Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
of the mine on day duty, strolling, carbine in hand and watchful eyes, in the shade of the trees lining the stream near the bridge, Don Pépé, descending the path from the upper plateau, appeared no bigger than a large beetle.
With his air of aimless, insect-like going to and fro upon the face of the rock, Don Pépé's figure kept on ending steadily, and, when near the bottom, sank at last behind the roofs of store-houses, forges, and workshops. For a time the pair of serenos strolled back and forth before the bridge, on which they had stopped a horseman holding a large white envelope in his hand. Then Don Pépé, emerging in the village street from among the houses, not a stone's-throw from the frontier bridge, approached, striding in wide, dark trousers tucked into boots, a white linen jacket, sabre at his side and revolver at his belt. In this disturbed time nothing could find the Señor Gobernador with his boots off, as the saying is.
At a slight nod from one of the serenos, the man, a messenger from the town, dismounted and crossed the bridge, leading his horse by the bridle.
Don Pépé received the letter from his other hand,
slapped his left side and his hips in succession, feeling for his spectacle-case. After settling the heavy, silver-mounted affair astride his nose and adjusting it carefully behind his ears, he opened the envelope, holding it up at about a foot in front of his eyes. The paper pulled out contained some three lines of writing. He looked at them for a long time. His gray mustache moved slightly up and down, and the wrinkles, radiating at the corners of his eyes, ran together. He nodded
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