“They’re making up their minds what to do with us,” murmured Tom.  “I only hope they let us stay long enough to learn the language, and then I can make an offer to take one back to the United States with me.”

“Jove!  Wouldn’t it be great if you could get the king!” exclaimed Ned.

“Oh, that’s too much, but I’d like one of his brothers.  They’re each a good nine feet tall, and they must be as strong as horses.”

In contrast to some giants of history, whose only claim to notoriety lay in their height, these giants were very powerful.  Many giants have flabby muscles, but these of South America were like athletes.  Tom realized this when there suddenly entered the audience chamber a youth of about our hero’s age, but fully seven feet tall, and very big.  He was evidently the king’s son, for he wore a jaguar skin, which seemed to be a badge of royalty.  He had seemingly entered without permission, to see the curious strangers, for the king spoke quickly to him, and then to Tola, who with a friendly grin on his big face lifted the lad with one hand and deposited him in a room that opened out of the big chamber.

“Did you see that!” cried Ned.  “He lifted him as easily as you or I would a cat, and I’ll bet that fellow weighed close to four hundred pounds, Tom.”

“I should say so!  It’s great!”

The audience was now at an end, and Tom thought it was about time to make some sort of a present to the king to get on good terms with him.  He looked out of the palace hut and saw that their pack animals were close at hand.  Nearby was one that had on its back a box containing a phonograph and some records.

Making signs that he wanted to bring in some of his baggage, Tom stepped out of the hut, telling his friends to wait for him.  The king and the other giants watched the lad curiously, but did not endeavor to stop him.

“I’m going to give him a little music,” went on the young inventor as he adjusted the phonograph, and slipped in a record of a lively dance air.  His motions were curiously watched, and when the phonograph started and there was a whirr of the mechanism, some of the giants who had crowded into the king’s audience chamber, showed a disposition to run.  But a word of command from their ruler stopped them.

Suddenly the music started and, coming forth as it did from the phonograph horn, in the midst of that hut, in which stood the silence-awed giants, it was like a bolt of lightning from the clear sky.

At first the king and all the others seemed struck dumb, and then there arose a mighty shout, and one word was repeated over and over again.  It sounded like “Chackalok!  Chackalok!” and later Tom learned that it meant wizard, magician or something like that.

Shout after shout rent the air, and was taken up by those outside, for through the open door the strains of music floated.  The giants seemed immensely pleased, after their first fright, and suddenly the king, coming down from his throne, stood with his big ear as nearly inside the horn as he could get it.