Horrocks answered with a grunt. "The cone," he said, and
then, as one who recovers himself, "I thought you did not hear."
"I didn't," said Raut.
"I wouldn't have had you run over then for the world," said
Horrocks.
"For a moment I lost my nerve," said Raut.
Horrocks stood for half a minute, then turned abruptly towards
the ironworks again. "See how fine these great mounds of mine,
these clinker-heaps, look in the night! That truck yonder, up
above there! Up it goes, and out-tilts the slag. See the
palpitating red stuff go sliding down the slope. As we get nearer,
the heap rises up and cuts the blast 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.
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