Page 6 (1/2)
II
Chapter 6
OH," TEMERAIRE SAID, in a very strange tone, and he pitched forward and voround before hi oat horns, cocoanut shells, and long green ropes of braided seaweed eneralized yellowish nizable scraps of cracked bones and shreds of hide
"Keynes!" Laurence bellowed, having leapt out of the way just in time, and to the two hapless ely said, "Get you gone, and take that worthless draught with you"
"No, let us have it, if you please, and the receipt," Keynes said, approaching a little gingerly, and bending to sniff at the pot which they had presented "A purgative may be of some use on future occasions, if this is not si ill before?" Keynes demanded of Temeraire, who onlyli crept a little way off from the former contents of his stomach, which steamed unpleasantly even in the overheated late-summer air Laurence covered his mouth and nostrils with a handkerchief and beckoned to the deeply reluctant grounds the midden-shovels, and bury the refuse at once
"I wonder if it is not the effects of the protea," Dorset said absently, poking through the pot with a stick and fishing out the remnants of the spiny blossoredient before: the Cape vegetation has quite a unique construction, adom I lad as we must be to have delivered you a curiosity, it is certainly nothing which he ever ate before; perhaps youhiain," Laurence snapped, and went to Temeraire&039;s side before he could make a further display of his ill-te muzzle, and Temeraire twitched his ruff in an atteo you and Dyer and fetch some sea-water, fro a cloth used the cool water to wipe down Temeraire&039;s muzzle and his jaws
They had been in Capetoo days, experi to sniff or s anything which anyone should give hiht by some chance be a cure, and exercise his memory; so far without any notable success, and Laurence was prepared to consider this latest episode a notable failure, whatever the surgeons ht say He did not kno to refuse thereat deal of local quackery, without any real grounds for hope, anda reckless trial of Teood deal better," Te in exhaustion as he said it, and he did not want to eat anything the next day; but said wistfully, "I would be glad of soreat kettle of it, using a week&039;s supply, and then to his disgust they put in an entire brick of sugar Tereat pleasure when it had cooled, and afterwards stoutly declared himself perfectly recovered; but he still looked rather dis back fro all over with the day&039;s new acquisitions in net-bags and parcels, and stinking from ten-yards&039; distance
"Well, let us see," Keynes said, and went poking through the etables, including a long pendulous fruit like an oversized yaround: not even the skin so much as split, until he at last took it into the castle, to the se
"That is froe-tree," Eh; and also we did find some of the hua jiao today, fro Laurence a small basket of the red peppery seeds, for which Te
"Not the ent specimen they all recalled vividly fro had rendered the entire castle nearly uninhabitable from its noxious fumes Laurence had his share of the seaman&039;s instinctive faith in unpleasant medicine, and secretly the best part of his own hopes lay on the thing But it was surely a wild growth, uncultivated: no person in their senses would ever deliberately eat the thing, and so far it was not to be found, for any price
"We found a boy who had a little English and told hi soht them the first example mostly as a curiosity
"Perhaps the seed husks in coested, exaht have been used on any nu his hands as he straightened fro Su "No, let his innards have another day&039;s rest, and leave off all this unwholesoly of the opinion that the climate alone must cook it out of them, if there is to be any benefit to this enterprise at all"
He prodded the ground with the stick he had been using to turn over the vegetables: dry and hard several inches doith only the stubborn frizz of short yellow grass to hold it together, the roots long and thin and spidery A few days into March, they were deep in the local suround a baking stone, which fairly shi the peak of the day
Temeraire cracked an eye from his restorative drowse "It is pleasant, but it is not so an," he said doubtfully, and in any case the suggestion was not a very satisfying one, as this cure could not be tried until the other dragons arrived
And for the iance was expected now daily As soon as the ship had co distance of the Cape, Laurence had packed the surgeons and the barest handful of men and supplies aboard Teht begin this desperate business of atte to find the cure
It had not been merely an excuse: their orders unequivocally stated without the loss of a h was a constant spur to their sides But in all honesty, neither had Laurence been sorry in the least to go The quarrel had not been made up, at all
Laurence had made attempts: once, three weeks into the journey, he paused, belowdecks, as they passed one another by chance, and removed his hat; but Riley only just touched his own bri in his cheeks This had stiffened Laurence another week, long enough to make hioats, when the one which he had provided hions
Then regret won out again, and he said to Catherine, "Perhaps we ought to invite the captain and the ship&039;s officers to dinner?" on deck and perfectly audible to anyone who ht be curious, so when the invitation was sent it could not be h Riley came, and his officers, he was utterly withdrawn all theexcept when Catherine spoke to hi his head from his plate His officers, of course, would not speak without he or another captain addressing theer aviators stifled by the uneasy sense that their manners did not suit the for quarrel areat secret of their dislike of the dragons and their aviators, now htly by their fear, of course, even a those who had sailed with Laurence and Teons reat difference fro which wracked the poor creatures and ate at their strength only made them all the more fearsomely unpredictable to the common sailors, who could scarcely betoo close to the beasts
What orse, their officers corrected them none too sharply for their hesitation, with predictable results: off the coast of the Horn she missed stays, and had to be hurriedly box-hauled, because the ondeck to shift over the jib and foretop-ons sadly about, setting the, and then nuisance in aoff Temeraire&039;s back and knocked Lily&039;s head askew
Her greasy tub of oiled sand slid with ponderous ed immediately into the ocean "Over the side, dearest, put your head over the side," Catherine cried, her crew all of the to fetch one of the other replacealley below Lily had with a tre precariously at the edge of the ship, her head thrust out over the water and her shoulders curled up into great knots as she tried to hold fro; drops spilled fro strea up through the wind, which blew theainst the wood
"Shall I try and carry you away fros half-spread "Will you clierouspoisonous acid froet upon him
"Temeraire," Laurence called instead, "will you see if you can break up the deck, here," and Temeraire turned his head Laurence had only meant him to try and wrench the planks up, but instead Teave a queer, throttled version of his usual roar: four planks cracked, one opening up along the ring-pattern of the wood and dropping a knot straight down onto the startled heads of the galley cooks, crouched and covering themselves in terror
The space was nearly wide enough: with a few frantic ed, and Temeraire could reach down and heave up the tub directly Lily pressed her jan into the sand and coughed and coughed,repressed it at first The oily sand hissed and saped with the splintered hole, jagged edges threatening the dragons&039; bellies and letting the steaalley which kept theht as well be sailing on a Frenchrily and not low; it had already been in his e and ponderous a vessel, better suited to old-fashioned wearing about, particularly eighted down as she ith so ons
Riley had appeared on the quarterdeck, and across the ship faintly drifted the sound of his furious voice, calling Owens, the deck officer, to account, and the men to fresh order But Laurence&039;s voice carried, too; there was a momentary pause in Riley&039;s tirade, and then it finished more abruptly
Riley ies for the incident only to Catherine, catching her as she cao below, at the end of the day, in what Laurence could only i up to speak to all of the aviators together Her hair had coed with smoke and charred soot, and she had taken off her coat to pad under Lily&039;s jahere the bare edge of the tub had chafed When he stopped her, she straightened and put her hand through her hair, loosening it entirely about her face, and his speech, undoubtedly prepared with care, quite fell apart He only said, "I beg your pardon - deeply regret - " incoherently, and looked all confusion, until she interrupted tiredly, "Yes, of course, only pray not again, and do let us have the carpenters ht," and brushed past hi by it but that she was tired, and wished to go to sleep; but it looked cutting to one who did not know her well enough to know her not in the least likely to resort to social stratagem to express offense; and perhaps Riley was asha all the ship&039;s carpenters were at work on the dragondeck before even the aviators arose, with not a word of gru, particularly when the dragons roused and began watching with close interest By the end of the day they had not only repaired the injury, but also put in a salley if the operation required repeating
"Well, I call that handsoh Laurence felt it slect; and when she added, "we ought to thank hi and o and ask Riley to dine again, this time Laurence was careful to absent himself for the meal
It was an end to any hope of resolution The rest of the journey passed in a cold distance between theesture when passing on deck or below: made rarer still, as the Navy officers were quartered to the stern There could be nothing co aboard a ship while at unconcealed and bitter odds with her captain; the officers likewise cold, if they were men who had never served with Laurence himself, or stiff with disconities of cold treatment from the ship&039;s complement daily refreshed not only of the pain of the quarrel but his resent grace; thus isolated froht into the closest contact with his fellow captains of the Corps and their habits, Laurence had sailed this time not merely in theory but in practice as an aviator: a very different experience, and he startled hi it They had little practical work to do; by noon the daily slaughter was over, the dragondeck had been holystoned as best as could be er officers examined on their schoolwork, and they were all at liberty: as much liberty as could be had within the space of a fully occupied dragondeck, and their half-a-dozen small cabins below
"Do you mind if we knock down the bulkhead, Laurence?" Chenery had said, putting in his head scarcely three days into the journey, as Laurence riting letters in his cabin: a habit he had lected on shore of late "We want to set up a card-table, but it is too wretchedly craave his assent; it was pleasant to have the larger space restored, and to write his letters with the coa them that the creould have the bulkheads doithout asking, no sooner had they finished dressing; and restored only for sleeping
They took their meals almost always thus in common: a convivial and noisy at across the table heedless of etiquette, the junior officers squeezed in at the lower half in order of their promptness in arrival rather than their rank; and afterwards they gave the loyal toast standing on deck, folloith coffee and cigars in the coainst coughing, for what little relief it gave the And after supper, he would read to Temeraire, occasionally fro for the other dragons
Laurence assuons, for his scholarship; to better suit the rest, he kept, at first, to their save way to those mathematical and scientific treatises which Te Many of these interested the company as little as Laurence had expected, but he was surprised in reading a sadly wearing treatise upon geometry to be interrupted by Messoria, who said sleepily, "Pray skip ahead a little; we do not need it proven, anyone can tell it is perfectly correct," referring to great circles They had no difficulty at all with the notion that a curved course rather than a straight was the shortest distance for sailing, which had confused Laurence hied to learn it for the lieutenant&039;s exa he was further interrupted in his reading by Nitidus and Dulcia taking up an argument with Temeraire about Euclid&039;s postulates, one of which, referring to the principle of parallel lines, they felt quite unreasonable
"I a it is correct," Teo on: everything else in the science is built upon it"
"But what use is it, then!" Nitidus said, getting agitated enough to flutter his wings and bat his tail against Maximus&039;s side; Maxi ins so"
"It is not that it is wrong," Temeraire said, "only it is not so plain as the others - "
"It is wrong, it is perfectly wrong," Nitidus cried decidedly, while Dulcia pointed out in in Dover, and I a little south of London, on the saht northward, we should certainly meet at the Pole if we did notthat straight lines will neverat his forehead, "that is certainly true, but I proood sense when you consider all the useful calculations andwith the assun, which we are upon, is at base worked out froence which iance a very doubtful eye
"But I suppose," Te without the assuether over Teeo those principles which see the theory; which entertained theood deal e in, with those listening applauding particularly inventive notions as if they were performances
Shortly it beca the attention of the officers as well as the dragons; the scant handful of aviators with good penmanship Laurence was soon forced to press into service, for the dragons began to expand upon their cherished theory quicker than he alone could take their dictation, partly out of an intellectual curiosity, and partly because they very much liked the physical representation of their work, which they insisted on having separately copied out one for each of them, and treated in much the same way that Temeraire treated his much-beloved jewels
"I will make you a handsome edition of it, bound up like that nice book which you see Laurence reads fro to Lily, shortly, "if only you will eat so more every day: here, a few more bites of this tunny," a bribery which succeeded where almost all else had failed
"Well, perhaps a little , "and es, too, like that one?"
All this society Laurence h a little asha what he could not in justice call anything but a very raood huons still coughed their lungs away little by little What would have otherwise seemed a pleasure-cruise carried on under a ceaseless pall, where eachthe aviators ca away the bloodstained relics of the night&039;sto sleep to the rattling wet acco above All their noise and gaiety had a forced and hectic edge, defiance of fear asas Rome burned
The sentiht have had other excuses besides the political for preferring not to have Reverend Erasmus aboard, for the ship was already loaded besides hiers, most of them forced upon Riley by influence with the Ade Some number departed at Madeira, to take other ship for the West Indies or Halifax from there, but others were bound for the Cape as settlers, and still others going on to India: an uneasy h he liked to think so ill of perfect strangers, by a dread of invasion
He had soers, when he chanced to overhear the as they took the air on the ard side of the quarterdeck, spoke wistfully ast themselves of the airy chances of peace, and pronounced Bonaparte&039;s name with fear There was little direct coondeck was, nor did the passengers make much effort to become friendly, but on a few occasions, Reverend Erasmus joined Laurence for dinner Erasmus did not carry tales, of course, but asked, "Captain, is it your opinion that invasion is a settled certainty?" with a curiosity which to Laurence spoke of its being a topic ers hom they ordinarily dined
"I must call it settled that Bonaparte would like to try," Laurence said, "and being a tyrant he eously bold as to hly, I have every confidence he will be pushed off once again," a patriotic exaggeration; but he had no notion of disparaging their chances publicly
"I alad to hear you say so," Erashtfully, "It inal sin, I think, that all the noble promise of liberty and brotherhood which the revolution in France first brought up to light should have so quickly been drowned by blood and treasure Man begins in corruption, and cannot achieve grace striving only for victory over the injustices of the world, without striving also for God, and obeying His commandments"
Laurence a little aardly offered Erasreement which should have felt dishonest; he was uneasily aware that he had not heard services for the better part of a year; barring the Sunday services on board, where Mr Britten, the ship&039;s official chaplain, droned through his sermon with a notable lack of either inspiration or sobriety: and for those, Laurence had often to sit beside Te
"Do you suppose, sir," Laurence ventured instead to ask, "that dragons are subject to original sin?" This question had from time to time preyed upon him; he had quite failed to interest Teon to pursue such thoroughly blaspheiven it up entirely, froreater disaster
Erasave it as his opinion that they were not, "For surely the Bible would mention it, if any had eaten of the fruit besides Ada the serpent in some particulars, the Lord said unto the serpent that upon its belly it should go, whereas dragons are as creatures of the air, and cannot be considered under the saly, so it ith a heart lightened that Laurence could return to the deck that evening, to once again try and persuade Teh Terew lions&039; illness, and, ashamed of his appetite when his coan to disdain his food Laurence coaxed and cajoled with little effect, until Gong Su came up to him on deck and in flowery Chinese of which Laurence understood one word in six, but Tenation in shaer acceptable He dwelt at elaborate length upon the stain on his honor and that of his teacher and his family, which he would never be able to repair, and declared his intentions to soht remove himself froood, I prory just now," Te but a polite excuse, and added, "Good cooking ought to ry, even if you are not!"
"But I am, only - " Te coently said, "My dear, you do the yourself, and indeed soth and healthy e reach the Cape"
"Yes, but it feels quite wrong, to be eating and eating when everyone else has stopped and gone to sleep; it feels as though I a food, behind their backs, which they do not know about," Te the situation, as he had never shown the least co his co his own ons But after this adhout the day, while the other dragons akeful; and Teh the others still refused any more food themselves