“I give aid to no spawn of the devil!” Fray Felipe said.
“Ha! Now you grow angry, and that is against your principles! Is it not the part of a robed fray to receive what comes his way and give thanks for it, no matter how much it chokes him? Answer me that, angry one!”
“You have about as much knowledge of a Franciscan’s principles and duties as has the horse you ride!”
“I ride a wise horse, a noble animal. He comes when I call and gallops when I command. Do not deride him until you ride him. Ha! An excellent jest!”
“Imbecile!”
“Meal mush and goat’s milk!” said Sergeant Gonzales.
CHAPTER 34
THE BLOOD OF THE PULIDOS
The two troopers came back into the room. They had searched the house well, they reported, invading every corner of it, and no trace had been found of any person other than Fray Felipe’s native servants, all of whom were too terrified to utter a falsehood, and had said they had seen nobody around the place who did not belong there.
“Ha! Hidden away well, no doubt,” Gonzales said. “Fray, what is that in the corner of the room?”
“Bales of hides,” Fray Felipe replied.
“I have been noticing it from time to time. The dealer from San Gabriel must have been right when he said the hides he purchased of you were not properly cured. Are those?”
“I think you will find them so.”
“Then why did they move?” Sergeant Gonzales asked. “Three times I saw the corner of a bale move. Soldiers, search there!”
Fray Felipe sprang to his feet.
“Enough of this nonsense!” he cried. “You have searched and found nothing. Search the barns next, and then go! At least let me be master in my own house. You have disturbed my rest enough as it is.”
“You will take a solemn oath, fray, that there is nothing alive behind those bales of hides?”
Fray Felipe hesitated, and Sergeant Gonzales grinned.
“Not ready to forswear yourself, eh?” the sergeant asked. “I had a thought you would hesitate at that, my robed Franciscan! Soldiers, search the bales!”
The two men started toward the corner. But they had not covered one-half the distance when Señorita Lolita Pulido stood up behind the bales of hides and faced them.
“Ha! unearthed at last!” Gonzales cried. “Here is the package Señor Zorro left in the fray’s keeping! And a pretty package it is! Back to cárcel she goes! And this escape will but make her final sentence the greater!”
But there was Pulido blood in the señorita’s veins, and Gonzales had not taken that into account. Now the señorita stepped to the end of the pile of hides, so that light from the candelero struck full upon her.
“One moment, señores!” she said.
One hand came from behind her back, and in it she held a long, keen knife such as sheep skinners used. She put the point of the knife against her breast, and regarded them bravely.
“Señorita Lolita Pulido does not return to the foul cárcel now or at any time, señores!” she said. “Rather would she plunge this knife into her heart, and so die as a woman of good blood should! If his excellency wishes for a dead prisoner, he may have one!”
Sergeant Gonzales uttered an exclamation of annoyance. He did not doubt that the señorita would do as she had threatened if the men made an attempt to seize her. And while he might have ordered the attempt in the case of an ordinary prisoner, he did not feel sure that the governor would say he had done right if he ordered it now. After all, Señorita Pulido was the daughter of a don, and her self-inflicted death might cause trouble for his excellency. It might prove the spark to the powder magazine.
“Señorita, the person who takes his or her own life risks eternal damnation,” the sergeant said. “Ask this fray if it is not so. You are only under arrest, not convicted and sentenced. If you are innocent, no doubt you soon will be set at liberty.”
“It is no time for lying speeches, señor,” the girl replied. “I realize the circumstances only too well. I have said that I will not return to cárcel, and I meant it—and mean it now. One step toward me, and I take my own life!”
“Señorita—” Fray Felipe began.
“It is useless for you to attempt to prevent me, good fray,” she interrupted. “I have pride left me, thank the saints! His excellency gets only my dead body, if he gets me at all.”
“Here is a pretty mess!” Sergeant Gonzales exclaimed. “I suppose there is nothing for us to do except retire and leave the señorita to her freedom!”
“Ah, no, señor!” she cried quickly. “You are clever, but not clever enough by far. You would retire and continue to have your men surround the house? You would watch for an opportunity, and then seize me?”
Gonzales growled low in his throat, for that had been his intention, and the girl had read it.
“I shall be the one to leave,” she said. “Walk backward, and stand against the wall, señores! Do it immediately, or I plunge this knife into my bosom!”
They could do nothing except obey. The soldiers looked to the sergeant for instructions, and the sergeant was afraid to risk the señorita’s death, knowing it would call down upon his head the wrath of the governor, who would say that he had bungled.
Perhaps, after all, it would be better to let the girl leave the house. She might be captured afterward, for surely a girl could not escape the troopers.
She watched them closely as she darted across the room to the door. The knife was still held at her breast.
“Fray Felipe, you wish to go with me?” she asked. “You may be punished if you remain.”
“Yet I must remain, señorita. I could not run away. May the saints protect you!”
She faced Gonzales and the soldiers once more.
“I am going through this door,” she said. “You will remain in this room. There are troopers outside, of course, and they will try to stop me. I shall tell them that I have your permission to leave. If they call and ask you, you are to say that it is so.”
“And if I do not?”
“Then I use the knife, señor!”
She opened the door, turned her head for an instant and glanced out.
“I trust that your horse is an excellent one, senor, for I intend to use it,” she told the sergeant.
She darted suddenly through the door, and slammed it shut behind her.
“After her!” Gonzales cried. “I looked into her eyes! She will not use the knife—she fears it!”
He hurled himself across the room, the two soldiers with him. But Fray Felipe had been passive long enough. He went into action now. He did not stop to consider the consequences. He threw out one leg, and tripped Sergeant Gonzales. The two troopers crashed into him, and all went to the floor in a tangle.
Fray Felipe had gained some time for her, and it had been enough. For the señorita had rushed to the horse and had jumped into the saddle. She could ride like a native. Her tiny feet did not reach halfway to the sergeant’s stirrups, but she thought nothing of that.
She wheeled the horse’s head, kicked at his sides as a trooper rushed around the corner of the house. A pistol ball whistled past her head. She bent lower over the horse’s neck, and rode!
Now a cursing Sergeant Gonzales was on the veranda, shouting for his men to get to horse and follow her. The tricky moon was behind a bank of clouds again. They could not tell the direction the señorita was taking except by listening for the sounds of the horse’s hooves. And they had to stop to do that—and if they stopped they lost time and distance.
CHAPTER 35
THE CLASH OF BLADES AGAIN
Señor Zorro stood like a statue in the native’s hut, one hand grasping his horse’s muzzle. The native crouched at his side.
Down the highway came the drumming of horses’ hooves. Then the pursuit swept by, the men calling to one another and cursing the darkness, and rushed down the valley.
Señor Zorro opened the door and glanced out, listened for a moment, an
d then led out his horse. He tendered the native a coin.
“Not from you, señor,” the native said.
“Take it. You have need of it, and I have not,” the highwayman said.
He vaulted into the saddle and turned his horse up the steep slope of the hill behind the hut. The animal made little noise as it climbed to the summit. Señor Zorro descended into the depression on the other side, and came to a narrow trail, and along this he rode at a slow gallop, stopping his mount now and then to listen for sounds of other horsemen who might be abroad.
He rode toward Reina de Los Angeles, but he appeared to be in no hurry about arriving at the pueblo. Señor Zorro had another adventure planned for this night, and it had to be accomplished at a certain time and under certain conditions.
It was two hours later when he came to the crest of the hill above the town. He sat quietly in the saddle for some time, regarding the scene. The moonlight was fitful now, but now and then he could make out the plaza.
He saw no troopers, heard nothing of them, decided that they had ridden back in pursuit of him, and that those who had been sent in pursuit of Don Carlos and the Doña Catalina had not yet returned. In the tavern, there were lights, and in the presidio, and in the house where his excellency was a guest.
Señor Zorro waited until it was dark, and then urged his horse forward slowly, but off the main highway. He circled the pueblo, and in time approached the presidio from the rear.
He dismounted now, and led his horse, going forward slowly, often stopping to listen, for this was a very ticklish business and might end in disaster if a mistake were made.
He stopped the horse behind the presidio, where the wall of the building would cast a shadow if the moon came from behind the clouds again, and went forward cautiously, following the wall as he had done on that other night.
When he came to the office window, he peered inside. Captain Ramón was there, alone, looking over some reports spread on the table before him, evidently awaiting the return of his men.
Señor Zorro crept to the corner of the building, and found there was no guard. He had guessed and hoped that the comandante had sent every available man to the chase, but he knew that he would have to act quickly, for some of the troopers might return.
He slipped through the door and crossed the big lounging-room, and so came to the door of the office. His pistol was in his hand, and could a man have seen behind the mask, he would have observed that Señor Zorro’s lips were crushed in a thin, straight line of determination.
As upon that other night, Captain Ramón whirled around in his chair when he heard the door open behind him, and once more he saw the eyes of Señor Zorro glittering through his mask, saw the muzzle of the pistol menacing him.
“Not a move! Not a sound! It would give me pleasure to fill your body with hot lead!” Señor Zorro said. “You are alone—your silly troopers are chasing me where I am not.”
“By the saints—” Captain Ramón breathed.
“Not so much as a whisper, señor, if you hope to live. Turn your back to me!”
“You would murder me?”
“I am not that sort, comandante! And I said for you to make not a sound! Put your hands behind your back, for I am going to bind your wrists!”
Captain Ramón complied. Señor Zorro stepped forward swiftly, and bound the wrists with his own sash, which he tore from his waist. Then he whirled Captain Ramón around so that he faced him.
“Where is his excellency?” he asked.
“At Don Juan Estados’s house.”
“I knew as much, but wanted to see whether you prefer to speak the truth to-night. It is well if you do so. We are going to call upon the governor.”
“To call—”
“Upon his excellency, I said. And do not speak again! Come with me!”
He grasped Captain Ramón by the arm and hurried him from the office, across the lounging-room, out of the door. He piloted him around the building to where the horse was waiting.
“Mount!” he commanded. “I shall sit behind you, with the muzzle of this pistol at the base of your brain. Make no mistake, comandante, unless you are tired of life. I am a determined man this night.”
Captain Ramón had observed it. He mounted as he was directed, and the highwayman mounted behind him, and held the reins with one hand and the pistol with the other. Captain Ramón could feel the touch of cold steel at the back of his head.
Señor Zorro guided his horse with his knees instead of with the reins. He urged the beast down the slope, and circled the town once more, keeping away from the beaten trails, and so approached the rear of the house where his excellency was a guest.
Here was the difficult part of the adventure. He wanted to get Captain Ramón before the governor, to talk to both of them, and to do it without having anybody else interfere. He forced the captain to dismount, and led him to the rear wall of the house. There was a patio there, and they entered it.
It appeared that Señor Zorro knew the interior of the house well. He entered it through a servant’s room, taking Captain Ramón with him, and passed through into a hall without awakening the sleeping native. They went along the hall slowly. From one room came the sound of snoring. From beneath the door of another, light streamed.
Señor Zorro stopped before that door and applied an eye to a crack at the side of it. If Captain Ramón harbored thoughts of voicing an alarm, or of offering battle, the touch of the pistol at the back of his head caused him to forget them.
And he had scant time to think of a way out of this predicament, for suddenly Señor Zorro threw open the door, hurled Captain Ramón through it, followed himself, and shut the door quickly behind him. In the room there were his excellency and his host.
“Silence, and do not move!” Señor Zorro said. “The slightest alarm, and I put a pistol ball through the governor’s head! That is understood? Very well, señores!”
“Señor Zorro!” the governor gasped.
“The same, your excellency. I ask your host to be not frightened, for I mean him no harm if he sits quietly until I am done. Captain Ramón, kindly sit across the table from the governor. I am delighted to find the head of the state awake and awaiting news from those who are chasing me. His brain will be clear, and he can understand better what is said.”
“What means this outrage?” the governor exclaimed. “Captain Ramón, how comes this? Seize this man! You are an officer—”
“Do not blame the comandante,” Señor Zorro said. “He knows it is death to make a move. There is a little matter that needs explanation, and since I cannot come to you in broad day as a man should, I am forced to adopt this method. Make yourselves comfortable, señores. This may take some little time.”
His excellency fidgeted in his chair.
“You have this day insulted a family of good blood, your excellency,” Señor Zorro went on. “You have forgotten the proprieties to such an extent that you have ordered thrown into your miserable cárcel a hidalgo and his gentle wife and innocent daughter. You have taken such means to gratify a spite—”
“They are traitors!” his excellency said.
“What have they done of treason?”
“You are an outlaw with a price put upon your head. They have been guilty of harboring you, giving you aid.”
“Where got you this information?”
“Captain Ramón has an abundance of evidence.”
“Ha! The comandante, eh? We shall see about that! Captain Ramón is present, and we can get at the truth. May I ask the nature of your evidence?”
“You were at the Pulido hacienda,” the governor said.
“I admit it.”
“A native saw you, and carried word to the presidio. The soldiers hurried out to effect your capture.”
“A moment. Who said a native sounded the alarm?”
“Captain Ramón assured me so.”
“Here is the first chance for the captain to speak the truth. As a matter of fact, comandante, was it no
t Don Carlos Pulido himself who sent the native? The truth!”
“It was a native brought word.”
“And he did not tell your sergeant that Don Carlos had sent him? Did he not say that Don Carlos had slipped him the information in whispers while he was carrying his fainting wife to her room? Is it not the truth that Don Carlos did his best to hold me at his hacienda until the soldiers arrived, that I might be captured? Did not Don Carlos thus try to show his loyalty to the governor?”
“By the saints, Ramón, you never told me as much!” his excellency cried.
“They are traitors!” the captain declared stubbornly.
“What other evidence?” Señor Zorro asked.
“Why, when the soldiers arrived, you concealed yourself by some trick,” the governor said. “And presently Captain Ramón himself reached the scene, and while he was there, you crept from a closet, ran him through treacherously from behind, and made your escape. It is an evident fact that Don Carlos had hidden you in the closet.”
“By the saints!” Señor Zorro swore. “I had thought, Captain Ramón, that you were man enough to admit defeat, though I knew you for a scoundrel in other things. Tell the truth!”
“That is—the truth!”
“Tell the truth!” Señor Zorro commanded, stepping closer to him and bringing up the pistol. “I came from that closet and spoke to you. I gave you time to draw blade and get on guard. We fenced for fully ten minutes, did we not?
“I admit freely that for a moment you puzzled me, and then I solved your method of giving battle and knew you were at my mercy. And then, when I could have slain you easily, I but scratched your shoulder. Is not that the truth? Answer, as you hope to live!”
Captain Ramón licked his dry lips, and could not meet the governor’s eyes.
“Answer!” Señor Zorro thundered.
“It is—the truth!” the captain acknowledged.
“Ha! So I ran you through from behind, eh? It is an insult to my blade to have it enter your body! You see, your excellency, what manner of man you have for comandante here! Is there more evidence?”
The Mark Of Zorro (Penguin Classics) Page 23
