e'll pick
up the giant brothers out in the woods, and travel to civilization
again."

"By Jove! I believe that will work!" cried the circus man.

"Bless my corn plaster, I think so myself!" added Mr. Damon.

"But first we've got to get the brothers to agree," went on Tom,
"and that is going to be hard work."

It was not so difficult as it was tedious. Through an aged woman,
with whom he had made friends when a captive, Jake Poddington
managed to get word to the royal twins that he and the other
captives would like to see them privately. Then they had to wait for
an answer.

In the meanwhile the giants tried 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 darknes