"What wouldst thou have? I am ready to obey thee as thy...."
"Cut out the song an' dance, yer blinkin' fool," said Alf fiercely. "See what you gone an' bin an' done. This 'ere's a British plane—savvy? I told yer to bring a Boche one—them what 'as the black crosses. I b'lieve yer a bally spy, I do. 'Ere, git out o' me sight!"
The djinn vanished in silence. The instant he was gone Alf began to regret the lengths to which his tongue had led him. How had he dared to speak so to a creature possessing unlimited powers? He began to feel cold with apprehension. What would happen next?
At this point he saw a tremendous commotion in the camp. Men poured out of the huts and stared skywards, gesticulating and shouting. Alf looked upwards and saw the cause of their excitement. Fully a dozen German aeroplanes were converging on Alf from different quarters of the sky, each one helpless in the grip of the same power that had brought the British machine to earth.
It was Eustace's wholesale Oriental method of making reparation. One by one the machines came to earth, until all twelve were arranged in a neat row beside the original victim. The dazed German crews scrambled out, looking for somebody to whom to surrender; but first, as was their duty, they set fire to their machines. There was nobody to prevent them, for though several hundred British soldiers were on the way at the double, not one was on the spot.
Alf had fled in panic; he skulked in retirement until the excitement had died down; his one desire was not to be connected in anybody's mind with the extraordinary and inexplicable events of that afternoon.
When the German prisoners had been cleared away, and the normal routine had been restored, he returned to camp and displayed his button to C.S.M. French. Having received a grudging assent from that worthy, he drew his "bit o' black" from the quartermaster-sergeant, and draped it over his talisman. As he put the last stitch in place he made a mental resolve that it would be long before he would meddle again with a magic productive of such uncomfortable adventures.