“Abduction of Miss Kingsborough?” Billy said. “We’ve heard nothing else. She’s been carried clean away.”
“Where to?” Sard asked.
“Search me,” Billy said. “Some damned trader in Eve’s flesh; but there’s a fine old breeze about it. Now come along.”
“What brings you to San Agostino?”
Sard told him in few words.
* * * * *
Billy Binge’s recommendation was sufficient; Sir James engaged Sard to command the Yuba. She sailed late that night, up the coast to the Recalde reef to take some dredgings. After a few days at the reef, she sailed for Santa Barbara, where she arrived at noon just nineteen days from Sard’s going ashore at Las Palomas.
Sir James stood at his side as he brought the Yuba into Santa Barbara harbour.
“You’ve not been here recently, Captain Harker,” he said. “You’ll not know the place; it’s a different place: almost a different city. They’re making this place the Athens of the West: I say they, but it’s really he, the Dictator, Don Manuel. Look at the cathedral; there’ll be nothing so beautiful in the New World when it’s finished. Do you see your ship, the Pathfinder?”
“No, Sir James, she isn’t in the sailing ship berths.”