CHAPTER II
NED DISAPPEARS
Scarcely had the echoes of the explosion in Tom Swift’s laboratory died away, being swallowed up in the blackness and silence of the night, than members of the Swift household began stirring.
Mr. Swift, Tom’s aged and rather infirm father, sat up in bed and called:
“What was that? Thunder?”
“No, Massa Swift,” answered Eradicate, the faithful colored servant, who, now that Mr. Swift had declined so, was his personal attendant, sleeping in the next room. “No, Massa Swift,” he repeated. “Dat wa’n’t no thunder.”
By this time Eradicate was moving about and fumbling for a light. Mr. Swift, however, had reached up and switched on the reading lamp attached to the head of his bed.
“What was it then?” asked the aged inventor, for Mr. Swift had begun invention work when Tom was a mere baby.
“I spects, Massa, dat it was somethin’ Tom been doin’ out in his lab’tory,” the colored man answered. He had his own light on now and was beginning to dress, preparatory to making an investigation.