furnaces. See the quiver up above the big one. Not that way! This way,
between the heaps. That goes to the puddling furnaces, but I want to show
you the canal first." He came and took Raut by the elbow, and so they went
along side by side. Raut answered Horrocks vaguely. What, he asked
himself, had really happened on the line? Was he deluding himself with his
own fancies, or had Horrocks actually held him back in the way of the
train? Had he just been within an ace of being murdered?

Suppose this slouching, scowling monster _did_ know anything? For a
minute or two then Raut was really afraid for his life, but the mood
passed as he reasoned with himself. After all, Horrocks might have heard
nothing. At any rate, he had pulled him out of the way in time. His odd
manner might be due to the mere vague jealousy he had shown once before.
He was talking now of the ash-heaps and the canal. "Eigh?" said Horrocks.

"What?" said Raut. "Rather! The haze in the moonlight. Fine!"

"Our canal," said Horrocks, stopping suddenly. "Our canal by moonlight and
firelight is immense. You've never seen it? Fancy that! You've spent too
many of your evenings philandering up in Newcastle there. I tell you, for
real florid quality----But you shall see. Boiling water ..."

As they came out of the labyrinth of clinker-heaps and mounds of coal and
ore, the noises of the rolling-mill sprang upon them suddenly, loud, near,
and distinct. Three shadowy workmen went by and touched their caps to
Horrocks. Their faces were vague in the darkness. Raut felt a futile
impulse to address them, and before he could frame his words they passed
into the shadows. Horrocks pointed to the canal close before them now: a
weird-looking place it seemed, in the blood-red reflections of the
furnaces. The hot water that cooled the tuyères came into it, some fifty