"_Der Teufel!_" ejaculated the Count. "It was a thousand pities that on that occasion my ammunition was expended." "I am sorry to hear that," replied the British pilot enigmatically. CHAPTER XIII The Count's Ruse Count Hertz von Peilfell, on finding himself alone under lock and key, began to rave in genuine Teutonic style. He realized that he had made a mess of things generally. His calculated plans had gone wrong simply through a careless lack of caution, and now he was confronted by the prospect of ending his career in front of a British firing-squad. The Count was a man who did not hesitate to take certain risks, but invariably he weighed up his chances. Cool and calculating, he was not one who would embark upon a project for the mere love of adventure. His record as an airman was well known to the R.A.F. The latter admired his audacity, although they had no love for the means he employed. He was typical of the brute force of Prussianism--his mission as an airman was to destroy, ruthlessly and methodically, and, when the odds were against him, his gaudily-painted biplane was not to be seen aloft. So when the time came that the Hun in the air was "having a sticky time all round", Von Peilfell discreetly kept clear of the British flying-men. He became an instructor, teaching German quirks to fly in machines that, by nature of the shortage of certain raw material in Hunland, could never hope to hold their own against the magnificently-constructed and powerfully-engined craft bearing the distinctive red, white, and blue concentric circles. Then came rumours--rumours that were based upon solid facts--that the British and French airmen were bent upon reprisals for wanton night-bombing of undefended towns. Berlin was to be the supreme objective of the numerous squadrons of huge bombing-'planes that were being concentrated on the Western Front. In desperation the German High Command called a conference, to which the "star" airmen of the Imperial Air Service were summoned. The return of the boomerang was a prospect that the apostles of kultur not only failed to appreciate, but dreaded. At all costs the peril must be staved off--either by counter-active measures or by hypocritical appeals to neutrals, or, as a last resource, by applying for an armistice. It was Von Peilfell's chance. A popularity hunter, he knew that the cessation of his aerial achievements was rapidly placing him on the list of fallen idols. The pulse of the German populace--the picture-post-card dealers--told him this. Where once a hundred thousand photographs of the "Sky Hussars" were sold, now barely a thousandth part of that number were disposed of. To regain his vanished prestige, the Count suggested a scheme, namely, that he should enter hostile territory disguised, and find out where these mysterious battleplanes were concentrating, and also note the details of their construction.