vy sledges or worked the levers of the giant
steam-hammers, while here and there bars of iron new-glowing from the
furnace winked and twinkled in the gloom where those wild, half-naked
men-shapes flitted to and fro unheard amid the thunderous din. Awed
and half stunned, I stood viewing that never-to-be-forgotten scene
until I grew aware that the Captain was roaring in my ear.

"Forge ... rifle barrels ... come and see and mind where you tread!"

Treading as seemingly silent as those wild human shapes, that
straightened brawny backs to view me as I passed, that grinned in
the fire-glow and spoke one to another, words lost to my stunned
hearing, ere they bent to their labour again, obediently I followed
the Captain's dim form until I was come where, bare-armed,
leathern-aproned and be-spectacled, stood one who seemed of some
account among these salamanders, who, nodding to certain words
addressed to him by the Captain, seized a pair of tongs, swung open a
furnace door, and plucking thence a glowing brand, whirled it with
practised ease, and setting it upon the dies beneath a huge
steam-hammer, nodded his head. Instantly that mighty engine fell to
work, thumping and banging with mighty strokes, and with each stroke
that glowing steel bar changed and changed, grew round, grew thin,
hunched a shoulder here, showed a flat there, until, lo! before my
eyes was the shape of a rifle minus the stock! Hereupon the
be-spectacled salamander nodded again, the giant hammer became
immediately immobile, the glowing forging was set among hundreds of
others and a voice roared in my ear:

"Two minutes ... this way."

A door opens, closes, and we are in sunshine again, and the Captain
is smilingly reminiscent of books.

"This is greater than books," said I.

"Why, that depends," says he, "there are books and books ... this
way!"

Up a flight of stairs, through a doorway, and I am in a shop where
huge machines grow small in perspective. And here I see the rough
forging pass through the many stages of trimming, milling, turning,
boring, rifling until comes the assembling, and I take up the
finished rifle ready for its final process--testing. So downstairs we
go to the testing sheds, wherefrom as we approach comes the sound of
dire battle, continuous reports, now in volleys, now in single
sniping shots, or in rapid succession.

Inside, I breathe an air charged with burnt powder and behold in a
long row, many rifles mounted upon crutc