Tongues of Serpents Page 0,69

a little company," with a blush.

"I cannot see how that will be any use here," Temeraire said anxiously. "I might make out a little bit, or they might know some other language: perhaps I ought to come as well."

"That must substantially diminish any hope of their receiving us in a friendly manner," Laurence said, and checked his pistols, instead, which if smaller were no less deadly.

He and Tharkay and Forthing took their two prospective interpreters, however inadequate, and Demane led them over the charred dunes perhaps a mile from the camp, near the far edge of the seared band where the marks of the fire ended and the vegetation had escaped. The aborigines had already collected their own supply of game, many dead animals strung together, and were standing near the unburnt ground, holding some discussion amongst themselves: four men, and a youth perhaps a few years older than Demane. Laurence was surprised, when they drew nearer, to see that the ground before them was burning, and evidently by their doing. They were watching it with narrow, careful attention, and stamping out flames which leapt back towards them.

The aborigines received them not unwarily but without open hostility, and when Shipley and O'Dea hesitantly spoke, they listened and made some reply. This at once exceeded the translators' limits; Shipley said, "It don't sound at all like, a word or two maybe."

Laurence turned instead to pantomime and sketchwork, in the conveniently empty canvas of the burnt ground which showed his lopsided figures red against the black of the ash; he tried to draw a picture of the egg, large, being carried away by small men - blank looks only - and then held out a fragment of the pottery.

This opened some species of communication: the aborigines nodded, and one held out a spear-thrower, which Laurence was startled to see decorated at the end with a string of porcelain beads in red and blue, and another of jade and pearls. He pointed at the pistol in Laurence's belt. Laurence shook his head and said, "No, I thank you," rather bewildered to be offered such a bargain in the middle of the desert. The hunter shrugged and equably accepted refusal, and when Laurence brought out his map and laid it out, they were willing enough to look down at the chart.

This, however, they did not seem to think meaningful; they touched the paper between their fingers appreciatively, and traced the colored lines of ink, but turned it upside-down and back without sign of recognition, even the territory lately traversed which Laurence pointed out to them, the newly marked creek beds and salt pans and hills which must have been familiar landmarks; but perhaps the aborigines did not have the habit of mapmaking.

Instead, Shipley pointed at the necklace and asked "Where?" in the version of the language which he knew, then pointing in each direction of the compass; the aborigines answered with "Pitjantjatjara" and "Larrakia," and pointed north and west, with almost a throwing gesture and another word - "Far, far," Shipley said. "I think that's what it means, anyway."

"And then what about the men they have been snatching?" O'Dea said, and drew in the sand several figures in stick form, and by them the water-hole and the rock outcropping where Jonas Green had vanished. He then crossed out one of his figures; the aborigines nodded without surprise and said, "Bunyip," and shook their heads vigorously.

"Bunyip," they repeated, and crossed the man out more thoroughly, and said a great deal more, which might have been excellent advice if they could have understood a word of it. But then, perceiving they were not understood, the youngest of their company proceeded to hold up his hands like claws by his mouth and made a hissing snatching gesture, with a growl, rather looking like a children's bogey; and Laurence grew doubtful of the proffered explanation: there had certainly been no monsters wandering about the camp.

But O'Dea proved more willing to accept this excuse, and, somewhat mollified, trying more of his limited supply found a few more common words: he drew the egg larger and showed a dragon coming out of it, wings outspread. The aborigines repeated their gesture towards the north-west, and then the oldest tapped the youth on the shoulder, demanding attention, and opening his mouth sang, in a low and gravelly if resonant voice; the other men clapping softly along, to add rhythm to the chant.

"No use to trying to work that out," O'Dea said, looking