“Whyever has Hammond not been useful,” he said, in rising impatience, “and got us aboard a translator? I might have begun to learn a little Japanese, and be able to speak with them directly. Can you see, is she speaking with Wampanoag?”
“I don’t see, at all,” Granby said, and Temeraire began to wonder if perhaps he had not ought to go ashore after all, just briefly, to speak with them. He felt a great deal better, indeed. He had drunk up all the medicine and eaten all the porridge resolutely, every day; and he had gone for a very long swim just this past evening, with not the least ill-effects.
“I am sure I could manage it without any trouble,” he said, “and it only seems courteous that I should pay a call, while we are guests here—”
“Will you not ever have any sense?” Hammond said, when he had come running; Temeraire narrowed his eyes at Churki, whom he suspected of having made him some signal—perhaps they had agreed upon it in some way.
“They condemn us all as little better than pirates,” Hammond continued, “and they must look upon this ship as the most rank provocation—a vessel of this size, this strength! Our armament! Bearing an entire formation’s worth of beasts, and,” he added, “you will note they do not have heavy-weights among them, so far as we have seen.”
“That is perfect nonsense,” Temeraire said. “I have never seen a dragon half as big as that sea-dragon.”
“But he is confined only to the water!” Hammond said. “That is nothing to what a dragon of Kulingile’s size could do, in the air, anywhere in the country he liked, if they have no heavy-weights of their own to check him: he might run rampant over them.”
“I might, too,” Maximus said, raising his head with a jealous gleam—he was not so inclined to quarrel with Kulingile as he had been, but he could scarcely be blamed when Hammond insisted on being so outright provoking.
“Good God, I hope I do not mean that in the nature of a compliment, I assure you,” Hammond said, entirely missing the point, as usual.
“So much the better, then,” Temeraire said. “I am very content for them to be worried, and to wish us gone: let them only find Laurence, and bring him to me, and we shall go.”
“If they should even believe such a promise, and find it possible to fulfill your demands,” Hammond said, “they will not fear us the less for going out of their sight, on such an endeavor. What do you imagine such a nation must think, with a vast neighbor so near-by, which has on previous occasions attempted their conquest, making alliance with another nation equipped with vessels of a size that might ferry a dozen dragons in a week across the China Sea? They cannot help but fear it.”
“Then they must be afraid,” Temeraire said, outraged. “You desire that alliance, you have said so again and again—”
“That does not mean I must be in a great hurry for the Japanese to learn of it,” Hammond said, “and particularly not to think that more has been accomplished than has; it is better not to announce the wedding before the proposal has been accepted.”
In Temeraire’s opinion, this was quite absurd; if the Japanese wished to be anxious and imagine dreadful things happening, when no-one had done anything to them at all—bar taking a few trees which they had not been busy to use anyway—that was their affair. “Mine,” he said, “is to see Laurence brought safe back to me, and if flying across and having a few words with that other dragon will persuade them, or our making some show of strength, I am happy to see it done: I would not hesitate in the least.
“Indeed,” he added, with a sudden kindling impulse, and looked down to where Captain Blaise was consulting with Granby, “Captain Blaise! Will you listen to me, if you please? I do not suppose we have exercised the great guns, in over a month—surely you ought to do it, do you think? If we cannot make answer for the Phaeton straightaway, at least we should like them to know we might—that we are not only sitting here because we cannot.”
Captain Blaise did not look up at Temeraire directly, but he said after a moment, “Do you know, Captain Granby, I do believe we ought to exercise the great guns. And then at least those ruddy blighters will know we might answer them properly, if we liked.”