"With all your strength you can not let go until I move my finger," the young inventor explained, and it was so. Even the skeptical giants agreed on that.
"Now I shall show you that I am stronger than you!" exclaimed Tom, and though the giants smiled incredulously so it was, for the magnet trick worked as well as before. There were murmurs of surprise from the two immense brothers, and they talked rapidly together.
"I will now show you that I can call the lightning from the sky to do my bidding," went on Tom. "Is that possible to any of you giants?"
"Never! Never! No man can do it!" cried Tola and Koku together.
"Then watch me!" invited Tom. "Is there an empty hut near here?" he asked. "One that it will do no harm to destroy?"
Tola pointed to one visible from the window of the prison of our friends.
"Then take this little ball, with the string attached to it, and place it in the hut," went on Tom. "Then flee for your lives, for standing from here, I shall call the lightning down, and you shall see the hut destroyed."
"Why don't you ask them something about Jake Poddington?" asked Ned.
"Time enough for that after I've shown them what a little powder will do, when I attach electric wires to it and press a button," replied Tom. "I've got that bomb fixed so it will go off by an electric fuse. If they'll only put it in the hut for me. I'd do it myself, only they won't let me go out."
The brothers conferred for a moment and then, seeming to arrive at a decision, Koku, who was slightly the larger, took the bomb, looked curiously at it, and walked with it toward the empty hut, the electric wire being reeled out behind him by Tom.