“What can it be?” asked Abisha Wharton in an awed voice.
Not knowing the proper answer, Harvey Hamilton held his peace, but Bohunkus had an explanation ready.
“It am de comet!” he exclaimed, having in mind the celestial visitor named in honor of Halley the astronomer, over which the world had been stirred a short time before; “it hab broke loose and is gwine to hit de airth; we’d better dodge.”
And he plunged into the house, where the wife had lighted a candle and set it on the table in the front room. The others left him to his own devices while they kept their eyes on the mysterious visitant to the upper world.
They saw that the light was moving in a circle a hundred feet in diameter, and gradually descending. Whatever connection anything else had with it was invisible in the gloom. If the peculiar motion continued, it must come down in the clearing where Harvey’s biplane had settled to rest some time before.
Suddenly a fanlike stream of light shot out from a point directly above the crimson glow. It darted here and there, whisked over the small plain, flitted above the treetops and then flashed into the faces of the two persons who were standing side by side.
“It’s another aeroplane!” cried Harvey; “it carries a searchlight and the man is hunting a spot to land.”
At this juncture, Bohunkus’s curiosity got the better of him. He came timidly to the open door and peeped out.
“Hab it struck yet?” he asked; “it’ll be mighty bad when it swipes yo’ alongside de head. Better come in here——”
At that instant the blinding ray hit the dusky youth in the face, and with another gasp of affright, he dashed to the farthest corner of the room, where he cowered in trembling expectancy.