He must have slept well beyond midnight, when apparently without cause he awoke. For a few minutes he was too confused to locate himself. Gradually his recollection came back, and he realized that he was in blank darkness. His immediate surroundings were so still that he heard the soft ripple of the brook near the hangar.
“I ’spose de Perfesser hab retired,” concluded Bunk, “and I shan’t see anything ob him till morning.”
It was so easy, as a rule, for the colored youth to sleep at all times that he could not understand why he not only awoke from sound slumber but could not woo it back. The longer he lay the wider awake he became. Finally he sat up.
“Dis am mighty qu’ar,” he muttered; “it looks as if morning hab come afore de night am frough; I wonder if tings doan’ got mixed dat way sometimes in dis part ob de world.”
The question was beyond his solving. His next feeling was of curiosity as to the whereabouts of the Professor. When Bunk last saw him he was working in the vividly lighted shop. By and by the lad made out a faint illumination through the windows that was caused by the partially obscured moonlight. The door was shut, since nothing of the kind showed in that direction.
“I’ll bet dat he’s goned off,” was Bunk’s decision; “I wonder if he means to gib me de slip and sail to Afriky without me. I’ll find out.”
He recalled the interior of the building well enough to remember that a wide passage led from his couch to the opening at the front. The workbenches were along the sides, so as to give the inventor elbowroom. Bunk began groping his way with hands extended to avoid falling over any obstacle that might have been placed there while he was asleep. His wakefulness was probably due to the effect of the fumes of chemicals, for he had noted them the moment he roused from slumber.
“I’ll go outside and if I doan’ see de Perfesser I’ll yell for him—”
Bunk did not wait until he got outside before yelling. At that moment, one of his extended hands came in contact with a live, or rather partly live wire, and with a wild shout he bounded several feet in air, tumbled over on his back, kicked and rolled in an agony more of mind than of body. In the same instant, the interior of the building was illuminated as if from the burst of a hundred suns. As his bewildered senses straggled back he rose to a sitting posture and saw the towering form of Professor Morgan looking down upon him with the most terrible expression he had ever witnessed on his countenance. Like the youth, he had not removed his garments and the long duster still wrapped his towering figure. The eyes glowed with piercing intensity and Bunk even fancied that the long grizzled beard was in flames.
“What is the matter with you?” sternly demanded the crank, in the voice which sounded like the rolling of thunder.