Gusts of wind pursued them as they hastened over yielding sand and wild strawberry-plot, or broke through scrub-brush and tree-growth. Pitiless dust-clouds drove them again from the open to the protection of a bluff.
They started out once more.
"Captain," in half-stifled voice, "this is the third day Fairbanks's vessels have stood there performing antics. No?"
"Yes, señora, and the third day we have been in Yerba Buena waiting for Fairbanks to keep his tryst with us. A hundred times we have gone over this. I feel greatly to blame that I consented to bring you out into this simoon again to-day. What good?"
"But, think you, to-morrow is highest tide. If Commodore Billings's sloop-of-war floats, no hurricane keeps him from blockading Monterey. Yes, and the guns of Colonel Barcelo could not prevent him from seizing castle and city."
"Fairbanks should be shot!"
"Captain, had Barcelo been kept in ignorance as to the spoils of office his latent patriotism might still be slumbering; but your English truthfulness was too much for even a wise diplomat like yourself."
"I was a fool! an inexcusable fool! But who would have thought the Comandante capable of such vim and sudden action? Besides, señora, there was Brown. He stirred up quite a kettle of fish in his own way."
"True. But Fairbanks put in, notwithstanding Brown, and would have occupied the city, had his reception been more cordial."
"Yes, yes."