“I was sure that I had made no mistake in reading your character,” Señor Zorro went on. “This señorita is Lolita, the only daughter of Don Carlos Pulido.”
“Ha!”
“Don Carlos is a friend of the frailes, as you well know, and has known oppression and persecution the same as they. Today the governor came to Reina de Los Angeles and had Don Carlos arrested and thrown into the carcel on a charge that has no true worth, as I happen to know. He also had the Doña Catalina and this young lady put in carcel, in the same prison-room with drunkards and dissolute women. With the aid of some good friends, I rescued them.”
“May the saints bless you, señor, for that kind action!” Fray Felipe cried.
“Troopers are pursuing us, fray. It is not seemly, of course, that the señorita ride farther with me alone. Do you take her and hide her, fray—unless you fear that such a course may cause you grave trouble.”
“Señor!” Fray Felipe thundered.
“If the soldiers take her, they will put her in carcel again, and probably she will be mistreated. Care for her, then, protect her, and you will more than discharge any obligation you may feel that you owe me.”
“And you, señor?”
“I shall ride on, that the troopers may pursue me and not stop here at your house. I shall communicate with you later, fray. It is agreed between us?”
“It is agreed!” Fray Felipe replied solemnly. “And I would clasp you by the hand, señor!”
That handclasp was short, yet full of expression for all that. Señor Zorro then whirled toward the door.
“Blow out your candle!” he directed. “They must see no light when I open the door.”
In an instant Fray Felipe had complied, and they were in darkness. Señorita Lolita felt Señor Zorro’s lips press against her own for an instant, and knew that he had raised the bottom of his mask to give her this caress. And then she felt one of Fray Felipe’s strong arms around her.
“Be of good courage, daughter,” the fray said. “Señor Zorro, it appears, has as many lives as a cat, and something tells me he was not born to be slain by troopers of his excellency.”
The highwayman laughed lightly at that, opened the door and darted through, closed it softly behind him, and so was gone.
Great eucalyptus-trees shrouded the front of the house in shadows, and in the midst of these shadows was Señor Zorro’s horse. He noticed, as he ran toward the beast, that the soldiers were galloping down the driveway, that they were much nearer than he had expected to find them when he emerged from the house.
He ran quickly toward his mount, tripped on a stone and fell, and frightened the animal so that it reared and darted half a dozen paces away, and into the full moonlight.
The foremost of his pursuers shouted when he saw the horse, and dashed toward it. Señor Zorro picked himself up, gave a quick spring, caught the reins from the ground and vaulted into the saddle.
But they were upon him now, surrounding him, their blades flashing in the moonlight. He heard the raucous voice of Sergeant Gonzales ordering the men.
“Alive, if you can, soldiers! His excellency would see the rogue suffer for his crimes. At him, troopers! By the saints!”
Señor Zorro parried a stroke with difficulty, and found himself unhorsed. On foot, he fought his way back into the shadows, and the troopers charged after him. With his back to the bole of a tree, Señor Zorro fought them off.
Three sprang from their saddles to rush in at him. He darted from the tree to another, but could not reach his horse. But one belonging to a dismounted trooper was near him, and he vaulted into the saddle and dashed down the slope toward the barns and corral.
“After the rogue!” he heard Sergeant Gonzales shouting. “His excellency will have us flayed alive if this pretty highwayman escapes us now!”
They charged after him, eager to win promotion and the reward. But Señor Zorro had some sort of a start of them, enough to enable him to play a trick. As he came into the shadow cast by a big barn, he slipped from the saddle, at the same time giving the horse he rode a cut with his rowels. The animal plunged ahead, snorting with pain and fright, running swiftly through the darkness toward the corral below. The soldiers dashed by in pursuit.
Señor Zorro waited until they were past, and then he ran rapidly up the hill again. But he saw that some of the troopers had remained behind to guard the house, evidently with the intention of searching it later, and so he found he could not reach his horse.
And once more there rang out that peculiar cry, half shriek and half moan, with which Señor Zorro had startled those at the hacienda of Don Carlos Pulido. His horse raised its head, whinnied once in answer to his call, and galloped toward him.
Señor Zorro was in the saddle in an instant, spurring across a field directly in front of him. His horse went over a stone fence as if it had not been in the way. And after him speedily came a part of the troopers.
They had discovered the trick he had used. They charged at him from both sides, met behind him, followed and strained to cut down his lead. He could hear Sergeant Pedro Gonzales shouting lustily for them to make a capture in the name of the governor.
He hoped that he had drawn them all away from Fray Felipe’s house, but he was not sure, and the thing that demanded his attention the most now was the matter of his own escape.
He urged his horse cruelly, knowing that this journey across plowed ground was taking the animal’s strength. He longed for
