Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART FIRST: THE SILVER OF THE MINE 4. CHAPTER FOUR (continued)

On this memorable day of the riot his arms were not folded on his
chest. His hand grasped the barrel of the gun grounded on the
threshold; he did not look up once at the white dome of
Higuerota, whose cool purity seemed to hold itself aloof from a
hot earth. His eyes examined the plain curiously. Tall trails of
dust subsided here and there. In a speckless sky the sun hung
clear and blinding. Knots of men ran headlong; others made a
stand; and the irregular rattle of firearms came rippling to his
ears in the fiery, still air. Single figures on foot raced
desperately. Horsemen galloped towards each other, wheeled round
together, separated at speed. Giorgio saw one fall, rider and
horse disappearing as if they had galloped into a chasm, and the
movements of the animated scene were like the passages of a
violent game played upon the plain by dwarfs mounted and on foot,
yelling with tiny throats, under the mountain that seemed a
colossal embodiment of silence. Never before had Giorgio seen
this bit of plain so full of active life; his gaze could not take
in all its details at once; he shaded his eyes with his hand,
till suddenly the thundering of many hoofs near by startled him.

A troop of horses had broken out of the fenced paddock of the
Railway Company. They came on like a whirlwind, and dashed over
the line snorting, kicking, squealing in a compact, piebald,
tossing mob of bay, brown, grey backs, eyes staring, necks
extended, nostrils red, long tails streaming. As soon as they had
leaped upon the road the thick dust flew upwards from under their
hoofs, and within six yards of Giorgio only a brown cloud with
vague forms of necks and cruppers rolled by, making the soil
tremble on its passage.

Viola coughed, turning his face away from the dust, and shaking
his head slightly.

"There will be some horse-catching to be done before to-night,"
he muttered.