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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.
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