The Mark of Zorro (17 page)

Señor Zorro closed the door as the despensero came running into the room, to stare in fright at the masked man.

“Señorita,
I trust that I have been of service,” the highwayman said. “That scoundrel will not bother you further, else he feels the sting of my blade again.”

“Oh, thank you,
señor
—thank you!” she cried. “I shall tell my father this good deed you have done. Despensero, get him wine!”

There was naught for the butler to do except obey, since she had voiced the order, and he hurried from the room, pondering on the times and the manners.

Señorita Lolita stepped to the man's side.

“Señor,”
she breathed, “you saved me from insult. You saved me from the pollution of that man's lips.
Señor,
though you deem me unmaidenly, I offer you freely the kiss he would have taken!”

She put up her face, and closed her eyes.

“And I shall not look when you raise your mask,” she said.

“It were too much,
señorita,”
he said. “Your hand—but not your lips.”

“You shame me,
señor!
I was bold to offer it, and you have refused.”

“You shall feel no shame,” he said.

He bent swiftly, raised the bottom of his mask, and touched lightly her lips with his.

“Ah,
señorita!”
he said. “I would I were an honest man and could claim you openly. My heart is filled with love of you!”

“And mine with love of you!”

“This is madness! None must know!”

“I would not fear to tell the world,
señor!”

“Your father and his fortunes! Don Diego!”

“I love you,
señor.”

“Your chance to be a great lady! Do you think I did not know Don Diego was the man you meant when we spoke in your father's
patio?
This is a whim,
señorita.”

“It is love,
señor,
whether anything comes of it or not. And a Pulido does not love twice.”

“What possibly could come of it but distress?”

“We shall see. God is good!”

“It is madness—”

“Sweet madness,
señor!”

He clasped her to him and bent his head again, and again she closed her eyes and took his kiss, only this time the kiss was longer. She made no effort to see his face.

“I may be ugly,” he said.

“But I love you.”

“Disfigured,
señorita
—”

“Still, I love you!”

“What hope can we have?”

“Go,
señor,
before my parents return. I shall say nothing except that you saved me from insult and then went your way again. They will think that you came to rob Don Diego. And turn honest,
señor,
for my sake! Turn honest, I say, and claim me.

“No man knows your face, and if you take off your mask forever, none ever will know your guilt. It is not as if you were an ordinary thief. I know why you have stolen—to avenge the helpless, to punish cruel politicians, to aid the oppressed! I know that you have given what you have stolen to the poor. Oh,
señor!”

“But my task is not yet done,
señorita,
and I feel called upon to finish it.”

“Then finish it, and may the saints guard you, as I feel sure they will. And when it is finished, come back to me! I shall know you in whatever garb you come!”

“Nor shall I wait that long,
señorita.
I shall see you often. I could not exist else!”

“Guard yourself!”

“I shall in truth, now, since I have double reason. Life never was so sweet as now!”

He backed away from her slowly. He turned and glanced toward a window near at hand.

“I must go,” he said. “I cannot wait for the wine.”

“That was but a subterfuge so that we could be alone,” she confessed.

“Until the next time,
señorita,
and may it not be long!”

“On guard,
señor!”

“Always, loved one!
Señorita, á Dios!”

Again their eyes met, and then he waved his hand at her, gathered his cloak close about his body, darted to the window and went through it. The darkness outside swallowed him.

Picking himself up out of the dust before Don Diego Vega's door, Captain Ramón darted through the darkness to the footpath that ran up the slope toward the
presidio.

His blood was aflame with rage, his face was purple with wrath. There remained at the
presidio
no more than half a dozen soldiers, for the greater part of the garrison had gone with Sergeant Gonzales, and of these half dozen, four were on the sick list and two were necessary as guards.

So Captain Ramón could not send men down to the Vega house in an effort to effect a capture of the highwayman; moreover, he decided that Señor Zorro would not remain there more than a few minutes, but would mount his horse and ride away, for the highwayman had a name for not resting long in one place.

Besides, Captain Ramón had no wish to let it become known that this Señor Zorro had met him a second time, and had treated him much like a
peon.
Could he give out the information that he had insulted a
señorita,
and that Señor Zorro had punished him because of it; that Señor Zorro had caused him to get down upon his knees and apologize, and then had kicked him through the front door like a dog?

The captain decided it were better to say nothing of the occurrence. He supposed that Señorita Lolita would tell her parents, and that the
despensero
would give testimony, but he doubted whether Don Carlos would do anything about it. Don Carlos would think twice before affronting an officer of the army, being the recipient already of the governor's frowns. Ramón only hoped that Don Diego would not learn much of the happening, for if a Vega raised hand against him, the captain would have difficulty maintaining his position.

Pacing the floor of his office, Captain Ramón allowed his wrath to grow, and thought on these things and many others. He had kept abreast of the times, and he knew that the governor and the men about him were sorely in need of more funds to waste in riotous living. They had plucked those men of wealth against whom there was the faintest breath of suspicion, and they would welcome a new victim.

Might not the captain suggest one, and at the same time strengthen his own position with the governor? Would the captain dare hint that perhaps the Vega family was wavering in its loyalty to the governor?

At least he could do one thing, he decided. He could have his revenge for the flouting the daughter of Don Carlos Pulido had given him.

Captain Ramón grinned despite his wrath as the thought came to him. He called for writing materials, and informed one of his well men that he should prepare for a journey, being about to be named for a courier's job.

Ramón paced the floor for some minutes more, thinking on the matter and trying to decide just how to word the epistle he intended writing. And finally he sat down before the long table, and addressed his message to his excellency the governor, at his mansion in San Francisco de Asis.

This is what he wrote:

Within the past day he visited the
hacienda
of Don Carlos Pulido, a
caballero
known to be hostile to your excellency. I sent men there, and went myself. While my soldiers took up his trail, the man came from a closet in the living room at Don Carlos's house and attacked me treacherously. He wounded me in the right shoulder, but I fought him off until he became frightened and dashed away, making his escape. I may mention that I was hindered somewhat by this Don Carlos in pursuing the man. Also, when I arrived at the
hacienda,
indications were that the man had been eating his evening meal there.

The Pulido
hacienda
is an excellent place for such a man to hide, being somewhat off the main highway. I fear that Señor Zorro makes it his headquarters when he is in this vicinity, and I await your instructions in the matter. I may add that Don Carlos scarcely treated me with respect while I was in his presence, and that his daughter, the Señorita Lolita, scarcely could keep from showing her admiration of this highwayman and from sneering at the efforts of the soldiery to capture him.

There are also indications of a famous and wealthy family of this neighborhood wavering in loyalty to your excellency, but you will appreciate the fact that I cannot write of such a thing in a missive sent you by courier.

With deep respect,

RAMÓN, Comandante and Captain, Presidio,

Reina de Los Angeles.

 

Ramón grinned again as he finished the letter. That last paragraph, he knew, would get the governor guessing. The Vega family was about the only famous and wealthy one that would fit the description. As for the Pulidos, Captain Ramón imagined what would happen to them. The governor would not hesitate to deal out punishment, and perhaps the Señorita Lolita would find herself without protection, and in no position to reject the advances of a captain of the army.

Now Ramón addressed himself to the task of making a second copy of the letter, intending to send one by his courier and preserve the other for his files, in case something came up and he wished to refer to it.

Having finished the copy, he folded the original and sealed it, carried it to the soldiers' lounging-room, and gave it to the man he had selected as courier. The soldier saluted, hurried out to his horse, and rode furiously toward the north, toward San Fernando and Santa Barbara, and on to San Francisco de Asis, with the orders ringing in his ears that he should make all haste and get a change of horses at every mission and pueblo in the name of his excellency.

Ramón returned to his office and poured out a measure of wine, and began reading over the copy of the letter. He half wished that he had made it stronger, yet he knew that it were better to make it mild, for then the governor would not think he was exaggerating.

He stopped reading now and then to curse the name of Señor Zorro, and frequently he reflected on the beauty and grace of the Señorita Lolita, and told himself she should be punished for the manner in which she had treated him.

He supposed that Señor Zorro was miles away by this time, and putting more miles between himself and Reina de Los Angeles, but he was mistaken in that. For the Curse of Capistrano, as the soldiers called him, had not hurried away after leaving the house of Don Diego Vega.

Señor Zorro had gone a short distance through the darkness to where he had left his horse in the rear of a native's hut, and there he had stood, thinking of the love that had come to him.

Presently he chuckled as if well pleased, then mounted and rode slowly toward the path that led to the
presidio.
He heard a horseman galloping away from the place, and thought Captain Ramón had sent a man to call back Sergeant Gonzales and the troopers and put them on the fresher trail.

Señor Zorro knew how affairs stood at the
presidio,
knew to a man how many of the soldiery were there, and that four were ill with a fever, and that there was but one well man now besides the captain since one had ridden away.

He laughed again, and made his horse climb the slope slowly so as to make little noise. In the rear of the
presidio
building he dismounted and allowed the reins to drag on the ground, knowing that the animal would not move from the spot.

Now he crept through the darkness to the wall of the building, and made his way around it carefully until he came to a window. He raised himself on a pile of adobe bricks and peered inside.

It was Captain Ramón's office into which he looked. He saw the
comandante
sitting before a table reading a letter which, it appeared, he had just finished writing. Captain Ramón was talking to himself, as does many an evil man.

“That will cause consternation for the pretty
señorita,”
he was saying. “That will teach her not to flaunt an officer of his excellency's forces! When her father is in the
cárcel
charged with high treason, and his estates have been taken away, then perhaps she will listen to what I have to say!”

Señor Zorro had no difficulty in distinguishing the words. He guessed instantly that Captain Ramón had planned a revenge, that he contemplated mischief toward the Pulidos. Beneath his mask the face of Señor Zorro grew black with rage.

He got down from the pile of adobe bricks and slipped on along the wall until he came to the corner of the building. In a socket at the side of the front door a torch was burning, and the only able-bodied man left in the garrison was pacing back and forth before the doorway, a pistol in his belt and a blade at his side.

Señor Zorro noted the length of the man's pacing. He judged the distance accurately, and just as the man turned his back to resume his march, the highwayman sprang.

His hands closed around the soldier's throat as his knees struck the man in the back. Instantly they were upon the ground, the surprised trooper now doing his best to put up a fight. But Señor Zorro, knowing that a bit of noise might mean disaster for him, silenced the man by striking him on the temple with the heavy butt of his pistol.