CHAPTER One
News of a Treasure Wreck
There was a rushing, whizzing, throbbing noise in the air. A great
body, like that of some immense bird, sailed along, casting a grotesque
shadow on the ground below. An elderly man, who Was seated on the
porch of a large house, started to his feet in alarm.
"Gracious goodness! What was that, Mrs. Baggert?" he called to a
motherly-looking woman who stood in the doorway. "What happened?"
"Nothing much, Mr. Swift," was the calm reply "I think that was Tom
and Mr. Sharp in their airship, that\'s all. I didn\'t see it, but the noise
sounded like that of the Red Cloud."
"Of course! To be sure!" exclaimed Mr. Barton Swift, the well-known
inventor, as he started down the path in order to get a good view of the air,
unobstructed by the trees. "Yes, there they are," he added. "That\'s the
airship, but I didn\'t expect them back so soon. They must have made good
time from Shopton. I wonder if anything can be the matter that they
hurried so?"
He gazed aloft toward where a queerly-shaped machine was circling
about nearly five hundred feet in the air, for the craft, after Swooping
down close to the house, had ascended and was now hovering just above
the line of breakers that marked the New Jersey seacoast, where Mr. Swift
had taken up a temporary residence.
"Don\'t begin worrying, Mr. Swift," advised Mrs. Baggert, the
housekeeper. "You\'ve got too much to do, if you get that new boat done, to
worry."
"That\'s so. I must not worry. But I wish Tom and Mr. Sharp would land,
for I want to talk to them."