Tom Swift and His War Tank

MP3 Audio CD. Tom Swift and His War Tank

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.