Helbeck of Bannisdale Volume I Part 35

There was a signal bell--a rattle of machinery. The tub tilted--a great jet of white flame shot upwards from the furnace--the great mouth had swallowed down its prey.

"And those men with their wheelbarrows? Why do they let them go so close?"

She shuddered and put her hand over her eyes.

The foreman laughed.

"Why, it's quite safe!--the tub's moved out of the way. You see the furnace has to be fed with different stuffs---the tub brings one sort and the barrows another. Now look--they're going to turn it over. Stand back!"

He held up his hand to bid Mason come under shelter.

Laura looked round her.

"Where are the other two?" she asked.

"Oh! they've gone to see the bar-testing--they'll be here soon. Seaton knows the man in charge of the testing workshop."

Laura ceased to think of them. She was absorbed in the act before her.

The great lip of the furnace began to swing downwards; fresh showers of sparks fled in wild curves and spirals through the shed; out flowed the stream of liquid steel into the vat placed beneath. Then slowly the fire cup righted itself; the flame roared once more against the wall; the swarming figures to either side began once more to feed the monster--men and trucks and wheelbarrow, the little railway line, and the iron pillars supporting it, all black against the glare----

Laura stood breathless--her wild nature rapt by what she saw. But while she hung on the spectacle before her, Mason never spared it a glance. He was conscious of scarcely anything but her--her childish form, in the little clinging dress, her white face, every soft feature clear in the glow, her dancing eyes, her cloud of reddish hair, from which her wide black hat had slipped away in the excitement of her upward gaze. The lad took the image into his heart--it burnt there as though it too were fire.

"Now let's look at something else!" said Laura at last, turning away with a long breath.

And they took her to see the vat that had been filled from the furnace, pouring itself into the ingot moulds--then the four moulds travelling slowly onwards till they paused under a sort of iron hand that descended and lifted them majestically from the white-hot steel beneath, uncovering the four fiery pillars that reddened to a blood colour as they moved across the shed--till, on the other side, one ingot after another was lowered from the truck, and no sooner felt the ground than it became the prey of some unseen force, which drove it swiftly onwards from beneath, to where it leapt with a hiss and crunch into the jaws of the mill. Then out again on the further side, lengthened, and pared, the demon in it already half tamed!--flying as it were from the first mill, only to be caught again in the squeeze of the second, and the third--until at last the quivering rail emerged at the further end, a twisting fire serpent, still soft under the controlling rods of the workmen. On it glided, on, and out of the shed, into the open air, till it reached a sort of platform over a pit, where iron claws caught at it from beneath, and brought it to a final rest, in its own place, beside its innumerable fellows, waiting for the market and its buyers.

"Mayn't we go back once more to the furnace?" said Miss Fountain eagerly to her guide--"just for a minute!"

He smiled at her, unable to say no.

And they walked back across the shed, to the brick shelter. The great furnace was roaring as before, the white sheet of flame was nearing its last change of colour, tub after tub, barrow after barrow poured its contents into the vast flaring throat. Behind the shelter was an elderly woman with a shawl over her head. She had brought a jar of tea for some workmen, and was standing like any stranger, watching the furnace and hiding from the sparks.

Now there is only one man more--and after that, one more tub to be lowered--and the h.e.l.l-broth is cooked once again, and will come streaming forth.

The man advances with his barrow. Laura sees his blackened face in the intolerable light, as he turns to give a signal to those behind him. An electric bell rings.

Then----

What was that?

G.o.d!--what was that?

A hideous cry rang through the works. Laura drew her hand in bewilderment across her eyes. The foreman beside her shouted and ran forward.

"Where's the man?" she said helplessly to Mason.

But Mason made no answer. He was clinging to the brick wall, his eyes staring out of his head. A great clamour rose from the little railway--from beneath it--from all sides of it. The shed began to swarm with running men, all hurrying towards the furnace. The air was full of their cries. It was like the loosing of a maddened hive.

Laura tottered, fell back against the wall. The old woman who had come to bring the tea rushed up to her.

"Oh, Lord, save us!--Lord, save us!" she cried, with a wail to rend the heart.

And the two women fell into each other's arms, shuddering, with wild broken words, which neither of them heard or knew.

END OF VOL. I