Chapter XXII. The Twin Giants - Page 2

several times to surprise Tom and his friends by attacks, but the captives were on the alert, and the electric rifles drove them back.

One night nearly all the guards were observed to be absent. There were not more than half a dozen scattered about the hut.

"I wonder what that means?" asked Tom, who was puzzled.

"I know!" exclaimed Jake Poddington after a moment's thought. "It's their big annual feast. Even the king goes to it. They were just getting over it when I struck here last year, and maybe that's what set them so against me. Boys, this may be our chance!"

"How?" asked Ned.

"The king's brothers may find an opportunity to come and talk to us when the feast is at its height," was the reply.

Anxiously they waited, and in order that the royal brothers might come in unobserved, if they did conclude to speak to the captives, Tom and his companions hung some pieces of canvas over the windows and doors, and had only a single light burning.

It was at midnight that a cautious knock sounded at the side of the hut and Tom glided to the main door. In the shadows he saw the two royal brothers, Tola and Koku.

"Here they are!" whispered Tom to Jake Poddington, who came forward.

"Come!" invited the circus man in the giants' tongue, and the brothers entered the hut.

How Jake persuaded them to throw in their fortunes with the captives the circus man hardly knew himself. Perhaps it was due as much as anything to the dislike they felt toward the king, and the mean way he had treated them.

"Come, and you will be kings among the small men in our country," invited Poddington. The brothers looked at each other, talked together in low tones, and then Koku exclaimed:

"We will come, and we will help you to escape. We have spoken, and we will talk with you again."

Then they glided out into the darkness, while from afar came the sounds of revelry at the big feast.