the innocents’ curiosity brought them closer, they were devoured. Adopting the tactic of playing the buffoon, he threw Moncada off, confusing him. Until that moment Diego had not been conscious of his dual personality: one part Diego de la Vega, elegant, affected, hypochondriac, and the other part El Zorro, audacious, daring, playful. He supposed that his true character lay somewhere in between, but he didn’t know who he was: neither of the two nor the sum of both. He wondered, for example, how Juliana and Isabel saw him, and concluded that he did not have the least idea. Perhaps he had overplayed the theatrics, and had given them the impression he was a poseur. But there was no time to ponder those questions now. Events had become very convoluted and required immediate action. He would assume that he was two persons and turn that to his advantage. Diego raced around among the tables and chairs of the library, pretending to escape from Moncada’s attacks and at the same time provoking him with sarcastic comments, as blows rained and steel sparked. He succeeded in enraging him. Moncada lost the cool head he made so much of. He was breathing heavily, and the perspiration running down his forehead was blinding him. Diego judged that now he had his rival on the run. Like a bull in the ring, he first had to tire him. “Take care, Excellency, you might hurt someone with that sword!” Diego cried. By then Juliana had somewhat recovered, and she shouted for them to put down their weapons, for the love of God and respect for the memory of her father. Diego made another halfhearted thrust or two, then put down his weapon and raised his hands above his head, signaling for a truce. It was a risk, but he was sure Moncada would not kill an unarmed man in front of Juliana. He was wrong; his adversary was upon him with a shout of triumph and the momentum of his full weight. Diego dodged the blade, which grazed one hip, and in two leaps was at the window, taking cover behind the heavy floor- length velvet drapes. Moncada’s sword pierced the cloth, loosing a cloud of dust, but it caught in the fabric, forcing the entangled swordsman to struggle to withdraw it. Those few instants gave Diego the advantage, and he threw the curtain over Moncada’s head and leapt up on the mahogany table. He plucked a leather-bound book from a shelf and hurled it, striking his adversary in the chest; he stumbled and nearly fell, but quickly straightened and charged again. Diego avoided two thrusts and shot off several more books, then jumped to the floor and crawled beneath the table. “Truce, truce! I do not want to die like a chicken,” he whined in a tone of frank burlesque, huddled beneath the table with another book held like a shield to defend against the maddened Moncada’s blind attacks. Beside a library chair was the ivory-handled cane Tomas de Romeu had used during his attacks of gout. Diego used it to hook Moncada’s ankle. He pulled sharply, and Moncada sat down on the floor, but he was in good shape and he jumped up and renewed his attacks. By then Isabel and Nuria had come in answer to Juliana’s screams. Isabel needed only one look to take in the situation; believing that Diego was soon for the cemetery, she picked up his sword, which had gone flying into the far corner of the room, and without hesitation confronted Moncada. It was her first opportunity to put into practice the skills she had acquired in four years of fencing in front of a mirror. “En garde,” she called out, euphoric. Instinctively, Rafael Moncada’s blade clashed against Isabel’s; he was certain that his first move would disarm her, but he encountered a determined resistance. Then, despite his brutalizing rage, he reacted, realizing the madness of dueling with a girl, particularly the sister of the woman he hoped to conquer. He dropped his weapon, which fell noiselessly to the carpet. “Do you plan to murder me in cold blood, my girl?” he asked sarcastically. “Pick up your sword, coward!” His only answer was to cross his arms over his chest, smiling scornfully. “Isabel! What are you doing?” Juliana interceded. Her sister ignored her. She placed the tip of her sword beneath Rafael Moncada’s chin, but then did not know what to do. The absurdity of the scene was revealed in all its magnitude. “Slitting the gentleman’s craw, as he doubtlessly deserves, will cause some legal problems, Isabel. You can’t go around killing people. But we must do something with him,” Diego interjected, taking his handkerchief from his sleeve and flicking it in the air before wiping his brow with an affected gesture. That distraction gave Moncada opportunity to grab Isabel’s arm and twist it, forcing her to drop the sword. He pushed the girl with such force that she sailed across the carpet and banged her head on the table. She dropped to the floor, slightly stunned, as Moncada whirled to confront Diego with her weapon in his hand. Diego immediately retreated and dodged several thrusts from his enemy, looking for a way to disarm him and engage in hand-to-hand combat. Isabel’s head had cleared; she picked Moncada’s sword up off the floor and with a cry of warning tossed it to Diego, who caught it in the air. With a weapon he felt secure, and he recovered the bantering tone that had sent his adversary into such a frenzy a few moments before. With a swift lunge he drew blood on Moncada’s left arm, barely a scratch but in exactly the same spot he himself had been wounded during their duel. Moncada grunted with surprise and pain. “Now we are even,” Diego said, as he executed an attack that flicked Moncada’s sword from his hand. His enemy was at his mercy. With his right hand he clasped the wounded arm just at the tear in his jacket, now stained with a thread of blood. He was beside himself, with rage more than fear. Diego touched the tip of his sword to Moncada’s chest, as if to run him through, but instead smiled amiably. “For the second time, I have the pleasure of sparing your life, Senor Moncada. I hope this will not become a habit,” he said, lowering his sword. There was no need for discussion. Both Diego and the de Romeu girls knew that Moncada’s threat was real, and that the king’s minions could appear at the door at any moment. It was time to travel. They had prepared for that eventuality ever since Eulalia bought the family properties and Tomas de Romeu was executed, but they had thought they would walk out the front door, rather than flee like criminals. They gave themselves half an hour to get away, leaving with what they had on plus the gold and precious stones that, following the banker’s suggestion, they had sewn into pouches tied around their waists beneath their clothing. Nuria surprised them with a plan to lock Moncada in the hidden chamber in the library. She took a book from its place, pulled a lever, and the wall of shelves slowly turned upon itself, revealing the entrance to a room whose existence Juliana and Isabel had never known about. “Your father had a few secrets, but none that I didn’t know,” Nuria told them. The secret room was tiny and windowless, with no exit other than the door disguised by the shelving. When they lighted a lantern, they found cases of cognac and the favorite cigars of the master of the house, shelves with more books, and some disturbing paintings on the walls. On closer view they could see a group of six ink drawings representing the crudest episodes of the war, quarterings rapes, even cannibalism, which Tomas de Romeu had not wanted his daughters ever to see. “How horrible!” Juliana exclaimed. “These are by the maestro Goya! They are very valuable, we can sell them,” said Isabel. “They do not belong to us. Everything in this house belongs to Dona Eulalia de Califs now,” her sister reminded her. The books, in several languages, were on the blacklists of either the church or the government, all banned. Diego picked up a volume at random, and it turned out to be an illustrated history of the Inquisition, with extremely realistic drawings of their methods of torture. He slammed it shut before Isabel, who was peering over his shoulder, could see. There was also a shelf devoted to erotica, but they had no time to examine it. The tightly sealed chamber was the perfect place to leave Rafael Moncada locked up. “Have you lost your minds? I will die here of starvation or suffocate from lack of air!” the culprit protested when he realized what they intended to do. “His Excellency is right, Nuria. A gentleman as distinguished as he cannot survive on liquor and tobacco alone. Please bring him a ham from the kitchen, so he will not go hungry, and a towel for his arm,” said Diego, pushing his rival into the chamber. “How will I get out?” the captive whimpered, terrified. “There must be a hidden mechanism in the chamber for opening the door from inside. You will have more than enough time to discover it, most esteemed senor.” Diego smiled. “With persistence and luck you will be free in less time than the crow of the cock.”
“We will leave you a lamp, Moncada, but I advise you not to light it; it will consume all the air. Let’s see, Diego, how long do you calculate that a person can live in here?” Isabel queried, enthusiastic about their plan. “Several days. Enough to meditate at length on the wise proverb that the ends do not justify the means,” Diego replied. After Nuria cleaned and bandaged the cut on Moncada’s arm, they left him with a store of water, bread, and ham. It was unfortunate that he would not bleed to death from that insignificant scratch, was Isabel’s judgment. They recommended that he not waste air and strength shouting, as no one would hear him; the few servants who remained were never in this part of the house. Moncada’s last words before the shelves turned to close the entrance to the chamber, sealing him in silence and darkness, were that they would learn who Rafael Moncada was. They would regret that they had not killed him; he would get out of that hole and find Juliana sooner or later, even if he had to pursue her to hell itself. “Oh, you won’t have to go that far, we are on our way to California,” Diego said in farewell. I regret to tell you that I can write no more, because I have run out of the goose-quill pens I always use. I have ordered more, and soon I will be able to finish this story. I do not use quills from ordinary birds; they stain the paper and rob elegance from the page. I have heard that some inventors dream of creating a mechanical device for writing, but I am sure that such a whimsical invention would never prosper. There are certain activities that cannot be mechanized, for they require fondness, and writing is one of them. I fear that this is turning out to be a long narration, even though I have left a lot out. In the life of Zorro, as in all lives, there are brilliant moments and some that are dark; between the extremes are many neutral zones. You will have noted, for example, that in 1813 very little worthy of mention happened to our protagonist. He dedicated himself to his own activities with neither suffering nor glory, and made no progress in his conquest of Juliana. Rafael Moncada had to return
