The further adventures of Zorro

There was a moment of horrified silence, during which nothing was heard save the soft lap of the sea against the shore and the labored breathing of the terrified pirates. And then Barbados swore a great oath and looked toward the summit of the cliff once more.

“’Tis that cursed Señor Zorro, the land pirate!” he shrieked. “Spit upon him! After him, dogs! Bring me his heart on the end of a cutlass blade! Or fetch him alive, if you can, that we may have the keen pleasure of killing him slowly.”

Some of the pirates already were struggling to get up the narrow path that led to the top of the cliff, slipping and falling back as the soft soil and gravel rolled beneath their feet.

Sanchez started with them, eager for combat. Barbados, however, lingered behind, seeing to the loot and his fair prisoner. He was very busy about it, for he was not eager to join the others and run chances of matching blades with Señor Zorro again.

Barbados remembered well how he had felt during the fight in the house of Don Diego in Reina de Los Angeles, when he had realized fully that Don Diego was merely playing with him and could have silenced him forever when he willed.

The pirates reached the summit finally, but could see nothing there save a few clumps of brush and a few stunted trees that looked grotesque in the bright light of the moon. They examined the shadows carefully, but located no man. Yet from the near distance came a ringing, a mocking laugh.

They would have pursued, but Barbados hailed them from below, ordering them down to the beach again. The boats were putting in from the ship.

Down to the strand they tumbled, getting ready to store away their loot. They did not bother about the dead pirate, since he was an ordinary fellow who did not count. They guzzled more wine, ran down into the surf to help drag the boats ashore, greeted their fellows, laughed and shouted and jested and cursed in raucous tones.

Barbados turned to where the Señorita Lolita was sitting with her back against the cliff wall, her tiny wrists lashed behind her. She raised her face and looked at him bravely, her black eyes snapping, her lips curled in scorn.

“This Señor Zorro, I have been given to understand, has some concern in you,” Barbados said.

“If he has, Señor Pirate, it is time for you to feel afraid,” she replied.

“Think you that I fear the fellow? Ha!”

“He is no fellow! He is a caballero with the best of blood flowing in his veins, if you can understand what that means—you, who have the blood of swine in yours!”

“By my naked blade!” Barbados swore. “Were you not to be saved for a great man, I’d punish you well for that remark, proud one! Pride of blood, eh? Ha! ’Tis a thing you will be willing to forget, and eager, within a moon’s time. When this man of whom I speak—”

“Is it necessary to speak at all to me?” the little señorita wanted to know.

Barbados snorted his anger and disgust. For a moment he turned away to issue a volley of commands to the men who were loading the boats. He berated Sanchez for being slow. He glanced up the face of the cliff once more, as though expecting Señor Zorro to come rushing down, deadly sword in hand. Presently he called two of his men to him.

“Take the wench to one of the boats!” he commanded. “Keep her wrists lashed. Make certain that she does not hurl herself into the sea. These high-born wenches have some queer ideas and are not to be trusted at a time such as this.”

The two men grasped her roughly and forced her to her feet. The señorita gave a little cry, more because of her injured dignity than from pain or fear. Barbados whirled toward them again, anger in his face.

“Easy with the wench!” he commanded. “She is a proper and valuable share of the loot. If she is delivered in good condition then do we share greater in the other things.”

Down to the edge of the hissing surf they went, Señorita Lolita Pulido forced along between them. She still held her head proudly, but the light of the dying fire reflected in her face showed a trace of glistening tears that could not be choked back. Still, she had some hope. Don Diego was near at hand! He already had demonstrated his presence. And he would not entirely desert her while he lived. He could be expected to play Señor Zorro now to the end of the chapter.

They lifted her, carried her between them, and put her down into one of the boats. She sat at one side of a middle seat, a wide thwart. Her bound wrists were over the side, and by turning slightly she could see the tossing water less than two feet below her, for the craft was heavily loaded.

The pirates tumbled into the boat and picked up the oars. One thrust her cruelly against the side. Barbados himself sprang in last of all and ordered his men to give way. The other boats prepared for the start also.

On the summit of the cliff Don Diego Vega crouched and watched them. But he was not the easy-going, fashionable, nonchalant Don Diego now. His eyes were narrowed and piercing. His lips were set in a thin, straight line. Don Diego had vanished, and in his place was Señor Zorro, the Fox, the man who had ridden up and down El Camino Real to avenge the wrongs of frailes and natives. And Señor Zorro would know how to deal with this grievous wrong, which touched him personally.

The pirate craft was anchored close inshore. It would not take long for the boats to reach her. The moon was sinking and soon would be gone. There would be but a brief period of darkness before the dawn came stealing across the land to the sea.

His caballero friends were far behind him, he knew. And they would make for the trading schooner anchored a few miles away, perhaps, instead of coming here. And Señorita Lolita Pulido was in the hands of the pirates, and expected to be rescued.

Señor Zorro realized these things even as he watched the pirates preparing to launch their boats. It did not take him long to make a decision. He crawled backward a short distance, sprang to his feet, and ran to the edge of the cliff in a little cove a few yards away, a spot the pirates could not see from their boats.

He made certain that his sword was fast in its scabbard. He tightened his belt. He went to the edge and glanced down at the hissing sea a score of feet below, where it rolled and eddied in a deep pool close to the rocks.

Back he went again. And suddenly he darted forward, took off at the very edge, and curved gracefully through the moonlight in a perfect dive.

He struck the water and disappeared, but in a moment he was at the surface and swimming away from the treacherous shore. And he found that it was treacherous and the tide an enemy. It pulled at him to drag him down. He fought and struggled against it, and finally won to safety.

The boats were just starting from the land. Señor Zorro, low in the water, swam as though in a contest for a prize, straight toward the nearest of the boats, which was the one in which the señorita was sitting a captive.

Señorita Lolita was struggling now to be brave. The pirates were singing their ribald songs and indulging in questionable jests. They swore as they tugged at the oars, cursed the heavy load of loot, and blasphemed because of the work they were forced to do.

The señorita, remembering her proud blood, had tried to maintain her courage, but now she felt it ebbing swiftly. There seemed to be no hope. She could not believe that Don Diego could come to her rescue in the face of such terrible odds. Once she gulped and felt herself near to tears. She leaned backward to keep as far as possible from the pirate sitting beside her. The stench of his body and breath was almost more than she could endure.

Now they were halfway to the pirate ship. Lolita had arrived at a decision. She would be no prey for pirates if she could find at hand the means for taking her own life. She remembered what Barbados had said about her being the prize of some great man, and wondered at it a bit. But suppressed terror occupied her mind and kept her from wondering much. Again she leaned backward, and her bound hands almost touched the water over the side.

The pirates, nearing exhaustion, were rowing slowly now, sweeping their long oars in unison but without their usual force. And suddenly the Señorita Lolita flinched, and almost cried aloud, then struggled to overcome the shock she had felt. Her hands had been touched.

At first she thought it was some monster of the sea, and then that a cold wave had washed them. But the touch came again, and she knew it for what it was—the touch of another hand.

Another touch—and her cheeks flamed scarlet. The señorita had had her hands kissed before, and she knew a kiss when she felt it.

She turned her head slowly, leaning outward, and glanced down. And her heart almost stood still.

For Señor Zorro was there, his face showing just at the surface of the water! Don Diego, her husband-to-be, was there, swimming alongside, smiling up at her, within a few feet of the pirates who bent their backs and rowed and never thought to look down.

Fear clutched at the señorita’s heart for an instant—fear for him—yet admiration for his daring, too. Her blood seemed suddenly hot instead of cold. The touch of his lips had been enough to do that.

He dared not speak, of course, though the pirates were shouting and singing. But his lips moved and formed voiceless words, and the señorita understood.

“Courage! I’ll be near!” he mouthed.

She nodded her head slightly in token that she understood. And Don Diego Vega smiled yet again and sank slowly out of sight beneath the waves.

The boats were almost to the vessel now. The bright moon shipped a last ray across the tumbling sea and sank to rest. On the deck of the pirate craft torches flared suddenly to guide the boats.

They reached the side. Rough hands lifted the señorita and forced her to the deck above. Swearing, sweating men commenced handing up the loot. Barbados howled his commands and curses, Sanchez echoing them. To one side the señorita was held by the two men who had guarded her on the shore, awaiting disposition by the pirate chief.

“With speed, dogs!” Barbados shrieked. “We must be away before the dawn!”

The entire crew was working amidships, getting in the plunder and the boats. They gave no thought to bow or stern.

And up the anchor chain and into the bow crept a dripping figure, with a cry for vengeance in his heart—and the sword of Zorro at his side!