as cover, moved toward the fireplace, where he crouched behind the huge logs. At the far end of the room, Rafael Moncada was pacing back and forth, smoking a cigar, and Sergeant Garcia, standing at attention and staring straight ahead, was trying to explain what happened. He had followed Zorro at full tilt toward the cliffs, he said, but just as he had him cornered, our subject had jumped into the sea rather than surrender. By then it was getting dark, and it was impossible to go too near the edge without falling on the loose rocks. Though they couldn’t see the bottom of the precipice, they had emptied their guns. In conclusion, Zorro had broken his neck on the rocks and in addition was shot full of holes. “Imbecile!” Moncada repeated for the hundredth time. “That person led you on a wild goose chase, and in the meantime de la Vega escaped.” An innocent expression of relief danced across Garcia’s ruddy face, but it disappeared instantly, wiped off by the knife-edge stare of his superior. “
“Tomorrow you will go to the mission with a detachment of eight armed men. If de la Vega is there, arrest him immediately; if he resists, kill him. In case he is not there, bring me Padre Mendoza and Isabel de Romeu. They will be my hostages until that renegade surrenders. Is that understood?”
“But how can we do that to the Padre! I think ”
“Do not think, Garcia. Your brain is not made for thinking. Obey and keep your mouth closed.”
“Yes, Excellency.”
From his refuge in the dark hollow of the hearth, Diego asked himself how Bernardo had managed to be in two places at the same time.
Moncada barked one last insult at Garcia and dismissed him, then poured himself a glass of Alejandro de la Vega’s cognac and sat down to think, tilting back in the chair with his feet on the table.
Things had gotten more complicated; there were too many loose ends. He would have to eliminate several people, otherwise he could not keep the pearls a secret. He sipped his liquor, examined the document he had written for Diego to sign, then went over to a sturdy cabinet and took out the bag. One of the candles had burned down and the wax dripped onto the table before he finished counting the pearls once more. Zorro waited a prudent time and then crept from his refuge with the stealth of a cat. He had taken several steps, clinging to the wall, when Moncada, feeling he was observed, turned. His eyes passed over the man who was a shadow among shadows, but instinct warned him of danger. He took up the ornate sword with the silver hilt and red silk tassels hanging over a corner of the chair.
“Who goes there?” he called.
“Zorro. I believe we have some unfinished business,” the masked man said, stepping forward.
Moncada sprang up with a cry of hatred, determined to impale him on his sword. Zorro dodged the blade like a torero, with a graceful swirl of his cape, then moved to one side, again with elegance: his right, gloved hand on his sword, the left on his hip, eyes alert, and a broad smile beneath his mustache, by now slightly askew. As Moncada thrust a second time, Zorro unsheathed his sword, in no hurry, as if the other’s insistence on killing him was a bore.
“It is a bad idea to fight in anger,” he challenged.
He parried three two-handed slashes and a reverse, scarcely raising his own weapon, then retreated to build the confidence of his adversary, who attacked anew, without a pause. Zorro leaped onto the table and from there defended himself, almost as if dancing, from Moncada’s frenzied attacks. Sometimes the sword passed between his legs; other sweeps he avoided with fancy footwork or parried with such force that the blades struck sparks. He jumped down from the table and hopped from chair to chair, closely pursued by Moncada, who was more and more maddened. “Do not tire yourself, it is not good for the heart,” Zorro goaded him. At times Zorro faded into the shadows in the corners, where the weak light of the candles did not reach, but instead of using that advantage for a treacherous attack, he would reemerge on the opposite side of the room, summoning his opponent with a whistle.
Moncada had very good command of his sword, and in a sporting situation he would have tested any adversary, but he was blinded with maniacal rage. He could not stomach this upstart who defied authority, disregarded order, made fun of the law. He had to kill him before he destroyed the thing Moncada valued most: the privileges that were his by birth.
The duel continued in the same vein, one desperately attacking and the other escaping with mocking ease. When Moncada was ready to nail Zorro to the wall, he would tumble to the floor and jump up with an acrobat’s flourish two sword lengths away. Moncada at last realized that he was not gaining ground but losing it, and he began to yell for his men. At that point Zorro ended the game. With three long strides he reached the door and locked and bolted it with one hand, holding his enemy at bay with the other. He shifted his sword to the left hand, a trick that always disconcerted his opponent, at least for a few seconds.
Again he jumped onto the desk and from there leaped to the great iron chandelier and swung above Moncada, landing behind him in a rain of one hundred and fifty dusty candles that had been there since the house was built. Before Moncada could realize what happened, he was disarmed and the tip of another sword was at his throat. The maneuver had lasted only a few seconds, but already soldiers were thumping and kicking the doors open and bursting into the salon with muskets at the ready. At least that is how Zorro told it on several occasions, and since no one has contested it, I must believe him, although he tends to exaggerate his feats. (Forgive this brief digression; let us get back to the salon.) He said that the soldiers trooped in behind Sergeant Garcia, who was just out of bed and in his under drawers, though his uniform cap sat squarely on his greasy locks. The men stumbled around on the candles, and several of them fell. One of their guns went off, and the bullet grazed Rafael Moncada’s head and lodged in the painting above the fireplace, perforating the eye of Queen Isabel La Catolica.
“Careful, imbeciles!” bawled Moncada.
“Heed your chief, my friends,” Zorro recommended amiably.
Sergeant Garcia could not believe what he was seeing. He would have wagered his soul that Zorro was lying on the rocks at the bottom of the cliffs; instead, here he was, revived like Lazarus, with his sword pricking the neck of His Excellency. The situation was grave. Why then did he feel a pleasant fluttering of butterflies in his glutton’s belly? He directed his men to leave not an easy task because they were tripping over the candles, but once they left, he closed the door and stayed inside.
“Your musket and your sword, Sergeant, please,” Zorro requested in the same friendly tone.
Garcia lay down his weapons with suspicious promptness and then planted himself before the door, legs wide apart and arms crossed, imposing despite the under drawers. It would be difficult to decide whether he was concerned about his superior’s physical safety or preparing to enjoy the spectacle.
Zorro motioned Rafael Moncada to sit at the table and read the document aloud. It was a confession to having incited the colonies to rebel against the king and declare California an independent state. The punishment for such blatant treason was death; in addition the family of the accused lost its holdings and its honor. The paper was unsigned, and all that was lacking was the name of the guilty party.
Apparently Alejandro de la Vega had refused to put his signature to it, and that was why Moncada was so insistent that his son sign.
“Very clever, Moncada. As you see, there is still space at the bottom of the page. Pick up the pen and write what I dictate,” Zorro commanded.
Rafael Moncada was forced to add to the document the matter of the pearls, in addition to the crime of enslaving Indians.
“Sign it.”
“I will never sign this!”
“And why not? It is written in your hand, and it is God’s truth. Sign it!” the masked man ordered.
Rafael Moncada put his pen on the table and started to get up, but in three rapid moves Zorro’s sword traced a Z on his throat, beneath his left ear. A roar of pain and wrath escaped Moncada. He put his hand to the wound and saw blood when he took it away. The tip of the sword was now pressing against his jugular and the firm voice of his enemy was saying that he would count to three, and if Moncada had not put his name and his seal on the paper, it would give him the greatest pleasure to kill him. One… Two… and Moncada signed the paper, then melted sealing wax in the candle flame, dribbled a few drops on the paper, and stamped it with the ring bearing his family crest. Zorro waited for the ink to dry and the wax to harden, then called Garcia to sign as a witness. The sergeant wrote his name with painful concentration, then rolled up the document and, unable to disguise a satisfied smile, handed it to the masked man, who stuffed it into his shirt.
“Very well, Moncada. You will take the ship that is sailing within the next few days and leave here forever. I will keep this confession in a safe place, and if you ever return I will date it and present it to the courts; otherwise,
