Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
fied fellow. He colored up to the eyes, and stared at Giorgio Viola, who had fallen back with the children, hat in hand.
"I shall want a horse presently," he said with some asperity to the old man.
"Si, señor. There are plenty of horses," murmured the Garibaldino, smoothing absently, with his big brown hands, the two heads, one dark with bronze glints, the other fair with a coppery ripple, of the two girls by his side. The returning stream of sightseers raised a great dust on the road. Horsemen noticed the group. "Go to your mother," he said. "They are growing up as I am growing older, and there is nobody—"
He looked at the young engineer and stopped, as if awakened from a dream; then, folding his arms on his breast, took up his usual position, leaning back in the doorway with an upward glance fastened on the white shoulder of Higuerota far away.
In the carriage Martin Decoud, shifting his position as though he could not make himself comfortable, muttered as he swayed towards Antonia, "I suppose you hate me." Then in a loud voice he began to congratulate Don José upon all the engineers being convinced Ribierists. The interest of all those foreigners was gratifying. "You have heard this one. He is an enlightened well-wisher. It is pleasant to think that the prosperity of Costaguana is of some use to the world."
"He is very young," Mrs. Gould remarked, quietly.
"And so very wise for his age," retorted Decoud. "But here we have the naked truth from the mouth
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