Chapter 11

A CHEMICAL DEMONSTRATION.

Raffles Haw led the way through the front door, and crossing over the
gravelled drive pushed open the outer door of the laboratory--the same
through which the McIntyres had seen the packages conveyed from the
waggon. On passing through it Robert found that they were not really
within the building, but merely in a large bare ante-chamber, around the
walls of which were stacked the very objects which had aroused his
curiosity and his father's speculations. All mystery had gone from
them now, however, for while some were still wrapped in their sackcloth
coverings, others had been undone, and revealed themselves as great pigs
of lead.

"There is my raw material," said Raffles Haw carelessly, nodding at the
heap. "Every Saturday I have a waggon-load sent up, which serves me for
a week, but we shall need to work double tides when Laura and I are
married, and we get our great schemes under way. I have to be very
careful about the quality of the lead, for, of course, every impurity is
reproduced in the gold."

A heavy iron door led into the inner chamber. Haw unlocked it, but only
to disclose a second one about five feet further on.

"This flooring is all disconnected at night," he remarked. "I have no
doubt that there is a good deal of gossip in the servants'-hall about
this sealed chamber, so I have to guard myself against some
inquisitive ostler or too adventurous butler."

The inner door admitted them into the laboratory, a high, bare,
whitewashed room with a glass roof. At one end was the furnace and
boiler, the iron mouth of which was closed, though the fierce red
light beat through the cracks, and a dull roar sounded through the
building. On either side innumerable huge Leyden jars stood ranged in
rows, tier topping tier, while above them were columns of Voltaic
cells. Robert's eyes, as he glanced around, lit on vast wheels,
complicated networks of wire, stands, test-tubes, coloured bottles,
graduated glasses, Bunsen burners, porcelain insulators, and all the
varied _debris_ of a chemical and electrical workshop.

"Come across here," said Raffles Haw, picking his way among the heaps of
metal, the coke, the packing-cases, and the carboys of acid. "Yours is
the first foot except my own which has ever penetrated to this room
since the workmen left it. My servants carry the lead into the
ante-room, but come no further. The furnace can be cleaned and stoked
from without. I employ a fellow to do nothing else. Now take a look in
here."

He threw open a door on the further side, and motioned to the young
artist to enter. The latter stood silent with one foot over the
threshold, staring in