Tongues of Serpents Page 0,78

the water-hole beneath some more of the bushes. These did not need to be torn up, they discovered: when Temeraire had set his claws in the mat, he might lift it up, and the bushes would go with it: evidently their roots had grown around and through the mat, a clever way to disguise the lurking trap.

But they dug a little way down, and this passageway, too, collapsed: designed for its maker, and not the weight of dragons or shovel-wielding men, or perhaps only ever intended to be temporary. If there were more permanent chambers, far below, no quick excavation would reach them: the bunyip had undoubtedly fled as deep and as far as it could go, with so much noise and upheaval upon the surface.

"Well, are we going to dig forever," Caesar said, shaking dirt a little fastidiously off his claws, "or are we going? I am sorry for the fellow, but I don't think we are going to get anywhere at this rate: it can dig, too, and while we are going at it here, it is probably digging itself halfway across the desert and away."

While blunt, there was no denying the practical truth of the matter; and Laurence could not call Blackwell's survival likely: he had made no sound, and any man would have shrieked, dragged away by such a creature, if still alive. The very speed and silence of the attack which had made it so otherworldly, to be missed even if one was standing directly by, argued for the creature's instantly killing its prey, even as it whipped its victims away to be devoured in quiet and safety.

They considered and delayed a little longer, while Temeraire dug in a half-hearted way around the opened holes, trying if by chance he should find a deeper chamber, but these efforts collapsed the passageways even before he broke into them, and the only result was to leave behind a wreckage of sand-heaps and torn-up grasses, and the dunes assembled into new shapes, a deep valley marking where Temeraire had labored.

"Very well," Laurence said finally, drawing his sleeve across his face. "We can do no more."

Temeraire's belly-netting had grown choked with sand, during the first efforts, the desperate rush to try and retrieve the taken man. They did not wait to clean it, but only shook and brushed off the worst of the clumps. The men boarded silently and with alacrity; all were glad to be gone.

Chapter 11

THEY HAD LOST MUCH of the light. "If we find any sign of the trail, we will find it at water," Tharkay said quietly to Laurence, as Temeraire flew on towards a mid-point between the purple and golden splendour of the beginning sunset and the haze of fire yet clinging to the horizon to the north: the orange light more a faint tinge of color flung up against the sky than real illumination. They were nearly free of the scorched landscape: patches still of burnt ground beneath them, but these faded into the low scrub like paint-strokes brushed too long.

"And these bunyips also, of course," Laurence returned, grimly.

Tharkay nodded. "The camps we have seen have all been some distance back from the water, or upon rock: an example we perhaps ought to have had the sense to follow before now," he said dryly.

"Now that we know of them, I will clear the bunyips away," Temeraire said over his shoulder, "when we have landed: I cannot see what business they have sneaking about so, hiding under bushes, and I am not going to have them leaping out and snatching away any of my crew; or anyone else, either. I think they must all be very great cowards."

The sky behind them was already gone to cold-water blue when they found another water-hole, and Temeraire and Caesar drank deep and thirstily while they yet all remained aboard; except Demane, who slipped his carabiners and slid down to go hunting at once, and was already out of ear-shot before Laurence could notice and reprove.

"There," Temeraire said, lifting his dripping muzzle, and shaking his head to throw off a little of the dirt and sand which had accumulated upon his ruff and brow as they flew, "that is very refreshing; and now we will see about these bunyips, if there are even any of them here."

He set upon the bushes, tugging, and almost at once uncovered another of the trap-door openings; Caesar likewise found another, and pushed the mat clear of it. "Well, I don't see