Luc did not immediately give orders for its demolition. He wished first of all to make some conclusive experiments with the battery. Thus, during a period of six months, the work went on in both forms, and the old smelter spent some abominable days, for he now realised that the well-loved monster in his charge was condemned. He saw it forsaken now, nobody came up the hill to see it, whereas the inquisitive thronged around those electrical furnaces below, which occupied such little space, and did their work, it was said, so well and so speedily. Morfain, for his part, full of rancour, never went down to see them, but spoke of them disdainfully as of toys for children. Was it possible that the ancient method of smelting which had given man the empire of the world could be dethroned? No, no, one would have to revert to those giant furnaces which had burnt for centuries without ever being extinguished! And, alone with the few men under his orders, who remained silent like himself, Morfain looked down contemptuously on the shed in which the electrical furnaces were working, and still felt happy at night-time, when he was able to set the horizon all aglow with a 'run' of dazzling metal.
But the day at last came when Luc passed sentence on the blast-furnace, whose work was now shown to be both slower and more costly than the other. Thus it was decided that following upon a final run it should be allowed to go out, after which it might be demolished. Morfain, on being warned of this, did not answer, but remained impassive, his bronze countenance revealing nothing of the tempest in his soul. His calmness frightened people; Ma-Bleue came up to see him, accompanied by her daughter Léonie, and Petit-Da, moved by the same affectionate impulse, brought his son Raymond. For a moment the family found itself assembled, as in former days, in the rocky hillside cavern, and the old man allowed himself to be kissed and caressed, without repulsing his grandchildren as he had usually done. Still he did not return their caresses, but seemed far away, like one who belonged to a past period, one in whom no human feeling was left. It was a cold and gloomy autumn day, and the crapelike veil of the early twilight was falling from a livid sky over the dark earth. At last Morfain arose and broke the silence, saying, 'Well, they are waiting for me, there is yet another run.'
It was the last. They all followed him to the blast-furnace. The men under his orders were present, already shadowy in the increasing gloom, and once again, for the last time, the usual work was accomplished. A bar was thrust into the plug of refractory clay, the hole was enlarged, and finally the tumultuous flood of fusing metal poured forth, a stream of flames rolling along the channels in the sand and filling the moulds with blazing pools. And once again, too, from those tracks and fields of fire arose a harvest of sparks, blue sparks of delicate ethereality, and golden fusees delightfully refined, a florescence of cornflowers, as it were, amidst golden ears of wheat. And a blinding glow burst on the mournful twilight, illumining the furnace, the neighbouring buildings, the distant roofs of Beauclair, and the whole of the great horizon. Then everything disappeared, deep night reigned all around; the end had come, the furnace's life was over.
Morfain, who without a word had stood looking at it all, remained there in the gloom motionless like one of the neighbouring rocks which the shades of night again enveloped.
'Father,' said Ma-Bleue gently, 'now that there is no more work to be done here, you must come down to us. Your room has long been ready for you.'
And Petit-Da in his turn exclaimed: 'Father, you've certainly got to rest now. There is a room for you in my place too. You must let each of us have you in turn, you must live sometimes with one and sometimes with the other.'
But the old master-smelter did not immediately answer. A great sigh made his breast heave dolorously. At last he said: 'That's it, I'll go down, I'll have a look. But you can go away now.'
For another fifteen days it was impossible to induce Morfain to quit the furnace. He watched it cooling, as one watches beside a death-bed. Every evening he felt it in order to make sure that it was not quite dead. And as long as he found a little warmth remaining, he lingered obstinately beside it as if it were a friend whose remains it would be wrong to abandon. But at last the demolishers arrived, and then one morning the grand old vanquished man was seen to descend from his cavern to La Crêcherie, where he repaired with a still firm step to the large glazed shed in which the battery of electrical furnaces was working.
As it happened, both Jordan and Luc were there with Petit-Da, whom they had appointed to direct the smelting in conjunction with his son Raymond, the latter already being a good electrician. The work was being brought to greater precision day by day; and Jordan scarcely quitted the shed, eager as he was to perfect the new method which had cost him so many years of study and experiment.
'Ah! Morfain, my old friend!' he exclaimed joyously. 'So you've become sensible!'