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seemed to make the distant hillside of Hanley quiver. The moon was
riding out now from among a drift of clouds, halfway up the sky
above the undulating wooded outlines of Newcastle. The steaming
canal ran away from below them under an indistinct bridge, and
vanished into the dim haze of the flat fields towards Burslem.
"
That's the cone I've been telling you of," shouted Horrocks;
and, below that, sixty feet of fire and molten metal, with the air
"
of the blast frothing through it like gas in soda-water."
Raut gripped the hand-rail tightly, and stared down at the
cone. The heat was intense. The boiling of the iron and the
tumult of the blast made a thunderous accompaniment to Horrocks'
voice. But the thing had to be gone through now. Perhaps, after
all . . .
"In the middle," bawled Horrocks, "temperature near a thousand
degrees. If you were dropped into it . . . . flash into
flame like a pinch of gunpowder in a candle. Put your hand out and
feel the heat of his breath. Why, even up here I've seen the
rain-water boiling off the trucks. And that cone there. It's a
damned sight too hot for roasting cakes. The top side of it's
three hundred degrees."
"Three hundred degrees!" said Raut.
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