His excellency threw out his hands in a gesture of resignation.
“It was difficult to fool you all, but it has been done,” Don Diego continued. “Only years of practice allowed me to accomplish it. And now Señor Zorro shall ride no more, for there will be no need, and moreover a married man should take some care of his life.”
“And what man do I wed?” the Señorita Lolita asked, blushing because she spoke the words where all could hear.
“What man do you love?”
“I had fancied that I loved Señor Zorro, but it comes to me now that I love the both of them,” she said. “Is it not shameless? But I would rather have you Señor Zorro than the old Don Diego I knew.”
“We shall endeavor to establish a golden mean,” he replied, laughing again. “I shall drop the old languid ways and change gradually into the man you would have me. People will say that marriage made a man of me!”
He stooped and kissed her there before them all.
“Meal mush and goat’s milk!” swore Sergeant Gonzales.
FOR MORE CLASSIC TALES OF ADVENTURE, LOOK FOR THE
Captain Blood
Rafael Sabatini
Introduction by Gary Hoppenstand
This classic swashbuckling adventure on the high seas is alive with color, romance, and excitement, and also smoothly comments on the social injustices of slavery, the dangers of intolerance, the power of love, the role of fate, and how oppression can drive men to desperate measures.
ISBN 0-14-218010-6
The Four Feathers
A. E. W. Mason
With an Introduction by Gary Hoppenstand
Just before sailing off to war in the Sudan, British guardsman Harry Feversham quits his regiment and immediately receives four white feathers—symbols of cowardice—one each from his three best friends and his fiancée. To prove his bravery, Harry dons an Arabian disguise and leaves for the Sudan, hoping to regain their love and respect.
ISBN 0-14-218001-7
The Prisoner of Zenda and Rupert of Hentzau
Anthony Hope
With an Introduction and Notes by Gary Hoppenstand
The ever-popular The Prisoner of Zenda and the darker, more dramatic Rupert of Hentzau are full of swashbuckling feats of heroism as well as witty ironies that brilliantly satirize late nineteenth-century European politics.
ISBN 0-14-043755-X
The Three Musketeers
Alexandre Dumas
Translated with an Introduction by Lord Sudley
Based on historic fact, set in France in the seventeenth century, this is the stirring, romantic story of d’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, and their fight to preserve the honor of their Queen. ISBN 0-14-044025-9
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
With an Introduction by John Seelye
The quintessential British adventure story, Stevenson’s novel is narrated by cabin boy Jim Hawkins, who outwits a gang of murderous pirates. This edition includes Stevenson’s own essay about the composition of Treasure Island, written just before his death. ISBN 0-14-043768-1
The Mark Of Zorro (Penguin Classics) Page 26
