“That is quite enough, Demane; they did their duty as they saw it,” Laurence said; while perfectly accurate, Demane’s resentment needed none of the encouragement of approval. “They misjudged, and you did not; that satisfaction ought to hold you against the natural murmurs of regret which any man might feel on seeing a boy advanced so greatly ahead of his years, and with so few opportunities as remain to them.”

“They would not mind so if it were Widener,” Demane muttered, meaning Rankin’s hapless young signal-ensign, but subsided when Laurence regarded him sternly.

“Widener is a lump, so of course they would,” Roland added to Demane scornfully, after he had slumped back sitting next to her in the shade. “Stop being so ungodly prickly. Of course they are all jealous now; they will get over it when you have been in a proper action.”

“It is easy for you to say,” he flared. “No one would ever say you are not an aviator, and talk of sending you back to Africa.”

“And I suppose you have had to knock a lieutenant over for putting his hand in your shirt, then,” Roland said, which brought Laurence’s head up sharply, appalled. “No, I don’t mean to say who,” she added to Demane’s immediate demand, before Laurence had even made an attempt, “he was drunk, and sorry after: really sorry, I mean, not just being a weasel. A weasel would have been afraid to try, I expect, now Mother is a lord admiral. Anyway,” she went on, too candidly, “I don’t know if I should have minded, if he had not been so drunk.”

Much to Laurence’s dismay, however, Demane showed as alarming and visible a predisposition to resent this, as the other; the whole business of which gave Laurence fresh cause for concern: he had been neglectful of his duty by Roland. She might not officially be under his command any longer, but certainly she was still his responsibility, and he had left her without sufficient evidence of protection. He had allowed her to run wild with the other ensigns and runners, though they were plainly reaching an age to make that inadvisable; it suggested a lack of care which could only encourage improper advances.

As there was not a single other female in their company, however, he would be hard-pressed to manage a chaperone at present; and he rather dismally felt Roland would not take with much kindness to supervision, in any case.

“What for?” Granby said, with that perfect disregard for reputation which Laurence could no longer be surprised by, and yet sigh for. “If she does decide to fancy Demane, or anybody else, it would be just as well if she got it out of the way early. Lord knows we would like to keep Excidium in harness at least two more generations, if he will have it; by now he knows our formations better than any ten officers put together. And you can see with Harcourt, there is no telling what may happen; it might take half-a-dozen tries to get a girl.

“No, but I will tell you,” Granby went on, “I am a little worried about this business with Demane: I’ll put a word in where I can, when I have got back to England, and I don’t expect Admiral Roland will have any truck with this business of saying he isn’t in the Corps. But that still leaves you with a good year and a half to manage, and I think Rankin means to encourage it, the rotter.”

“So far as that goes, if need be we will remove to the valley, or find another,” Laurence said, “and have done.”

With Rankin’s encouragement or no, Blincoln—evidently feeling that, as he had originally been offered the egg, he had some right now to try again—did make an attempt; he was a former rifleman, and while they were encamped took one of the guns and went out, in a surreptitious manner, to return with a fresh-killed cassowary, which he brought back and offered to Kulingile while nearly all the rest of the camp were sleeping. Laurence roused only in time to see Kulingile fall upon the carcass at once with evident pleasure, while Demane rolled up to his feet, his hands clenched by his sides, rigidly angry.

Blincoln did not look over, but in a low voice suggested, as he put out a hand to stroke Kulingile’s side, that perhaps the dragonet would like another captain, with a proper rank and standing in the Corps, who might provide for him not only raw meat but the chance at real service.

“No,” Kulingile said, eating unconcernedly, “I have Demane.”

Blincoln paused and said, “Surely this is a very nice cassowary; I am glad you are enjoying it,” beginning on another tack; but Kulingile said, “Yes, although the one which Temeraire gave me yesterday was a bit more fat; and the one Lieutenant Drewmore shot the day before had a better flavor,” and indeed he had been used to be fed by so many, lacking the ability to hunt for himself, that it was not surprising he did not attach much significance to the gift.

The first attempt having failed, Blincoln would have withdrawn, but Demane confronted him: a head shorter than the lieutenant and some fifty pounds at least lighter, a slim dark figure trembling with rage, and he said, “You are a coward, and if you try and steal Kulingile again—”

He stumbled to a halt, not so much reluctant to threaten as unsure precisely to what degree, and Blincoln said, “I hope,” with an air of stuffy superciliousness, “Mr. Demane, that you have better sense than to indulge in histrionics and unreasonable expectations: no heavy-weight can be managed by a young boy. Your passion is understandable, however, and I am sure if you should demonstrate perhaps some more sense—some cooperation—that you will find it a good foundation for future expectations, and a more steady and rational advancement in the Corps—”

Demane spat, comprehensively. “That for steady advancement, as though I would trust any of you cheats,” he said, “and if you think I will ever help you take Kulingile from me, you are a great fool; as if he would have a lying sneak like you anyway, after you wanted to let his brains be knocked out with a sledge. As for being a boy, at least I am not a useless old scrub sent away because he did not deserve his old post—”

Blincoln slapped him across the face, which Laurence, on the point of intervening, could not call entirely unmerited, even if there were no shortage of blame to be credited to Blincoln’s account in the situation; but the noise was crisp and loud in the dry air, and Kulingile’s head snapped up from his repast to see Demane stumbling back under the blow.

Kulingile did not precisely spring: the motion was more peculiar, as he launched himself and landed against Blincoln still floating, but then he exhaled in a sharp, hissing way, and the swelled air-sacs began to deflate, so his real bodily weight at once began to tell, and Blincoln stumbled and went down beneath him. “You have hurt him!” Kulingile said, shrill and furious. “You have hurt him; Demane!” and opened wide his jaws to push out still more air, and Blincoln coughed and struggled to push himself free, gradually being crushed.

“Demane!” Laurence said sharply, turning to rouse Temeraire, who had just cracked open a sleepy eye; but Demane was already there at Kulingile’s head, seizing the tethering-rope and tugging.

“No, come away, you mustn’t kill him,” Demane said urgently, “or there will be trouble: look, I am all right, you can’t even see a mark.”

“That is only because you are dark,” Kulingile said, “and not squashy and red like him,” but with some reluctance he allowed the sacs to inflate once more, and himself to be pulled away, leaving Blincoln gasping and wretched upon the ground, curling around what proved on inspection to be several broken ribs. Dorset bound these up without great gentleness. There were no further attempts; at least, none where Demane might see and object to them, and as he made a determined sentinel, this ruled out nearly any such slinking efforts.

The end of the endless journey came abruptly and unexpected: though Laurence had marked off each day their progress, and written estimates of distance and position in his log. This was for some time their only account, as neither Granby nor Rankin nor any aviator had any notion of keeping records which Laurence could even call barely adequate to serve as a proper second to his own, and Dorset kept voluminous and wholly useless notes on individual leaves, or berries, or the paw of one animal, and could not tell which way was west if the sun were going down at the time.