Yet when
he realized again the sufferings of these people, his anger gradually
subsided.
However, these disturbances had all taken place within the week after
his arrival in Sicily, and at the end of the second week he strongly
objected to being guarded. Each day he knew he gained in the confidence
of the people, and each day he knew also that they must be improving. He
felt sure that as their bodies were put in something like human
condition, their intellects must follow. The _carabinieri_ protested
that he would be making a needless target of himself should he attempt
to ride alone in the early dawn from the village of Vencata Minore to
the mines. The road led between rocks and underbrush where a man might
hide with perfect safety. But the apprehension of the _carabinieri_ did
not trouble Derby in the least. "Nonsense," he said. "Why, the miners
are all beginning to like me--I can see it in their faces."
What he said was true, and under the new treatment the people were
beginning to look and act like human beings. Even two weeks were enough
to show a settlement beyond Padre Filippo's highest hopes. No child was
employed in the mines, neither were the women allowed to work outside
their huts and plots of ground. They might dig and plant the soil, but
they were barred out of the mines.
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