"And does it take long in the mines to reduce them to this condition?" asked Ramon.
"Not long, not long," murmured the manager, and he went on: "Such as you see them, they are always eager to get back to the mine again. The pay for outside work is so small."
"What do they get?"
"A peseta a day; six reales at most."[F]
They next visited the smelting-houses. The Duke had gone on first with the English engineer, whom he had engaged to report on the improvements needed to make the works pay. In these sheds they saw huge furnaces, piles of cinnabar and stores of mercury.
The furnaces consist of a retort in which the cinnabar is placed with the combustibles for calcining it. From this retort earthenware condensers rise, branching off into pipes communicating with each other. In these pipes the vapours of mercury which rise from the furnace are reduced by condensation to the liquid state; and the quicksilver is precipitated and flows out by holes in the lower face of the pipes. But as a large amount of sooty matter remains, containing particles of metal, it is necessary to remove and clean the condensers one by one. This is the work of boys, of from ten to fifteen, who, for seven or eight hours at a time, breathe an atmosphere charged with mercurial poison. They next visited the stores and the shed where the mineral is weighed for sale. And everywhere the operatives wore the same appearance of decrepitude.
The manager now proposed that they should inspect the hospital. Some refused, but Lola, who never missed an opportunity of displaying her benevolent sentiments, set the example, and most of the ladies followed her, with a few of the men. The Duke excused himself, as he was busy with the engineers, who were giving him their opinion on the state of the furnaces.
The hospital was outside the precincts of the mines, near the burial-ground—no doubt to accustom the inmates to the idea of death, and also, perhaps, that if the mercurial vapours proved ineffectual to kill them, those of the graveyard might finish the task. It was an old building, tumble-down, damp, and gloomy. It was only sheer shame which hindered the ladies from turning back from the threshold. The doctor, who had undertaken to guide them, showed them into the different rooms, and displayed the dreadful panorama of human suffering. Most of the poor wretches were dressed, and sitting on their beds or on chairs. Their drawn, corpse-like faces were objects of terror; their bodies shook with incessant trembling, as though they were stricken with a common panic. Fear and pity were painted on the fresh faces of their visitors; and the doctor smiled his peculiar smile, looking at them boldly with his large, black eyes.
"Not a pleasing picture, is it?" said he.
"Poor creatures! And are they all miners?"