“Oh, it is all her own notion,” Granby said ruefully, shaking Laurence’s hand, on the bow of the Allegiance; when that vessel had met them halfway and traveling now in company they had resumed their course for Dover. “She refused to see why the Navy ought to get all the prizes; and I am afraid she has suborned those damned ferals. I am sure she has them secretly flying the Channel at night looking for prizes, without reporting them, and when they tell her of one, she pretends she has just taken it into her head to go in such and such a direction. They are as good as any prize-crew ever was; the sailors are all as meek as maids, with one of them aboard.”
The remainder of the ferals were aloft, singing lustily together in their foreign tongue, and larking about with satisfaction. Iskierka however had crammed herself in among the formation, and in particular had seized the place along the starboard rail where Temeraire preferred to nap. She was no small addition: having gained her full growth in the intervening months since they had seen her, she was now enormously long and sprawling, the heavy coils of her serpentine body at least as long as Temeraire, and draped over anything which happened to be in her way, most inconveniently.
“There is not enough room for you,” Temeraire said ungraciously, nosing away the coil which she had deposited upon his back, and picking up his foot out of the other which was slithering around it. “I do not see why you cannot fly back to Dover.”
“You may fly to Dover if you like,” Iskierka said, flicking the tip of her tail dismissively. “I have flown all morning, and anyway I am going to stay with my prizes. Look how many of them there are,” she added, exultant.
“They are all our prizes,” Temeraire said.
“As it is the rule, I suppose we must share with you,” she said, with an air of condescension, “but you did nothing except come late, and watch,” a remark which Temeraire rather instinctively felt the justice of, than disputed, and he hunched down to sulk over the situation in silence.
Iskierka nudged him. “Look how fine my captain is,” she added, to heap on coals of fire; and much to poor Granby’s embarrassment: he was indeed a little ridiculously fine, gold-buttoned and-beringed, and the sword at his waist also hilted in gold, with a great absurd diamond at the pommel, which he did his best to conceal with his hand.
“She fusses for days, if I will not, every time she takes another prize,” Granby muttered, crimson to the ears.
“How many has she taken?” Laurence said, rather dubiously.
“Oh—five, since she set about it in earnest, some of them strings like this one,” Granby said. “They strike to her right off, as soon as she gives them a bit of flame; and we have not a great deal of competition for them: I do not suppose you know, we have not been able to hold the blockade.”
They exclaimed over this news with alarm. “It is the French patrols,” Granby said. “I don’t know how, but I would swear they have another hundred dragons more than they ought, on the coast; we cannot account for them. They only wait until we are out of sight, and then they go for the ships on blockade: dropping bombs, and as we haven’t enough dragons well yet to guard at all hours, the Navy must stand ship-and-ship, to fend them off. It is a damned good thing you have come home.”
“Five prizes,” Temeraire said, very low, and his temper was not improved when they reached Dover, where upon a jutting promontory above the cliffs Iskierka now had a large pavilion made of blackened stone, sweating from the exhalations of her spines and surely over-warm in the summer heat. Temeraire nevertheless regarded it with outrage, particularly after she had smugly arranged herself upon the threshold, her coils of vivid red and violet displayed to advantage against the stone, and informed him that he was very welcome to sleep there, if he should feel at all uncomfortable in his clearing.
He swelled up and said very coolly, “No, I thank you,” and retreating to his own clearing did not even resort to the usual consolation, of polishing his breastplate, but only curled his head beneath his wing and sulked.
Chapter 14
HIDEOUS SLAUGHTER AT THE CAPE
Thousands Slain! Cape Coast Destroyed!
Louanda and Benguela Burnt!
It will require yet some time before a complete Accounting will render final all the worst fears of Kin and Creditors alike, throughout these Isles, as to the extent of the Disaster, which has certainly encompassed the Wreck of several of our foremost citizens, for the destruction of many of their Interests, and left us to mourn without certain knowledge the likely Fate of our brave Adventurers and our noble Missionaries. Despite the territorial Questions, associated with the War with France, which lately made us Enemies, the deepest Sympathies must be extended now across the Channel to those bereaved Families, in the Kingdom of Holland, who in the Settlers at the Cape Colony have lost in some cases all their nearest Relations. All voices must be united in lamenting the most hideous and unprovoked Assault imaginable, by a Horde of violent and savage Beasts, egged on by the Jealousy of the native Tribesmen, resentful of the rewards of honest Christian labor…
LAURENCE FOLDED THE paper, from Bristol, and threw it beside the coffee-pot, with the caricature facing downwards: a bloated and snaggle-toothed creature labeled Africa, evidently meant to be a dragon, and several unclothed natives of grinning black visage prodding with spears a small knot of women and children into its open maw, while the pitiful victims uplifted their hands in prayer and cried O Have You No Pity in a long banner issuing from their mouths.
“I must go see Jane,” he said. “I expect we will be bound for London, this afternoon; if you are not too tired.”
Temeraire was still toying with his last bullock, not quite sure if he wanted it or not; he had taken three, greedy after the short commons of their voyage. “I do not mind going,” he said, “and perhaps we may go a little early, and see our pavilion; there can be no reason not to go near the quarantine-grounds now, surely.”
If they did not bring the first intelligence of the wholesale disaster in Africa, having been preceded in their flight by many a swifter vessel, certainly they carried the best: before their arrival, no-one in England had any notion of the identity of the mysterious and implacable foe who had so comprehensively swept clean the African coast. Laurence and Harcourt and Chenery had of course written dispatches, describing their experiences, and handed them on to a frigate which had passed them off Sierra Leone, and to another in Madeira; but in the end, these had only anticipated their arrival by a few days. In any case, formal dispatches, even the lengthy ones produced over the leisure of a month at sea, were by no means calculated to satisfy the clamoring demands of Government for information on so comprehensive a disaster.
Jane at least did not waste their time with a recounting of the facts. “I am sure you will have enough of that before their Lordships,” she said. “You will both have to come, and Chenery also; although perhaps I can beg you off, Harcourt, if you like: under the circumstances.”
“No, sir, thank you,” Catherine said, flushing. “I should prefer no special treatment.”
“Oh, I will take all the special treatment we can get, with both hands,” Jane said. “At least it will make them give us chairs, I expect; you look wretched.”
Jane herself was much improved, from when Laurence had left her; her hair was shot more thoroughly with silver, but her face, better fleshed, showed all the effects of cares lightened and a return to flying: a healthier wind-burnt color in the cheek, and lips a little chapped. She frowned at Catherine, who despite a perpetual lobsterish color from the sun managed still to look faintly bluish under the eyes, and pallid. “Are you still being taken ill?”