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his head. The loftiness dwarfed the mixture of heavy, straight-backed
Spanish chairs of brown wood with leathern seats, and European
furniture, low, and cushioned all over, like squat little monsters
gorged to bursting with steel springs and horsehair. There were
knick-knacks on little tables, mirrors let into the wall above marble
consoles, square spaces of carpet under the two groups of armchairs,
each presided over by a deep sofa; smaller rugs scattered all over the
floor of red tiles; three windows from the ceiling down to the ground,
opening on a balcony, and flanked by the perpendicular folds of the
dark hangings. The stateliness of ancient days lingered between the four
high, smooth walls, tinted a delicate primrose-colour; and Mrs. Gould,
with her little head and shining coils of hair, sitting in a cloud of
muslin and lace before a slender mahogany table, resembled a fairy posed
lightly before dainty philtres dispensed out of vessels of silver and
porcelain.
Mrs. Gould knew the history of the San Tome mine. Worked in the early
days mostly by means of lashes on the backs of slaves, its yield had
been paid for in its own weight of human bones. Whole tribes of Indians
had perished in the exploitation; and then the mine was abandoned, since
with this primitive method it had ceased to make a profitable return,
no matter how many corpses were thrown into its maw. Then it became
forgotten. It was rediscovered after the War of Independence. An English
company obtained the right to work it, and found so rich a vein that
neither the exactions of successive governments, nor the periodical
raids of recruiting officers upon the population of paid miners they had
created, could discourage their perseverance. But in the end, during the
long turmoil of pronunciamentos that followed the death of the famous
Guzman Bento, the native miners, incited to revolt by the emissaries
sent out from the capital, had risen upon their English chiefs and
murdered them to a man. The decree of confiscation which appeared
immediately afterwards in the Diario Official, published in Sta. Marta,
began with the words: "Justly incensed at the grinding oppression of
foreigners, actuated by sordid motives of gain rather than by love for a
country where they come impoverished to seek their fortunes, the mining
population of San Tome, etc. . . ." and ended with the declaration: "The
chief of the State has resolved to exercise to the full his power
of clemency. The mine, which by every law, international, human, and
divine, reverts now to the Government as national property, shall remain
closed till the sword drawn for the sacred defence of liberal principles
has accomplished its mission of securing the happiness of our beloved
country."
And for many years this was the last of the San Tome mine. What
advantage that Government had expected from the spoliation, it is
impossible to tell now. Costaguana was made with difficulty to pay a
beggarly money compensation to the families of the victims, and then
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