“I hope you never doubt the value of charity,” Laurence said, “regardless of any contrary opinion which you should meet: do you imagine Iskierka would have concerned herself particularly with the fate of the French dragons, as a consequence of the spreading of the disease?”

“No-o,” Temeraire said, and looking slantwise asked, “Laurence, then you are quite sure that we have done as we ought?”

“Very sure,” Laurence said. “And consider, my dear: a week ago his imminent death was certain, and now he is eating well and steadily gaining weight, and he was of material use in extracting you from the quicksand. I must think his prospects of further improvement are high.”

That was not precisely what Temeraire had meant, but he was very cheered to know that Laurence felt the two acts were connected in such a way, and equally necessary; he had wondered sometimes if Laurence might have had some regrets—some feeling of disappointment, that Temeraire had asked so much of him. He did not at all mind bringing Kulingile along, or carrying him forever, if it should mean Laurence were not distressed.

And, he suddenly realized to his consolation, if he were doing so, then it was not really as though Demane was not his own anymore: if Kulingile was to be always riding with him, then it was more as though he was part of Temeraire’s crew himself. “And,” he told Kulingile, who listened intently, “if we should see some action, I think you might be of very real use, as no one might board while you were on my back: if only you can contrive not to grow very much more.”

“Well, I will try,” Kulingile said, but then he took the second half of the lizard in front of him and threw his head back and swallowed the whole thing at once, so that it traveled down his throat as a distended lump, as much as to say, Look how much I have eaten.

“That is not going to help,” Temeraire said, exasperated.

There was not very much more water to be had, either, as they flew onward: the water-holes which they found were almost all drying up, in the heat of the day, in a suspicious manner. “I expect they are telling one another to dry them up for us,” Temeraire said, rather disgruntled, as he lapped a little water up from a rocky basin; he could not take nearly as much as he wanted, as it should have to serve for all.

“Well, let us dig up some more of these coverings, and then I will breathe fire in at them,” Iskierka proposed. “That will bring them out, and they will soon learn not to be causing trouble for us.”

“I don’t see why you must be so quarrelsome,” Caesar said. “I suppose if you want to be dragging up their houses all over, you can’t be too angry if they don’t like it, and I don’t much fancy waking in the middle of the night up to my neck in sand, either. We might leave them a kangaroo or two, and see if that sweetens them up to give us water.”

“As if we were going to give them presents, after the way they have behaved,” Temeraire said, revolted, and Iskierka snorted her disdain; but much to their shared dismay, Laurence and Granby thought the idea sound.

“Consider, my dear, the very real difficulty we should have in constantly facing the objections of so widespread and hostile a force,” Laurence said, “if indeed they are communicating, as you imagine not without grounds.”

“And we are not here to pick quarrels with bunyips or anyone else, for that matter,” Granby said. “We are here to find that egg, and be shot of this wretched desert; if they like to live here, there is no reason we shouldn’t leave it to them, if you ask me.”

To make matters still worse, Rankin alone disagreed. “You will only encourage the creatures by bribing them,” he said, “and induce them to think humans more worthwhile prey: they ought to be eradicated one and all.”

If he did concede so far as to not at once fire all the bunyips’ lairs—which was a pity, as it seemed to Temeraire an excellent strategy, particularly as the bunyips should also have to flee the smoke, and come out for a proper fight, instead of hiding away—Temeraire could not quite see his way clear to leaving the bunyips a kangaroo.

“It is no more thrown away than letting that one stuff it into his gullet,” Caesar said, meaning Kulingile, but for his part, Temeraire felt he should rather feed Kulingile twenty kangaroos than see the bunyips profit from one, when he had hunted it down.

“If we had begun by tearing up their homes,” he said, “I might see the justice in it, but after all, we did not; we did not even know they were there, until after they had stolen some of our men, and eaten them, which is barbarous anyway. If anyone were to be apologizing and giving presents, it ought to be them and not us; instead they are only quarreling more, by stealing the water, now, too.”

“If they have brought the water there in the first place, it seems to me they aren’t the ones doing the stealing,” Caesar said, but that was plainly absurd; it was not as though the bunyips had made the water. The water was there, and they had only moved it to a place most convenient for themselves, to trick people into coming near their traps; another part of a low sneaking strategy which deserved not the least bit of credit.

“Anyway, they might have said something if they did not like us to drink. They set the water out on purpose, and make it look as though it is not theirs, so it does not seem to me they can complain if we treat it like any other water,” Temeraire said.

But it was very tiring and inconvenient to have to stop, over and over, to drink what little they could get at any one water-hole. It was not even restful, for one could not feel refreshed with so little to drink, and his throat ached all the worse. Temeraire still felt a deep unpleasant ache in his forelegs and hindquarters after his ordeal, and it was more of an effort than it ought to have been to spring aloft every time.

He sighed a little; and they must again fly sweeps, to watch for any fragment of pottery or silk or anything else which might have been brought from China; of course he was glad to have found the trail again, but there was no denying it was pleasanter flying when they could only guess, and go on flying straight.

However, watching the ground as they drew near yet another half-dry water-hole, he did at length near the end of the day catch sight of a little movement: a shadow which did not quite fit the rest of the ground, and Temeraire realized all at once it was one of them, the bunyips. He dived at once, stretching, and the bunyip burst suddenly into motion, skittering away across the sand towards a bare patch of ground, and as Temeraire reached, it squirmed itself madly beneath the earth, casting up a cascade of sand at its heels as it burrowed.

It was astonishingly quick: Temeraire landed and stuck his claw inside the freshly dug tunnel, and could not reach it; he sat back on his haunches and hissed in displeasure. “Come out, you wretched craven thing,” he called into the tunnel, and looked back. “Laurence, are you quite sure you would not like us to smoke them out? I am certain we could quite easily manage them, if they did not squirm and run away so.”

“And so ensure an endless sequence of attacks,” Laurence said, “further delaying our search for the egg; pray let us continue on, my dear.”

“You may consider,” Dorset said, peering over, “that it is in their nature to hunt from their burrows, and the consequence of our own venturing into a country we do not know; and after all, you are eating the game on which they depend for sustenance. We are as foolish to resent their predation as cattle would be to despise you.”

This argument swayed Temeraire to some extent; at least he was persuaded to fly onward without further molesting the bunyips. Later in the evening, Temeraire said thoughtfully, contemplating the stew which Gong Su was brewing, with the meager haul of kangaroos, “I have never before considered the feelings of a cow: I suppose they must not care for us at all.”