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When the Hercules 0001 was towed out of the enclosure belonging to the Swift Construction Company early on Monday morning, each door and window of the huge cab was barred and locked. Inside the cab rode Koku, the giant. Koku had his orders to allow nobody to enter the Hercules 0001 until Tom or Ned Newton came to relieve him of his responsibility as guard.
The young inventor was getting ready to run the huge locomotive out upon the yard-track. Remembering vividly the attempt which had been made some weeks before to blow up the Hercules 0001, it was only natural that Ned should suspect that the flash of light he had seen revealed the presence of some ill-conditioned person lurking just beyond the fence.
A maximum speed of two miles a minute on a level track for the Hercules 0001. With the speed already attained by both steam and electric locomotives in the more recent past, this was by no means an impossible attainment, as Tom quite well knew.
Ned staggered to the door and clung to Tom's arm. He shrilled into the latter's ear: "Shall we jump?" "I don't see any soft spots," returned Tom, grimly. "There aren't any life nets along this line." Ned Newton was frightened, and with good reason. But if his chum was equally terrified he did not show it. He continued to lean from the open door to peer down the grade as the Hercules 0001 drove on.
But the man's right hand was reaching upward, above his head. The Hercules 0001 came roaring on. Its cone of light passed beyond Ned's station. In a few seconds it reached the spot, and roared on. Ned had not made a move. It seemed to him that he could not move or speak. The onrush of the electric locomotive all but swept the young fellow from his feet. It had come and gone in an instant!
He knew more about the uncertainties of mechanical contrivances than did either Mr. Bartholomew or Ned Newton. The very next day the Hercules 0001 was got out upon a section of the electrified system of the Hendrickton & Pas Alos Railway, and the pantagraphs of the huge locomotive for the first time came into connection with the twin conductor trolleys which overhung the rails.
The latter cannot exceed 0.01 cc. in accuracy, which corresponds to 0.01 gram. The student should clearly understand that !all other weighings!, except those for calibration, should be made accurately to 0.0001 gram, unless special directions are given to the contrary.
But now Tom climbed to the roof of the locomotive, and with Koku's aid managed to set the rear pantagraph at such an angle that its wheels caught the trolley cables again, and once more the current was pumped into the Hercules 0001. Tom tried out the several parts of the mechanism and found that, despite the jar of the collision, nothing was really injured.
You will send out an all-station telecast, immediately: Military Commander-in-Chief Carlos von Schlichten, being informed of the deaths of both Governor-General Harrington and Lieutenant-Governor Blount, assumes the duties of Governor-General, as of 0001 today." He turned to Keaveney. "Does that satisfy you?" he asked. "No, it doesn't.
He could not be sure of Andy O'Malley's figure at that distance; but he could be pretty confident of Koku's identification. And then, with a shock that gripped and almost paralyzed his mind, Tom saw again the switch ahead of the pilot of the Hercules 0001.
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