The Curse of Capistrano - Harrington Strong (popular romance novels .TXT) 📗

and once more he saw the eyes of Senor Zorro glittering through his mask, saw the muzzle of the pistol menacing him.

“Not a move. Not a sound. It would give me pleasure to fill your body with hot lead,” Senor Zorro said. “You are alone —your silly troopers are chasing me where I am not.”

“By the saints—” Captain Ramon breathed. “Not so much as a whisper, senor, if you hope to live. Turn your back to me.”

“You would murder me?”

“I am not that sort, comandante. And I said for you to make not a sound. Put your hands behind your back, for I am going to bind your wrists.”

Captain Ramon complied. Senor Zorro stepped forward swiftly, and bound the wrists with his own sash, which he tore from his waist. Then he whirled Captain Ramon around so that he faced him.

“Where is his excellency?” he asked. “At Don Juan Estados’s house.”

“I knew as much, but wanted to see whether you prefer to speak the truth tonight. It is well if you do so. We are going to call upon the governor.”

“To call—”

“Upon his excellency, I said. And do not speak again. Come with me.”

He grasped Captain Ramon by the arm and hurried him from the office, across the lounging-room, out of the door. He piloted him around the building to where the horse was waiting.

“Mount!” he commanded. “I shall sit behind you, with the muzzle of this pistol at the base of your brain. Make no mistake, comandante, unless you are tired of life. I am a determined man this night.” Captain Ramon had observed it. He mounted as he was directed, and the highwayman mounted behind him, and held the reins with one hand and the pistol with the other.

Captain Ramon could feel the touch of cold steel at the back of his head.

Senor Zorro guided his horse with his knees instead of with the reins. He urged the beast down the slope and circled the town once more, keeping away from the beaten trails, and so approached the rear of the house where his excellency was a guest.

Here was the difficult part of the adventure. He wanted to get Captain Ramon before the governor, to talk to both of them, and to do it without having anybody else interfere. He forced the captain to dismount, and led him to the rear wall of the house. There was a patio there, and they entered it.

It appeared that Senor Zorro knew the interior of the house well. He entered it through a servant’s room, taking Captain Ramon with him, and passed through into a hall without awakening the sleeping native. They went along the hall slowly. From one room came the sound of snoring. From beneath the door of another light streamed.

Senor Zorro stopped before that door and applied an eye to a crack at the side of it. If Captain Ramon harbored thoughts of voicing an alarm, or of offering battle, the touch of the pistol at the back of his head caused him to forget them.

And he had scant time to think of a way out of this predicament, for suddenly Senor Zorro threw open the door, hurled Captain Ramon through it, followed himself, and shut the door quickly behind him. In the room there were his excellency and his host.

“Silence, and do not move,” Senor Zorro said. “The slightest alarm, and I put a pistol ball through the governor’s head. That is understood? Very well, senores.”

“Senor Zorro!” the governor gasped.

“The same, your excellency. I ask your host to be not frightened, for I mean him no harm if he sits quietly until I am done. Captain Ram6n, kindly sit across the table from the governor. I am delighted to find the head of the state awake and awaiting news from those who are chasing me. His brain will be clear, and he can understand better what is said.”

“What means this outrage?” the governor exclaimed.

“Captain Ramon, how comes this? Seize this man! You are an officer—” “Do not blame the comandante,” Senor Zorro said. “He knows it is death to make a move. There is a little matter that needs explanation, and since I cannot come to you in broad day as a man should, I am forced to adopt this method. Make yourselves comfortable, Senores. This may take some little time.”

His excellency fidgeted in his chair.

“You have this day insulted a family of good blood, your excellency,” Senor Zorro went on. “You have forgotten the proprieties to such an extent that you have ordered thrown into your miserable carcel a hidalgo and his gentle wife and innocent daughter. You have taken such means to gratify a spite—”

“They are traitors,” his excellency said.

“What have they done of treason?”

“You are an outlaw with a price put upon your head. They have been guilty of harboring you, giving you aid.”

“Where got you this information?”

“Captain Ramon has an abundance of evidence.”

“Ha! The comandante, eh? We shall see about that! Captain Ramon is present, and we can get at the truth. May I ask the nature of your evidence?”

“You were at the Pulido hacienda,” the governor said.

“I admit it.”

“A native saw you and carried word to the presidio. The soldiers hurried out to effect your capture.”

“A moment. Who said a native sounded the alarm?”

“Captain Ramon assured me so.”

“Here is the first chance for the captain to speak the truth. As a matter of fact, comandante, was it not Don Carlos Pulido himself who sent the native? The truth!”

“It was a native brought word.”

“And he did not tell your sergeant that Don Carlos had sent him? Did he not say that Don Carlos had slipped him the information in whispers while he was carrying his fainting wife to her room? Is it not true that Don Carlos did his best to hold me at his hacienda until the soldiers arrived, that might be captured? Did not Don Carlos thus try to show his loyalty to the governor?”

“By the saints, Ramon, you never told me as much!” his excellency cried.

“They are traitors,” the captain declared stubbornly.

“What other evidence?” Senor Zorro asked.

“Why, when the soldiers arrived, you concealed yourself by some trick,” the governor said. “And presently Captain Ramon himself reached the scene, and while he was there you crept from a closet, ran him through treacherously from behind, and made your escape. It is an evident fact that Don Carlos had hidden you in the closet”

“By the saints!” Senor Zorro swore. “I had thought, Captain Ramon, that you were man enough to admit defeat, though I knew you for a scoundrel in other things. Tell the truth!”

“That is—the truth.”

“Tell the truth!” Senor Zorro commanded, stepping closer to him and bringing up the pistol. “I came from that closet and spoke to you. I gave you time to draw blade and get on guard. We fenced for fully ten minutes, did we not?

“I admit freely that for a moment you puzzled me, and then I solved your method of giving battle and knew you were at my mercy. And then, when I could have slain you easily, I but scratched your shoulder. Is not that the truth? Answer, as you hope to live!”

Captain Ramon licked his dry lips, and could not meet the governor’s eyes.

“Answer!” Senor Zorro thundered.

“It is—the truth,” the captain acknowledged.

“Ha! So I ran you through from behind, eh? It is an insult to my blade to have it enter your body. You see, your excellency, what manner of man you have for comandante here. Is there more evidence?”

“There is,” the governor said. “When the Pulidos were guests at the house of Don Diego Vega, and Don Diego was away, Captain Ramon went to pay his respects and found you there alone with the senorita.”

“And that shows what?”

“That you are in league with the Pulidos. That they harbored you even in the house of Don Diego, a loyal man. And when the captain discovered you there, the senorita flung herself upon him and held him—delayed him, rather— until you made your escape through a window. Is not that enough?”

Senor Zorro bent forward, and his eyes seemed to burn through the mask and into those of Captain Ramon.

“So that is the tale he told, eh?” the highwayman said. “As a matter of fact, Captain Ramon is enamored of the senorita. He went to the house, found her alone, forced his attentions upon her, even told her that she should not object, since her father was in the bad graces of the governor. He attempted to caress her, and she called for help. I responded.”

“How did you happen to be there?”

“I do not care to answer that, but I take my oath the senorita did not know of my presence. She called for aid, and I responded.

“I made this thing you call a comandante kneel before her and apologize. And then I took him to’ the door and kicked him out into the dust! And afterward I visited him at the presidio and told him that he had given insult to a noble senorita—”

“It appears that you hold some love for her yourself,” the governor said.

“I do, your excellency, and am proud to admit it.”

“Ha! You condemn her and her parents by that statement! You deny now they are in league with you?”

“I do. Her parents do not know of our love.”

“This senorita is scarcely conventional.”

“Senor! Governor or no, another thought like that and I spill your blood,” Senor Zorro cried. “I have told you what happened that night at the house of Don Diego Vega. Captain Ramon will testify that what I have said is the exact truth. Is it not, comandante? Answer!”

“It—it is the truth.” The captain gulped, looking at the muzzle of the highwayman’s pistol.

“Then you have told me falsehood, and can no longer be an officer of mine!” the governor cried. “It appears that this highwayman can do as he pleases with you. Ha! But I still believe that Don Carlos Pulido is a traitor, and the members of his family, and it has availed you nothing, Senor Zorro, to play this little scene.

“My soldiers shall continue to pursue them—and you! And before they are done, I’ll have the Pulidos dragged in the dirt, and I’ll have you stretching a rope with your carcass!”

“Quite a bold speech,” observed Senor Zorro. “You set your soldiers a pretty task, your excellency. I rescued your three prisoners tonight, and they have escaped.”

“They shall be retaken.”

“Time alone will tell that. And now I have another duty to perform here. Your excellency, you will take your chair to that far corner and sit there, and your host will sit beside you. And there you shall remain until I have finished.”

“What do you mean to do?”

“Obey me,” Senor Zorro cried. “I have scant time for argument, even with a governor.”

He watched while the two chairs were placed and the governor and his host had seated themselves. And then he stepped nearer Captain Ramon.

“You insulted a pure and innocent girl, comandante,” he said. “For that, you shall fight. Your scratched shoulder is healed now, and you wear your blade by your side. Such a man as you is not fit to breathe God’s pure air. The country is better for your absence. On your feet, senor, and on guard!”

Captain Ramon was white with rage. He knew that he was ruined. He had been forced to confess that he had lied. He had heard the governor remove his rank. And this man before him had been the cause of all of it.

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