was cool on the Plaza, where a patrol of
cavalry rode round and round without penetrating into the
streets, which resounded with shouts and the strumming
of guitars issuing from the open doors of pulperias. The or-
ders were not to interfere with the enjoyments of the people.
And above the roofs, next to the perpendicular lines of the
cathedral towers the snowy curve of Higuerota blocked a
large space of darkening blue sky before the windows of the
Intendencia. After a time Pedrito Montero, thrusting his
hand in the bosom of his coat, bowed his head with slow
dignity. The audience was over.
Charles Gould on going out passed his hand over his
forehead as if to disperse the mists of an oppressive dream,
whose grotesque extravagance leaves behind a subtle sense
of bodily danger and intellectual decay. In the passages
and on the staircases of the old palace Montero’s troop-
ers lounged about insolently, smoking and making way
for no one; the clanking of sabres and spurs resounded all
over the building. Three silent groups of civilians in severe
black waited in the main gallery, formal and helpless, a little
huddled up, each keeping apart from the others, as if in the
exercise of a public duty they had been overcome by a desire
to shun the notice of every eye. These were the deputations
waiting for their audience. The one from the Provincial
Assembly, more restless and uneasy in its corporate expres-