Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART FIRST: THE SILVER OF THE MINE 8. CHAPTER EIGHT (continued)

"More people going to the San Tome mine. We shall see others
to-morrow."

And spurring on in the dusk they would discuss the great news of
the province, the news of the San Tome mine. A rich Englishman
was going to work it--and perhaps not an Englishman, Quien sabe!
A foreigner with much money. Oh, yes, it had begun. A party of
men who had been to Sulaco with a herd of black bulls for the
next corrida had reported that from the porch of the posada in
Rincon, only a short league from the town, the lights on the
mountain were visible, twinkling above the trees. And there was a
woman seen riding a horse sideways, not in the chair seat, but
upon a sort of saddle, and a man's hat on her head. She walked
about, too, on foot up the mountain paths. A woman engineer, it
seemed she was.

"What an absurdity! Impossible, senor!"

"Si! Si! Una Americana del Norte."

"Ah, well! if your worship is informed. Una Americana; it need be
something of that sort."

And they would laugh a little with astonishment and scorn,
keeping a wary eye on the shadows of the road, for one is liable
to meet bad men when travelling late on the Campo.