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 anticipation 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 hell! Copper Rock was paradise indeed,
compared to this inferno.

Little forms passed by him with faces wizened and wrinkled--were