Page 613 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

the island with his old gun, on watch over his honour.
Linda, laying her thin brown hand on his knee, tried to
soothe his excitement. Ramirez was not in Sulaco. Nobody
knew where he was. He was gone. His talk of what he would
do meant nothing.
‘No,’ the old man interrupted. ‘But son Gian’ Battista told
me—quite of himself—that the cowardly esclavo was drink-
ing and gambling with the rascals of Zapiga, over there on
the north side of the gulf. He may get some of the worst
scoundrels of that scoundrelly town of negroes to help him
in his attempt upon the little one…. But I am not so old.
No!’
She argued earnestly against the probability of any at-
tempt being made; and at last the old man fell silent,
chewing his white moustache. Women had their obstinate
notions which must be humoured—his poor wife was like
that, and Linda resembled her mother. It was not seemly for
a man to argue. ‘May be. May be,’ he mumbled.
She was by no means easy in her mind. She loved Nostro-
mo. She turned her eyes upon Giselle, sitting at a distance,
with something of maternal tenderness, and the jealous an-
guish of a rival outraged in her defeat. Then she rose and
walked over to her.
‘Listen—you,’ she said, roughly.
The invincible candour of the gaze, raised up all violet
and dew, excited her rage and admiration. She had beauti-
ful eyes—the Chica—this vile thing of white flesh and black
deception. She did not know whether she wanted to tear
them out with shouts of vengeance or cover up their myste-

1 Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard