Page 473 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

he found himself in the great hall, sombre and full of acrid
smoke.
A fire built against the staircase had burnt down impo-
tently to a low heap of embers. The hard wood had failed
to catch; only a few steps at the bottom smouldered, with a
creeping glow of sparks defining their charred edges. At the
top he saw a streak of light from an open door. It fell upon
the vast landing, all foggy with a slow drift of smoke. That
was the room. He climbed the stairs, then checked himself,
because he had seen within the shadow of a man cast upon
one of the walls. It was a shapeless, highshouldered shadow
of somebody standing still, with lowered head, out of his
line of sight. The Capataz, remembering that he was totally
unarmed, stepped aside, and, effacing himself upright in a
dark corner, waited with his eyes fixed on the door.
The whole enormous ruined barrack of a place, unfin-
ished, without ceilings under its lofty roof, was pervaded
by the smoke swaying to and fro in the faint cross draughts
playing in the obscurity of many lofty rooms and barnlike
passages. Once one of the swinging shutters came against
the wall with a single sharp crack, as if pushed by an impa-
tient hand. A piece of paper scurried out from somewhere,
rustling along the landing. The man, whoever he was, did
not darken the lighted doorway. Twice the Capataz, advanc-
ing a couple of steps out of his corner, craned his neck in the
hope of catching sight of what he could be at, so quietly, in
there. But every time he saw only the distorted shadow of
broad shoulders and bowed head. He was doing apparently
nothing, and stirred not from the spot, as though he were

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard