The Title Market Part 25

Derby thereupon said that the great Duke Scorpa had doubtless done everything possible, and that under the old method there had been no help for the conditions, but--and again he expressed himself as clearly as possible--with the new method and with machinery, one man could do the work of many. So the wages might be trebled and yet the mines be made to pay.

As Derby talked, a faint color mounted in the cheeks of the archbishop--his eyes grew eagerly wistful, and at last he leaned forward in his chair, his voice almost breathless as he asked, "Can such a thing be true--that in your country the father can earn sufficient that the little children need not work? Ah, Signore--who knows?--who knows?--may be at last the cry of the _bambinos_ has reached the throne of the Santa Vergine!" He sat again silent, but this time with a smile on his lips.

Then the old woman appeared in the doorway and the archbishop arose.

"It is the hour for my supper," he said. "I shall esteem it an honor if you will break bread with me." Derby was about to decline, thinking it better to return later, but the manner of the old man left no doubt as to the genuineness of his invitation, and Derby accepted. In the adjoining room a small table was set with very few utensils. Two plates, two forks, two spoons, a cup, and a wine gla.s.s apiece--that was all.

After the blessing, they were served a frugal meal of bread and goats'

milk, a pudding of macaroni, and a plate of figs; there was also wine, acid and thin, which the good Marianna--for so the housekeeper was called--had doubtless pressed herself.

Her son Teobaldo, who waited at table, was dressed in some semblance of a livery--black broadcloth and a white tie. The archbishop ate sparingly--he drank a little of the milk, and tasted a piece of fruit, but his conversation with his guest seemed to satisfy him far more than food could do.

Full of the hope of relief for his people, he now turned to plans for the Signore Americano's protection. Throughout the mountains, the hard life had made a hard people, he said, and unfriendly to foreigners. What could they expect from the hands of strangers when their own n.o.bility, even their priests, were powerless to help! But the Signore should be put under the guidance of Padre Filippo--and also there should be two _carabinieri_ for protection. Besides, Padre Filippo would recommend carpenters and mechanics of Vencata Minore--the village nearest the "Little Devil"--good men and honest, who would help in the work.

The meal ended, they returned to the living room. The old woman fussed at the wick of the lamp and then placed a book close to the light and opened it at the page marked by a bit of paper. The archbishop smiled.

"She takes good care of me, my Marianna. Once she lost my place, but she is very careful."

Derby looked at the page beneath the flickering dimness. "Does Your Eminence read by this light?"

"Oh, yes, a little. By day I can see nearly as well as ever, but in the evening I can read only the books that have large print--and only for a little time. But what would you have, Signore? My eyesight may not any longer be like that of a boy." Then he added: "The good sun brings now each day a longer time to read, and perhaps by the time another winter makes the days again grow short, I shall be near the Great Light that knows no setting."

"You might have a good lamp and see very well," suggested Derby.

"A lamp? But in this I burn olive oil. It is very good oil, Signore--no one makes it better than Marianna! The reading at night is only for young eyes." Again he smiled.

With difficulty he wrote a letter of direction to Padre Filippo and affixed his seal. Also he promised that two _carabinieri_ should be at the inn at eight o'clock on the following morning, to accompany the expedition to the mines. And they should carry a letter to Donna Marcella--in her house the Americans had better lodge. From there they could with ease go each day on muleback to the "Little Devil."

At last Derby arose to leave. And then, although he was not of the Roman faith, he swiftly bent and kissed the ring on the thin, white hand that had been placed in his own. Into the archbishop's eyes came a look of tenderness that yet seemed tinged by a vague fear, as he laid his free hand on the bent head and gave his blessing, "_Deus te benedicet, meum filium._ May you fulfil your hopes for my people in safety!" Very slightly the old man's voice broke.

Derby stood at his full height, towering by head and shoulders over the archbishop as he again thanked him for his hospitality and his protection. He walked back to the inn, his mind full of many things. At the _ufficio della posta_ he glanced up, hesitated, and then, with a smile, went in and wrote out the following telegram:

"MISS NINA RANDOLPH, "Palazzo Sansevero, "Rome.

"Send immediately by express one good Rochester burner lamp and barrel of kerosene to

"Sua Eminenza, "L'Arcivescovo di Vencata, "JOHN."

CHAPTER XXI

THE SULPHUR MINES

It was nearly nine o'clock the next morning before Derby's party was ready to start. The pack mules, with a bulging load on either side, looked like great bales on legs. Long steel pieces needed for the drills were strapped lengthwise between two mules. The saddled animals, which were to carry the members of the party were held at a short distance while the men were seeing to the final preparations. Four horses had been procured for Derby, Porter, Tiggs, and Jenkins; the _carabinieri_ had their own horses, and Padre Filippo his mule.

As it happened, the priest had come to Vencata the evening before, so that the archbishop had been able to turn over at once to his especial guidance the Americanos who had been sent by the Blessed Virgin to rescue the _bambinos_ from the inferno of the mines. Padre Filippo was short, rotund, with a ruddy complexion and a cheerful crop of carrot-colored hair. The two _carabinieri_ were splendid specimens of men, but after all, to say _carabinieri_ is enough: for the Italian cavalry must stand not only a physical, but also a moral examination that goes back three generations. It is not sufficient for a candidate to be above suspicion himself; his father and his father's father must have been so as well. These two men were both over six feet, lean and dark-skinned, with that trace of the Arab which one sees all through the people of Sicily; and they were silent and serious, in great contrast to another type of Sicilians who smile much. They wore the _carabiniere_ uniform for the mountain districts--a double-breasted coat with two rows of silver b.u.t.tons, coat tails bordered with red, two strips of red down the trouser seams, a visored cap, and high black boots. They were mounted on magnificent black horses, with rifles hung across their saddles.

Finally, as the procession started and the hoofs clattered on the hard road leading up over the mountain, people crowded out on the little iron balconies, heads appeared at the windows--heads that seemed gigantic by comparison with the miniature houses, which were painted brilliant pink and blue, mauve and Naples yellow.

As the road ascended, it turned inward away from the sea, and after a short distance narrowed into a rocky mountain path that looked like the dry bed of a stream, winding through the wilderness. After an hour's ride the character of the landscape changed. The semi-tropical vegetation grew gradually spa.r.s.e, and after a while in the distance, seemingly in the midst of the path, a great rock loomed gigantic and gaunt, cutting in two the blue dome of the sky. Still farther on, they came upon stretches of straggling wild peach, olive, and lemon trees.

Beyond again, tangles of hawthorn were interspersed with patches of dried weeds and gra.s.s. But as they neared the mining district the soil was bleak and barren. The mountain rivers were dry, and their beds made yawning gaps as though the earth had violently shuddered at her own desolation.

At last, about noon, they came to the village of Vencata Minore, which stood in a little plain of green. The house of Donna Marcella was set on a slight eminence and, compared with the surrounding habitations, was quite pretentious. It was kalsomined white, had a courtyard of its own, and back of it was a little fruit and flower garden. Donna Marcella was a buxom, thrifty, and dominating woman. Had she been a man she would a.s.suredly have migrated to America and become a captain of industry; however, circ.u.mstances having placed her under heavier responsibilities, she came smiling to the door, followed by a troop of brown-skinned and curly-haired babies. She courtesied and beamed and gesticulated her delighted welcome of the strangers and, upon being shown the archbishop's missive, kissed the red seal. A few words were intelligible to her, but the reading of a whole letter was beyond the measure of her accomplishments, and she looked to Padre Filippo to explain. She could write the few nouns and do sums quite well enough, though, to make out the bills for her occasional guests,--if in doubt she added another figure.

Sometimes she had guests--ah, but ill.u.s.trious! The Gran Signore, Sua Eccellenza il Duca di Scorpa--that name to be whispered, and yet to be dwelt upon--no less a personage than such an exaltedness had come to sleep a night under her humble roof! The distinguished _forestieri_ should have the very room His _Eccellentissimo_ had occupied! She seemed to choose among the Americans by instinct, a.s.signing to Derby and Porter this apartment in which she took such evident pride.

It was, in fact, airy and good sized, scantily furnished, but scrupulously clean, and with two great beds heaped high with the red and yellow flowered quilts which in Sicilian houses serve the double purpose of warmth and decoration: not alone do they lend supreme elegance to the bedrooms, but suspended from the windows, they most gayly embellish the house front on days of _festa_.

As soon as his belongings were unpacked, Porter, with an eye for beauty as well as a view to making himself popular, began to draw a pencil sketch of the little Marcella, a witch of five and beautiful as a doll.

Tiggs and Jenkins saw to the unloading of the mules. But Derby and the _carabinieri_, with Padre Filippo, after a hasty luncheon of bread, figs, and goats' milk, pushed on to the mines. Beyond the outskirts of the little village the land soon grew dead again--not a bird fluttered, not a living thing was heard. A few patches of green had sprouted here and there in the lava blackness of the soil, but otherwise the country seemed under a curse.

A new bend in the road brought them close to a small abandoned settlement whose windowless houses gaped, staring like lidless eyes, at the pits which had been dug and left like caverns of the dead--as, in truth, they were. Yet nature had softened the graveyard with straggling spots of new green. A vapor rose from one of the pits as though a monster lay in wait below to destroy his victims with the poison of his breath. This was "Little Devil," the priest told Derby. Through the jaws of that yawning hole many had entered the gates of paradise! His lips muttered a fragment of the prayer for the dead; he crossed himself, and Derby noticed that the _carabinieri_ did the same.

During the day Derby had been slowly unfolding to Padre Filippo his plans, and now the priest looked anxiously into the American's face--could he still be hopeful of such a cemetery as this? Derby rode slowly, making a cursory survey of the conditions. It was much as he had expected to find it, he told the priest; he was not disheartened.

They did not stop, as Derby was anxious to go to the Scorpa mines, where he expected to secure his men. He had heard enough to know what lay before him; and even in antic.i.p.ation he felt oppressed. Another sudden turn in the road gave them a near view of the settlement. Over the arid earth spread a dense haze of smoke and yellow vapor, and down in it--in this vapor whose metallic fumes gripped lungs and throat and burned like fire--crawled human beings! Close to the earth they crept, so that the rising smoke might spend its worst above them.

Derby had thought himself prepared, but with the horrors actually before him, he shuddered uncontrollably; unconsciously, he gripped the pommel of the saddle so tensely that his knuckles whitened. The mine of "Golden Plenty!" From the horrible mockery of the name, the devil might well have taken notes in planning h.e.l.l! Copper Rock was paradise indeed, compared to this inferno.

Little forms pa.s.sed by him with faces wizened and wrinkled--were they gnomes?--or what? Surely not children! Small, narrow, stooped shoulders, backs bent under loads buckled to tottering legs. Ragged the creatures were to the point of nakedness, and on their arms and legs were scars fresh and scarlet from the torches of the overseers. Women and men crawled near the caldrons, and down the ladders into the h.e.l.l pits went the children--up with the heavy loads past the torch and lash of the devil servers, whose duty it was to see that no panting being loitered.

Day in, day out, these miserable wretches stumbled under the stinging pain of burning flesh--and once in a while a child's faltering feet slipped from the ladder rungs, his weak hands lost hold--a cry, a fall, and the "Golden Plenty" had swallowed one more victim.

As Derby's party drew near, a straggling group gathered around the strangers. They stared dully and without intelligence, and yet like animals in whom savagery is ever ready to burst restraints. The stronger men among them glowered at the intruders, turning against a strange face with the snarl they dared not show to one grown familiar. Beyond the mines, ranged at different heights on the barren mountain slope, were huts much like the abandoned ones at "Little Devil"--black caverns, smoke-stained and gaping, where stooping human beings moved in and out, maimed and broken like insects whose wings some brutal boy has pulled.

And yet the priest affirmed that to get half a dozen families to leave this place and go to the new settlement would be no easy task. They were too dull to grasp the promise of betterment, and the very mention of "Little Devil" filled them with alarm. It would need many days and much patient handling to convince them that the _forestieri_ meant them good instead of harm.

Padre Filippo was the one who most persuaded them--he and a Sicilian workman, a native of Vencata who had lately returned from America.

Between these two the miners' fears were partly allayed, and in less than a week's time Derby received a small company of men, women, and children into his new settlement. They came like prisoners, under the guard of the _carabinieri_, and so feeble and debilitated were the wretched creatures that, for a few weeks after their arrival, Derby turned his settlement into a hospital.

Yet suspicion surrounded him on every side. It was one of the _carabinieri_--the taller one--who ventured his opinions one day: "Signore does not know these people! Signore is letting them grow strong that they may the better use their fangs. They cannot believe that Signore is not the devil in paying such wages--in pretending to give them a life of ease. The great Duke Scorpa is their friend--he has been able to do nothing. The good and honorable His Eminence the Archbishop, not even he may help--none in this world; not even the Holy Virgin on her throne in heaven. If any one comes to interfere it must be the devil--since none but the devil comes to such a land."

"That's all right, my friend," Derby answered. "Just you wait and see.

Animals never resent kindness, and that's all these poor creatures are--just animals."

In the meantime he and the engineers and the carpenters from Vencata Minore had worked day and night getting up the scaffolding for the first well. The first boiler was set up in a shanty, and pens were hammered together to hold the molten sulphur.

From the moment of Derby's arrival in the Vencata mines, the _carabinieri_ kept him under the closest guard and accompanied him wherever he went. But in spite of this there were a few mild outbreaks.

One day a stone was hurled at him. Another time some half-crazed wretch tried to stab him; and once a pit was dug across the road, in which his horse broke a leg, so that it had to be shot. This last nearly brought Derby to the point of meting out punishment to the offenders. Yet when he realized again the sufferings of these people, his anger gradually subsided.

However, these disturbances had all taken place within the week after his arrival in Sicily, and at the end of the second week he strongly objected to being guarded. Each day he knew he gained in the confidence of the people, and each day he knew also that they must be improving. He felt sure that as their bodies were put in something like human condition, their intellects must follow. The _carabinieri_ protested that he would be making a needless target of himself should he attempt to ride alone in the early dawn from the village of Vencata Minore to the mines. The road led between rocks and underbrush where a man might hide with perfect safety. But the apprehension of the _carabinieri_ did not trouble Derby in the least. "Nonsense," he said. "Why, the miners are all beginning to like me--I can see it in their faces."

What he said was true, and under the new treatment the people were beginning to look and act like human beings. Even two weeks were enough to show a settlement beyond Padre Filippo's highest hopes. No child was employed in the mines, neither were the women allowed to work outside their huts and plots of ground. They might dig and plant the soil, but they were barred out of the mines. With the elimination of the refining vats and the reduction of the scorching heat, and with the presence of moisture from the steam and water required in the new mining, conditions became favorable for luxuriant vegetation.

Besides, Derby had received by cable approval of certain quixotic measures: Each family was given a milk goat. The houses were furnished with cook stoves, beds, chairs, and tables. And although it would be some time before "Little Devil" would seem inappropriate as a name, less than three weeks had pa.s.sed when Derby, sitting in the tent which served as his office, felt a real thrill as he footed up a.s.sets and liabilities. One well had been sunk, and the boilers and engines needed to operate it were going full blast. The scaffoldings for two more were nearly up.

In the doorway near him Porter lounged, drawing a picture of Padre Filippo, who, in turn, was writing on his knees, his fine penmans.h.i.+p covering page after page--all about the miracles of the Americano, and addressed to the archbishop.

But his Eminence needed no letters from Padre Filippo to announce miracles, since a miracle had happened in his own house--a marvel that had made Marianna cross her hands in speechless wonder. The new lamp burned on the table, the green reading shade reflected almost as much light on the page as the sun itself, and His Eminence might now read any book he pleased. The archbishop thoughtfully stroked the cat that lay curled on his lap.