Tongues of Serpents Page 0,68
egg. If it had not been estimated so valuable in England, here it had been priceless, where the long journey would make any shipment of additional eggs all the more difficult; and if Jane had fresh hostilities to contend with, in Spain, she would all the less wish to spare more eggs to the very hypothetical breeding grounds of this new continent.
The camp was quiet, except for coughing. Laurence sipped at a mug of grog at intervals himself, the heat a little soothing against the rawness of his throat; there was a heaviness to his limbs, and despite all the game easy to hand, he did not wish to eat apart from a little biscuit soaked in water, which went down softly.
No one had much appetite. Aviators often did not set a regular meal hour, and lately the scarcity of water had made their mealtimes still more irregular, occurring when sufficient number of the party began to make a noise of protest; to-day no one spoke, even as the day advanced and the noon hour must have gone, even though the sun had not shown itself clear. The younger aviators only had any interest in their surroundings, more resilient: Demane had been foraging, and Roland had organized Sipho and Paul Widener - Rankin's signal-ensign, an anxious and fretful sort of boy - to butcher his findings and put out the meat to dry, sprinkled thoroughly with salt. For their immediate delectation, they roasted a brace of large lizards on sticks: Demane had found them alive but so dazed by smoke and thunder they might be taken by hand.
"It is quite good, sir," Roland said, offering some to Laurence, but what little of the smell he could perceive over the clouding of his senses was not appealing enough to provoke his deadened appetite.
They had already more meat than they would require for the return voyage; Demane went out again anyway, unable to resist the bounty, and coming back in the space of less than half-an-hour put down his latest trophy, a handsome-sized kangaroo, only a little singed, and then ducked under Temeraire's wing.
Laurence looked up; Demane said, "There are men there, on the other side of those dunes."
The men were for attacking at once, "before they creep away again, and come lurking upon us during the night, and steal away another," O'Dea said, presenting this to Laurence and Rankin, as a petition on their behalf. "Even the little one ought be able to do for them - " meaning Caesar, rather bloodthirstily, and Rankin said icily, "That will be quite enough, Mr. O'Dea; when your opinion is desired again it will be solicited."
A good deal of resentful muttering followed this, which the convicts did not trouble themselves to keep low; Rankin ignored it roundly, but Laurence shook his head a little: he had seen mutiny before, and with less motivation than the conviction of imminent murder. With Temeraire and even Caesar a little ill and groggy, there could be a real mischief done, if the convicts chose to try and seize upon himself or Rankin, or even another of the crewmen whom Temeraire valued.
"It is not them," Demane said, loudly and impatiently. "They do not have the egg."
Temeraire stirred, here, from his restless drowse, and raised his head: when he understood, he brightened and said, "But perhaps they may know where the others have gone - " and swinging his head towards the convicts asked, "Can no-one of you speak with them?"
"It is no good talking to them," O'Dea said, "what we want is some quick action: if they know we are here, they are sure to run off again, and steal back - "
"They do know we are here," Demane said. "They saw me taking the kangaroo."
"Well, he is a black fellow, though, isn't he; one of them," one man said; Demane was certainly of sable complexion, but hailing from the south of Africa had no more in common with the natives than this accident of coloration; although Laurence supposed doubtfully this might engender some common feeling, or at least defer the suspicion which their own appearance, so far different, might provoke.
"Are any of you gentlemen conversant with their tongue?" Laurence said, and after a little shuffling O'Dea granted that he had some experience; so, too, did a Richard Shipley, one of the younger of the convicts, not twenty and one, who said, "Though not much more than to trade some rum or some buttons for - well, sir, for