“That’s so. I forgot I had your hat on my head,” said Harry, feeling to make sure that the hat was still there. “Well, then, I command you to do it. Does that settle the matter?”
“Yes, that settles it,” replied the elf.
Meanwhile, they had been drawing near the other shore. The little red star had been gradually growing larger and brighter, and they began now to see clearly the brilliant, ruddy, furnace fires, and to distinguish the forms of Gnomes moving about at their work. The heat had become so intense that Harry took off his coat and vest, and wet his head a number of times with the cool water.
As they drew close to the shore, Wamby steered the boat aside out of the direct current of wind, and it gradually slowed up and stopped alongside of a landing-place. They both stepped out, and Wamby made the boat fast.
“You’d better take a good drink,” said he to Harry, “and wet your handkerchief and tie it around your head. It’s awfully hot here.”
“How do they stand it?” asked Harry.
“Oh! the Gnomes are used to it. But you notice there are no Pin Elves here. It is too hot for them. They work in the mines, digging out the metal. Of course it’s warm enough there, but not nearly so bad as this.”
He drew forth the hat-pin from his belt, and held it up before some soldiers standing near, “Here, you!” he said to one of them, “keep guard over that boat!” Then addressing another soldier: “And you, go ahead and lead us straight to your King. Trot along lively! We haven’t any time to spare, and even if we had, it’s too hot to loiter here.”
They hastened away as fast as possible, but although they were running briskly, and although Harry himself was most anxious to escape from the terrible heat, he could not refrain from casting several curious glances about him. It was indeed a strange and weird scene. Long rows of fiercely glowing furnaces, with scores of misshapen, hideous-looking Gnomes busily at work; some bringing loads of freshly-dug ore in funny little wheelbarrows; some tending the fires and stirring the redhot coals with long pokers; some with big ladles skimming the refuse from the top of the molten metal, or pouring it from the crucibles into moulds; some trotting away with barrows full of new-made gold and silver bars. Then, further along, were hundreds of forges, with Gnomes still more ugly working the metals into all sorts of beautiful and curious forms.
Had it not been so terribly hot, Harry would gladly have stopped and watched them; but as it was, he was very willing to hurry by as fast as his legs could carry him, and was thankful when they entered a corridor and shut a stone door behind them. It was still warm, of course, being so far down in the earth, but the temperature was comfortable, as compared with the intense heat from the fires.