"
But the old man could not look on at this in silence. "Alas! alas!
Domnule, give not away uncoined gold. Rather squander coined gold in
heaps. The other is of itself a witness against us and thereby we shall
furnish a clue to our enemies."
"It is in a good place," replied Fatia Negra; "it is on Anicza's arm and
there it will keep silence."
Anicza replied to this apology with ten kisses. And she calculated
rightly. This necklace weighed exactly ten double ducats--but the kisses
also were double ones.
Then Fatia Negra led them to another machine which cut round gold
pieces out of the rolled out "Zain." He showed the girl how every
clipper, how every screw beneath the impulsion of the piston did its
proper share of the work, and how the whole process was set going by
steam power from without and could therefore be directed and controlled
by one man with another man to relieve him at intervals.
"Dumnezu!"[20] sighed old Onucz, "when I think that fifty years ago we
did all this with only our hammers and chisels! We sweated two whole
days over a piece of work which this marvel can do in an hour. And how
many hands we employed too!"
[Footnote 20: My master.]
Then they went to another machine. This was a small table whose steel
wheels notched the ducats before they passed beneath the stamping
machine. Perpetually moving elastic springs pushed the gold pieces
forward one after the other, turned them round and jerked them away.
Pages:
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134