When the Sources of his wealth run dry, he sheds these
sudden glories one by one ; all save the last, and that
is an inalienable investment.
When I came up to the ruby mines, I met on the
way, where Y6-wd village lies in a circle o f the hills, a
horseman on a quick-stepping little grey pony. For
some time I had seen him making his way along the
bridle path. He was the only other white man within
the circuit of the wide horizon, so I waited to greet him.
He proved to be an inspector of the ruby mines
company, whose business it is to deal with illicit
mining; and he told me as we rode forward many
tales of the illicit miner. Under the arrangement that
has been made with the company, it has the monopoly
of the ruby tract. The interests of the people of the
soil are, however, protected in this, that any man can
dig for himself, so that he buys at a fixed price a permit
from the company, which it cannot refuse to give him.
Persons found mining without a licence are liable to
be imprisoned for six months ; and if more diggers are
found at work than the licence provides for, the extra
men are fined. But to satisfy a magistrate and secure
a conviction, it is necessary to seize the illicit miner
in the act. And it is to the accomplishment of this
feat that my companion’s energies are perpetually
directed. The illicit miner is like the jungle-fowl of
these hills in his talent for effecting hairbreadth escapes.
Thus, when all the inspector’s plans have been laid
and success seems assured, he and his minions rush
the mine; an qpexpected ditch or obstacle intervenes,
818
there is a second’s pause; the surprised miner, leaving
his tools, bounds out of his pit, and plunges into the
jungle. A pick-axe and a spade are the only harvest.
But occasionally he is caught, pick in hand, his heap
of ruby earth beside him, surprise upon his upturned
face ; and thereafter six months’ enforced leisure await
PALOUNG
him, in which to think of revenge. The spy—evil, if
necessary, excrescence upon the society of honest men—
is the pivot of the inspector’s system ; and the spy does
not always get his information without betraying the
confidence of a friend. When such confidences are
lacking, he sets out for a likely country, and wanders
about in the guise of a woodcutter, or innocent collector
of herbs. Then one day he comes upon the miner,
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