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 they
gnomes?--or what? Surely not children! Small, narrow, stooped shoulders,
backs bent under loads buckled to tottering legs. Ragged the creatures
were to the point of nakedness, and on their arms and legs were scars
fresh and scarlet from the torches of the overseers. Women and men
crawled near the caldrons, and down the ladders into the hell pits went
the children--up with the heavy loads past the torch and lash of the
devil servers, whose duty it was to see that no panting being loitered.
Day in, day out, these miserable wretches stumbled under the stinging
pain of burning flesh--and once in a while a child's faltering feet
slipped from the ladder rungs, his weak hands lost hold--a cry, a fall,
and the "Golden Plenty" had swallowed one more victim.
As Derby's party drew near, a straggling group gathered around the
strangers. They stared dully and without intelligence, and yet like
animals in whom savagery is ever ready to burst restraints. The stronger
men among them glowered at the intruders, turning against a strange face
with the snarl they dared not show to one grown familiar.
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