Chapter X
Professor Bumper
Fairly fascinated by the spluttering fuse, neither Tom nor Mr. Titusmoved for a second, while the deadly fire crept on through the blackstring-like affair, nearer and nearer to the bomb itself.
Then, just as Tom, holding back his natural fear, was about to thrustthe thing overboard with his foot, hardly realizing that it might beeven more deadly to the ship in the water than it was on the deck, thefoot of the newcomer was suddenly thrust out from behind thedeck-house, and the sizzling fuse was trodden upon.
It went out in a puff of smoke, but the owner of the foot was notsatisfied with that for a hand reached down, lifted the bomb, the fuseof which still showed a smouldering spark of fire, and calmly pulledout the "tail" of the explosive. It was harmless then, for the fuse,with a trail of smoke following, was tossed into the sea, and thelittle man came out from behind the deck-house, holding the unexplodedbomb.
For a moment neither Tom nor Mr. Titus could speak. They felt aninexpressible sense of relief. Then Tom managed to gasp out:
"You--you saved our lives!"
The little man who had stepped on the fuse, and had then torn it fromthe bomb, looked at the object in his hand as though it were the mostnatural thing in the world to pick explosives up off the deck ofpassenger steamers, as he remarked:
"Well, perhaps I did. Yes, I think it would have gone off in anothersecond or two. Rather curious; isn't it?"
"Curious? Curious!" asked and exclaimed Mr. Titus.
"Why, yes," went on the little man, in the most matter of fact tone."You see, most explosive bombs are round, made that way so the forcewill be equal in all directions. But this one, you notice, has a bulge,or protuberance, on one side, so to speak. Very curious!
"It might have been made that way to prevent its rolling overboard, orthe bomb's walls might be weaker near that bulge to make sure that theforce of the explosion would be in that direction. And the bulge waspointed toward you gentlemen, if you noticed."
"I should say I did!" cried Mr. Titus. "My dear sir, you have put usunder a heavy debt to you! You saved our lives! I--I am in no frame ofmind to thank you now, but--"
He strode over to the little man, holding out his hand.
"No, no, I'd better keep it," went on the person who had rendered thebomb ineffective. "You might drop it you know. You are nervous--yourhand shakes."
"I want to shake hands with you!" exclaimed Mr. Titus--"to thank you!"
"Oh, that's it. I thought you wanted the bomb. Shake hands? Certainly!"
And while this ceremony was being gone through with, Tom had a momentto study the appearance of the man who had saved their lives. He hadseen the passenger once or twice before, but had taken no specialnotice of him. Now he had good reason to observe him.
Tom beheld a little, thin man, little in the sense of being of the"bean pole" construction. His head was as bald as a billiard ball, asthe young inventor could notice when the stranger took off his hat tobow formally in response to the greeting of some ladies who passed,while Mr. Titus was shaking hands with him.
The bald head was sunk down between two high shoulders, and when theowner wished to observe anything closely, as he was now observing thebomb, the head was thrust forward somewhat as an eagle might do. AndTom noticed that the eyes of the little man were as bright as those ofan eagle. Nothing seemed to escape them.
"I want to add my thanks to those of Mr. Titus for saving our lives,"said Tom, as he advanced. "We don't know what to make of it all, butyou certainly stopped that bomb from going off."
"Yes, perhaps I did," admitted the little man coolly and calmly, asthough preventing bomb explosions was his daily exercise beforebreakfast.
Tom and Mr. Titus introduced themselves by name.
"I am Professor Swyington Bumper," said the bomb-holder, with a bow,removing his hat, and again disclosing his shiny bald head. "I am veryglad to have met you indeed."
"And we are more than glad," said Tom, fervently, as he glanced at theexplosive.
"Now that the danger is over," went on Mr. Titus, "suppose we make aninvestigation, and find out how this bomb came to be here."
"Just what I was about to suggest," remarked Professor Bumper. "Bombs,such as this, do not sprout of themselves on bare decks. And I take itthis one is explosive."
"Let me look at it," suggested Tom. "I know something of explosives."
It needed but a casual examination on the part of one who had doneconsiderable experimenting with explosives to disclose the fact that ithad every characteristic of a dangerous bomb. Only the pulling out ofthe fuse had rendered it harmless.
"If it had gone off," said Tom, "we would both have been killed, or, atleast, badly injured, Mr. Titus."
"I believe you, Tom. And we owe our lives to Professor Bumper."
"I'm glad I could be of service, gentlemen," the scientist remarked, inan easy tone. "Explosives are out of my line, but I guessed it wasrather dangerous to let this go off. Have you any idea how it gothere?"
"Not in the least," said Tom. "But some one must have placed it here,or dropped it behind us."
"Would any one have an object in doing such a thing?" the professorasked.
Tom and Mr. Titus looked at one another.
"Waddington!" murmured the contractor. "If he were on board I shouldsay he might have done it to get us out of the way, though I would notgo so far as to say he meant to kill us. It may be this bomb has only alight charge in it, and he only meant to cripple us."
"We'll find out about that," said Tom. "I'll open it."
"Better be careful," urged Mr. Titus.
"I will," the young inventor promised. "I beg your pardon," he went onto Professor Bumper. "We have been talking about something of which youknow nothing. Briefly, there is a certain man who is trying tointerfere in some work in which Mr. Titus and I are interested, and wethink, if he were on board, he might have placed this bomb where itwould injure us."
"Is he here?" asked the professor.
"No. And that is what makes it all the more strange," said Mr. Titus."At one time I thought he was here, but I was mistaken."
Tom took the now harmless bomb to his stateroom, and there, aftertaking the infernal machine apart, he discovered that it was not asdangerous as he had at first believed.
The bomb contained no missiles, and though it held a quantity ofexplosive, it was of a slow burning kind. Had it gone off it would havesent out a sheet of flame that would have severely burned him and Mr.Titus, but unless complications had set in death would not haveresulted.
"They just wanted to disable us," said the contractor. "That was theirgame. Tom, who did it?"
"I don't know. Did you ever see this Professor Bumper before?"
"I never did."
"And did it strike you as curious that he should happen to be so nearat hand when the bomb fell behind us?"
"I hadn't thought of that," admitted the contractor. "Do you mean thathe might have dropped it himself?"
"Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say that," replied Tom, slowly. "ButI think it would be a good idea to find out all we can of ProfessorSwyington Bumper."
"I agree with you, Tom. We'll investigate him."