“He perhaps is afraid to venture so near the presidio,” the landlord said.
“More wine!” Gonzales howled. “More wine, fat one, and place it to my account! When I have earned the reward, you shall be paid in full. I promise it on my word as a soldier! Ha! Were this brave and cunning Señor Zorro, this Curse of Capistrano, but to make entrance at that door now—” The door suddenly was opened!
II
On the Heels of the Storm
In came a gust of wind and rain and a man with it, and the candles flickered and one was extinguished. This sudden entrance in the midst of the sergeant’s boast startled them all; and Gonzales drew his blade halfway from its scabbard as his words died in his throat. The native was quick to close the door again to keep out the wind.
The newcomer turned and faced them; the landlord gave another sigh of relief. It was not Señor Zorro, of course. It was Don Diego Vega, a fair youth of excellent blood and twenty-four years, noted the length of El Camino Real for his small interest in the really important things of life.
“Ha!” Gonzales cried, and slammed his blade home.
“Is it that I startled you somewhat, señores?” Don Diego asked politely and in a thin voice, glancing around the big room and nodding to the men before him.
“If you did, señor, it was because you entered on the heels of the storm,” the sergeant retorted. “ ’Twould not be your own energy that would startle any man!”
“H-m!” grunted Don Diego, throwing aside his sombrero and flinging off his soaked serape. “Your remarks border on the perilous, my raucous friend.”
“Can it be that you intend to take me to task?”
“It is true,” continued Don Diego, “that I do not have a reputation for riding like a fool at risk of my neck, fighting like an idiot with every newcomer, and playing the guitar under every woman’s window like a simpleton. Yet I do not care to have these things you deem my shortcomings flaunted in my face!”
“Ha!” Gonzales cried, half in anger.
“We have an agreement, Sergeant Gonzales, that we can be friends, and I can forget the wide difference in birth and breeding that yawns between us only as long as you curb your tongue and stand my comrade. Your boasts amuse me, and I buy for you the wine that you crave—it is a pretty arrangement. But ridicule me again, señor, either in public or private, and the agreement is at an end. I may mention that I have some small influence—”
“Your pardon, caballero and my very good friend!” the alarmed Sergeant Gonzales cried now. “You are storming worse than the tempest outside, and merely because my tongue happened to slip. Hereafter, if any man ask, you are nimble of wit and quick with a blade, always ready to fight or to make love. You are a man of action, caballero! Ha! Does any dare doubt it?”
He glared around the room, half drawing his blade again, and then he slammed the sword home and threw back his head and roared with laughter, and then clapped Don Diego between the shoulders; and the fat landlord hurried with more wine, knowing well that Don Diego Vega would stand the score.
For this peculiar friendship between Don Diego and Sergeant Gonzales was the talk of El Camino Real. Don Diego came from a family of blood that ruled over thousands of broad acres, countless herds of horses and cattle, great fields of grain. Don Diego, in his own right, had a hacienda that was like a small empire, and a house in the pueblo also, and was destined to inherit from his father more than thrice what he had now.
But Don Diego was unlike the other full-blooded youths of the times. It appeared that he disliked action. He seldom wore his blade, except as a matter of style and apparel. He was damnably polite to all women and paid court to none.
He sat in the sun and listened to the wild tales of other men—and now and then he smiled. He was the opposite of Sergeant Pedro Gonzales in all things, and yet they were together frequently. It was as Don Diego had said—he enjoyed the sergeant’s boasts, and the sergeant enjoyed the free wine. What more could either ask in the way of a fair arrangement?
Now Don Diego went to stand before the fire and dry himself, holding a mug of red wine in one hand. He was only medium in size, yet he possessed health and good looks, and it was the despair of proud dueñas that he would not glance a second time at the pretty señoritas they protected, and for whom they sought desirable husbands.
Gonzales, afraid that he had angered his friend and that the free wine would be at an end, now strove to make peace.
“Caballero, we have been speaking of this notorious Señor Zorro,” he said. “We have been regarding in conversation this fine Curse of Capistrano, as some nimble-witted fool has seen fit to term the pest of the highway.”
“What about him?” Don Diego asked, putting down his wine mug and hiding a yawn behind his hand. Those who knew Don Diego best declared he yawned tenscore times a day.
“I have been remarking, caballero,” said the sergeant, “that this fine Señor Zorro never appears in my vicinity, and that I am hoping the good saints will grant me the chance of facing him some fine day, that I may claim the
