Chapter XV. In the "Palace" of the King - Page 2

gazing with startled eyes at the giants who surrounded them.

"Bless my walking stick!" exclaimed Mr. Damon. "Is it possible?"

"Yes, we've arrived!" cried Tom. "Now to see what happens. I wonder if they'll take us to their village, and I wonder if I can get one of these giants for Mr. Preston's circus?"

"You certainly can't unless he wants to come," declared Ned. "You'd have a hard tussle trying to carry one of these fellows away against his will, Tom."

"I sure would. I'll have to make inducements. Well, I wonder what is best to do?"

The giant who had looked in the tent of Ned and Tom, and who appeared to be the leader of the party, now spoke in his big, booming voice. He seemed to be asking Tom a question, but the young inventor could not understand the language. Tom replied in Spanish, giving a short account of why he and his companions had come to the country, but the giant shook his head. Then Mr. Damon, who knew several languages, tried all of them--but it was of no use.

"We've got to go back to signs," declared Tom, and then, as best he could, he indicated that he and the others had come from afar to seek the giants. He doubted whether he was understood, and he decided to wait until later to try and make them acquainted with the fact that he wanted one of them to come back with him.

The head giant nodded, showing that at least he understood something, and then spoke to his companions. They conversed in their loud voices for some time, and then motioned to the pack animals.

"I guess they want us to come along," said Torn, "but let's have breakfast first. Rad, get things going. Maybe the giants will have some coffee and condensed milk, though they'll have to take about ten cupsful to make them think they've had anything. Make a lot of coffee, Rad."

"But good land a massy, dey'll eat up eberyt'ing we got, Massa Tom," objected the colored man.

"Can't help it, Rad. They're our guests and we've got to be polite," replied the youth. "It isn't every day that we have giants to breakfast."

The big men watched curiously while Rad built a fire, and when the colored man was trying to break a tough stick of wood with the axe, one of the giants picked up the fagot and snapped it in his fingers as easily as though it were a twig, though the stick was as thick as Tom's arm.

"Some strength there," murmured Ned to his chum admiringly.

"Yes, if they took a notion to go on a rampage we'd have trouble. But they seem kind and gentle."

Indeed the giants did, and they liked the coffee which they tasted rather gingerly at first. After their first sip they wanted more, made as sweet as possible, and they laughed and talked among themselves while Eradicate boiled pot after