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.

You saw no other motive power but a large wheel revolving under a broad strap; the strap disappeared through the floor, it was underneath there that the man who set it in motion lived.
Old Onucz sighed aloud.

"What things they do invent now-a-days," said he.
But Anicza, full of superstitious fear, clung silently to the arm of Fatia Negra whom all these speechless marvels served and obeyed.
Finally, descending six stone steps they entered the actual minting room.
A gigantic screw press stood in the midst of the low vaulted chamber.
Through the head of the screw was driven a long moving bar, with leaden bullets at both ends and two strong fellows were pushing this bar backwards and forwards; the weight of the machine, as it turned, forced the screw sharply down and in a second it pressed the two round gold pieces laid in the steel matrix into the stamping dies, on one of which was the image of the Mother of God and on the other the cuirassed likeness of the reigning monarch.