conglomerations of grey and yellow rock in stepped terraces like old rotting stone walls held together by grass and green moss, and clayey dirt for mortar. They halted there and rested on the loose scrubby ground in the shadow of the sheer cliff wall. An extensive scurrying went on in the underbrush as the small game fled from their presence, small furry creatures like brown badgers.
"It is a very strange sort of mountain," Temeraire observed, craning his head to look back and forth along the long ridge of the peak above them, sheared smooth and flat as if by a leveling knife.
"Yes; oh, very; and how hot it is," Nitidus said, meaninglessly and half-asleep, and tucked his head beneath his wing to nap. They let him sleep in the sun, and Temeraire yawned, too, and followed his example; Laurence and Warren stood together looking back down into the deep bowl of the harbor where it ran down into the ocean, the Allegiance a toy ship among ants at this distance. The neat geometric pentagon of the castle was drawn in yellow upon the dark earth, with the dragons small, still lumps upon the parade grounds beside it.
Warren took off his glove and rubbed the back of his hand across his brow to wipe the sweat off; he left a careless smudge. "I suppose you would go back to the Navy, if it were you?" he asked.
"If they would have me," Laurence said.
"A fellow might buy a cavalry commission, I suppose," Warren said. "There will be no shortage of soldiers needed if Bonaparte continues to have things his way; but it could hardly compare."
They were silent a while, considering the unpleasant options which would be the portion of so many men cast effectively on shore, by the death of the dragons on which they served.
"Laurence," Warren went on, after a moment, "this fellow Riley, what sort of a man is he? Ordinarily, I mean; I know you were lately both standing on your honor."
Laurence was astonished to be appealed to in such a way, but answered, "A gentleman and one of the finest officers of my acquaintance; I cannot say a word against him, personally."
He wondered very much what should have spurred the inquiry. With the Allegiance confined by her orders to harbor, until the dragons should once again be ready to depart, Riley had of course come to the castle and dined with General Grey on more than one occasion. Laurence had absented himself, but Catherine and the other captains had gone more often than not. Perhaps some quarrel had taken place to give rise to such a question, and Laurence hoped that perhaps Warren would elaborate. But he only nodded, and changed the subject to the likelihood that the wind would change, before their return, so Laurence's curiosity remained unsatisfied, and the question had only the effect of making him sorry afresh for the quarrel, which he now supposed should never be made up, and the termination of their friendship.
"Nitidus does seem better, does he not?" Temeraire murmured to Laurence, in confidential tones audible only to anyone within twenty feet, while they made ready to return; Laurence could answer wholeheartedly that he thought so as well, and when they returned to the parade grounds, the light-weight ate almost to his healthy standard, putting a period to two goats before he again fell asleep.
On the morrow Nitidus did not want to repeat the exercise, and Dulcia would only go half so far before dropping down to rest. "But she did for a whole one of those oxen, a yearling calf," Chenery said, doing for a substantial glass of whiskey and water himself, "and a damned good sign I call it; she has not eaten so much in a sixmonth."
The next day neither of them would go, but sat down again, almost as soon as they had been persuaded to get up on their feet, and begged to be excused. "It is too hot," Nitidus complained, and asked for more water; Dulcia said more plaintively, "I would rather sleep some more, if you please."
Keynes put a cup to her chest to listen, and straightening up shook his head. None of the others could be stirred much beyond their sleeping places. When the tallies over which the aviators had labored were examined closely together, the dragons did indeed cough less, but it was not much less; and this benefit had been exchanged, their anxious observers soon perceived, for listlessness and lethargy. The