MAURUS JOKAI

BLACK DIAMONDS

A Novel

TRANSLATED BY
FRANCES A. GERARD

NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1896, by HARPER & BROTHERS.

All rights reserved.

CONTENTS

BLACK DIAMONDS

CHAPTER I
A BLACK PLACE

We are in the depths of an underground cavern. It is bad enough to be underground, but here we are all enveloped in black as well: the ceiling is black, so are the walls; they are made of blocks of coal. The floor is one great black looking-glass. It is a sort of pond, polished as steel. Over this polished surface glistens the reflection of a solitary light, the light of a safety-lamp shining through a wire net.

A man guides himself over the pond in a narrow boat. By the doubtful light of the lamp he sees high pillars, which rise out of the depths below and reach to the very roof of the cavern—pillars slender, like the columns of a Moorish palace. These pillars are half white and half black; up to a certain point only are they coal black, beyond that they are light in color.

What are these pillars?

They are the stems of pines and palm-trees. These gigantic stems are quite at home in the layers over the coal-mine, but how have they descended here? They belong to another world—the world of light and air. The coal layers overhead sometimes take fire of themselves, and the fire, being intense, has loosened the hold of these giants and sent them below.

Coal-pits kindle of themselves often, as every novice knows, but in this case who extinguished the flames? That is the question.

The solitary occupant of the rudely shaped boat or canoe goes restlessly here and there, up and down. He is a man of about thirty years, with a pale face and a dark beard. His firmly closed lips give him an expression of earnestness, or strong, decided will; while his forehead, which is broad, with large bumps over the eyes, shows that he is a deep thinker. His head is uncovered, for here in this vault the air is heavy, and his curly black hair is in thick masses, so that he needs no covering.

What is he doing here?

He drives his boat over the black looking-glass of the lake; round and round he goes, searching the black walls with anxiety, his lamp raised in his disengaged hand. Does he imagine that a secret is hidden there? Does he think that by touching a spring, and saying "Open Sesame," the treasure hidden there for hundreds of years will spring forth?

In truth, he does find treasures. Here and there from the black wall—weakly constructed in some places by Nature's hand—a piece of stone loosens itself—upon it the impression of a leaf belonging to a long-ago-extinct species. A wonderful treasure this! In other places he comes upon unknown crystals, to which science has not as yet given a name; or upon a new conglomeration of different quartz, metal, and stone—a silent testimony to a convulsion of Nature before this world was. All these witnesses speak.

The pillars, too; over them the water of the pond has by degrees formed a crustation of crystals, small, but visible even without a glass. This, too, gives testimony.

The pond is in itself wonderful. It has ebb and flow: twice in the day it empties itself; twice in the day it fills. The water rushes in leaps and bounds, joyously, tumultuously, into this dark, sullen vault; fills it higher, higher, until it reaches the point on the pillars where the color changes. There it remains, sometimes for two hours, stationary, smooth, and placid as a glass. Then it begins to sink, slowly, surely, until it vanishes away into the secret hiding-places from whence it has come. Curious, mysterious visitor! The man in the boat knows its ways; he has studied them. He waits patiently, until, with a sullen, gurgling sound, as if lamenting the necessity, the last current of water vanishes behind a projecting mass of coal. Then he hurriedly casts off his coat, his shoes, his stockings; he has nothing on but his shirt and trousers. He fastens round him a leather pocket, in which is a hammer and chisel; he takes his safety-lamp and fastens it to his belt; and, so equipped, he glides into one of the fissures in the black rock. He is following the vanishing stream. He is a courageous man to undertake such a task, for his way lies through the palace of death. It needs a heart of stone to be there alone in the awful silence. It is a strong motive that brings him. He is seeking the secret which lies under seven seals, the treasure which Nature has concealed for thousands of years. But this man knows not what fear is. He remains three hours seeking. If he had any one—a wife, a sister, even a faithful servant, who knew where he was, what danger he was in, how their souls would have gone out in agony of fear for what might happen!

But he has no one; he is alone—always alone. There is no one to weep for his absence or to be joyful at his coming; his life is solitary, in the clear air of daylight as well as in the depths of the cavern.

The vanished stream is as capricious as a coquettish maiden, as full of tricks and humors. Sometimes it does not show itself for three or four hours; at other moments it comes frolicking back in one, and woe to the unfortunate wight who is caught in its embrace in the narrow windings of the coal-vault! But this man knows the humors of the stream; he has studied them. He and it are old acquaintances; he knows the signs upon which he can depend, and he knows how long the pause will last. He can gauge its duration by the underground wind. When it whistles through the clefts and fissures, then he knows the stream is at hand. Should he wait until the shrill piping ceases, then he is a dead man.

In the darkness a ghostly sound is heard—it is like a long-drawn sigh, the far-away sobbing of an Æolian harp; and immediately the shimmer of the lamp is seen coming nearer and nearer, and in a minute the mysterious searcher of the hidden secret appears.

His countenance is paler than before—deathly; and drops of sweat course down his forehead and cheeks. Down below the air must be heavier in the cavern, or the nightmare of the abyss has caused this cold damp. He throws his well-filled wallet into the boat, and seats himself in it again.

It was time. Scarcely has he taken his place when a gurgling is heard, and out of the fissures of the rock comes a gush of black water, shooting forth with a loud, bubbling noise. Then follows a few minutes' pause, and again another gush of water. The cavern is filling rapidly. In a short time, over the smooth surface of the wall, the watermark shows itself. Clear as a looking-glass it rises, noiselessly, surely, until it has reached the black line upon the pillars.

The boat, with its silent, watchful occupant, floats upon the water like the ghost of the cavern. The water is not like ordinary water; it is heavy like metal. The boat moves slowly, only now the rower does not care to look into the depths of the black looking-glass; he pays no attention to the mysterious signs on the walls. He is occupied taking stock of the air about him, which is growing denser every moment, and he looks carefully at his safety-lamp, but it is closely shut. No escape there.

There is a great fog all round the lamp. The air in this underground abyss takes a blue shade. The man in the boat knows well what this means. The flame of the safety-lamp flares high, and the wick turns red—bad signs these! The angel of death is hovering near.

Two spirits dwell in these subterranean regions—two fearfully wicked spirits. The pitmen call one Stormy Weather, the other Bad Weather; and these two evil spirits haunt every coal-mine, under different names. Bad Weather steals upon its victim, lies like a thick vapor upon his chest, follows the miner step by step, takes away his breath and his speech, laughs at his alarm, and vanishes, when it has reached its height, just as suddenly as it came. Stormy Weather is far more cruel—fearful. It comes like a whirlwind; it sets everything in a flame, kindles the lumps of coal, shatters the vaults, destroys the shaft, burns the ground, and dashes human beings to pieces. Those who gain their livelihood by working underground can never tell when they may meet one or other of these evil spirits.

The secret of "stormy weather," whence it comes, when it may come, no man has yet discovered. It is believed that it arises from the contact of the hydrogen gases with the acid gases which are contained in the open air; and "bad weather" needs only a spark to turn into "stormy weather." The thoughtless opening of a safety-lamp, the striking of a match, is sufficient to fuse the two evil spirits into one.

The solitary man whom we have been shadowing sees, with an anxiety that increases every moment, how the air becomes more and more the color of an opal. Already it is enveloping him in a thin cloud. He does not wait for the flood to rise to its highest point, for, when he reaches a place in the wall where a sort of landing-stage has been made, he jumps upon it, draws the boat by its chain, and moors it fast, and then, ascending by some rude steps to a strong iron door, he opens it with a key, and, closing it behind him, finds himself in a passage which leads him straight into the pit.

Here he is in a busy world, very different from the solitude he has left. The streets, which are narrow and close, are full of miners hard at work with their hammers. The men are nearly naked, the boys who push the wagons are wholly so. There is no sound heard but that of the never-ceasing hammers. In the mine there are no jolly songs, no hearty laughter. Over the mouth of each miner a thick cloth is tied, through which he breathes.

Some of the passages are so narrow that the worker is obliged to lie upon his back, and in this position to reach the coal with his pick. When he has loosened it he drops it into the little wagon, which the naked boys, crawling upon their stomachs, push before them to the opening.

The man who has come out of the dark cavern does not differ in dress from any of the others. He is clothed, certainly, but his clothes are covered with coal-dust, his hands are just as coarse, and he carries a pick and a hammer on his shoulder. Nevertheless, they all know him; there is a rough civility in the tone of each man as he answers the other's greeting, "Good-evening. Bad Weather is coming."

The word is repeated all round.

It was true. Bad Weather was close at hand, and these men and boys, who quietly come and go, hammer, shove the wagons, lie on their backs, all know, as well as the convict who is awaiting the execution of his sentence, that death is near.

The heavy, damp fog which lies upon each man's chest, and which fills the mine with its unwholesome smell, needs only a spark, and those who now live and move are dead men, buried underground, while overhead a hundred widows and orphans weep and clamor for their lost ones.

And yet, knowing this, the miners continue calmly to work, as if quite unconscious that the dread Angel of Death is hovering about them.

The man who has just entered is Ivan Behrend, the owner of the mine. He unites in himself the office of overseer, director, surveyor, and bookkeeper. He has enough to do; but we all know the proverb, and, if we have lived long enough, have tested its truth, "If you want a thing well done, do it yourself." Moreover, it is an encouragement to the worker if he sees his employer go shoulder to shoulder with him in the work. Therefore, as we have just seen, the master greets all his workmen with the words, "Bad Weather is coming," and they all know that the master does not consider his life of more value than theirs; he does not fly and leave them all the danger, because he is the owner and gets all the profit. Quietly, with the most perfect composure, he gives his orders—the ventilators are to be opened—a charge of cool air at once to the heated coal; and the workers are to go off work after three instead of six hours. He gets into the pail, covered with buffalo-skin, and lets himself down to the bottom of the shaft, to see if the new openings are dangerous. He turns over carefully with an iron bar the coal-dust, to try if any of it is heated, or if gas is there concealed which might cause an explosion. Then, as the ventilators below and the air-pump above begin to work, he takes his place at the anometer. This is a tender little machine, something like the humming-top of children. Its axle turns upon a ruby, and the spring sets a wheel with a hundred teeth in motion; the velocity of this wheel shows the strength of the current of air in the shaft. It should neither be stronger nor weaker than the motion of the "bad weather."

He has now seen to everything; he has taken every precaution, he has left nothing to chance, and, when all the miners have quitted the pit, he is the last to ascend in the basket to the fresh air and the daylight.

Fresh air—daylight!

In Bondavara the sun never shines, the shadow of the smoke hangs like a thick cloud over the land; it is a black country, painted in chalk. The roads are black with coal-tracks; the houses are black from the coal-dust, which the wind carries here and there from the large coal warehouses; the men and the women are black. It is a wonder the birds over there in the woods are not black also.

The mouth of the Bondavara pit is on the slope of a hill, which, when you ascend it, gives you a fine view over the whole country. On the other side, in the valley, are the tall chimneys of the distilling-ovens. These chimneys are busy night and day, vomiting forth smoke, sometimes white, but generally coal-black; for here is distilled the sulphur which forms a component of the coal.

The metal can only be melted when in this condition. One of the principal customers of the coal-mine is the iron-foundry on the neighboring mountain, which has five chimneys from which the smoke issues. If the hammer throws up white smoke, then the oven distils black smoke, and so contrariwise. Both factories working together cast over the valley a continuous veil of cloud and smoke, through which even the beams of the sun look brown and dingy.

From the foundry flows a rusty-red stream, and out of the coal-mine another, which is as black as ink. In the valley both these streams unite and continue their course together. For a little the rusty-red tries to get the better of the inky-black, but it has to give up, and the black rivulet flows on triumphantly through the black meadow lands.

It is a most depressing landscape, and it is saddening to reflect that in such a place men have grown from childhood to middle age, from middle age to old age, and have never seen the green fields or the blue sky of God's heaven.

But Ivan Behrend, when he ascended from the pit into the open air, found little contrast between the upper and the under ground. Below, there was the stifling smell of gas; above, a suffocating fog: below, the black vault of the mine; above, the murky vault of the heavens: and the same men above and below.

It was then evening; the sun had gone down, and for the moment even the vile smoke could not rob it of its setting glory. The towers of the distant castle of Bondavara were touched with its gleam, and the chimneys of the distilling-houses were aglow with this crimson light. The miners were standing about idly; the women and the girls, who are employed in shoving the wheelbarrows, sat gossiping together, as is the manner of the sex. One of them, a young girl, began to sing—a simple little song, with simple words. It was a Slav volkslied—a sort of romance. A mother is taking leave of her daughter, a bride of a few hours; she recalls to the girl her childish days and her mother's care in these words:

"Wenn ich das Haar dir strich,
Zerr' ich am Haare dich?
Wenn ich dich wusch, mein Kind,
War ich je ungelind?"

The melody was touching, with the sad strain that all the Slav music has, as if composed with tears; and the voice of the one who sang was musical and full of feeling. Ivan stopped to listen to the song until the singer and her companions disappeared behind the houses.

At this moment it seemed to him that there was a great difference between life underground and life in the open.

The song still sounded in the distance; the clouds had passed over and extinguished the light of the setting sun, enveloping the landscape in total darkness. No star, no white house; only the 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, that he enjoyed such good health, and that this superabundance of vital energy kept him always occupied, and, by a natural consequence, never dull. There was no denying that it was a solitary life for so young a man.

Ivan was very little over thirty, and when he opened the door of his small house with his key, and closed the door behind him, he was alone. He hadn't even a dog to come and greet him. He waited upon himself; and in this he was a great man. Eating he looked upon as an unnecessary waste of time; nevertheless, he ate a great deal, for his muscular and mental system needed food. He was not delicate in his appetite. He dined every day at the tavern. His food was very little better than that of his pitmen, the only difference being that he avoided the strong drinks they indulged in—for this reason, that they worked only with their bodies; he had to bring to his work a clear intellect, not a soddened one. His bed needed no making. It was a wooden plank, upon which a mattress was placed, covered with a sheep-skin. There was no use in brushing his clothes; they were always permeated with coal-dust.

Any one who would offer, by way of doing him a service, to clear out his room, would, in fact, have done him a deadly injury. It was full of every sort of thing—new books half cut, minerals, scientific instruments, plans, pictures, retorts. Not one of these should be moved from its place. There was order in the disorder, and in the heterogeneous mass Ivan could find what he wanted. In one corner was Lavoisier's pyrometer; in another Berard's gas food-warmer. Over there a wonderful sun-telescope; against the wall Bunsen's galvanic battery, together with every conceivable invention, every sort of chemical apparatus for analyzing and searching into the mysteries of Nature.

Amongst these things Ivan was wont to spend the long nights. Another man, tired as he must have been with his day's work, would have flung himself upon his bed, and have sought in sleep some compensation for the labors of the day, or if not weary enough for this, would have sat before his door and breathed the fresh air, which at night was free from smoke and coal-dust. But this student of the unseen withdrew into his inner chamber, lit his fire, made his lamp blaze, and busied himself breaking lumps of coal, cooking seeds, developing deadly gases, a breath of which was enough to send a man into eternity.

What was it he searched for? Was he seeking the secret of the philosopher's stone? Did he abandon sleep to find out how diamonds can be made out of coal? Did he strive to extract deadly poisons, or was he simply pursuing the ignis fatuus of knowledge—trying experiments, grubbing in the dark until, in the hopeless endeavor, the over-strained brain would give way, and there would be only the wreck of what was once a noble intellect?

Nothing of the sort. This man had a purpose; he wanted to learn a secret which would be of infinite benefit to mankind—at least, to those who are buried in the pits and caverns of the earth. He wanted to find out by what means it would be possible to extinguish fire in burning pits. To discover this he consumed his nights and the years of his youth and his manhood. It was no thought born of to-day or yesterday; it had been his one desire for many years. He had seen so much misery, such heartrending scenes enacted before these pit mouths—these monsters which swallow up human life like the Juggernauts of old. He wanted to prevent this amount of sacrifice—a sacrifice never thought of by those who profit from the labor of these victims, whose very blood is spilled to keep others warm. It is possible this one idea might drive him mad, or he might lose his life; but the knowledge, if he did gain it, would be, in his opinion, worth the loss. After all, what is the loss of one life against the saving of millions? This man had a fine nature; there was no tinge of self in Ivan Behrend. Also, he had a certain enjoyment in his search. Enjoyment is not the word. Whenever he got even a glimpse of what he wanted, his joy was something unearthly. Surely these moments were worth all the pleasures the world could offer him; and if we can bring our minds to understand this, then we shall comprehend how a young man preferred to be shut up in a cavern, in danger of losing his life, or in a stifling room, trying risky experiments, rather than spend the night with beautiful maidens or pleasant fellows, drinking, dancing, and love-making. There is a charm in Science to those who know her that far surpasses carnal joys.

To-night, however, it must be confessed, Ivan's experiments fell a little flat. Either he was tired, or some other cause was at work. Could it be possible that a girl's song— Yes, such was the humiliating condition of affairs. At the moment when he least expected it, this thing had unexpectedly seized upon him.

With an effort Ivan lit his lamp and lighted his furnace. His experiments, however, were a failure. That girl's song kept running in his head, and the words—how did they go?

"Say when I smoothed thy hair,
Showed I not tender care?
Say when I dressed my child,
Was I not fond and mild?"[1]

[1] These lines have been kindly translated from the original by Miss Troutbeck.

It was very pretty, and the voice wonderful—so sweet and clear and melodious. To-morrow evening she might be at the pit's mouth again, and then he would find out her name. Even if she were not there, the other girls would know; there were not so many singers among them.

"Say when I smoothed thy hair"—

Oh, he could settle down to nothing with this tiresome song!—

"Showed I not tender care?"

He wished he had seen her face, merely to know if it matched the voice. Very likely not. She would be hard-featured, like the other girls—bold, unwomanly creatures; beauty and modesty were rare gifts in Bondavara.

The next day Ivan was early at the pit. The opening of the air-oven had done its work; there was only a fractional quantity of hydrogen mixed with the pit air. The ventilators could be shut, and Ivan was able to spend some time in the open.

At twelve o'clock the bell rang to leave off work. As the girls came from the wheelbarrows, he again heard the clear young voice singing the same song. He had not been wrong as to the voice; it was fresh and lovely, like the blackbird in the woods, uneducated and unspoiled, but full of natural charm, tender and joyous as the feathered songster. He could now see the singer—a very young girl, not more than sixteen. The common blue bodice she wore showed every undulation of her girlish figure, untrammelled by any fashionable stays. Her short red skirt, tucked up on one side, and fastened to her waist, disclosed her still shorter chemise, which only reached to her knees, so that her legs were uncovered. They might have been modelled for a statue of Hebe, so perfect were they in shape—the ankles small, and little feet beautifully rounded, like a child's. About her head the girl had wound a colored cloth, and under this she had tucked away her hair; her face, like those of her companions, was blackened by the coal-dust, but even this enemy to beauty could not disfigure her. You could see that her features were regular, her eyebrows thick and dark, her lips red. There was a mixture of earthly dirt and supernatural beauty about this child; besides, she had one thing that even coal-dust could not conceal or dim, her eyes—her large black eyes—shining like two diamonds, which lit up the darkness as two stars.

As these wonderful eyes met Ivan's glance, it seemed to that philosopher as if these diamonds cut away a portion of the glass phial in which he had preserved his heart, and so kept it untouched up to this. But he did not know that this was only the beginning; his glass protector will soon lie in fragments all round him.

The girl made a little curtsey to her employer, and accompanied this small act of duty with a smile which showed two rows of beautiful, pearly-white teeth.

Ivan felt like an enchanted knight in a fairy tale. He forgot what had brought him here, and what he wanted to say; he remained rooted to the spot, gazing blankly after the retreating figure of the girl and her companions. He hoped, without exactly defining what his hope was, that she would look back. That little action would have broken the charm under which he lay. But she did not look back, although one of her companions called her by her name, "Evila." Ivan could see them talking to her, whispering, no doubt, about him. This did not seem to rouse any curiosity in her. She and they had now come to an open shed. Here they seated themselves upon the ground, took out of their pockets pieces of black bread and wild apples, and ate their meal with as much zest as if it had been chicken and grapes.

Ivan returned to his house. For the first time in his life it struck him how lonely it was. It was his custom to keep a sort of log-book, in which he entered his personal notes upon all his work-people. He found this practice very necessary; he knew that a skilled workman of good conduct is far more useful at high wages than a lazy, good-for-nothing fellow of doubtful character who would come for half the wage. At the footnote by the name "Evila" he read—

"A young orphan; supports a crippled brother younger than herself, who goes upon crutches, and whose tongue is paralyzed. She is very steady, and does not go to the town."

It was certain, therefore, that he must have seen this child before, but had given no attention to her. Every Saturday he paid every workman, every girl and lad in the pit; how, then, had he escaped noticing those wonderful eyes? He did not know, learned as he was, that there is an affinity between two souls destined for one another. It is like an electric shock, this sudden birth of love; but Ivan ridiculed such an idea. Love? Nonsense! He in love with a girl out of the pit? Ridiculous! It was compassion, merely pity for a pretty child, left without either father or mother to watch over her tender age, and, still worse, with a deformed brother to care for and provide with food and medicines. No doubt she gave him the best of everything, while she had to be content with black bread and wild apples, and all the time remained an honest, steady girl. She never even turned her head to look after him. There was nothing but pity in his heart for this coal-black Naiad; it was only pity made him wish to cover those tender little feet with proper shoes; it was only a proper regard for the weakest among his work-people which would cause him to make inquiries as to this poor forlorn child. Oh, self-deception, what a part you play in men's hearts!

The following Saturday the workers came to receive their weekly wages. Ivan, who always paid them himself, remained at his desk until the last one came. On this occasion Evila was the last. Ivan sat at a table, on which was placed the sum to be paid, which was regulated by the account of the work done, which was registered in the day-book.

When the girl, who was dressed as when we first saw her in her blue bodice and red skirt, presented herself, Ivan said to her kindly—

"My child, I have determined to increase your wages; from this day you shall have double pay."

The girl opened her large eyes, and stared in surprise. "Why so?" she asked.

"Because I am told that you have a crippled brother, whom you have to keep out of your small earnings. You cannot have enough to clothe and feed both him and yourself. I have also heard that you are a well-conducted, honest girl, and therefore it gives me pleasure to reward you by giving you double pay."

"I cannot take it."

"Why not?"

"Because I know what the others would say. They would joke and tease me about your being my lover, and I should get so tormented that I could not stay in the place."

Ivan was so confounded by this naïve explanation, given without the slightest confusion, that he could make no answer. He counted out the usual week's wages, which she stowed away in the bosom of her bodice, wished him good morning, and went her way.

He remained, his thoughts in a maze. In all his experience—and he had a good deal, for his time had not been always spent in Bondavara, and out in the world he had known many women—he had known no woman like this.

She is afraid they will say I am her lover; she is afraid they will tease her so much on that account that she may have to leave the place! Has she, then, no idea that once I, the master, loved a girl here, she would not push the wheelbarrow any more? Does she even know what a lover is? She knows well that she must guard herself against one. Poor child! How earnest she was, and yet she laughed, and she did not know why she laughed, nor yet why she was grave. A savage in the guise of an angel!

He got up, locked his desk, and turned to leave his office; then again remained, thinking.

She is unlike every other woman. I doubt if she knows how beautiful she is, or what is the worth of beauty. She is Eve, a perfect copy of Eve—the Eve of Scripture, and the Eve of Milton. She is Eve, in not knowing wherefore she should blush over her own nakedness—the type of the beautiful in its primitive state, unwashed, savage, with hair unconfined, who wanders through the garden, fearing nothing, and even playing with a serpent. With men she is a woman, by herself she is a child, and yet she displays a motherly care for her little brother. Her figure is a model for a sculptor, her countenance is full of mind, her eyes bewitching, her voice melodious; and yet her hands are hard with the barrow-poles, her mind is troubled with sordid cares for her daily bread, her face is covered with coal-smut, and she has learned her songs in the street.

"The worse for her!" and, after a pause, Ivan added with a sigh, "and the worse for another besides her."

In his mind a total revolution had taken place. The intellectual spirits had for the nonce deserted him, and in their place others had come of a very different order—those demons which the blessed Antony had fought with such good effect in the desert.

When poor Ivan tried to banish these tempters by burying himself in his books and his scientific instruments the form of Evila came between him and the experiment he was busy on, just as Marguerite appeared to Doctor Faust in his laboratory; her voice sounded in his ear, her eyes glowed in the coals, and when he tried to write he found himself drawing a maiden in a blue bodice and short red skirt. It was the same with everything he undertook. Some mocking demon seemed bent on tormenting him.

Abandoning his experiments, this unfortunate man took to reading a volume of light literature. What did he open on? The loves of great and nobly-born men for lowly-born and inferior women. Thus Lord Douglas fell in love with a shepherdess, and became a shepherd for her sake; Count Pelletier took for his wife a gypsy girl, and went about the streets turning an organ; Bernadotte, the King of Sweden, sought the hand of a young girl who watched a flock of geese for a farmer; Archduke John married the daughter of a postmaster; and another Austrian duke raised an actress to the position of grand duchess; the consort of Peter the Great was the daughter of a villager; a Bonaparte married a washerwoman who had been his mistress.

And why not? Are not beauty, sweetness, fidelity, and true worth to be found under a woollen as well as under a silken frock? And, on the other hand, do we not find sinners enough in the upper circles?

Did not Zoraida kill her own children, and was she not a born princess? Faustina took money from her lovers, although she was the daughter of an emperor; the Marquise Astorgas ran a hairpin through her husband's heart; Semiramis strewed a whole churchyard with the corpses of her spouses; King Otto was poisoned in a grove by his queen; Joanna of Naples treasured the ribbon with which the king, her husband, was strangled; Jeanne Lafolle tormented her husband to death; the Empress Catharine betrayed her sovereign and consort, and connived at his murder; and the Borgias, Tudors, Cillis, all had wives who became notorious in that they wore entwined in their crowns the girdle of Aphrodite.

And do we not find the most exalted virtue in what is called low life? The actress Gaussin, to whom her wealthy lover gave a check with carte blanche to write a million thereupon, only wrote that she would always love him, Quintilla, another actress, bit off her tongue, lest she should betray her lover, who was implicated in a conspiracy; Alice, who undertook to fight a duel for her husband, and was killed; and many others who have suffered silently and died for very love.

Philosophy and history both conspired against Ivan. And then came sleep.

A dream is a magic mirror in which we see ourselves as we would be if our own wishes and inclinations were all-powerful. In his dream the bald man has hair and the blind sees.

Towards the end of the following week Ivan made the discovery that he had lost the use of his understanding. The more he endeavored to force his mind back to its original groove of abstract theories, the more the demons ranged themselves against him. One evening, in a fit of absence of mind, he overheated one of the retorts, so that it burst in his face, and the small glass particles cut his nose and cheek, and he was forced to bind up his wounds with bits of sticking-plaster. It did not occur to him that these strips of black diachylon placed obliquely across his nose did not improve his appearance. He was, however, very angry at his own folly—a folly which went still further, for he began to argue with himself in this way:

"It would be better to marry this girl than to become mad for her sake. Marry her? Who ever heard the like? A pit-girl! What a mésalliance! And who cares? Am I not alone in the world? Do I not form the whole family? And does not this constant thought of her come between me and my business? If this goes on I shall be ruined; and as for the mésalliance, is there a soul for six miles round who understands the meaning of the word? Not one; and if there should be one, he would have to seek me in the coal-pit, and he would find my face blackened with coal-dust, so that no one could see me blush for shame."

All the same, he never sought the girl. He waited for the Saturday, when he knew she would come for her weekly wages, and on that day she appeared, as usual, the last, because she was the youngest, and stood before him as he sat at his desk. But this time, when Ivan had put the money into Evila's hand, he kept the little fingers in his firm clasp. The girl laughed—perhaps at the plasters, which still ornamented her lover's face.

"Listen to me, Evila. I have something to say to you."

Evila looked uneasy; she ceased to laugh.

"Will you have me for your lover? Nay, my child, I mean you no harm; only one must play the lover before one talks of marriage."

The girl nodded, and then shook her head. "It is not possible," she said.

"Not possible! Why not?"

"Because I am already engaged."

Ivan let go his clasp of her hand. "To whom?"

"That I am not going to tell you," said Evila, "for if I did, I know very well what you would do. You would discharge him, or you would keep him back, and we cannot be married until he is taken on as a regular pitman."

"You mean as a day laborer?"

"Yes."

"And you think more of this low fellow than you do of me, your employer?"

The girl shrugged her shoulders, held her head a little to one side, and threw a look at Ivan which sent the blood coursing to his head. Then she went on, quietly—

"I gave him my promise before mother died, and I must keep my word."

"To the devil with your father and your mother!" cried Ivan, out of himself with baffled hope and rage. "Do you imagine I care what you have promised to a fellow like that? I ask you again, will you give him up and come to me?"

Again Evila shook her head. "I dare not. My bridegroom is a wild, desperate fellow; he would think nothing of doing for you, and setting the pit on fire into the bargain when bad weather was on. Good-evening!" And so saying, she ran away quickly, and mingled with her companions.

Ivan threw the day-book from him so violently that the leaves flew from one corner to another. A common creature, a wheelbarrow-girl, a half-savage, had dared to cross his wishes and refuse his offer! And for a dirty, miserable, underground miner—a common mole!

Ivan had a hard battle to fight with himself when he was once more alone in the solitude of the night. The suppressed passion of the ascetic had suddenly broken through the dams, which moderation had set up to restrain its course.

Beware of the man who professes to be above human passion, who glories in his iron will and his heart of ice; avoid him and the quiet, holy, studious man of soft tongue, who turns away his eyes from women, and shuns what others enjoy. It is upon such as these that outraged human nature revenges itself; and once the demon within gets loose, he plays a fine game to indemnify himself for all the restraint he has undergone. The love of the worldling is a small dog; that of the hermit is a lion.

With this wild beast, which he had suddenly unchained, did Ivan, the man of science, spend the long night, now walking up and down the narrow room, now throwing himself on his bed, a prey to the most horrible temptations, his heart beating with a thousand passionate desires, his thoughts running in as many evil directions. The opposition that had been made to its wishes by Evila had stimulated his passion, and also roused the pride of his nature. The master of the Bondavara mine was a man of fiery temper, kept in check by his strong command over himself; but this command seemed now at fault. He had no longer any power to lay this demon, which had got possession of him, tempting him from every side. With his powerful fist he struck himself a blow upon his chest, near to his throbbing heart.

"Wilt thou be silent? Who is master, thou or I? Do thy duty, slave. I am thy lord, thy king. Thy duty consists in nothing but keeping my arteries in motion, in pumping the air into my lungs, in forcing the blood in the right direction. When you cease your work, your illness is atrophy; but you cannot be my master, for the sovereign ruler is my will."

And as Ivan beat his breast, it seemed to him as if in a magic mirror there were reflected two forms—himself and another Ivan, with whom he waged a deadly combat. It appeared to him as if this other self had robbed him of his form and features, to perpetrate in his name the most odious sins, and as he hit out against this horrid image of himself, it slowly vanished; and then Ivan, falling back upon his pillow, cried out in a loud voice, "Never return, O fiend; never defile my sight again!"

In another hour, pale and exhausted, Ivan was seated quietly before his desk. It required an heroic effort on his part to go into prosaic calculations, to add up long columns of figures; but he forced his weary brain, his tired fingers to the task, and the slave obeyed its master, the body submitted to the mind.

CHAPTER III
THE MAN-EATER

The morning light found Ivan still seated at his table. As daybreak and lamplight did not agree, he extinguished his lamp, threw aside his papers, and gave himself a momentary rest.

He had conquered; he was himself again. All the fire of passion had died out, the sinful images had vanished, and in his breast reigned profound peace. He had resolved upon his course; an angel had been at his side and inspired him.

It was Sunday morning. The engines which work the distillery were at rest. On Sundays the enormous water-basin, or trough, which fed the steam-pump was utilized to remove the dirt of the week from the miners. From six to seven the basin was free to the women, from half-past seven to nine to the men. The keys of the great pump-house were given over by the machine superintendent on every Saturday night to Ivan, so that no curious or peeping Tom of Coventry could hide himself there, and see these Venuses bathing through a little window, which gave upon the basin, and which was placed there to allow the stoker to see that the water-course was not disturbed when the pumps were at work.

It had never once entered Ivan's brain that he could play Tom if he were so minded. But on this Sunday morning he took the key from its nail and put it in his pocket. Don't start; he did this, not between six and seven, but shortly after eight o'clock. He wanted to see the men bathing, unseen himself. And wherefore? Because he knew the customs which prevail in coal-mines, and that when a pair are engaged, it is customary to inscribe the name of the girl upon the man's naked body. Where the miners have got this Indian and savage method is hard to say. There is a certain tenderness in it, and tenderness is more often found with the savage than the civilized man. The lovers tattoo themselves with a needle, upon the arm or shoulder, and then rub in a corrosive acid, either red or blue. Such a testimony is ineffaceable. Sometimes some poetic temperament adds two hearts transfixed by an arrow, or a couple of doves, or it may be the signs of the miner—the mallet and the pick. It occasionally happens that the relations alter, and the lover would gladly remove the name of the fickle one from his album. This can be done by placing a blister over the name, and then the writing vanishes, together with the skin; a new skin grows, and upon this a new name can be written. It is a real palimpsest. Many are not so discreet. They punctuate a fresh name under the old one, and let the register increase, until sometimes there is not a vacant place.

It did not give Ivan much trouble to find the man he sought. As soon as the water removed the black soot from the bodies of the bathers, he saw on the shoulder of one of them the name of Evila, the letters in blue, two hearts in red. His rival was an intelligent, most industrious laborer; he was called Peter Saffran, and his comrades had added the nickname—the man-eater. To this misnomer Peter had never taken any umbrage. He was a particularly quiet man, and when they teased him he took no notice. He never complained of anything, and never entered either the church or the tavern. Towards children he had a particular antipathy. If one came near him he drove it away, ground his teeth together, and threw anything he had in his hand at it. This peculiarity was so well known that the mothers always cautioned the little ones against the man-eater. For the rest, he was on good terms with every one.

Ivan, having found what he wanted, left the pump-house and returned home, placing himself before the door, so that he could see the people as they went by presently in groups towards the neighboring village to the church. He noticed that Evila was among them. He examined her critically and in cold blood, and he came to quite a scientific conclusion as to the peculiar character of her beauty, which showed a mixture of races. The small hands and feet, the slender form, the narrow forehead, the finely cut nose, the silky black hair—all spoke the Indian or Hindoo type; but the short upper lip and the long, serpent-like eyebrows were derivable from some Slav ancestor. The starry, seductive eyes were decidedly Eastern, the chin and the coloring recalled the Malay race, and the quick, sudden rising of the red blood to the velvet cheek the Caucasian—for this people blush constantly, owing to the cellular texture being fine almost to transparency.

Ivan pondered on all this as Evila passed him; he wondered also why her lover was not with her, for this was an established custom in Bondavara. Peter, however, evidently did not mind these rules of courtship; he was lounging on one of the benches outside the gates of the ventilation-oven, close to the pitmouth, his head in the air, his chin in his hand.

Ivan went to him. "Good-morning, Peter. What are you doing there, my man?"

"I am listening to the wind that is coming from below."

"Why don't you go to church?"

"Because I never pray at all."

"And why not?"

"I do nobody any harm. I neither rob nor murder, and if there is a God, He knows better than I do what is good for me."

"You are quite wrong there, Peter. In these matters there is an immense difference between educated people and what are called the children of Nature. I have my science and thought to fall back on—my intellect is my guide, and preserves me from temptation; but with you, and men like you, it is otherwise. Those who have no other knowledge but what concerns their daily labor have need of faith, of hope, of consolation, and of forgiveness." As he spoke, Ivan seated himself beside the other and laid his hand upon his shoulder. "Something is on your mind, Peter?"

Peter nodded. "There is something."

"Does it weigh on your soul?"

"On my soul, on my body—everywhere!"

"Is it a secret, Peter?"

"No, it is not. If you care to hear it, I will tell it you."

"A murder?"

"Worse than that."

"Don't you think you had better not tell it to me? It may place you in danger."

"There is no danger for me. If it were published on the Market Cross, the law could not touch me; besides, most people know it. You would hear it from some one else if not from me."

"Then tell me."

"It is a short story. When I was only a lad, not quite twenty, I went to sea to seek my fortune. I bound myself as stoker on board a Trieste steamboat. We sailed with a cargo of meal to the Brazils. Our voyage there was prosperous. On our return we took black coffee and wool. On this side of the equator we met a tornado, which broke our engine, smashed our mainmast, and drove the vessel upon a sandbank, where she foundered. Some of the passengers took to the boat; they went only a short way when she upset, and they were all drowned. The rest made a raft from the planks of the sunken ship, and trusted to this frail thing on the open sea. I was one of them. We were in all thirty-nine, including the captain, the steersman, and a merchant from Rio de Janeiro, with his wife and a three-year-old child. We had no other woman or child, for the rest had perished in the open boat. We thought them unfortunate, but now I think they were happy. Better, far better, to have died then. Out of our thirty-nine, soon only nine remained. Oh, how I wish I had been among the dead! For eight days we floated upon the water, the sport of the waves; now buffeted here and there, again in a calm, immovable, nailed as it were to the ocean, without one drop of water to quench our thirst or one morsel of food. Ten of us had died of hunger. For two days we had never eaten, and the ninth day came, and no hope of succor. The sun was burning us up, and the water reflected the heat, so that we lay between two fires. Oh, the horror of that awful time! That evening we took the resolve that one of us should be a victim for the others—that is, that we should draw lots which should be eaten by the others. We threw our names into a hat, and we made the innocent child draw for us. That child drew its own name.

"I cannot tell you, sir, the rest of the ghastly business. Often I dream the whole thing over again, and I always awake at the moment when the miserable mother cursed all those who partook of that horrible meal, invoking heaven that we might never again have peace. At the recollection of her words I spring out of my bed, I run into the woods and wait, to see if I shall be changed into a wolf. It would serve me right.

"Of the partakers of the cursed meal I am the only survivor. The thought haunts me; it burns into my very soul. Besides my own blood, the blood of another human being circulates in my veins. Fearful thoughts pursue me. The piece of human flesh that I have eaten is in me still; it has taken away all wish for any other food. I understand the delight of the cannibals. I never see a rosy-faced child without thinking what a delicious morsel his little rounded arm would be. When I behold a sickly, pale baby, the idea at once occurs to me—Why let it live? Would it not be better—"

He shuddered, and stood up. He hid his hands in his blouse, and after a pause, went on—

"Tell me now, sir, is there any relief for what I suffer? Is there a physician who can cure me, or a priest who will absolve me? I have told my story to both priest and doctor, and one has enjoined me to fast and to chastise myself, the other to drink no brandy and to have myself bled. Neither of them is worth a straw, and such counsel only makes the matter worse."

"I will advise you," said Ivan. "Marry."

Saffran looked with some surprise at his employer, and after a minute a feeble smile stole over his face.

"I have thought of that. Perhaps if I had children of my own this horror of them would disappear."

"Then why don't you marry?"

"Because I am such a poor devil. If two beggars come together, then you have a couple of paupers instead of one. One must first have something to live on."

"That is true; but you are an industrious fellow. I have long wanted to have you as a first-class pitman, but I waited to advance you until you got married. It is my rule to give all the best places to married men. I have found by experience that the unmarried ones, when they get higher pay, go straight to the bad. There is more dependence to be placed in a married man; he won't leave his place for a mere nothing. Therefore, consider the matter. After the first Saturday on which you can tell me that you have been called in church with your intended, you will receive the pay of a pitman, and I shall give you a dwelling-house for yourself."

Peter's face was a study. He could not believe that what he heard was real earnest. When this was made clear to him, he was ready to fall at the feet of his benefactor; he almost sobbed as he stammered forth some words of thanks.

"Now," cried Ivan, with friendly encouragement, "to-day is a Sunday. Does nothing occur to you, my friend?"

The man sprang to his feet.

"Service has not yet begun," went on Ivan; "the congregation have not all arrived at the church yet. I think there would be time for you to catch up your bride and go with her to the clergyman."

Peter said no word to this proposal, but he began to run; his legs were long, and he was soon out of sight. He was bareheaded; he had forgotten his hat upon the seat. Ivan saw it, and took it into his house to keep, but he stood looking after the fleet lover until he had disappeared behind the stone wall at the turning. Then he went in, with Saffran's hat in his hand.

"How happy he is!" he thought, and sighed.

When he was in his room he wrote in his day-book that from the following day, Monday, he had engaged Peter Saffran as a first-class pitman with the usual wages, and that in his place another day-laborer should be taken on. When he had closed the book, his heart whispered—

"My cruel master, art thou content?"

But Ivan had his misgivings, and answered his heart thus—

"I don't believe in you, since I have seen how easy it was for you to slip on the ice. I must for the future watch closely. I am not sure of the purity of my own motives even now. God knows what lies under this apparent abnegation. Perhaps you think as a young wife—But I shall watch you closely, traitorous heart of mine; you shall lead me into no more pitfalls."

Again he consulted his account-book, and found that the increase in this year's income allowed him to take on an overseer at a very fair salary. He wrote out the proper advertisement, and despatched it that very evening to different papers for insertion. In this way he would not be thrown into daily contact with his work-people.

CHAPTER IV
A MODERN ALCHEMIST

A fortnight had passed since Ivan sent his advertisement for insertion, when, one morning, and again it was Saturday morning, Peter Saffran came and told him that two gentlemen had just arrived, who wished to see the mine.

"They must be foreigners," he added, "since they spoke French together." Peter's life as a sailor had given him some knowledge of the French tongue.

"I shall be with them immediately," returned Ivan, who was busy pouring a green liquid through a pointed felt hat. "Let them meanwhile get into the usual miner's dress."

"That is already done; they are all ready for you."

"Very good. I am going. And how are you getting on, Peter?"

"With the wedding? Everything is in order; to-morrow we shall be called in church for the third time."

"And when shall you be betrothed?"

"It is just now Advent, and our priest will not marry us; but on the first Sunday after the Three Kings we shall have the wedding. I am not at all annoyed at the delay, for I have to get together a little money. When a man marries he must have all sorts of things—furniture and the like; and something for the cold winter into the bargain."

"And have you put by nothing out of your wages?"

"Yes, sir; I had over a hundred and fifty gulden laid by. I had spared everything on myself—food and drink, and even the pipe—and I had got together this sum. Then what should the devil do but bring the recruiting commission down here, and I had to give all my money into the greasy palm of the examining doctor, so that he might report me as being unfit for service because I squinted. It's a trick I have. I can squint for a quarter of an hour together, although my eyes are straight; on this account I shall be let off by the doctor, but my hundred and fifty gulden are gone. I shall have to squint at the marriage ceremony, for the priest only marries me because I am unfit for service."

"Well, Peter, you may count upon some help from me."

"Thank you, sir, but I don't like loans; that is like eating one's supper at dinner."

By this time they had reached the place where the strangers were waiting.

"Ah," cried Ivan, "so it is you, Felix!" and he held out his hand cordially to the visitor.

The old acquaintance whom Ivan called Felix looked as if he belonged to another generation. His soft complexion, carefully waxed mustache, short imperial, his fine, dark-blue eyes, and particularly the shape of his head, and the way it was placed on his shoulders, taken together with his elegant dress, which the rough miner's blouse could not quite conceal, betrayed the man of the world. When he spoke, his voice was almost womanly; the tone was clear and high, like one of the Pope's choir.

Felix hastened at once to put his friend's mind at ease upon a necessary part of his visit.

"I hope you will forgive our putting up at the inn. I was sure you would have made us welcome, but you are a busy man, and you would not care to be at the bother of entertaining us; besides, like all men of business, you are, I dare say, a little in the rough, and the inn is really very comfortable. May I introduce you to my travelling companion, Gustav Rauné? He is a mine-surveyor and engineer."

Ivan was well pleased at his friend's forethought in the matter of hospitality; not that he would not have made him welcome so far as lay in his power—and there were unoccupied rooms in the house which would have accommodated the two men—but his manner of life would have been disturbed. He had never for one moment thought of entertaining a guest.

"My house," he said, frankly, "is not fitted to receive my friends, and, indeed, none come; but the inn is also mine. I trust you will consider yourselves my guests while you remain here."

"We accept your offer," returned the other; "the more readily, since we have really come here on your business. Yesterday I read your advertisement. You require an overseer?"

"I do." Ivan looked doubtfully at the two gentlemen.

"No, no; it is not for me," laughed Felix. "I understand nothing of the business; but Rauné is inclined to join you, should he find that there are capabilities here for real work. Rauné is an old friend of mine. He has learned his business under Erenzoter. You know the firm of Erenzoter? He is thoroughly up in the whole thing."

Rauné all this time said not a word, perhaps for the best of reasons, that, being a Frenchman, he did not understand the language in which the others spoke. He was a small man, slight, and well-made, with penetrating eyes, a sharp-cut face, and very long mustache.

To this gentleman Ivan explained in fluent French that he would be glad to show him all the properties of the Bondavara mine before going closer into the matter of engaging him permanently.

After these courtesies they went down into the pit. Here the two men were soon convinced that each was thoroughly conversant with the whole machinery and working of a mine. Sometimes they held different opinions upon certain systems, and in the dispute or argument which would arise each disputant saw that the other had nothing to learn from him.

Rauné displayed extraordinary quickness and knowledge in valuing the coal stratum. Even without looking at the geometrical maps he was able to decide upon the probable profit, as also upon the probable extent of the layer or stratum beyond the actual ground covered by Ivan's pit. His valuation agreed in almost every particular with that already made by Ivan. By mid-day the inspection was over, and they went to the inn for dinner, having first given some time to washing and general purification. A visit to a pit is by no means a cleanly undertaking.

The afternoon was devoted to the inspection of the distilling-ovens, and in the evening they went over the foundry. When they returned from the foundry, Felix went in with Ivan to his house, while Rauné returned to the inn.

Ivan led his old acquaintance into his workroom, where, in truth, a wonderful disorder prevailed, cleared a chair, full of maps and books, for him to sit upon, and told him to light his cigar at a chemical lamp of a new construction. After a pause Felix began:

"You were always of an inquiring mind, Ivan. I remember well how at college you distanced every one. As for me, I was a pygmy near a giant. Now, tell me truly, have all your science, your industry, and your physical exertions made you a rich man?"

Ivan laughed. "This mine gives me an annual income of ten thousand gulden."

"In other words, it produces nothing, or, at least, next to nothing. You are director, overseer, cashier, engineer, secretary, bookkeeper, and conveyer of goods, and you receive, roughly calculated, just what you would have to pay these employés if you had not united all their different offices in yourself. In other words, your work, your talent, your studies, your zeal, your expenditure of thought and strength upon this mine of yours only bring you in the miserable return which any proprietor would give to a man who filled only one of these offices. As a fact, you don't get a farthing by it."

"The mine is not to blame, neither am I; it is the result of a small consumption, and, in consequence of this, the production cannot be increased."

"I will tell you in two words where the fault lies. In the present day strength is alone to be found in co-operation. In the political world the smaller states go to the wall; they are forced to tack themselves on to larger ones, and so form a union. It is the same in the commercial world; small tradesmen must give way to the larger co-operative centres, and it is better for them to understand this, and make part of a company."

"There is no danger of our foundry closing; our iron and our coal take a first place, and could not be crushed out."

"An additional reason for developing my idea—an idea which, I may as well tell you, was the factor that brought me here. You have already guessed, I imagine, that I am not such a good fellow as to undertake the journey solely on Rauné's account. He is not a chicken, and could have introduced himself. I have a great plan in my head. I intend to make you a wealthy man, and, naturally, I shall feather my own nest at the same time."

"How so?"

"I do not know where I once read this short synopsis of how different nations acquire money: 'The Hungarian seeks it, the German earns it, the Frenchman wins it, and the American makes it.' It is a most characteristic description. You have only to watch the Hungarian, how he seeks in every hole and puddle for a piece of gold; the German will work in the sweat of his brow till he gets his reward, a piece of gold; the light-hearted Frenchman will win the last piece of gold his victim has; but the Yankee sits in a corner, gnaws his finger-nails, and makes his pile. Yes, gold lies in undiscovered millions, only waiting to be 'made.'"

"Where does it lie?"

"In the capabilities of life, in bold undertakings, in the concealed treasures of the earth, which require development, and in the outlay of capital; in new discoveries, in the extension of the means of communication, in the increase of luxury, in the follies of mankind, in the exertions made by scientists; and especially in the money-box where small capitalists keep their gold, which should circulate through large channels to be of use. The number of small capitals should be thrown into one large, commercial mart, and by means of this credit every gulden would bring in three times its value. This is the art of the American; this is how to make a pile of gold. It is a splendid art, an honest art, and it seems to thrive with those who adopt it."

When he had concluded this rather long-winded exordium, Felix threw himself back in his chair with an air as who should say, "Are you not dazzled with the brilliancy of my conception? Is not Felix Kaulmann one of the greatest financiers of the day? Surely you are convinced that he is."

So far as that went, the name had a fair reputation. The Kaulmanns had always been in finance, and were well-known bankers. Of late, since Felix had inherited the business from his father, the firm were more before the public. Ivan knew his old schoolfellow well; he looked at him now quietly.

"How do you propose to make a pile out of my pit?"

"I have a big scheme in my head."

"But the whole pit is anything but big."

"So it appears to you, because you don't view it from my standpoint. You have sought for diamonds in the mine, but it has never occurred to you that there may be iron ore. This pit produces, you tell me, a profit of ten thousand gulden; that is the interest of two hundred thousand florins. I can get you a company who will buy the whole place out and out for two hundred thousand florins."

"But I would not part with my pit at any price. I am here in my element, like the mud-worm in the mud."

"You need not leave it—certainly not; on the contrary, if you wished to go, I would keep you chained, if necessary. The company will start with a recognized capital of four millions; we will form a large business, which on one side will ruin Prussian coal, on the other side will drive the English iron out of market. You shall be the principal director of the business, with a yearly salary of ten thousand florins, and two shares in the business; besides which you will be allowed to take, if you wish it, a portion of the purchase-money in bonds at par, and these will bear interest at twenty per cent. You will enjoy an income of thirty thousand florins, instead of your beggarly ten thousand florins, which you now have, and, into the bargain, hardly any work."

Ivan listened to this proposal without interrupting the speaker. When Felix had finished, he said, in a calm voice—

"My dear Felix, if I were to propose to a company ready provided with four millions the purchase of a business which up to the present had only produced ten thousand guldens profit, and which profit could never in the future realize more than eight hundred thousand gulden, do you not think I would be a despicable villain? If, on the other hand, I placed my own money in such a company, I should be equally a perfect fool."

At this clear definition of his recent proposal Felix burst into a peal of laughter. Then, passing his pliant little walking-stick behind his back, he placed both his hands on the ends, and said with an air of profound wisdom—

"You have not heard all my plan. It has not altogether to do with your colony. You know well that your pit is only a small portion of the monster coal stratum of the Bonda Valley, which stretches far away—as far, indeed, as Muld Valley. I intend to buy this entire region; it can be had now for a mere song, and when properly worked it will be worth millions—millions earned by honest means. No stealing or taking unfair advantage of any one. We only raise a treasure which lies at our feet, so to speak, which is there ready for us, or for any one. It needs only sufficient strength on the part of those who lift it."

"That is quite another thing. Now I can understand your scheme. I will also not contradict your assertion that it is lawful and generous; but it is just because it is so that it is full of holes. It is quite true that the treasure which lies concealed in the Bonda Valley is immense—it is possible that it represents millions; but this treasure cannot be discovered, for the Bondavara property is not for sale."

"Really!"

"I will tell you why; because at this moment it belongs to Prince Bondavary, who is one of the richest men in this country."

"I should imagine that no one knows better than I do how rich he is."

"In the next place, this man is one of the proudest of our aristocrats, to whom I, for one, would not venture to make the proposal to turn his old family property—the cradle, we might say, of his race—into a mine to be worked by a company."

"Oh, so far as that goes, we have seen many an ancient race glad to do a bit of commercial dirt. The King of Italy is a crowned king; and, nevertheless, he has sold Savoy, the place from which his family took their name and the right to have a cross on their shield."

"Well, suppose the old prince were inclined to sell this property, he could not do so as long as his sister, the Countess Bondavary, is alive. Her father left the castle and the property round about to his daughter, who is now nearly fifty-eight, and may live yet another thirty years. She has grown up in that castle; she has, to my knowledge, never left it, not even for one day; she hates the world, and no human power would induce her to part with her beloved Bondavara to a coal company, not if the last remaining stratum were to be found under the castle, and without this the world should perish from want of fuel."

Felix laughed, then answered with an air of ineffable conceit—

"I have conquered greater difficulties than an old maid's fad, and for the matter of that, women's hearts are not locked with a Bramah key."

"Well, let us suppose," said Ivan, good-humoredly, "that you have overcome the prejudices of the prince and his sister, and that you have actually started your monster company. Then begin all the technical difficulties; for what is the first necessary to an undertaking of the kind?"

"A sufficient supply of money."

"By no means. A sufficient supply of workmen."

"Wherever money is plentiful, human beings are pretty sure to flock."

"Between men and men there is a wonderful difference. This is an article in which one is likely to be easily deceived. With us there is a want of first-class workmen."

"We would get men from France and Belgium."

"But the men who would come from France and Belgium would not work for the wages we give our men. They would ask double. In such a commercial undertaking, the first false step would be to raise the wages to more than the old system, for my conviction is that every industrial enterprise to be safe must work upon its own internal capabilities. We should measure our strength according to the circumstances in which we find ourselves, and we should educate our own workmen; draw them to us by learning together. The trade should extend slowly, but surely, by small experiments."

"You are too cautious. I can convince you to the contrary. For instance, a steam-engine of a hundred-horse power needs just the same labor to work it as one of four-horse power; and a small business requires as many account-books as a large one, and small undertakings in like manner, even if they are in themselves lucrative, will eventually be swamped by the larger ones on account of the want of the proper activity, without which all trade dies of itself."

"Nevertheless, there is less danger of sudden collapse in a small business," returned Ivan, reflectively. "I like a certainty."

"And what certainty have you? Suppose, just for the sake of argument, that one bright morning the Austrian minister of trade listens to the petition of the English iron masters, and that the free importation of raw iron is allowed. Your neighbor over there will at once shut his foundry, and you may go and sell your coal to the smithy, eh, Ivan?"

"I have gone into all that. Our raw iron can compete with the English, and there would be—"

"Your ideas are rococo; they belong to the last century. If America had worked on these lines she would not have overshadowed Europe."

"That may be. What I maintain is that foreign workmen are a bad investment. Those who come to us are, for the most part, men who cannot get on in their own country; restless fellows, ever wanting change; members of secret societies, socialists, and atheists; and so soon as they get among our men they begin disseminating their vicious doctrines, and the next thing is a strike for higher wages."

"Have you ever had a strike here?"

"Never!"

"How do you prevent it?"

"That is my secret, which cannot be told in a few words. I am, however, convinced of one thing: the first obstacle a company would have to contend against would be the price of labor, and the second difficulty would be to secure the services of a really capable overseer; one who would understand the technique of the business."

"We could easily get one from abroad."

"That might be; but I, as a private individual, could get one easily if I had sufficient money to pay him, for I could choose the best for my purpose, and could give him what I chose, as far as his merits deserved."

Felix laughed at Ivan's description. "That is it exactly, as if you read it out of a book; and just on this account I intend to give the complete direction of the business to a man who understands it to a T, and this man is you."

"That is a complete mistake. I do understand the working of my own small business, but I am quite ignorant of the ways of a great concern. Like many another small man, I should be a child in the hands of big speculators, and I should probably wreck the whole concern."

"You are too modest. On the contrary, I think you would outwit the big speculators."

"Well, suppose all went according to your wishes, or, rather, as it presents itself to your imagination. The great business is in full swing, delivers goods at moderate prices, and in sufficient quantity. Now comes the real objection—the topographical impediment. The Bonda coal-mine is twenty miles from the nearest railway, and twenty-five miles from the nearest river. On your way here you must have noticed the state of the roads. During four months of the year we can send no freight to a distance, and at any time the cost of transporting our coal and iron adds so much to the price that it is impossible for us to compete with either Prussia or England."

"I know all that," said Felix, stroking his beard with the coral head of his stick; "but a light railway would soon settle all this. We could run it from Bonda Valley to the principal emporium." He spoke as if running light railways were a mere trifle.

"A railway through the Bonda Valley!" returned Ivan, in a tone of surprise. "And do you really believe that with a capital of four millions you could construct a railway twenty miles long?"

"Certainly not. That would be quite a separate affair."

"And do you think you would find people ready to advance money for such an uncertain return as mere luggage traffic would insure to the shareholders in such a railway?"

Felix moved his stick from his beard to his mouth, and began to suck the top.

"And why not," he said, at last, "when the state would guarantee a certain rate of interest on the advance?"

Ivan opened his eyes still wider, and placed upon each word an emphasis.

"The state will give to this railway a guarantee of interest! You will excuse me, Kaulmann—that is not possible."

Felix answered, after some consideration, "There are certain keys by which the bureaus of even ministers of state can be opened." After this oracular speech he was silent, pressing the top of his stick upon his lips, as if to restrain his words.

Ivan drew out the drawer of his writing-desk and took therefrom a piece of black bread.

"Do you see this? People who eat such coarse stuff don't dance attendance upon ministers."

Felix threw his head back with a scornful laugh and twisted his stick impatiently between his fingers.

"Allons, n'en parlons plus," he said. "You have plenty of time to make up your mind, for what I have once resolved to do, that I do. I am quite ready to bet with you that I shall secure the Bonda Valley property from under the nose of the old prince and the faddy countess, and that the largest factory in the kingdom shall be established here, and the trade carried on with the outside world. This will all come to pass, as sure as my name is Felix Kaulmann."

"Well, I wish you every luck in your undertaking, but for my part I will have none of it."

The arrival of Rauné interrupted the conversation. The Frenchman explained that he had considered Ivan's offer, and was ready to agree to his conditions and to enter on its office at once. Thereupon Ivan gave him his hand as a sign that the agreement was concluded. Then he handed him the books and the strong-box, the former with the complete list of the pitmen, the laborers, the girls, and boys engaged in the mine; the latter with the money which was paid to them for the week's work, and he asked the new overseer to appoint a room in the inn, where he was going to live, as the place where the miners should come to be paid.

As it happened, this was a Saturday, and therefore on this evening the overseer should enter on his new duties.

The inn was exactly opposite to Ivan's house. Groups of pitmen collected on the vacant space between the two houses. Ivan went to the window to see in what order the payments would be made by the new director. Felix also amused himself by means of his pocket-glass, staring at all the women.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, suddenly, "that little Cinderella over there in the red skirt wouldn't be bad for the model of a bronze statuette. I should like her to teach me how to say 'I love you' in the Slav language."

"Take care," laughed Ivan; "she is betrothed, and her lover is called a man-eater."

Just then Peter Saffran came out of the tavern. He had received Evila's money with his own, and offered it to her. She, however, refused to take it, and the pair went off together in good-humor with one another. The young girl's hand was upon Peter's arm, and as she passed the window they heard her singing.

"Saperlot! What a voice!" exclaimed the banker. "Why, she beats Thérèse. If she were in Paris—"

He didn't finish his sentence. Ivan lit a cigar, and sat smoking silently.

CHAPTER V
THE DOCTOR

The next day was Sunday. Ivan took Felix and Rauné through the workmen's colony to show them the dwelling-houses, which were clustered together like a village. This village had been made by Ivan's father. The district had been formerly occupied by the very poorest, who eat nothing but potatoes; but now the miners who lived here were well-fed and well-lodged. Each pitman had his own cottage and fruit-garden.

When the three men came to the house in which Evila lived they stood still and looked into the little yard beyond. They felt obliged to do so, first, because the door stood open, and secondly, because in the yard a scene was going on of which they were unseen spectators.

Peter Saffran was beating Evila. The lover held his betrothed by her long black hair, which fell over her shoulders nearly to the ground. He had the rich masses gathered up in his left hand and wound round his wrist, while in his right hand he had a thick plaited cord with which he struck the poor girl over the shoulders, neck, and back. As he did so, his eyes expanded until nearly all the white was visible, his eyebrows almost touched one another, his countenance grew white with rage, and through his open lips his white teeth looked like those of an infuriated tiger. At each blow of the rope he growled out—

"So you will have your own way, will you? You will defy me, will you?"

The girl made no protest against her lover's violence. She did not cry, neither did she beg him to spare her. She pressed her apron to her lips, and looked at her cruel persecutor with eyes full of the most divine compassion.

"What a beast!" cried Felix. "And he is her lover!"

"Just so," replied Ivan, indifferently.

"But you should interfere; you should not allow that pretty child to be ill-used by the savage."

Ivan shrugged his shoulders. "He has the right; she is his betrothed, and if I were to interfere he would beat her more. Besides, don't you see he has been at the brandy flask? There would be no use in reasoning with him."

"Well, I shall reason with him to some purpose," returned Felix. "I am not going to stand by and see that pretty creature beaten."

"You will do no good, I warn you. The underground laborer has no respect for men in black coats."