Monjoy went about his work in silence, pressing now and then the muffler more closely about his mouth. When the hearth glowed brightly, he set a beam of wood across it, shaped a place in the ashes underneath the billet, and introduced an empty test-ring. He made signs for Ellah to take a turn at the bellows. He began to busy himself at his bench, now grinding small stones with the pestle and mortar muffled in a cloth, now seeing to other matters. The garret became bright as the bellows roared, and unbearably hot, and Ellah dropped the bellows and made for the door, through the chink of which a little air entered. By and by, into the test-ring in the glowing furnace Monjoy introduced one of the little leaden cubes, and plied the bellows more gently. He paid no heed when Ellah stooped over him, and presently Ellah returned to the door again. Half an hour passed; Monjoy’s face streamed, and his eyes were drowsy; and Ellah nodded against the bench by the door. Monjoy roused himself, and with a pair of tongs drew the test from the furnace, setting it to cool. Ellah dozed, and Monjoy crossed over and listened to his breathing. Then he weighed out from his mortar a pound or so of crushed ore, added iron filings to it, set it in a melting-pot in the furnace, and began with the bellows again. An hour passed. The air was well nigh insupportable. He rose again, tottered to his bench, took a deep gulp of water, and stripped off even his shirt. He returned to the bellows; rivulets ran down his giant back; he blundered heavily to the table with the crucible in a pair of tongs and began to dig out the slag; and with the small residue in another ring he crossed again to the furnace and continued mechanically with the bellows. Ellah had fallen across the bench, and slept among the tests and crucibles. * * * * * By two o’clock in the morning Monjoy had allowed the furnace to die down again, had extinguished his candle for a few minutes, and had flung open the double doors at the back for air. The cool night restored him, and presently he closed the doors and lighted the candle again. He shook Ellah, who opened his eyes sluggishly, and Monjoy’s voice wheezed as he handed him his trumpet and bade him draw near the candle. Ranged along the end of the bench were six test-rings. In the little hollow that had been scraped in the bone of each a bead of grey metal lay. The smallest was no more than a sparrow-pellet; two of them would weigh perhaps a couple of pennyweights each; but one dull globule could hardly have drawn on a balance less than half an ounce, while another was only a grain or two smaller. Monjoy’s hand was tapping with a regular movement on the first of the rings.