Page 55 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

the enormous side of the mountain, thinking that in this
sight, as in a piece of inspired music, there could be found
together the utmost delicacy of shaded expression and a
stupendous magnificence of effect.
Sir John arrived too late to hear the magnificent and in-
audible strain sung by the sunset amongst the high peaks of
the Sierra. It had sung itself out into the breathless pause of
deep dusk before, climbing down the fore wheel of the dili-
gencia with stiff limbs, he shook hands with the engineer.
They gave him his dinner in a stone hut like a cubical
boulder, with no door or windows in its two openings; a
bright fire of sticks (brought on muleback from the first val-
ley below) burning outside, sent in a wavering glare; and
two candles in tin candlesticks—lighted, it was explained
to him, in his honour—stood on a sort of rough camp ta-
ble, at which he sat on the right hand of the chief. He knew
how to be amiable; and the young men of the engineering
staff, for whom the surveying of the railway track had the
glamour of the first steps on the path of life, sat there, too,
listening modestly, with their smooth faces tanned by the
weather, and very pleased to witness so much affability in
so great a man.
Afterwards, late at night, pacing to and fro outside, he
had a long talk with his chief engineer. He knew him well
of old. This was not the first undertaking in which their
gifts, as elementally different as fire and water, had worked
in conjunction. From the contact of these two personalities,
who had not the same vision of the world, there was gen-
erated a power for the world’s service—a subtle force that

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard