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"They can’tback crammed aboard the hold very like in the way they cao along, it will be no end of work fitting enough provisions for the ers aboard at a time, myself Look sharp, there!"
This exclaer Tswana dragons, who abandoning her atteone aloft, and now cahted them, however, or at least paid the onto the cliff face and began to scratch at the wall experih to work out its composition
Evidently satisfied, she turned her head down and roaring called to her fellows, a feho the stone One of the s noise and darted away, returning shortly thereafter with one of the stolen cannon Fro only a portion of the wooden housing, on which they seized; the barrel was set against the wall, and the larger beasts began to take it in turn to hath into the rock The smaller ones held it in place, and when it had been sunk halfway in began to twist and rock it; shortly they had burst out a s resemblance to the work Laurence had seen once at the Tswana city of Mosi Oa Tunye, where the dragons carved ie
By the next h for one of the smaller beasts to clier dragons settled down therein to sleep "Well, at least so theress, but when Laurence returned to the negotiations and spoke with Lethabo, she shook her head
"Kefentse will stay, and so will I andback hoons," she said
Fortunately Lethabo had been enerous to those beasts whose kindred had been wholly deciees of doubtful lineage; and those dragons illing to re But a dozen of the beasts still had villages and kin waiting for the at once, with almost two thousand men meant to accompany the e the Portuguese choose to write down in those papers, Captain, does not very ons," Lethabo had said to Laurence, as they had left the negotiations "You know it, and so do I No agreement will hold which does not satisfy them But this truly is our price: all the slaves freed and reunited with their ancestors, and transport back for those ish to go If you cannot do it, we uese will not free their slaves--"
She spread her hands eloquently, and Laurence nodded
"We could send the ood-sized merchantman?" Warren proposed now--Laurence flinched a little at hearing hiestion Lethabo rejected out of hand: the dragons would not again be parted fro down past the harbor, where the two French transports rode at anchor, their colors bright fro else for it, but how can it be done?"
Chapter 18
"IT SHOULD BE EASY AS WINKING, if anted to sink them," Captain Warren observed: and a mere bombardment with boulders, carried one after another froh, would indeed have sent the transports to the bottom of the ocean in no short order--where, of course, they would be of no use whatsoever in getting the Tswana ho them in a useful condition, was by far a more difficult probleer of just such an impulse on the part of their uncertain allies The transports the froondecks in such a way that they , their iron teeth being large enough to prevent any dragon fro only a little difficulty to the sailors aboard
Meanwhile the frigates in their company were too small for any but Nitidus or Dulcia to land upon: fast and maneuverable and armed for the most part with a few heavy snub-nosed cannonades which would certainly be turned at once upon any dragon who tried to descend upon the transports: they were close enough totheir coun-boats apiece, each aruns which threw the sun-boats will be in the water fiveat thelass, "if the crews know their work; in ten uns directly after; and the cannonades We cannot keep the dragons on the decks under that degree of fire"
"And even if we do e to hold the deck, the French will have hulled the ships so wretchedly we ood they will do us: they will never ," Sutton said
"Yes; we un-boats, first," Harcourt said, rolling out a sheet of s a scrap of charred wood from the fire to sketch upon it the outline of the harbor "If we can keep them pinned down, somehow; then take the transports quick as quick can be, if they aren’t to spike the decks against us--if we can only give those frigates a proper fait accompli, they shan’t hull us, unless they mean to sink all their own crews"
"There’s another difficulty for you," Warren said cheerfully "Who’s to sail theh men to sail two transportsof sailors will do soood, Laurence, but--"
"They are much improved," Laurence said, "but I would not trust theed fore-and-aft across ten miles of calmest sea without trained officers"
"Pray let us worry about one thing at a tiht to be grateful enough to have any other difficulties to work out"