Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
at once like the wall of a factory. Not a soul challenged his approach, and his curiosity became excited as he passed cautiously towards the front by the unexpected sight of two lighted windows.
They had the fascination of a lonely vigil kept by some mysterious watcher up there, those two windows shining dimly upon the harbor in the whole vast extent of the abandoned building. The solitude could almost be felt. A strong smell of wood smoke hung about in a thin haze, which was faintly perceptible to his raised eyes against the glitter of the stars. As he advanced in the profound silence, the shrilling of innumerable cicalas in the dry grass seemed positively deafening to his strained ears. Slowly, step by step, he found himself in the great hall, sombre and full of acrid smoke.
A fire built against the staircase had burned down im potently to a low heap of embers. The hard wood hal failed to catch; only a few steps at the bottom smouldered, with a creeping glow of sparks defining tlu-ir charred edges. At the top he saw a streak of light from an open door. It fell upon the vast landing, all foggy with a slow drift of smoke. That was the room. He climbed the stairs, then checked himself, because he had seen within the shadow of a man cast upon one of the walls. It was a shapeless, high-shouldered shadow of somebody standing still, with a lowered head out of his line of sight. The capataz, remembering that he was totally unarmed, stepped aside, and effacing himself upright in a dark corner, waited with his eyes fixed on the door.
The whole enormous ruined barrack of a place, un-
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