I was only partly awake when I admitted him to my room after his violent knocking at my door. His usual Oriental calm had disappeared entirely, and I gazed at him wonderingly as he stood, gesturing and talking wildly, as though he had lost his senses. I kept shaking my head dubiously.
"But Meester Livingston!" he cried. "I am telling you the truth. I am telling you."
"You're still dreaming, Niki," I said; "you haven't waked up yet. You'll drag me down to the beach, and what will we find there? Nothing."
"But I've seen it, touched it with my hands, Meester Livingston," he went on excitedly. "There is something inside of it—alive."
"Inside of what?" I asked, suppressing a yawn.
"Inside the big fire-cracker," he replied. "It is big enough to put an elephant inside—maybe not so big—" he stretched both arms full length; "maybe, this long. Maybe, it is that ship from the stars, Meester Henry was talking about on the radio last night. If it is, maybe, I will get the $25,000 reward for finding it."
"Ship? A rocket?" Then I blew up. "Why, you little Filipino jackass, why didn't you tell me so before?"
"I have been telling you," he replied, shaking his head, as if in pity for my lack of comprehension.
I sent him off in haste to waken McGinity. By the time I was half-dressed, McGinity joined me, fully dressed. In less than ten minutes, we dashed out of the castle, and made a break for the beach. When Niki had pointed out the strange object to us, lying on the sand, I sent him back to rouse Henry.
Before we reached the queer-looking thing, I had made up my mind that whatever it was, it might be mysterious but nothing more. Not by the wildest stretch of the imagination could I see a projectile from another planet landing on this earth, even if it had wings. But when we got up to it, and I heard a sound inside, as Niki had first reported, as though some one was tapping against the metal, like men trapped in a submarine, signaling to their rescuers, and logical connection was established in my mind between the Martian radio message and the landing of this strange rocket from the sky, the only real brain-storm I ever had in my life was right there.