Tom Swift and His Sky Racer or The Quickest Flight on ... - Fourmilab

Chapter 16A Mysterious FireF<strong>or</strong> a few moments <strong>Tom</strong> did not know what to think. Not that the sight ofaeroplanes in flight were any novelty to him, but to see one flying over his housein the dead of night was a little out of the <strong>or</strong>dinary. <strong>The</strong>n, as he realized thatnight-flights were becoming m<strong>or</strong>e common, <strong>Tom</strong> tried to make out the detailsof the craft.“I wish I had brought the night glasses with me,” he said aloud.“Here they are,” spoke a voice at his side, <strong>and</strong> so suddenly that <strong>Tom</strong> wasstartled. He looked down, <strong>and</strong> saw Mr. Jackson st<strong>and</strong>ing beside him.“Did you hear the noise, too?” the lad asked the engineer.“Yes. It woke me up. <strong>The</strong>n I heard you moving around, <strong>and</strong> I heard youcome up here. I thought maybe it was a flight of mete<strong>or</strong>s you’d come to see,<strong>and</strong> I knew the glasses would be h<strong>and</strong>y, so I stopped f<strong>or</strong> them. Take a look,<strong>Tom</strong>. It’s an aeroplane; isn’t it?”“Yes, <strong>and</strong> not moving very fast, either. <strong>The</strong>y seem to be circling aroundhere.”<strong>The</strong> young invent<strong>or</strong> was peering through the binoculars, <strong>and</strong>, as soon as hehad the mysterious craft in focus, he cried:“Look, Mr. Jackson, it’s a new kind of monoplane. I never saw one like itbef<strong>or</strong>e. I wonder who could have invented that? It’s something like a Santos-Dumont <strong>and</strong> a Bleriot, with some features of C<strong>or</strong>nu’s Helicopter. That’s a queermachine.”“It certainly is,” agreed the engineer, who was now sighting through theglasses. In spite of the darkness the binoculars brought out the peculiarities ofthe aeroplane with considerable distinctness.“Can you make out who are in it?” asked <strong>Tom</strong>.“No,” answered Mr. Jackson. “You try.”But <strong>Tom</strong> had no better luck. <strong>The</strong>re were two persons in the odd machine,which was slowly flying along, moving in a great circle, with the <strong>Swift</strong> house f<strong>or</strong>its center.“I wonder why they’re hanging around here?” asked <strong>Tom</strong>, suspiciously.73