“Yes. But you didn’t expect to find a moving picture show in the wilds of Honduras, did you?”
“No, and yet — Look out! What’s that?” suddenly cried Ned, as a great soft, black shadow seemed to sweep out of a clump of trees toward him. Involuntarily he clutched Tom’s arm and pointed, his face showing fear in the fast-gathering darkness.
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Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI
THE VAMPIRES
TOM SWIFT looked deliberately around. It was characteristic of him that, though by nature he was prompt in action, he never acted so hurriedly as to obscure his judgment. So, though now Ned showed a trace of strange excitement, Tom was cool.
“What is it?” asked the young inventor. “What’s the matter? What did you think you saw, Ned; another alligator?”
“Alligator? Nonsense! Up on shore? I saw a black shadow, and I didn’t think I saw it, either. I really did.”
Tom laughed quietly.
“A shadow!” he exclaimed. “Since when were you afraid of shadows, Ned?”
“I’m not afraid of ordinary shadows,” answered Ned, and in his voice there was an uncertain tone. “I’m not afraid of my shadow or
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yours, Tom, or anybody’s that I can see. But this wasn’t any human shadow. It was as if a great big blob of wet darkness had been waved over your head.”
“That’s a queer explanation,” Tom said in a low voice. “A great big blob of wet darkness!”
“But that just describes it,” went on Ned, looking up and around. “It was just as if you were in some dark room, and some one waved a wet velvet cloak over your head — spooky like! It didn’t make a sound, but there was a smell as if a den of some wild beast was near here. I remember that odor from the time we went hunting with your electric rifle in the jungle, and got near the den in the rocks where the tigers lived.”