Their eyes shrank into their
heads; their faces blackened. I could see some trying to secret morsels
of the glowing metal, which burned whatever it touched, and some who were
being searched by the superiors of the mines, and some who were punishing
the offenders, fixing them up against the blazing wall of gold. The fear
went out of my mind, so much absorbed was I in this sight. I gazed,
seeing farther and farther every moment into crevices and seams of the
glowing metal, always with more and more slaves at work, and the entire
pantomime of labor and theft, and search and punishment, going on and
on,--the baked faces dark against the golden glare, the hot eyes taking a
yellow reflection, the monotonous clamor of pick and shovel, and cries
and curses, and all the indistinguishable sound of a multitude of human
creatures. And the floor below, and the low roof which overhung whole
myriads within a few inches of their faces, and the irregular walls all
breached and shelved, were every one the same, a pandemonium of
gold,--gold everywhere. I had loved many foolish things in my life, but
never this; which was perhaps why I gazed and kept my sight, though there
rose out of it a blast of heat which scorched the brain.

While I stooped over, intent on the sight, some one who had come up by
my side to gaze too was caught by the fumes (as I suppose), for suddenly
I was aware of a dark object falling prone into the glowing interior with
a cry and crash which brought back my first wild panic. He fell in a
heap, from which his arms shot forth wildly as he reached the bottom, and
his cry was half anguish yet half desire. I saw him seized by half a
dozen eager watchers, and pitched upon a ledge just under the roof, and
tools thrust into his hands. I held on by an old shaft, trembling, unable
to move. Perhaps I cried too in my horror,--for one of the overseers who
stood in the centre of the glare looked up. He had the air of ordering
all that was going on, and stood unaffected by the blaze, commanding the
other wretched officials, who obeyed him like dogs. He seemed to me, in
my terror, like a figure of gold, the image perhaps of wealth or Pluto,
or I know not what, for I suppose my brain began to grow confused, and my
hold on the shaft to relax. I had strength enough, however (for I cared
not for the gold), to fling myself back the other way upon the ground,
where I rolled backwards, downwards, I knew not how, turning over and
over upon