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handful of
    hatchlings we have tucked away in Ireland."

    "You know we have brought you another twenty," Laurence
    said, taking a brief refuge in making his report.

    "Yes, these fellows from where, Turkestan?" Lenton said,
    willing to follow. "Did I understand your letter correctly;
    they were brigands?"

    "I would rather say jealous of their territory," Laurence
    said. "They are not very pretty, but there is no malice in
    them; though what use twenty dragons can be, to cover all
    England-" He stopped. "Lenton, surely something can be
    done-must be done," he said.

    Lenton only shook his head briefly. "The usual remedies did
    some good, at the beginning," he said. "Quieted the
    coughing, and so forth. They could still fly, if they did
    not have much appetite; and colds are usually such trifling
    things with them. But it lingered on so long, and after a
    while the possets seemed to lose their effect-some began to
    grow worse-"

    He stopped, and after a long moment added, with an effort,
    "Obversaria is dead."

    "Good God!" Laurence cried. "Sir, I am shocked to hear itso deeply grieved." It was a dreadful loss: she had been
    flying with Lenton some forty years, the flag-dragon at
    Dover for the last ten, and though relatively young had
    produced four eggs already; perhaps the finest flyer in all
    England, with few to even compete with her for the title.

    "That was in, let me see; August," Lenton said, as if he
    had not heard. "After Inlacrimas, but before Minacitus. It
    takes some of them worse than others. The very young hold
    up best, and the old ones linger; it is the ones between
    who have been dying. Dying first, anyway; I suppose they
    will all go in the end."

    Chapter 2

    "CAPTAIN," KEYNES SAID, "I am sorry; any gormless imbecile
    can bandage up a bullet-wound, and a gormless imbecile you
    are very likely to be assigned in my place. But I cannot
    stay with the healthiest dragon in Britain when the
    quarantine-coverts are full of the sick."

    "I perfectly understand, Mr. Keynes, and you need say
    nothing more," Laurence said. "Will you not fly with us as
    far as Dover?"

    "No; Victoriatus will not last the week, and I will wait
    and attend the dissection with Dr. Harrow," Keynes said,
    with a brutal sort of practicality that made Laurence
    flinch. "I have hopes we may learn something of the
    characteristics of the disease. Some of the couriers are
    still flying; one will carry me onwards."

    "Well," Laurence said, and shook the surgeon's hand. "I
    hope we shall see you with us again soon."

    "I hope you will not," Keynes said, in his usual acerbic
    manner. "If you do, I will otherwise be lacking for
    patients, which from the course of this disease will mean
    they are all dead."

    Laurence could hardly say his spirits were lowered; they
    had already been reduced so far as to make little
    difference out of the loss. But he was sorry. Dragonsurgeons were not by and large near so incompetent as the
    naval breed, and despite Keynes's words Laurence did not
    fear his eventual successor, but to lose a good man, his
    courage and sense proven and his eccentricities known, was
    never pleasant; and Temeraire would not like it.

    "He is not hurt?" Temeraire pressed. "He is not sick?"

    "No, Temeraire; but he is needed elsewhere," Laurence said.
    "He is a senior surgeon; I am sure you would not deny his
    attentions to those of your comrades who are suffering from
    this illness."

    "Well, if Maximus or Lily should need him," Temeraire said
    crabbily, and drew furrows in the ground. "Shall I see them
    again soon? I am sure they cannot be so very ill. Maximus
    is the biggest dragon I have ever seen, even though we have
    been to China; he is sure to recover quickly."

    "No, my dear," Laurence said uneasily, and broke the worst
    of the news-"The sick have none of them recovered, and you
    must take the very greatest care not to go anywhere near
    the quarantine-grounds."

    "But I do not understand," Temeraire said. "If they do