Page 615 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

of these two. And moving about the lantern, filled with twi-
light and the sheen of the moon, with careful movements
she lighted the lamp. Then her arms fell along her body.
‘And with our mother looking on,’ she murmured. ‘My
own sister—the Chica!’
The whole refracting apparatus, with its brass fittings and
rings of prisms, glittered and sparkled like a domeshaped
shrine of diamonds, containing not a lamp, but some sacred
flame, dominating the sea. And Linda, the keeper, in black,
with a pale face, drooped low in a wooden chair, alone with
her jealousy, far above the shames and passions of the earth.
A strange, dragging pain as if somebody were pulling her
about brutally by her dark hair with bronze glints, made
her put her hands up to her temples. They would meet. They
would meet. And she knew where, too. At the window. The
sweat of torture fell in drops on her cheeks, while the moon-
light in the offing closed as if with a colossal bar of silver the
entrance of the Placid Gulf—the sombre cavern of clouds
and stillness in the surf-fretted seaboard.
Linda Viola stood up suddenly with a finger on her lip.
He loved neither her nor her sister. The whole thing seemed
so objectless as to frighten her, and also give her some hope.
Why did he not carry her off? What prevented him? He was
incomprehensible. What were they waiting for? For what
end were these two lying and deceiving? Not for the ends of
their love. There was no such thing. The hope of regaining
him for herself made her break her vow of not leaving the
tower that night. She must talk at once to her father, who
was wise, and would understand. She ran down the spiral

1 Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard