“Yes,” he said, “indeed, yes.”
“But if the police are competent,” she said, “then how do you account for our being as we are?”
“The wicked have their day,” he said.
He was fearful lest this should be disheartening to her. He hastened to add: “They will get you out of this, Miss Kingsborough. I shall be asked and searched for at seven o’clock, only five hours from now, by the Dictator himself.”
“What Dictator is that?” she asked. “Where is this place?”
“In Santa Barbara,” he said. “The Dictator is Don Manuel. Did you not even know where you are?”
“I have known nothing of where I have been since they dragged me out of the house after you had warned us. They put me into a boat and then into a ship, where I was a prisoner for a fortnight. Sometimes we were at sea and sometimes in anchorages. I knew from the sun that we went south and west; nothing more than that. Then three nights ago they landed me and wheeled me here, bound, blindfolded and gagged, upon a stretcher in a sort of ambulance. I knew from the noises and smells that we were in a city. Someone stopped the people who were bringing me and asked what was the matter. The woman said, ‘She has had an accident, poor thing.’ ”
“You had women guards, then?”
“Oh, yes, two.”
“Surely there were some decent men among the smugglers who were willing to help you: for instance, a man called Douglas?”