Chapter XIX: Section VI

Upon the brothers, thus ending, a light, greater than the sun, fell suddenly and smote them blind; and as they lay, prostrate with excessive dread, they heard a voice, soft as the movement of a gentle wind, saying, “Even as ye have asked, ye shall receive;” and then came silence, and darkness with the light of day; and slowly rising, fearful, they found the altar, with its gifts, all consumed. And where the altar stood, a glowing pool of metal burned, and hissed, and bubbled, and ran down the hill-side a thread of fire. Tubal, curious, doubting, with cautious step drew near; and as the metal cooled, and changed from white to red, from red to black, observed it narrowly, and beat upon it, and found it malleable, and broke it, and took it in his hands still warm, and held it out in triumph to his brother.

Such was the birth of iron; and in the air, above, beneath, on either side, far off and near, came music, and the brothers listened, mute with wonder, to a song prophetic of the metal and its uses.