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"The Admiral told us you had been reinstated," Lily said to Teht that e were all sent here for?"

"I shall explain it all to you," Temeraire told her and Maxio and get another whale, so as not to have the bother of hunting for a few days"

"No," Maxi the cow’s skull between his jaws, "no whales! If I don’t eat fish for a : they did not have any meat on that ship No fresh ey stuff you gave theo roust it out ourselves"

"Don’t listen to him," Messoria said, as she ate her portion more sedately, "there were half-a-dozen cows aboard only for hiht away, and then it was co"

"I don’t see what is the use of saving theh, at sea," Maximus said, injured

Temeraire said, "Well, tomorrow I dare say ill find so you eat ht: how happy I a so very co Maximus and Lily back, and all their formation also: Messoria and Immortalis, Dulcia and Nitidus, so that around the fire there were a great ether they could certainly have stood against nearly anyone There were of course still ht theht, if they wished to, or if anyone offered them an unacceptable insult

"Anyway it was still better than staying at ho the Channel, day and night," Lily said to Te her head back daintily to s the last haunch of her cow, "and not a single engageone away, to Spain or to the east, and it is only a few unharnessed beasts who fly patrol along their coast now and never coht as well help Perscitia, with the pavilions she is building, everyone grew stupidly upset"

"Dug out half the best quarry in Hertfordshire," Berkley said to Laurence, "and tore up four dozen oaks in the Midlands"

"So they sent us here," Lily went on, "and we did not ; but noe have eaten, and I want to knoe shall be doing here? And why are you shy of fighting those other dragons, if they are the ene them," Temeraire said "Whoever said so? Only, they are not the eneonsin Africa, and they are only here because they are trying to find their crews again: or what they call their descendants, ere taken for slaves"

"Those dragons who took Catherine froleam in her eye

"You will meet Kefentse toize, just as he has apologized to me Anyway, the real enemy are the Inca, and Laurence is sure that they will overrun this colony if we do not persuade the Tswana to stay and protect it"

"So that part is true?" Captain Harcourt said to Laurence, her face baffled "Ha of the sort, before he understood eren’t going to oblige his up: not that I a in e are outnumbered three to one, but where do the Inca come into it, at all?"

Laurence briefly acquainted them with the disastrous success which the French had found in the Incan empire, and Temeraire added, "We did try to stop it, of course: but she would ainst him"

"Small wonder," Berkley said "I’m only surprised you didn’t have to flee the country with a horde of dragons on your tails"

"Well, we did," Te; so I don’t see why you should be laughing," he added, rather nettled

"I would beg pardon if you deserved it, you great lunatic of a beast," Berkley said, still snorting in what Tenified way

Harcourt and the rest of the forland, with all their crehich overran the previously orderly camp in the usual haphazard uns, and powder, and chainmail armor to spare; and to the endless satisfaction of the sailors several casks of dark rued for fresh ed for the captains, and the dragons laid down split logs around it

While the preparations were under way, Laurence and Granby together described otiations "We cannot be certain," Laurence concluded as they seated themselves, "but the Empress would scarcely have committed herself so fully as to order an attack upon us if she had not resolved upon the e: we must assume if it is not yet accomplished, it soon will be"