The pounding at the door was louder now. Gonzales raised his voice:
“Ha! We have Señor Zorro here!”
“Poltroon!” the highwayman cried.
His blade seemed to take on new life. It darted in and out with a speed that was bewildering. It caught a thousand beams of light from the flickering candles and hurled them back.
And suddenly it darted in and hooked itself properly, and Sergeant Gonzales felt his sword torn from his grasp and saw it go flying through the air.
“So!” Señor Zorro cried.
Gonzales awaited the stroke. A sob came into his throat that this must be the end instead of on a field of battle where a soldier wishes it. But no steel entered his breast to bring forth his life’s blood.
Instead, Señor Zorro swung his left hand down, passed the hilt of his blade to it and grasped it beside the pistol’s butt, and with his right he slapped Pedro Gonzales once across the cheek.
“That for a man who mistreats helpless natives!” he cried. Gonzales roared in rage and shame. Somebody was trying to smash the door in now. But Señor Zorro appeared to give it little thought. He sprang back, and sent his blade into its scabbard like a flash. He swept the pistol before him and thus threatened all in the long room. He darted to a window, sprang upon a bench.
“Until a later time, señor!” he cried.
And then he went through the window as a mountain goat jumps from a cliff, taking its covering with him. In rushed the wind and rain, and the candles went out.
“After him!” Gonzales screeched, springing across the room and grasping his blade again. “Unbar the door! Out and after him! Remember, there is a generous reward—”
The corporal reached the door first, and threw it open. In stumbled two men of the pueblo, eager for wine and an explanation of the fastened door. Sergeant Gonzales and his comrades drove over them, left them sprawling, and dashed into the storm.
But there was little use in it. It was so dark a man could not see a distance of a horse’s length. The beating rain was enough to obliterate tracks almost instantly. Señor Zorro was gone—and no man could tell in what direction.
There was a tumult, of course, in which the men of the pueblo joined. Sergeant Gonzales and the soldiers returned to the inn to find it full of men they knew. And Sergeant Gonzales knew, also, that his reputation was now at stake.
“Nobody but a highwayman, nobody but a cutthroat and thief, would have done it!” he cried aloud.
“How is that, brave one?” cried a man in the throng near the doorway.
“This pretty Señor Zorro knew, of course! Some days ago I broke the thumb of my sword hand while fencing at San Juan Capistrano. No doubt the word was passed to this Señor Zorro. And he visits me at such a time that he may afterward say he had vanquished me.”
The corporal and soldiers and landlord stared at him, but none was brave enough to say a word.
“Those who were here can tell you, señores,” Gonzales went on. “This Señor Zorro came in at the door and immediately drew a pistol—devil’s weapon—from beneath his cloak. He waves it at us, and forces all except me to retire to that corner. I refused to retire.
“‘Then you shall fight me,’ says this pretty highwayman, and I draw my blade, thinking to make an end of the pest. And what does he tell me then? ‘We shall fight,’ he says, ‘and I will outpoint you, so that I may boast of it afterward. In my left hand I hold the pistol. If your attack is not to my liking, I shall fire, and afterward run you through, and so make an end of a certain sergeant.’ ”
The corporal gasped, and the fat landlord was almost ready to speak, but thought better of it when Sergeant Gonzales glared at him.
“Could anything be more devilish?” Gonzales asked. “I was to fight, and yet I would get a devil’s chunk of lead in my carcass if I pressed the attack. Was there ever such a farce? It shows the stuff of which this pretty highwayman is made. Someday I shall meet him when he holds no pistol—and then—”
“But how did he get away?” someone in the crowd asked.
“He heard those at the door. He threatened me with the devil’s pistol and forced me to toss my blade in yonder far corner. He threatened us all, ran to the window, and sprang through. And how could we find him in the darkness or track him through the sheets of rain? But I am determined now! In the morning I go to my Captain Ramón and ask permission to be absolved from all other duty, that I may take some comrades and run down this pretty Señor Zorro. Ha! We shall go fox-hunting!”
The excited crowd about the door suddenly parted, and Don Diego Vega hurried into the tavern.
“What is this I hear?” he asked. “They are saying that Señor Zorro has paid a visit here.”
“‘Tis a true word, caballero!” Gonzales answered. “And we were speaking of the cutthroat here this evening. Had you remained instead of going home to work with your secretary, you should have seen the entire affair.”
“Were you not here? Can you not tell me?” Don Diego asked. “But I pray you make not the tale too bloody. I cannot see why men must be violent. Where is the highwayman’s dead body?”
Gonzales choked; the fat landlord turned away to hide his smile; the corporal and soldiers began picking up wine mugs to keep busy at this dangerous moment.
“He—that is, there is no body,” Gonzales managed to say.
“Have done with your modesty, Sergeant!” Don Diego cried. “Am I not your friend? Did you not promise to tell me the story if you met this cutthroat? I know you would spare my feelings, knowing that I do not love violence, yet I am eager for the facts because you, my friend, have been engaged with this fellow. How much was the reward?”
“By the saints!” Gonzales swore.
“Come, Sergeant! Out with the tale! Landlord, give all of us wine, that we may celebrate this affair! Your tale, Sergeant! Shall you leave the army, now that you have earned the reward, and purchase a hacienda and take a wife?”
Sergeant Gonzales choked again, and reached gropingly for a wine mug.
“You promised me,” Don Diego continued, “that you would tell me the whole thing, word by word. Did he not say as much, landlord? You declared that you would relate how you played with him; how you laughed at him while you fought; how you pressed him back after a time and then ran him through—”
“By the saints!” Sergeant Gonzales roared, the words coming from between his lips like pearls of thunder. “It is beyond the endurance of any man! You—Don Diego—my friend—”
“Your modesty ill becomes you at such a time,” Don Diego said. “You promised the tale, and I would have it. What does this Señor Zorro look like? Have you peered at the dead face beneath the mask? It is, perhaps, some man that we all know? Cannot some one of you tell me the facts? You stand here like so many speechless images of men—”
“Wine—or I choke!” Gonzales howled. “Don Diego, you are my good friend, and I will cross swords with any man who belittles you! But do not try me too far this night—”
“I fail to understand,” Don Diego said. “I have but asked you to tell me the story of the right—how you mocked him as you battled; how you pressed him back at will, and presently ended it by running him through—”
“Enough! Am I to be taunted?” the big sergeant cried. He gulped down the wine and hurled the mug far from him.
“Is it possible that you did not win the battle?” Don Diego asked. “But surely this pretty highwayman could not stand up before you, my sergeant. How was the outcome?”
“He had a pistol—”
“Why did you not take it away from him, then, and crowd it down his throat? But perhaps that is what you did. Here is more wine, my sergeant. Drink!”
But Sergeant Gonzales was thrusting his way through the throng at the door.
“I must not forget my duty!” he said. “I must hurry to the presidio and report this occurrence to the comandante!”
“But, Sergeant—”
“And, as to this Señor Zorro, he will
be meat for my blade before I am done!” Gonzales promised.
And then, cursing horribly, he rushed away through the rain, the first time in his life he ever had allowed duty to interfere with his pleasure and had run from good wine.
Don Diego Vega smiled as he turned toward the fireplace.
CHAPTER 5
A RIDE IN THE MORNING
The following morning found the storm at an end, and there was not a single cloud to mar the perfect blue of the sky, and the sun was bright, and palm fronds glistened in it, and the air was bracing as it blew down the valleys from the sea.
At midmorning, Don Diego Vega came from his house in the pueblo, drawing on his sheepskin riding-mittens, and stood for a moment before it, glancing across the plaza at the little tavern. From the rear of the house an Indian servant led a horse.
Though Don Diego did not go galloping across the hills and up and down El Camino Real like an idiot, yet he owned a fairish bit of horseflesh. The animal had spirit and speed and endurance, and many a young blood would have purchased him, except that Don Diego had no use for more money and wanted to retain the beast.
The saddle was heavy, and showed more silver than leather on its surface. The bridle was heavily chased with silver, too, and from its sides dangled leather globes studded with semi-precious stones, which now glittered in the bright sunshine as if to advertise Don Diego’s wealth and prestige to all the world.
Don Diego mounted, while half a score of men loitering around the plaza watched and made efforts to hide their grins. It was quite the thing in those days for a youngster to spring from the ground into his saddle, gather up the reins, rake the beast’s flanks with his great spurs, and disappear in a cloud of dust all in one motion.
But Don Diego mounted a horse as he did everything else—without haste or spirit. The native held a stirrup, and Don Diego inserted the toe of his boot. Then he gathered the reins in one hand, and pulled himself into the saddle as if it had been quite a task.
Having done that much, the native held the other stirrup and guided Don Diego’s other boot into it, and then he backed away, and Don Diego clucked to the magnificent beast and started it, at a walk, along the edge of the plaza toward the trail that ran to the north.
Having reached the trail, Don Diego allowed the animal to trot, and after having covered a mile in this fashion, he urged the beast into a slow gallop, and so rode along the highway.
Men were busy in the fields and orchards, and natives were tending the herds. Now and then Don Diego passed a lumbering carreta, and saluted whoever happened to be in it. Once a young man he knew passed him at a gallop, going toward the pueblo, and Don Diego stopped his own horse to brush the dust from his garments after the man had gone his way.
Those same garments were more gorgeous than usual this bright morning. A glance at them was enough to establish the wealth and position of the wearer. Don Diego had dressed with much care, admonishing his servants because his newest serape was not pressed properly, and spending a great deal of time over the polishing of his boots.
He traveled for a distance of four miles, and then turned from the highroad and started up a narrow, dusty trail that led to a group of buildings against the side of a hill in the distance. Don Diego Vega was about to pay a visit to the hacienda of Don Carlos Pulido.
This same Don Carlos had experienced numerous vicissitudes during the last few years. Once he had been second to none except Don Diego’s father in position, wealth, and breeding. But he had made the mistake of getting on the wrong side of the fence politically, and he found himself stripped of a part of his broad acres, and tax-gatherers bothering him in the name of the governor, until there remained but a remnant of his former fortune, but all his inherited dignity of birth.
On this morning Don Carlos was sitting on the veranda of the hacienda meditating on the times, which were not at all to his liking. His wife, Doña Catalina, the sweetheart of his youth and age, was inside directing her servants. His only child, the Señorita Lolita, likewise was inside, plucking at the strings of a guitar and dreaming as a girl of eighteen dreams.
Don Carlos raised his silvered head and peered down the long, twisting trail, and saw in the distance a small cloud of dust. The dust-cloud told him that a single horseman was approaching, and Don Carlos feared another gatherer of taxes.
He shaded his eyes with a hand and watched the approaching horseman carefully. He noted the leisurely manner in which he rode his mount, and suddenly hope sang in his breast, for he saw the sun flashing from the silver on saddle and bridle, and he knew that men of the army did not have such rich harness to use while on duty.
The rider had made the last turning now, and was in plain sight from the veranda of the house, and Don Carlos rubbed his eyes and looked again to verify the suspicion he had. Even at that distance the aged don could establish the identity of the horseman.
“‘Tis Don Diego Vega,” he breathed. “May the saints grant that here is a turn in my fortunes for the better at last.”
Don Diego, he knew, might only be stopping to pay a friendly visit, and yet that would be some thing, for when it was known abroad that the Vega family was on excellent terms with the Pulido establishment, even the politicians would stop to think twice before harassing Don Carlos further, for the Vegas were a power in the land.
So Don Carlos clapped his hands together, and a native hurried out from the house, and Don Carlos bade him draw the shades so that the sun would be kept from a corner of the veranda, and place a table and some chairs, and hurry with small cakes and wine.
He sent word into the house to the women, too, that Don Diego Vega was approaching. Doña Catalina felt her heart beginning to sing, and she herself began to hum a little song, and Señorita Lolita ran to a window to look out at the trail.
When Don Diego stopped before the steps that led to the veranda, there was a native waiting to care for his horse, and Don Carlos himself walked halfway down the steps and stood waiting, his hand held out in welcome.
“I am glad to see you a visitor at my poor hacienda, Don Diego,” he said as the young man approached, drawing off his mittens.
“It is a long and dusty road,” Don Diego said. “It wearies me, too, to ride a horse the distance.”
Don Carlos almost forgot himself and smiled at that, for surely riding a horse a distance of four miles was not enough to tire a young man of blood. But he remembered Don Diego’s lifelessness, and did not smile, lest the smile cause anger.
He led the way to the shady nook on the veranda, and offered Don Diego wine and cakes, and waited for his guest to speak. As became the times, the women remained inside the house, not ready to show themselves unless the visitor asked for them, or their lord and master called.
“How are things in the pueblo of Reina de Los Angeles?” Don Carlos asked. “It has been a space of several score days since I visited there.”
“Everything is the same,” said Don Diego, “except that this Señor Zorro invaded the tavern last evening and had a duel with the big Sergeant Gonzales.”
“Ha! Señor Zorro, eh? And what was the outcome of the fighting?”
“Though the sergeant has a crooked tongue while speaking of it,” said Don Diego, “it has come to me through a corporal who was present that this Señor Zorro played with the sergeant, and finally disarmed him and sprang through a window to make his escape in the rain. They could not find his tracks. ”
“A clever rogue!” Don Carlos said. “At least I have nothing to fear from him. It is generally known up and down El Camino Real, I suppose, that I have been stripped of almost everything the governor’s men could carry away. I look for them to take the hacienda next.”
“Um! Such a thing should be stopped!” Don Diego said, with more than his usual amount of spirit.
The eyes of Don Carlos brightened. If Don Diego Vega could be made to feel some sympathy, if one of the illustrious Vega family would but whisper a word in the governor’s ear, the persecution would cease in
stantly, for the commands of a Vega were made to be obeyed by all men of whatever rank.
CHAPTER 6
DIEGO SEEKS A BRIDE
Don Diego sipped his wine slowly and looked out across the mesa, and Don Carlos looked at him in puzzled fashion, realizing that something was coming, and scarcely knowing what to expect.
“I did not ride through the damnable sun and dust to talk with you concerning this Señor Zorro, or any other bandit,” Don Diego explained, after a time.
“Whatever your errand, I am glad to welcome one of your family, caballero,” Don Carlos said.
“I had a long talk with my father yesterday morning,” Don Diego went on. “He informed me that I am approaching the age of twenty-five, and he is of a mind that I am not accepting my duties and responsibilities in the proper fashion.”
“But surely—”
“Oh, doubtless he knows! My father is a wise man.”
“And no man can dispute that, Don Diego!”
“He urged upon me that I awaken and do as I should. I have been dreaming, it appears. A man of my wealth and station—you will pardon me if I speak of it—must do certain things. ”
“It is the curse of position, señor.”
“When my father dies, I come into his fortune, naturally, being the only child. That part of it is all right. But what will happen when I die? That is what my father asks.”
“I understand.”
“A young man of my age, he told me, should have a wife, a mistress of his household, and should—er—have offspring to inherit and preserve an illustrious name.”
“Nothing could be truer than that,” said Don Carlos.
“So I have decided to get me a wife.”
“Ha! It is something every man should do, Don Diego. Well do I remember when I courted Doña Catalina. We were mad to get into each other’s arms, but her father kept her from me for a time. I was only seventeen, though, so perhaps he did right. But you are nearly twenty-five. Get you a bride, by all means.”
The Mark Of Zorro (Penguin Classics) Page 7