Bob's eyes were becoming accustomed to the gloom. He made out pulleys,
belts, machinery, men. While he watched a black, crooked arm shot
vigorously up from the floor, hurried a log to the embrace of two
clamps, rolled it a little this way, a little that, hovered over it as
though in doubt as to whether it was satisfactorily placed, then plunged
to unknown depths as swiftly and silently as it had come. So abrupt and
purposeful were its movements, so detached did it seem from control,
that, just as when he was a youngster, Bob could not rid his mind of the
notion that it was possessed of volition, that it led a mysterious life
of its own down there in the shadows, that it was in the nature of an
intelligent and agile beast trained to apply its powers independently.
Bob remembered it as the "nigger," and looked about for the man standing
by a lever.
A momentary delay seemed to have occurred, owing to some obscure
difficulty. The man at the lever straightened his back. Suddenly all
that part of the floor seemed to start forward with extraordinary
swiftness. The log rushed down on the circular saw.
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