Page:Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle.djvu/169

Rh other illuminating charge. It disclosed the black man standing up on the deck, and looking at them appealingly.

"Yes, Tomba here," was the answer. "Oh, you be English, Tomba know. Please help Missy and Massy Illingway. Red devils goin' kill 'em pretty much quick."

"Come in!" called Tom, as he turned on the electric lights in the airship. "Come in and tell us all about it. But how did you get here?"

"Maybe there are two Tombas," suggested Ned.

"Bless my safety razor!" cried Mr. Damon, "perhaps Ned is right!"

But he wasn't, as they learned when they had questioned the African, who came inside the airship, looking wonderingly around at the many strange things he saw. He was the same Tomba who had escaped the massacre, and had taken news of the capture of his master and mistress to the white settlement. In vain after that he had tried to organize a band to go back with him to the rescue, but the whites in the settlement were too few, and the natives too timid. Then Tomba, with grief in his heart, and not wanting to live while the missionaries whom he had come to care for very much, were captives, he went back into the jungle, determined, if he could not