"I'm coming!" cried Tom. And then he saw a wonderful sight. The whole garden, his shop, the henhouse and all the surrounding territory was lighted up with a radiance almost like daylight. The beams of illumination came from the searchlight Tom had fixed outside his window, but never before had the lantern given such a glow.
"That's wonderful!" cried Tom, as he ran to examine it. "What has happened? I never had such a powerful beam before. There must be something that I have stumbled on by accident. Say, that is a light all right! Why it goes for miles and miles, and I never projected a beam as far as this before."
As Tom looked into a circle of violet-colored glass set in the side of the small searchlight, to see what had caused the extraordinary glow, he could observe nothing out of the ordinary. The violet glass was to protect the eyes from the glare.
"It must be that, by accident, I made some new connection at the dynamo," murmured Tom.
"Hi! Lemme go! Lemme go, Massa giant! I ain't done nuffin'!" yelled a voice.
"I got you!" cried Koku.
"It's an ordinary chicken thief this time I guess," said Tom. "But this light--this great searchlight--"
Then a sudden thought came to him.
"By Jove!" he cried. "If I can find out the secret of how I happened to project such a beam, it will be the very thing to focus on the smugglers from my noiseless airship! That's what I need--a searchlight such as never before has been made--a terrifically powerful one. And I've got it, if I can only find out just how it happened. I've got to look before the current dies out."
Leaving the brilliant beams on in full blast, Tom ran down the stairs to get to his shop, from which the electrical power came.