But then, then, then, Tharkay said, “—and the egg was here,” and Temeraire turning saw it very plainly: there was a nest of leaves and grasses scraped quite close together, around a little framework of thin branches, and the nest had a smooth, curved hollow depressed within it, just the right size and shape to hold an egg: Temeraire might have scraped together something very like for the same purpose.
“You have brought us up on their heels out of ten thousand acres of wilderness,” Laurence said. “—I should not have credited it.”
Tharkay shook his head. “You may praise me when we have them in hand, and I do not see them; do you?”
Temeraire went aloft, for them all to peer about, and indeed he could not see any sign of anyone walking in any direction—there was a little dust going up a few hills over, but that was only some cassowaries running, and in the distance a few wild dogs. “But we must be close, if they ate here so lately,” he said, rallying his spirits as he landed.
“I do not care to be discouraging,” Tharkay said to Laurence, “but they seem to know this country uncommonly well. There is no hesitation in their trail—no false starts. They ate quickly—they had food with them, or knew where nearby to get it. They came directly to this camp, knowing there would be water here; and they did not have the advantage of an aerial view.”
“I hope I may not be called over-optimistic,” Laurence said, “but I will indulge in a little more confidence, even so: they may know their route, but they cannot know the countryside well enough to stray very far from it, and we have the advantage of being able to cover it in wide swaths.”
“We had better use that advantage, then,” Temeraire said. “Pray let everyone come back aboard.” The convicts reluctantly came up and out of the shade to go back into the belly-netting, even Caesar was prodded up whining, and then Lieutenant Forthing said, “Where has that blasted fellow Telly got to?”
Jack Telly was quite gone.
“But where can he have got to?” Temeraire said: there was not much of anything for several miles around, and even if the man had wanted to run away from them, there was nowhere he might have run away to; they had covered a good ten miles of country, even flying the tedious sweeps, since their camp that morning.
It turned out, however, that the last anyone remembered of him, he had gone down to get a drink at the water-hole, and had taken with him a canteen: one of the other convicts had seen him go with it in his hand.
“So he has deserted and taken to the wilderness,” Rankin said impatiently, “—looking for this idiot notion of China reachable by land, no doubt; and we may consider ourselves lucky he did not steal anything more necessary than a single can of water. Do you propose to spend an hour hunting him out from under whichever bit of scrub he has secreted himself beneath, or do you suppose we might value a little more highly the prize that has brought us out this far, than preserving a fool from his chosen folly?”
“We cannot spare the time, surely,” Temeraire said anxiously to Laurence.
“We can and shall spare the time,” Laurence said, “at least to fly some passes overhead around the immediate countryside and call out to him: this man is in our charge, and one of our party. If he has deserted, that is one thing; but desertion would be strange indeed in our present situation, so far from any sign of civilization; far more likely that from an excess of heat or air-sickness he has grown disoriented and wandered into the scrub, and lost his way back.”
“I don’t see why we should care, if he is silly enough to go roaming around in the wild without coming back,” Iskierka said. “He is not an egg, being dragged about wherever anyone likes who has a hold of it, and quite unable to manage for itself.”
Temeraire would of course not quarrel with Laurence, but he inclined to Iskierka’s view of the situation, particularly after he heard one of the convicts say to another, “Ask me, he is well out of it and no mistake; halfway to China, I warrant, and here we sit swinging like the dugs of a back-alley sixpence whore under this monster’s belly,” while they were supposed to be yelling out Jack, Jack as Temeraire flew his circles. Jack himself seemed to agree with them; at least he did not answer, or step out from behind a shrub and wave an arm.
“He must be choosing to stay hidden,” Temeraire said, “surely, Laurence; we have made such a tremendous noise no one anywhere near-by could fail to hear us. I hope,” he added, only a little reproachfully, “that the thieves have not, for they must be warned if they have.”
He did not add, although he might have, that Telly had been quite a regular nuisance since even before they had left Sydney: had complained quite incessantly. It did not seem to Temeraire that he would be a very great loss, if he did not wish to come with them any further.
“I cannot account for it,” Laurence said. “Pray go below and ask those men, Demane, what was his sentence, and his profession?”
Demane climbed down Temeraire’s side, to speak with the convicts in the belly-netting; and swung back up again to report: Telly had been trained up as a carpenter, once, and had so called himself; but convicted of debt in the amount of £2 5d 7s at the age of sixteen had gone through a window in London to snatch a few goods to repay; finding this a more lucrative profession, he had given over hopes of respectability; he was, in short, a thief: a second-story man, sentenced to twenty years of transportation and hard labor.
“What business has such a man in the open wilderness, and running out into it?” Laurence said.
“I cannot see why you insist on crediting such a man with more wit than willfullness,” Rankin said. “I am sure he imagines all will be charmingly easy: a man with prospects of a respectable profession, who runs himself into a debt ludicrous to his station, turns thief, and runs riot in London until he is seized for transportation, surely cannot be allowed to have the remotest powers of reason.
“Nor,” Rankin added cuttingly, “any value to society; and meanwhile a beast priceless to our situation is being trundled away by, I gather your Chinaman friend suspects, some party of French spies. If you insist on pursuing this course of action, we will surely lose the trail; and you may be sure I will not stint in speaking my mind on the subject in my own report to their Lordships, or about Captain Granby’s ill-judgment in yielding to your wishes.”
It was very unpleasant to be in any way of the same mind as Rankin, particularly when he spoke in so offensive a way, and Temeraire thought he had not much value to society, either. But—the egg must be paramount, that was incontrovertible; and even as Temeraire steeled himself to speak to Laurence, Iskierka was swinging back towards them. Granby called over, “Laurence, I am damned sorry, but the fellow don’t want to be found, if he hasn’t broken his neck somewhere; and Iskierka won’t stand for looking any longer.”
“Very well,” Laurence said, after a moment, “—let us go onward.”
“You are not very distressed, Laurence, I hope?” Temeraire asked, as he and Iskierka fell again into the sweeping pattern he had worked out that morning: she flying slightly above, and the two of them interweaving, and looking in opposite directions always, that both of them should have cast an eye over the same ground, to be sure not to overlook anything.
“No,” Laurence said, “only I must find it strange; I have known men desert, often enough, but only at the prospect of some immediate gain and a nearby harbor: with women, generally, and I would be the more likely to credit him with deliberate flight if he had taken a cask of rum instead of the canteen. I imagine Granby has it right, and the poor devil took a wrong step and fell into some crevasse; where he will likely die of thirst, if those wild dogs we have heard at night do not come on him first. This is not a kind country, and I cannot think very much of abandoning a man in it.”