espect.

Zorzi stood holding a long-handled copper ladle, ready to take out a
specimen of the glass containing the ingredients most lately added. A
few steps from the furnace a thick and smooth plate of iron was placed
on a heavy wooden table, and upon this the liquid glass was to be poured
out to cool.

"It must be time," said Beroviero, "unless the boys forgot to turn the
sand-glass at one of the watches. The hour is all but run out, and it
must be the twelfth since I put in the materials."

"I turned it myself, an hour after midnight," said Zorzi, "and also the
next time, when it was dawn. It runs three hours. Judging by the time of
sunrise it is running right."

"Then make the trial."

Beroviero stood opposite Zorzi, his face pale with heat and excitement,
his fiery eyes reflecting the fierce light from the 'bocca' as he bent
down to watch the copper ladle go in. Zorzi had wrapped a cloth round
his right hand, against the heat, and he thrust the great spoon through
the round orifice. Though it was the hundredth time of testing, the old
man watched his movements with intensest interest.

"Quickly, quickly!" he cried, quite unconscious that he was speaking.

There was no need of hurrying Zorzi. In two steps he had reached the
table, and the white hot stuff spread out over the iron plate, instantly
turning to a greenish yellow, then to a pale rose-colour, then to a deep
and glowing red, as it felt the cool metal. The two men stood watching
it closely, for it was thin and would soon cool. Zorzi was too wise to
say anything. Beroviero's look of interest gradually turned into an
expression of disappointment.

"Another failure," he said, with a resignation which no one would have
expected in such a man.

His practised eyes had guessed the exact hue of the glass, while it
still lay on the iron, half cooled and far too hot to touch. Zorzi took
a short rod and pushed the round sheet till a part of it was over the
edge of the table.

"It is the best we have had yet," he observed, looking at it.

"Is it?" asked Beroviero with little interest, and without giving the
glass another glance. "It is not what I am trying to get. It is the
colour of wine, not of blood. Make something, Zorzi, while I write down
the result of the experiment."

He took big pen and the sheet of rough paper on which he had already
noted the proportions of the materials, and he began to write, sitting
at the large table before the open window.