Tongues of Serpents Page 0,92

in the same vein as a thinking, reasoning creature."

"Only, how could one be certain?" Temeraire said. "After all, if one wishes to be particularly dull, one might be like that fellow Salcombe, and say that dragons are also dumb beasts. And I am quite sure the bunyips are not, though they do not seem to talk at all: they are only nasty thinking creatures. It is not very fair, though, that I should allow them to have sense because they will contrive one unpleasantness after another; what if cows are very clever, only they do not like to make a fuss about it?"

"If they dislike fuss enough to tolerate being eaten," Laurence said, with rather an amused expression, "surely it need not matter one way or another."

"Perhaps they think they will be eaten anyway, as they are so delicious," Temeraire said, and sighed. "I would give a great deal for a cow, Laurence; not that I wish to complain, and I am very grateful that Gong Su will go to such lengths: only they are a bit thin, the kangaroos, I mean."

They posted a watch that night, and twice Temeraire and Iskierka were obliged to shift their places, as the ground beneath them grew odd and unsteady to a probing stick; Caesar was nearly buried when abruptly a sinkhole opened beneath him, tumbling him down in a cascade of pouring sand. He roused all the camp to his cry of alarm, and several pistol-shots were fired uselessly into the dark, spending some of their precious store of munitions for panic.

"Keep your head raised," Rankin said, his hand on Caesar's neck; he had leapt clear as the sand poured in, and then jumped in to keep the young dragon steady. "Fetch a light, there, and bring shovels; we will have to clear some of this off him before he can scramble out."

It was near enough two hours before he could be resettled, now safe if uncomfortable upon an outcropping of rock; they none of them passed a very quiet or a restful night, and in the morning, all of Gong Su's stew had leaked away, the consequence of a smaller but equally malicious shifting of the earth beneath the cooking-hollow. Temeraire was obliged to eat the gummy and nearly leached-clean kangaroo or go hungry, as he had not eaten the night before; they might be soft, but were scarcely palatable. They had all to contend with thirst as well as irritation.

Iskierka was all for waging a thorough war upon the enemy: all their shelters were to be fired, or filled with smoke, despite the dreadful hazard of open flame in this dry country, and the utter impracticality of fighting who knew how many of the creatures there were with a force of four dragons, one half-grown, one stunted, and no supply whatsoever. Temeraire at least was grown more willing to be sensible, perhaps under the preoccupying influence of hunger, which drove out some quantity of pride.

He said, "I do not like it in the least, but we do not have the time to serve them all out now, and they can make it so very uncomfortable: we had better wait until we have the egg back safely, and then we may settle them; or," he allowed, "I suppose we may give them a chance to show they can behave better," and that afternoon, when they had taken half-a-dozen kangaroos and stopped at another half-dry water-hole, they laid one before the first trap-door which they found, and did not molest the covering after all.

Iskierka eyed it darkly and brooding; Kulingile eyed it, too, with a very different, a yearning expression, but he turned to his own portion instead, and Iskierka grumbled under her breath and did the same. Temeraire was hungry enough to ignore the pain of his throat and eat the kangaroo unstewed, only roasted a little, and crunching the bones for the marrow, though Laurence was sorry to see him forced to it, and Termeraire winced as he swallowed.

"It's gone, then," someone said abruptly, and Laurence realized that while they had all been engaged in their own meals, the kangaroo offering had silently vanished - rather a dreadful reminder of the speed and stealth of their enemies, and their omnipresence. But they were at least not harassed the remainder of their halt, although they did not tempt fate: no man ventured anywhere near vegetation, and they drank their share of water under guard.

The experiment was repeated that evening, when they