Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
Meantime the exodus had begun. Carretas full of ladies and children rolled swaying across the plaza, with men walking or riding by their side; mounted parties followed on mules and horses; the poorest were setting out on foot, men and women carrying bundles, clasping babies in their arms, leading old people, dragging along the bigger children. When Charles Gould, after leaving the doctor and the engineer at the Casa Viola, entered the town by the harbor gate, all those that had meant to go were gone and the others had barricaded themselves in their houses. In the whole dark street there was only one spot of flickering lights and moving figures, where the Señor Administrador recognized his wife's carriage waiting at the door of the Avellanos house. He rode up, almost unnoticed, and looked on without a word while some of his own servants came out of the gate carrying Don José Avellanos, who with closed eyes and motionless features appeared perfectly lifeless. His wife and Antonia walked on each side of the improvised stretcher, which was put at once into the carriage. The two women embraced; while from the other side of the landau Father Corbelàn's emissary, with his ragged beard all streaked with gray, and high, bronzed cheek-bones, stared, sitting upright in the saddle. Then Antonia, dry-eyed, got in by the side of the stretcher, and, after making the sign of the cross rapidly, lowered a thick veil upon her face. The servants and the three or four neighbors who had come to assist, stood back, uncovering their heads. On the box Ignacio, resigned now to driving all night (and to having, perhaps, his throat cut before daylight), looked back surlily over his shoulder.
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