light from the
windows of the foundry lighted up the darkness of night; and the smoke
of the distilling-factory rose from the chimneys and cast yellow
circles upon the sky.

CHAPTER II

THE SLAVE OF THE BLACK DIAMONDS

There is nothing startling or new in the declaration that when we
speak of "black diamonds" we mean _coal_. That beautiful, brilliant
stone, the diamond, is made of carbon. So is your house-coal--the only
difference being, the one is transparent, the other black; and the
first is the demon, the last the angel.

Coal moves the world. The spirit of progress comes from it; railroads,
steamboats borrow from it their wonderful strength. Every machine that
is, and works, has its existence from coal. It makes the earth
habitable; it gives to the great cities their mighty blaze and
splendor. It is a treasure, the last gift presented by earth to
extravagant man.

Therefore it is that we call coal "black diamonds."

Ivan Behrend, the owner of the Bondavara coal-mine, was not exactly in
the condition of some of his pitmen. He had seen God's heaven, and
knew how in happier lands life was bright, careless, sunny as the
cloudless sky itself. But for an existence which was all play and no
work, Ivan would not have cared. He had inherited the coal-mine from
his father, who had left him also an inheritance of a strong will and
inflexible perseverance. No trifle, nor even a great obstacle, could
stand in the way of Ivan's wishes, and his wish and his pride was to
work the Bondavara mine without any help but what his pitmen gave
him. It was his ambition--perhaps a foolish one--to have no company at
his back, no shareholders to find fault, no widows and orphans to be
involved in possible ruin; the mine was his, and his it should be
absolutely. Therefore it was a quiet business. The foundry and the
inhabitants of the nearest town consumed the yearly output at an
uncommonly low price. It never could be, unless with enormous outlay,
a great money-making business, seeing that the mine was too far away
from any of the great centres. Nevertheless, it brought in a steady
income, especially as Ivan paid no useless expenses, and was, as we
have said, his own overseer and accountant. He knew everything that
went on, he understood his own business perfectly, and he took a
pleasure in looking after his own affairs; and these three
qualifications, as any business man knows, insure ultimate success.

It was well, however