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For answer Derby spoke quietly, but with clear, level distinctness. "I go to-morrow to Vencata, to work a piece of land which is the property of the Prince and Princess Sansevero.
"Send immediately by express one good Rochester burner lamp and barrel of kerosene to "Sua Eminenza, "L'Arcivescovo di Vencata, "JOHN." 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 present duke had made the lives of Sicilians terrible enough, but he, Luigi Calluci, would have no stranger Americano forcing his people to work that hell-mine of the "Little Devil"! Barely two days after the evening at the Palazzo Sansevero, Derby was driving up the Sicilian hills towards the palace courtesy gave it the name of the venerable Archbishop of Vencata.
But as they neared the mining district the soil was bleak and barren. The mountain rivers were dry, and their beds made yawning gaps as though the earth had violently shuddered at her own desolation. At last, about noon, they came to the village of Vencata Minore, which stood in a little plain of green.
Padre Filippo was the one who most persuaded them he and a Sicilian workman, a native of Vencata who had lately returned from America. Between these two the miners' fears were partly allayed, and in less than a week's time Derby received a small company of men, women, and children into his new settlement.
To Nina's delight, he actually got Carpazzi to accept the position of Tiggs, who had to return to America. The plant, once started, no longer needed both engineers. And Carpazzi's tumble-down castle not far from Vencata, enabled him to go without hurt to his European ideas of dignity to "look after his own property." In spite of her explanations, John was very much worried about Nina.
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.
Besides, Padre Filippo would recommend carpenters and mechanics of Vencata Minore the village nearest the "Little Devil" good men and honest, who would help in the work. The meal ended, they returned to the living room. The old woman fussed at the wick of the lamp and then placed a book close to the light and opened it at the page marked by a bit of paper. The archbishop smiled.
Derby, representing his company, was to pay all expenses, take all responsibility, and to return to Sansevero a percentage of the market price on every ton of sulphur taken out of it. Furthermore, Sansevero insisted upon giving him a letter to the Archbishop of Vencata, who lived about eight hours on muleback from the mining settlement.
He spoke quite frankly therefore of his hopes and plans. He was desperately interested in Derby's mining project because he owned a piece of property within a few miles of Vencata and if the Sansevero sulphur mines turned out well probably all the land in the neighborhood would also be leased by Derby's company, and it might be that he and Cecelia could be married.
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