Through the uproar made by the bellows, the crescendo of the falling
hammers, and the shrill sounds of the lathes that drew groans from the
steel, Raphael passed into a large, clean, and airy place where he was
able to inspect at his leisure the great press that Planchette had
told him about. He admired the cast-iron beams, as one might call
them, and the twin bars of steel coupled together with indestructible
bolts.
"If you were to give seven rapid turns to that crank," said
Spieghalter, pointing out a beam of polished steel, "you would make a
steel bar spurt out in thousands of jets, that would get into your
legs like needles."
"The deuce!" exclaimed Raphael.
Planchette himself slipped the piece of skin between the metal plates
of the all-powerful press; and, brimful of the certainty of a
scientific conviction, he worked the crank energetically.
"Lie flat, all of you; we are dead men!" thundered Spieghalter, as he
himself fell prone on the floor.
A hideous shrieking sound rang through the workshops. The water in the
machine had broken the chamber, and now spouted out in a jet of
incalculable force; luckily it went in the direction of an old
furnace, which was overthrown, enveloped and carried away by a
waterspout.
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