Read Tongues of Serpents for Free Online Page B

worth only having the tiniest taste, which only made one want more. He sighed.
    “Quite prodigious,” MacArthur repeated, looking at Temeraire again. “He must take a great deal of feeding.”
    “We are managing,” Laurence said politely. “The game is conveniently plentiful, and they do not seem to be used to being hunted from aloft.”
    Temeraire considered that if MacArthur was here, he might at least be of some use. “Is there anything else to hunt, nearby?” he inquired.“Not of course,” he added untruthfully, “that anyone could complain of kangaroo.”
    “I am surprised if you have found any of those in twenty miles as the crow goes,” MacArthur said. “We pretty near et up the lot, in the first few years.”
    “Well, we have been getting them around the Nepean River, and in the mountains,” Temeraire said, and MacArthur’s head jerked up from his cup so abruptly that the spoon he had left inside it tipped over and spattered his white breeches with chocolate.
    He did not seem to notice that he had made a sad mull of his clothing, but said thoughtfully, “The Blue Mountains? Why, I suppose you can fly all over them, can’t you?”
    “We
have
flown all over them,” Temeraire said, rather despondently, “and there is nothing but kangaroo, and those rabbits that have no ears, which are too small to be worth eating.”
    “I would have been glad of a wombat or a dozen often enough, myself,” MacArthur said, “but it is true we do not have proper game in this country, I am sorry to say I know from experience: too lean by half; you cannot keep up to fighting-weight on it, and there is not enough grazing yet for cattle. We have not found a way through the mountains, you know,” he added. “We are quite hemmed in.”
    “It is a pity no-one has tried keeping elephants,” Temeraire said.
    “Ha ha, keeping elephants, very good,” MacArthur said, as if this were some sort of a joke. “Do elephants make good eating?”
    “Excellently good,” Temeraire said. “I have not had an elephant since we were in Africa: I do not think I have tasted anything quite so good as a properly cooked elephant; outside of China, that is,” he added loyally, “where I do not think they can raise them. But it seems as though this would be perfectly good country for them: it is certainly as hot as ever it was in Africa, where they raised them. Anyway we will need more food for the hatchlings, soon.”
    “Well, I have brought sheep, but I did not much think of bringing over elephants,” MacArthur said, looking at the three eggs with an altered expression. “How much would a dragon eat, do you suppose, in the way of cattle?”
    “Maximus will eat two cows when he can get them, in a day,” Temeraire said, “but I do not think that is very healthy; I would not eat more than one, unless of course I have been fighting, or flying far; or if I were very particularly hungry.”
    “Two cows a day, and soon to be five of you?” MacArthur said. “The Lord safe preserve us.”
    “If this has brought you to a better understanding of the necessity of addressing the situation, sir,” Laurence said, rather pointedly Temeraire thought, “I must be grateful for your visit; we have had very little cooperation heretofore in making our arrangements from Major Johnston.”
    MacArthur put down his chocolate-cup. “I was speaking last night, I think,” he said, “of what a man can make of himself, in this country; it is a subject dear to my heart, and I hope I did not ramble on it too long. It is a hard thing, you will understand, Mr. Laurence, to see a country like this: begging for hands, for the plowshare and the till, and no-one to work it but an army of the worst slackabouts born of woman lying about, complaining if they are given less than their day’s half-gallon of rum, and they would take it at ten in the morning, if they could get it.
    “In the Corps, we may not be very pretty, but we know how to work; I believe the