ople behind the carriage trudging along the road outside,
all turning their heads, in sombreros and rebozos, to look at a
locomotive which rolled quickly out of sight behind Giorgio Viola's
house, under a white trail of steam that seemed to vanish in the
breathless, hysterically prolonged scream of warlike triumph. And it
was all like a fleeting vision, the shrieking ghost of a railway engine
fleeing across the frame of the archway, behind the startled movement
of the people streaming back from a military spectacle with silent
footsteps on the dust of the road. It was a material train returning
from the Campo to the palisaded yards. The empty cars rolled lightly
on the single track; there was no rumble of wheels, no tremor of the
ground. The engine-driver, running past the Casa Viola with the salute
of an uplifted arm, checked his speed smartly before entering the yard;
and when the ear-splitting screech of the steam-whistle for the brakes
had stopped, a series of hard, battering shocks, mingled with the
clanking of chain-couplings, made a tumult of blows and shaken fetters
under the vault of the gate.

CHAPTER FIVE

The Gould carriage was the first to return from the harbour to the empty
town. On the ancient pavement, laid out in patterns, sunk into ruts and
holes, the portly Ignacio, mindful of the springs of the Parisian-built
landau, had pulled up to a walk, and Decoud in his corner contemplated
moodily the inner aspect of the gate. The squat turreted sides held up
between them a mass of masonry with bunches of grass growing at the top,
and a grey, heavily scrolled, armorial shield of stone above the apex of
the arch with the arms of Spain nearly smoothed out as if in readiness
for some new device typical of the impending progress.

The explosive noise of the railway trucks seemed to augment Decoud's
irritation. He muttered something to himself, then began to talk aloud
in curt, angry phrases thrown at the silence of the two women. They did
not look at him at all; while Don Jose, with his semi-translucent, waxy
complexion, overshadowed by the soft grey hat, swayed a little to the
jolts of the carriage by the side of Mrs. Gould.

"This sound puts a new edge on a very old truth."

Decoud spoke in French, perhaps because of Ignacio on the box above him;
the old coachman, with his broad back filling a short, silver-braided
jacket, had a big pair of ears, whose thick rims stood well away from
his cropped head.