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"Horrocks!" cried Raut. "Horrocks!"
He clung, crying, to the chain, pulling himself up from the burning of the
cone. Each missile Horrocks flung hit him. His clothes charred and glowed,
and as he struggled the cone dropped, and a rush of hot, suffocating gas
whooped out and burned round him in a swift breath of flame.
His human likeness departed from him. When the momentary red had passed,
Horrocks saw a charred, blackened figure, its head streaked with blood,
still clutching and fumbling with the chain, and writhing in agony--a
cindery animal, an inhuman, monstrous creature that began a sobbing,
intermittent shriek.
Abruptly at the sight the ironmaster's anger passed. A deadly sickness
came upon him. The heavy odour of burning flesh came drifting up to his
nostrils. His sanity returned to him.
"God have mercy upon me!" he cried. "O God! what have I done?"
He knew the thing below him, save that it still moved and felt, was
already a dead man--that the blood of the poor wretch must be boiling in
his veins.


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