Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
flitting on his thin, cavalry-man's legs across the doorways, either just "back from the mountain," or, with jingling spurs and riding-whip under his arm, on the point of starting "for the mountain." Then Don Pépé, modestly martial in his chair, the Llanero who seemed somehow to have found his martial jocularity, his knowledge of the world, and his manner perfect for his station, in the midst of savage armed contests with his kind; Avellanos, polished and familiar, the diplomatist with his loquacity covering much caution and wisdom in delicate advice, with his manuscript of a historical work on Costaguana, entitled Fifty Years of Misrule, which, at present, he thought it was not prudent (even if it were possible) "to give to the world"; these three, and also Doña Emilia among them, gracious, small, and fairy-like, before the glittering tea-set, with one common master-thought in their heads, with one common feeling of a tense situation, with one ever-present aim to preserve the inviolable character of the mine at every cost. And there was also to be seen Captain Mitchell, a little apart, near one of the long windows, with an air of old-fashioned neat old bachelorhood about him, slightly pompous, in a white waistcoat, a little disregarded and unconscious of it; utterly in the dark, and imagining himself to be in the thick of things. The good man, having spent a clear thirty years of his life on the high seas before getting what he called a "shore billet," was astonished at the importance of transactions (others than relating to shipping) which takes place on dry land. Almost every event out of the usual daily course "marked an epoch" for him or else was "history"; unless with his
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