"Von Mahl," snapped the young man, "Royal Prussian Lieutenant of the Guard." "You take our breath away," said the commander. "Will you explain why you were flying a British machine carrying the Allied marks?" "I shall explain nothing," boomed the youth. He was not pleasant to look upon, for his head was closely shaven and his forehead receded. Not to be outdone in modesty, his chin was also of a retiring character. "Before I hand you over to the wild men of the Royal Naval Air Service, who, I understand, eat little things like you on toast, would you like to make any statement which will save you from the ignominious end which awaits all enterprising young heroes who come camouflaging as enterprising young Britons?" Von Mahl hesitated. "I came--because I saw the machine--it had fallen in our lines--it was an impulse." He slipped his hand into his closely buttoned tunic and withdrew a thick wad of canvas-backed paper which, unfolded, revealed itself as a staff map of England. This he spread on the ward-room table and the commander observed that at certain places little red circles had been drawn. "Uppingleigh, Colnburn, Exchester," said the destroyer captain; "but these aren't places of military importance--they are German internment camps." "Exactly!" said von Mahl; "that is where I go." In this he spoke the truth, for to one of these he went. CHAPTER VII THE MAN BEHIND THE CIRCUS There comes to every great artist a moment when a sense of the futility of his efforts weighs upon and well-nigh crushes him. Such an oppression represents the reaction which follows or precedes much excellent work. The psychologist will, perhaps, fail to explain why this sense of emptiness so often comes before a man's best accomplishments, and what association there is between that dark hour of anguish which goes before the dawn of vision, and the perfect opportunity which invariably follows. Sergeant-Pilot Tam struck a bad patch of luck. In the first place, he had missed a splendid chance of catching von Rheinhoff, who with thirty-one "crashes" to his credit came flaunting his immoral triumph in Tam's territory. Tam had the advantage of position and had attacked--and his guns had jammed. The luck was not altogether against him, for, if every man had his due, von Rheinhoff should have added Tam's scalp to the list of his thirty-one victims. Tam only saved himself by taking the risk of a spinning nose dive into that zone of comparative safety which is represented by the distance between the trajectories of high-angle guns and the flatter curve made by the flight of the eighteen-pounder shell. Nor were his troubles at an end that day, for later he received instructions to watch an observation balloon, which had been the recipient of certain embarrassing attentions from enemy aircraft. And in some miraculous fashion, though he was in an advantageous position to attack any daring intruder, he had been circumvented by a low-flying Fokker.