plenty of Indians to take their places. The curious shape of the cut on Alcazar’s face a perfect Z had reminded Moncada of a masked man whose description corresponded to Zorro’s, and who had traced a similar letter at the residence of Le Chevalier’s residence and in a barracks in Barcelona. On both occasions the pretext had been to set some prisoners free, as had been the case in El Diablo. Worse, however, on the second occasion he had had the audacity to use his, Moncada’s, name and that of his aunt Eulalia. He had sworn to repay that insult, but he had not as yet laid a glove on him. He was, however, quickly reaching the only possible conclusion: Diego de la Vega was in Barcelona when someone had left a Z on a wall, and as soon as he landed in California someone had made the same mark on Alcazar’s cheek. It was not mere coincidence. This Zorro could be no one but Diego. It was difficult to believe, but it was reason enough to make de la Vega pay for the trouble he had caused. Moncada had ridden at top speed to the mission, fearing that his prey might have escaped, but here was Diego, sitting beneath a grape arbor, drinking lemonade and reading poetry. Moncada ordered Sergeant Garcia to arrest him, and the poor tubby sergeant, who had never lost his unconditional boyhood admiration for Diego, unwillingly started to do his bidding. He was stopped by Padre Mendoza, who declared that the masked man was not even remotely like Diego de la Vega. Isabel backed him up; not even an idiot could confuse those two men, she said. She knew Diego like a brother, she had lived at his side for five years; he was a good young man, inoffensive, sentimental, often ill. There was no touch of bandit, much less hero, in him. “Well, thank you,” Diego cut her off, offended, but he noticed that his friend’s wandering eye was whirling like a top. “Zorro helped the Indians because they are innocent,” said the missionary. “You know that as well as I, Senor Moncada. He did not steal the pearls; he took them as proof of what is going on in El Diablo.”
“What pearls are you talking about?” Carlos Alcazar interjected. He was extremely uneasy; until that moment no one had mentioned them, and he had no idea how much the priest knew about their trickery. Padre Mendoza admitted that Zorro had given him the bag with the charge of taking it to the authorities in Mexico City. Rafael Moncada tried to hide a sigh of relief; it would be easier to recover his treasure than he had imagined. This ridiculous old man would be no problem, he could erase him from the map with one breath; terrible accidents happened all the time. With a preoccupied expression, he thanked Padre Mendoza for his cleverness in getting the pearls and his zeal in caring for them. Then he demanded that the priest hand them over; he would assume responsibility. If Carlos Alcazar, as administrator of the prison, had committed irregularities, he would take the necessary measures. There was no reason to bother anyone in Mexico City. The priest had no choice but to obey. He did not dare accuse Moncada of complicity with Alcazar because one false step would have cost him the most important thing in this world: his mission. He brought the bag and laid it on the table. “This belongs to Spain. I have sent a letter to my superiors, and there will be an investigation of the matter,” he said. “A letter? But the ship hasn’t come,” Alcazar protested. “I have other means, quicker and more secure than the ship.”
“Are all the pearls here?” Moncada asked with annoyance. “How can I know that? I was not present when they were taken, and I do not know how many there were originally. Only Carlos can answer that question,” the missionary replied. Those words added to suspicions Moncada already had of his partner. He took the missionary by one arm and dragged him to a crucifix hanging above a ledge on the wall. “Swear before the cross of Our Lord that you have not seen other pearls. If you lie, your soul will be condemned to hell,” he ordered. An ominous silence fell over the room; everyone held his breath, and even the air grew still. Furious, Padre Mendoza jerked away from the hand that was paralyzing him. “How dare you!” he muttered. “Swear!” Moncada repeated. Diego and Isabel stepped forward to intervene, but Padre Mendoza, stopping them with a gesture, put one knee on the floor, his right hand on his chest, and his eyes on the Christ an Indian had carved from wood. He was trembling with shock and rage at the violence to which he had been subjected, but he had no fear of going to hell, at least not for that reason. “I swear before the Cross that I have seen no other pearls. May my soul be condemned if I am lying,” he said in a firm voice. For a long moment no one spoke; the only sound was Carlos Alcazar’s sigh of relief. His life would not be worth a centavo if Rafael Moncada learned that he had been keeping back the greater part of the treasure. He assumed that the small chamois pouch was in the hands of the masked man, but he did not understand why he had given the other pearls to the priest when he could have kept them all. Diego followed the course of his thoughts and smiled, defiant. Moncada had to accept Padre Mendoza’s oath, but he reminded everyone that he would not consider the matter finished until the guilty party was swinging from the gallows. “Garcia! Arrest de la Vega!” Moncada repeated. The fat sergeant dried his forehead with the sleeve of his uniform and reluctantly prepared to carry out his orders. “I’m sorry,” he blubbered, motioning to two soldiers to lead Diego away. Isabel ran to stand before Moncada, arguing that there was no proof against her friend, but he pushed her aside. Diego de la Vega spent the night in one of the former servants’ quarters of the hacienda in which he had been born. He even remembered whose room it had been when he was living there with his parents: a Mexican Indian woman named Roberta, whose face had been badly burned in an accident involving boiling chocolate. What had become of her? He had not remembered, on the other hand, that the rooms were so wretched: windowless cubicles with dirt floors and unpainted adobe walls, furnished with a straw mat, one chair, and a wooden chest. He lay there thinking, This is how Bernardo spent his childhood, while a short distance away he, Diego, slept in a brass bed with a tulle net to protect him from spiders, in a room crammed with toys. Why hadn’t he noticed it then? The house was divided by an invisible line that separated the family quarters from the complex universe of the servants. The former, generous and luxurious, decorated in ornate colonial style, was a marvel of order, calm, and cleanliness; it smelled of bouquets of flowers and his father’s tobacco. Life seethed in the servants’ area: incessant chatter, domestic animals, quarrels, work. That part of the house smelled of ground chili, baked bread, clothes soaking in lye, garbage. The family’s terraces, with their ornamental tiles, bougainvillea, and fountains, were a paradise of coolness, while the patios of the servants were dusty in summer and muddy in winter. Diego spent countless hours on the straw mat, sweating in the heat of May, with no natural light. He was gasping for air, and his chest burned. He had no way to measure time, but he felt that he had been there several days. His mouth was dry, and he feared that Moncada’s plan was to wear him down with thirst and hunger. At times he closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but he was too uncomfortable. There was no room to take more than a couple of steps, and his muscles were cramping. He examined the room minutely, searching for a way to get out, but found nothing. The door was bolted from outside; not even Galileo Tempesta could have opened it. Diego tried to loosen the boards of the ceiling, but they were reinforced: it was obvious that the place was used as a cell. Much later the door of his tomb opened, and the ruddy face of Sergeant Garcia appeared in the threshold. Despite his weakness, Diego speculated that he could stun the good sergeant with a minimum of violence by pressing the place on the neck that Maestro Escalante had taught him when he was being trained in the combat skills of La Justicia. He did not want to get his old friend in trouble with Moncada. He might get out of his cell, but he could not escape from the hacienda; it would be better to wait. The rotund sergeant placed a jug of water and a bowl of beans and rice on the ground. “What time is it, my friend?” Diego asked, simulating a cheerful manner he was far from feeling. Garcia twisted up his face and counted on his fingers. “Nine o’clock Tuesday morning, you say? That means I have been here two nights and a day. How well I’ve slept! Do you know what Moncada intends to do?” Garcia shook his head. “What is the matter? Do you have orders not to talk to me? Very well, but no one told you not to listen, isn’t that right?”
“Ummm,” the other nodded. Diego stretched, yawned, drank the water, and slowly ate the food, which tasted delicious, he told Garcia, all the time chatting about old times: the wonderful adventures of childhood, the courage Garcia had shown when he confronted Alcazar and trapped a live bear. It was with good reason that he was admired by the boys at school, he concluded. That was not exactly how the sergeant remembered those days, but Diego’s words fell like a healing balm on his bruised spirit. “In the name of our friendship, Garcia, you have to help me get out of here,” Diego concluded. “I would like to, but I am a soldier, and my duty comes before anything else,” Garcia replied in a whisper, looking over his shoulder to be sure no one was listening. “I would never ask you to fail in your duty or do anything illegal, Garcia, but no one could blame you if the door was not tightly bolted.
“ There was no time to continue the conversation because a soldier came to tell the sergeant that Don Rafael Moncada wanted to see the prisoner. Garcia straightened his jacket, stuck out his chest, and clicked his heels with a martial air, but he also winked at Diego. He pulled his childhood friend up by his arms and led him to the main salon, almost carrying him until Diego could stand on legs that had fallen asleep from lack of use. Sadly, Diego noted the changes once again; his home looked like a barracks. He was put in one of the salon chairs, arms and chest roped to the chair back and ankles tied to its legs. He realized that the sergeant was only half carrying out his obligation; the bonds were not tight, and with a little manipulating Diego might get free, but there were soldiers everywhere. ”I need a sword,“ he whispered to Garcia at a moment when the other guard moved a few steps away. Garcia nearly choked with fright at such a request. Diego was asking too much; how could he give him
