The further adventures of Zorro

Señor Zorro thanked his saints that the horse he had seized in front of the presidio at San Diego de Alcála was a noble animal of endurance and speed.

He kicked at the mount’s flanks and rode like the wind in the wake of the troopers. He knew that he was gaining on them, but they had such an advantage of time that he realized he could not reach the pirate camp before Ramón and his soldiers.

As his horse negotiated the last slope before reaching the sea, Señor Zorro could hear, coming from a distance, the din of battle. He stopped his mount in the fringe of trees and looked down upon the scene.

The soldiers and pirates were fighting hotly at some distance from the buildings. The huts were ablaze. Women and children were trying to escape into the brush. These things Señor Zorro saw at a glance, and also that the fight was an even one, with the advantage to neither force.

He ascertained that the caballeros were still prisoners. Only a moment he hesitated, and then he kicked at the horse’s flanks again and raced the animal down the slope. The fight was to one side of him, and so he encountered neither soldier nor pirate. He had a glimpse of Ramón in the distance, and believed that Ramón saw him in turn. He rode wildly among the blazing huts, and so came to the adobe building where the prisoners were housed.

Señor Zorro sprang from his horse and dashed into the building. With a metal bar, he broke the lock of the inner door and shrieked to the caballeros that they were free.

“Follow me to your weapons!” he shouted. “Fight with the troopers against the pirates! Catch me this renegade and traitor of a Ramón! Remember, Ramón is mine!”

They answered him with glad shouts and rushed at his heels out of the building and toward the hut where the captured weapons had been placed, and before which there were no guards now. The roof of the hut already was blazing.

Señor Zorro kicked open the door, dashed inside, and began tossing out swords. The caballeros rushed forward, shouting as they claimed their weapons. Zorro dashed outside again, his own beloved blade in his hand. Already the caballeros were running toward the fight.

“Zorro, by the saints!” It was the bellowing voice of Sergeant Gonzales that hailed him. “What is this talk of my captain being a traitor?”

“He is!” Zorro cried. “He was in league with the pirates, and then turned against them. He is a double traitor! Forward, sergeant! Use your blade well! Ruiz! Where is Ruiz?”

“The devils took him out to roast him at the stake,” the sergeant replied. “That was long before the fighting began.”

“To roast him—” Señor Zorro gasped.

“Let me at a pirate!” the sergeant bellowed, dashing away. “There are scores to settle!”

Señor Zorro, his heart sinking within him, peered around through the smoke. And then hope flamed within him again, for in the distance he saw Don Audre Ruiz, the flames leaping around him. Señor Zorro ran swiftly through the billows of smoke toward the stake.

Don Audre’s clothing already was being scorched. He had turned his head away from the smoke and the heat, fighting to the last to keep from drawing deadly flame down into his lungs, and his eyes were closed.

He did not see the swift approach of Señor Zorro, did not guess that rescue was at hand until he heard Zorro’s voice.

“Audre!” he cried. “Audre! Speak to me! If the fiends have slain you—”

Don Audre Ruiz opened his eyes and smiled, and Señor Zorro smiled in reply. Then he kicked away the burning fuel and leaped toward his friend.

“You are just in time,” Don Audre said. “I had given up hope, Diego, my friend.”

“A moment, and I’ll have you free!”

He tore away the ropes and leather thongs, and worked frantically at the heavy chain, which was hot to his touch. He was alert and on guard as he worked, but the fight did not approach him. The caballeros had joined it, he saw, and the pirates were being cut down, and some taken prisoner.

And finally the heavy chain fell away, and Señor Zorro helped Don Audre a short distance from the stake and thrust a sword into his hand.

“Remember, Ramón belongs to me!” Zorro said. “Let us take him alive!”

Afoot, they dashed across the open space toward the edge of the fight. But they looked in vain for the commandante. He was not in his saddle, nor was he dead or wounded and on the ground.

“Find him!” Zorro cried. “He will be trying to get the señorita away!”

They ran toward the adobe buildings to commence their frantic search. They watched the slope, and the beach in either direction, half expecting to see the commandante carrying Señorita Lolita away on his horse.

“Find him! We must find him!” Zorro screeched. “With me, Audre, my friend! She may be in one of the burning huts—”

And so they rushed through the smoke, calling, searching, fear in their hearts.

Sergeant Gonzales was looking for his captain also. The sergeant told himself that he was in a quandary. His commander and his friend, it appeared, were fighting each other, and the sergeant could not be loyal to both.

He bellowed a challenge and engaged a pirate in combat, took his man, and rushed on. He dodged a charging trooper who almost ran him down, darted around one of the blazing huts, and came upon a scene.

Fray Felipe, attending the wounded, had risen from the ground beside one to find a pirate rushing toward him in flight. The man stumbled and fell headlong, and from the sash he wore about his middle there fell something that flashed and glittered in the sun. Fray Felipe gave a cry and rushed forward. He had seen his beloved sacred goblet!

There was no escape for the pirate. When he regained his feet he found the old fray standing before him.

“Beast and fiend!” Fray Felipe said. “Give it me!”

“Ha! Would I not be a fool to do so?” the pirate challenged. “One side, fray! One side—or you die!”

The other raised his cutlass to strike. But Fray Felipe could not be driven back by such means while the sacred goblet was in the possession of the other.

“Give it me!” he commanded.

“One side—”

Fray Felipe took a quick step forward and jerked the goblet from the other’s hand. The pirate cursed and darted forward again. Fray Felipe caught the descending arm.

Back and forth they struggled, and the fray dropped the goblet to the ground again. He was a strong man for his age, but the pirate was young and strong also. He forced Fray Felipe back against the wall of the burning hut, throttled him, raised the cutlass again.

“I warned you, fray!” the pirate hissed.

And then he hissed again, a hiss of pain and fright. Through his body a blade had been plunged. He dropped the cutlass, threw wide his arms, shrieked once more, and fell with face toward the ground. And Sergeant Gonzales merely glanced down at him, then picked up the goblet, wiped it against his tunic, and bowed before Fray Felipe.

“Allow me,” the sergeant said. “It is a fortunate thing that I was near, fray!”

“I thank thee, son!”

“Son?” Gonzales cried. “You call an old sinner like me by such a name?”

“Perhaps you hold more worth than you yourself think,” the old fray replied.

Sergeant Gonzales could not endure such talk. He grew redder in the face, blew out his cheeks, gulped and cleared his throat.

“I am a rough soldier!” Sergeant Gonzales declared. “And I belong in the battle, which is almost at an end.”

“Go, son, and my blessings go with thee!”

Gonzales bowed his head an instant. Then, as though ashamed of himself, he bellowed at nothing at all and charged away through the smoke.