I went and had a look there and shrank back, it seemed so repulsive and dark; but as I did so I saw one of the men smiling, and this made me turn red.
“Look here,” I said sharply, “can I go down there?”
“Oh, yes, if you like, master,” he replied, staring at me wonderingly now.
“Then I will,” I said. “I’ll have a look at the furnace first, and then I’ll go down.”
“Ay, do,” he said; “and you’re just in time. They’re going to run off the metal in a few minutes.”
I recalled our experiment at home with the little built-up furnace, when the ore was first tried, as I walked to the stone-built house, where from out of the centre came a low dull roar; from cracks and chinks and crannies blindingly bright rays of light shot out and seemed to cut the darkness, which, after the sunshine of out of doors, seemed to be black and terrible. Now and then there came a peculiar crackling, as if something were snapping and flying to pieces under the great heat, and it was some time before I could see anything but the brilliant pencils of light that cut the gloom.
By degrees, though, I made out that a couple of men were moving here and there, and that each of them carried a long black rod of iron.
The flames seemed to flutter and burn and to be rushing upward with tremendous force, while I could fancy that I heard the metal bubbling in its bed, where it was seething and throwing off wonderful flames, as I could judge by the gleams I saw.
“Stand back, young master,” said one of the men roughly—“there, right up in the corner here. You won’t hurt now. Just going to run her off.”
I backed into the corner he pressed me to, where there was a broad shutter or screen, and I was getting so accustomed to the darkness now that I could see just below, and in front of a place where golden tears seemed to be dropping from a chink at the bottom of the furnace, several long square trenches in the black charcoal floor, and the next minute I made out that these trenches were all connected together by a little channel.