"What?" Alf clutched his hat in horror.
"There have gone to the palace of the maiden's father other forty of thy slaves, twenty white and twenty black. Upon his head each black slave beareth a bowl of jewels of surpassing worth, while each white slave as he goes will scatter money amongst the people, that thy popularity may be great in the land. With them are musicians to discourse sweet sounds. Even now they pass the outer gate."
At that moment there came, borne faintly down the breeze, the discordant clash of distant but barbaric music.
"Lumme!" said Alf. He felt wildly for his Button, and, as the whole concourse fell prostrate on its face at sight of the talisman, he called up Eustace and gave him excited but definite orders. The music in the distance stopped suddenly, and at the same time the crowd in the drive (with the exception of the chastened Mustapha) disappeared into thin air. Alf, desperately anxious to get away from the house before any further horrible thing happened, stood not upon the order of his going, but went at once up the drive full of anxiety lest anybody from the village had chanced to be passing the gates at the moment when the band had been so ruthlessly suppressed.
As he turned into the road he saw the massive blue form of P.C. Arthur Jobling, and his heart missed a beat. But the policeman was a pitiable sight. His helmet had fallen off and lay in the road beside his official notebook, and he was gazing from side to side in a horrified and vacant manner, as though he were searching for something and were terrified lest he should find it. Alf was reassured.
"Good afternoon—my man," he said jauntily.
Jobling stared at him.
"G—good afternoon, sir," he gulped. "Beggin' yer pardon, sir, but do you 'appen to 'ave sent a—a sort o' procession like, with a band, out of 'ere?"
Alf controlled his voice with difficulty, but managed to keep his jaunty tone.
"Do I look like it?" he said.