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"I a," Temeraire protested, and craned his head around to look at the injury--perhaps it was not quite so severe as all that, and heso far was dreadfully unpleasant; he could feel the hooks of the ball tearing at his flesh "Maximus, are you very badly hurt?"

"I aether," Maxirunt "I should not have roared at all, only it took me by surprise"

"You will be stone-dead in an hour if we do not stop this blood, so you will shut your eyes and keep quiet, damn you," Gaiters said furiously "Where is that fire-breather? Why don’t she make herself useful: I will need this cauterized, as soon as I have dug out this ball--"

"Ough," Maxiht loyally; it was only a startled noise--as Gaiters very nearly put his head into Maxireat iron cannonball with hi himself in pain: it was still hot, and he dropped it on the deck and rolled it away over the side with his foot

Iskierka landed, in answer to their signal, and heated the iron bar which Gaiters held out to her with tongs; Maximus reared up his head and yelled--not even theelse, sadly--as it was clapped to the wound, sewn up already with catgut

But even as the wound was seared, the ship shuddered beneath theuns, and Temeraire looked anxiously out towards the Polonaise, where Laurence was still fighting Although Lieutenant Creed and his party had so far also ed to keep the French penned belowdecks, there were still nearly six hundred undeck, instead, and noere taking aim at the other transport’s deck to save her from their own fate

But Granby’shung over the sides of the ship, and if it did not stop the balls it dragged the one and all into the sea; only a couple from the end reached the other ship, and splintered away a portion of her dragondeck

Berkley stood up froed his big gauntleted fist down on the planking beside the fore ladderway "Is your captain down there? We have the deck; you can see your fellows are all ahoo; now say you strike, or I will let you up, and the dragons can start knocking you overboard like ninepins: but I will damned well have an end of it"

Chapter 19

"I DO NOT WISH IN THE LEAST to diminish your very just sense of acco out fro British colors and supporting at present three and four dragons respectively: the rest being engaged in shepherding anxiously the boats which were ferrying over their recovered kindred, or bringing therain and dried salt beef which should sustain them over the six-week journey to the coast of Africa: in a species of justice, perhaps, they would disembark at the ruins of Lunda, that same port which had seen so e

"Not in the least," Hali in: she would be at anchor before sunset, Laurence judged, and they would begin their own process of provisioning her for the journey back to Portsmouth: one which Hammond certainly could not anticipate with any sense of pleasure

No good would couese aure as an ineffectual nonentity; at worst, as deliberately conniving at Laurence’s insubordinate , and the latter was more likely: to do him credit, with the transports acquired, Ha over sufficient support at the Portuguese court for the negotiations to see thely accepted

And Haloss his supposed -out of the transports, but the Foreign Office would not carethe Inca, and to hear that yet another great power had aligned itself, willingly, with Bonaparte: to hear that Britain stood now alone

"And whatever aood to say she is notme, she ons have the least sympathy, or inclination to chase her away," he added, in son of tenacity, and Hammond’s attempts to dis a ard child

"She can’t very well follow you over-sea," Chenery said

"Can she not?" Ha arrangements with Tee for her passage; and how is she to be got off the ship once she has landed on it?"

"But Laurence," Temeraire said, when Laurence had at Hammond’s plea spoken with him, "I cannot see any reason why Churki should not coland with us: you have said very often that the Adht She was an officer in the Inca aro about it, and she has proiven her own crew"

"My dear, she is a subject of an empire which must now be inimical to our own," Laurence said "If she aids us, she is a traitor; if she does not, she is our enemy"

"It does not seem to me treasonous," Teoing to fight Incan dragons, her friends perhaps; she will be fighting the French, and she says the Sapa Incadoes not make Napoleon her E so dreadfully rude as to shove her off: she is not so big that she will s uncomfortable, and she is so much older than any of us except Messoria"