Read Ebook: The further adventures of Zorro by McCulley Johnston

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Ebook has 1376 lines and 67056 words, and 28 pages

"If we forget to hand it--" Sanchez began.

The day passed and the dusk came. And once yet again Barbados indulged in curses. For it was a beautiful moonlight night, half as light as the day that had just died, and a man could be seen afar. But Barbados led his wretched company on toward the town, and after a time they came to the crest of a slope and saw lights twinkling in the distance.

Barbados grunted an order to Sanchez and crept forward alone. He approached the end of the village, reached a spot where the shadows were deep, and crouched to wait.

For half an hour he waited, grumbling his impatience. Then there came to him a figure muffled in a long cloak. Barbados hissed a word that had been agreed upon. The figure stepped quickly to his side.

"You are ready?"

"Where are your men?"

"It were best to strike in about an hour. The soldiers will be sent toward the south on a wild goose chase."

"The way will be open to you. Take your will with the town, but do not use the torch, except it be on the hut of some native. As soon as you have your loot, make for the sea again. The soldiers will be sent on a useless trail."

"A little matter of abducting a woman for me."

"Ha!"

"The Se?orita Lolita Pulido, understand. She is to be seized and conducted to the coast and taken aboard ship. She is not to be harmed, but treated with every respect. In four or five days I shall meet you at the rendezvous on the southern coast, and claim her as my share of the loot. Do this well, and that is all the share of loot I ask this time."

"A mere detail," Barbados said.

"I begin to comprehend," Barbados replied.

"I may depend upon you?"

The cloak dropped for a moment as the man from the village straightened himself. Barbados got a good look at his face as the moonlight struck it. He gasped.

"Your forehead!" he said.

"It is nothing. That cursed beast of a Zorro put it there!"

Barbados looked again. On the man's forehead was a ragged "Z," put there in such a manner that it would remain forever. There was a moment of silence, and then Barbados found himself alone. The other had slipped away through the shadows.

Barbados grinned. "Here is a double deal of some sort, but it need bring me no fear," he mused. "Here would be startling news for all men to know. Wants to steal a girl now, does he? For his share of proper loot I'd steal him half a score of girls!"

PEDRO THE BOASTER.

On this moonlight night, Sergeant Pedro Gonzales crossed the plaza with a corporal and a couple of soldiers, entered the inn, and called in a loud voice for the landlord to fetch wine and be quick about it. The sergeant had learned long since that the fat landlord held him in terror, and did he but act surly and displeased he received excellent service.

"Landlord, you are as fat as your wine is thin!" Sergeant Pedro declared, sprawling at one of the tables. "I have a suspicion now and then that you keep a special wineskin for me, and mix water with my drink."

"We honest soldiers are stationed here to protect you from liars and thieves and dishonest travelers up and down El Camino Real, and you treat us like the dirt beneath your boots."

"One of these fine days," Gonzales interrupted, "there will be trouble. Some gentleman of the highway will approach you with an idea of robbery, and you'll shriek for the soldiery. And then, fat one, I may remember the watered wine, and be busy elsewhere!"

"But I protest--" the landlord began.

"More wine!" the sergeant shouted. "Must I get out my blade and carve your wineskins--or your own skin? More wine of the best, and you'll get your pay when I get mine, if it is an honest score you keep. If my friend, Don Diego Vega, was here--!"

"That same friend of yours makes merry a little later in the evening," the landlord said, as he went to fill the wine cups. "To-morrow he is to take a bride."

"Pig, do you suppose I do not know it?" Gonzales screeched. "Think you that I have been asleep these past few months? Was I not in the thick of it when Don Diego Vega played at being Se?or Zorro?"

"You were in the thick of it," the corporal admitted, with a touch of sarcasm in his voice.

"Ha!" cried the sergeant. "There was a turbulent time for you! Here in this very room I fought him, blade to blade, thinking that he was some stinking highwayman. And just as I was getting the better of it--"

"How is this?" the corporal shrieked.

"Just as I was getting the better of the blade match," Gonzales reaffirmed, glaring at the corporal, "back he went and dashed through the door! And thereafter he set the town about its own ears for some time to come."

"It occurs to me that I saw that fight," the corporal declared. "If you were getting the best of it at any stage, then were mine eyes at fault."

"I know a man," said the sergeant, darkly, "who will do extra guard duty for a score of days."

"Ha!" the corporal grunted. "You do not like plain speech!"

Gonzales changed the subject. "The wine!" he thundered. "It goes well on a moonlight night, the same as on a stormy one. But moonlight is a poor business save for lovesick swains. 'Tis no night for a soldier. Would one expect thieves to descend through the moonlight?"

"There be pirates," the corporal said.

"The town grows wealthy, and they may come," the corporal said.

"Talk not of pirates!" the landlord begged. "Suppose they did come?"

"And what if they did?" Gonzales demanded. "Am I not here, dolt? Are there not soldiers? Pirates? Ha!"

He sprang to his feet, those same feet spread wide apart. His hand darted down, and he whipped out his blade.

"That for a pirate!" he shouted, and made a mighty thrust at the wall. "This for a pirate!" And he slashed through the air, his blade whistling so that the corporal and soldiers sprang backward, and the four or five natives who happened to be in the inn cringed in a corner. "Pirates!" cried Gonzales. "I would I could meet one this very night! We grew stale from inaction. There is too much peace in the world! Meal mush and goat's milk!"

"Sergeant Gonzales!" Captain Ram?n commanded.

"I could hear you shouting half way across the plaza. If you wish to meet a pirate, perhaps you may have your wish. Rumors have been brought by natives. Mount your men and proceed along El Camino Real toward the south. Search the country well, once you are four or five miles from the town. It is a bright moonlight night, and men may be seen at a great distance."

"It is an order!" the sergeant admitted.

"This is a fine state of affairs!" he said. "Ride all night and kick up the dust! Back before dawn with nothing done!"

"But you wanted pirates," the corporal protested.

"Think you they will stand in the middle of El Camino Real and await our pleasure?" Gonzales growled. "What pirate would be abroad a night like this? Could we but meet some--ha! There is a special reward for pirates!"

From the crest of a slope a few hundred yards away, Barbados and his evil crew watched them depart upon their mounts.

SUDDEN TURMOIL.

While the blushes played across her cheeks, Se?orita Lolita Pulido sat at one end of the big table in the great living-room of her father's house and watched the final preparations for her wedding.

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