They fled, and as they ran past the hideous monument, Laurence felt the first thin trickle of moving air upon his face: a draught somewhere near. Together groping over the wall they found the black and narrow opening, hidden from the torches behind a protrusion: stairs half-choked with filth, and the air fetid and swampy; he took reluctant deep gulps of it as they ran up the narrow passage and came crawling out at last through an old rain-gutter, pushing away the crusted iron grate, nearly on hands and knees.

Tharkay was bent double and gasping; with a tremendous effort, Laurence put back the grate, and tore a branch from a low sapling nearby to push through the empty hasp, holding it in place. He caught Tharkay by the arm and they staggered together drunkenly away through the streets; nothing to cause much comment, so long as no one looked closely at the state of their boots and the lower part of their cloaks: the banging upon the grate was already growing distant behind them, and their faces had not been seen, surely; not to put a name to, in that mad pursuit.

They found a place at length where the palace walls were a little lower; and taking more care that they were unobserved this time, Laurence boosted Tharkay up, and with his help in turn managed to scramble somehow up and over. They fell into a graceless and grateful heap some little distance into the grounds, beside an old iron water-fountain half buried in greenery, the water trickling but cold, and they cupped up greedy handfuls of it to their mouths and faces, soaking their clothing without regret: it washed away the stench, a little.

The silence was at first complete, but gradually as the roar of his own heart and lungs slackened, Laurence began to be able to hear more clearly the small noises of the night, the rustling of mice and leaves; the faint and far-off sound of the birds singing in the palace aviary beyond the inner walls; the irregular rasp of Tharkay’s knife against his whetstone: he was polishing the blade with slow occasional strokes, to draw no attention.

“I would say something to you,” Laurence said quietly, “on matters as they stand between us.”

Tharkay paused a moment, and the knife-blade trembled in the light. “Very well,” he said, resuming his slow, careful work, “say what you will.”

“I spoke earlier today in haste,” Laurence said, “and in a manner which I would ordinarily disdain to use to any man in my service. And yet even now I hardly know how I should apologize to you.”

“I beg you not to trouble yourself further,” Tharkay said coolly, never raising his head, “let it all pass; I promise you I will not repine upon it.”

“I have considered what to make of your behavior,” Laurence said, paying no mind to this attempt at deflection, “and I cannot make you out; tonight you have not only saved my life, but materially contributed to the progress of our mission. And if I consider only the final consequences of your actions, throughout our expedition, there is hardly any room for complaint; indeed you have rather steadfast brought us through one danger and the next, often at your own peril. But twice now you have abandoned your post, in circumstances fraught with innumerable difficulties, with a secrecy both unnecessary and contrived, leaving us as a consequence adrift and prey to grave anxieties.”

“Perhaps it did not occur to me my absence would occasion such dismay,” Tharkay said, blandly, and Laurence’s temper rose at once to meet this fresh challenge.

“Kindly do not represent yourself to me as a fool,” he said. “I could more easily believe you the most brazen traitor who has ever walked the earth, and the most inconsistent besides.”

“Thank you; that is a handsome compliment.” Tharkay sketched an ironic salute with the knife-point in the air. “But there seems to me little point in disputation, when you will not wish my services much longer regardless.”

“Whether for a minute or a month,” Laurence said, “still I will have done with these games. I am grateful to you, and if you depart, you will go with my thanks. But if you stay, I will have your promise that you will henceforth abide by my command, and cease this haring-off without leave; I will not have a man in my service whom I doubt, and Tharkay,” he added, abruptly sure, “I think you like to be doubted.”

Tharkay put down the knife and whetstone; his smile had gone, and his air of mockery. “You may say rather, that I like to know if I am doubted; and you will not be far wrong.”

“You have certainly done all you could to ensure it.”

“That seems to you I suppose perverse,” Tharkay said, “but I have long since been taught that my face and my descent bar me from the natural relations of gentlemen, with no action on my part. And if I am not to be trusted, I would rather provoke a little open suspicion, freely expressed, than meekly endure endless slights and whispers not quite hidden behind my back.”

“I too have endured society’s whispers, and every one of my officers; we are not in service to those small-minded creatures who like to sneer in corners, but to our country; and that service is a better defense of our honor, in the face of petty insult, than the most violent objections we could make,” Laurence said.

Tharkay said passionately, “I wonder if you would speak so if you were forced to endure it wholly alone; if not only society but all those on whom you might justly have a claim of brotherhood looked upon you with that same disdain, your superior officers and your comrades-in-arms; if all hope of independence and advancement were denied you and, as a sop, you were offered the place of a superior servant, somewhere between a valet and a trained dog.”

He closed his mouth on anything further, though his customary seeming indifference looked now a mask imperfectly put on, and there was some suggestion of color in his face.

“Am I meant to take these charges as laid to my own account?” Laurence demanded, suffering at once indignation and unease; but Tharkay shook his head.

“No, I beg pardon for my vehemence; the injuries of which I speak are no less bitter for their age.” With a ghost of his former wryness he added, “What incivilities you have offered me, I do not deny I have provoked; I have formed a habit of anticipation: amusing, to me at least, if perhaps unjust to my company.”

He had said enough that Laurence might without undue speculation imagine the sort of treatment which had driven Tharkay to abandon country and companionship for his present solitary existence, beholden to none and of none, which to Laurence seemed utterly barren, a waste of a man proven worthy of something better; and stretching out his hand he said earnestly, “If you can believe it so in this case, then give me your word, and take mine—I hope I may in safety promise to give no less than full measure of loyalty to any man who gives me his, and I think I would be sorrier to lose you than I yet know.”

Tharkay looked at him, a queer uncertain expression briefly crossing his face, then lightly said, “Well, I am set in my ways; but as you are willing to take my word, Captain, I suppose I would be churlish to refuse to offer it,” and reached out his hand with a jaunty air; but there was nothing whatsoever insincere about his grip.

“Ugh,” Temeraire said, having lifted them both over into the garden, examining with distaste the slimy residue on his foreclaws. “But I do not care if you smell bad, so long as you are back; Granby said you were surely only staying late for dinner, and that I must not go look for you; but you were gone so very long,” he added more plaintively, before plunging his forehand into a lily-pond to wash it off.

“We were clumsy about it coming back in and were forced to find a bolt-hole for a little, but as you see all ended well; I am very sorry to have given you cause for anxiety,” Laurence said, stripping off his own clothes unceremoniously and going directly into the pond himself; Tharkay was already submerging. “Dyer, take those and my boots and see what you and Roland can do with them; and bring me that damned soap.”