“If Tom was in the midst of anything that made a noise like that he must be hurt!” declared Mr. Swift. “That was a sharp explosion. Hurry, Rad, and see what it was.”
“Yes, sah, Massa Swift, I’s a-hurryin’!” answered Eradicate.
From a room farther down the hall in the Swift home came a deep, heavy voice exclaiming:
“Fire! Fire! Koku see much blaze!”
Koku was a gigantic specimen of a man whom Tom had brought back with him from an airship trip to a distant, mysterious land. The giant was rather simple, and never seemed to be able to master the English language. But he was a faithful servant and, because of his enormous strength, Tom frequently used Koku as a guard about the plant.
“Fire?” cried Mr. Swift, fumbling for his clothes. “Is there a fire, Koku?”
“Much blaze in Master Tom’s workshop,” the giant replied. He could not twist his tongue around “laboratory.”
“Dey suah is a fire!” cried Eradicate, running to his window. “By golly, whole place looks like it was burnin’!”
By this time Mrs. Baggert, the housekeeper, several other servants, and Garret Jackson, the shop manager and superintendent, who was spending the night at the Swift home, had been aroused. Several workmen in the Swift plant, who lived not far from the experimental laboratory, had also been aroused by the explosion and the glare of flames and were now running to help, adding their voices to the others giving the alarm.
By this time Mr. Swift, with Eradicate and Koku, had descended to the yard that was between the laboratory and the house, and by the glare of the flames Tom’s inert body was seen stretched out on the grass.