All the Ministers disappeared into another room by themselves, only the Captain and the ladies coming into the drawing-room. He was saying ’tut, tut’ all the time, and all we could get out of him was, ’We’ve been treated like children—tut, tut—by a miserable half-bred savage—he won’t listen to us.’ ’A lot of firing going on in the city, isn’t there, sir?’ Mr. Perkins asked. ’Only a few drunken soldiers letting off their rifles,’ he grunted, and then he was sent for, and a few minutes afterwards a man-servant came in to ask the Minister’s wife to speak to her husband. She went out, and we could hear her speaking to him, and back she came looking very pale. ’Captain Grattan’ (that was our Captain) ’has asked us to stay on board the _Hector_, my dears; we are going down with him to-night.’ She tried to look cheerful, but they and we knew what that meant—that it wasn’t safe for them in Santa Cruz any longer—and the girls began to cry again. All three of them went away to get ready. ’Phew! Great smokes,’ Mr. Perkins whistled, ’it’s come to a pretty pass—that ass of a Sub has stirred up a hornets’ nest, if you like.’ ’It wasn’t his fault, sir,’ I said; ’he couldn’t help it.’ Just then the Captain and the Ministers trooped in. They looked as though they’d come to some decision which pleased them, and it made the Angel and me feel more happy about poor old Billums up there in San Sebastian. We both wondered whether he’d had any dinner, and what he thought had become of us—all this time. Some more ladies came in, all wrapped up in furs because the night was very cold, and in the middle of all the hubbub we heard a lot of cavalry coming along. They stopped outside the house, and a moment later the Governor of Los Angelos, with his two A.D.C.’s, came in. Weren’t we pleased to see him, that’s all! There was more bowing and scraping, coffee was handed round, and we two edged alongside the little A.D.C. who had talked English in the gun-room yesterday. He recognised us then and said, smiling, ’We take you to Los Angelos to-night—the señoras and the señoritas also—we have many horse soldiers—the road it has much danger.’ ’How about Billums—William Wilson—our Sub?’ we asked, ’up in San Sebastian.’