HOPE IS CRUSHED AGAIN.
Señorita Lolita Pulido passed into the store room of the adobe building
with her head erect and a look of pride in her face, as has been said.
But when the heavy door was closed behind her, and she heard a bar
dropped into place, she changed swiftly.
For a moment she leaned against the door, listening to Barbados and
Inez, his woman. Then Barbados went away, and the woman also, and the
_señorita_ dropped upon a stool that happened to be in one corner of
the room, and buried her face in her hands.
There seemed no hope left. Señor Zorro, Don Diego Vega, her beloved,
was at the bottom of the sea, she supposed. She was in the hands of
these pirates, being kept a prize for a man she detested and loathed.
There seemed no way of escape.
But the _señorita_ had determined her course. She would die rather than
be shamed, she told herself. She would join Don Diego in the land of
to-morrow, be his celestial bride. The blood of the Pulidos coursed her
veins, and told her to do that.
It was dark in the store room, but presently the door was opened
and the woman Inez entered with a small torch made of palm fiber
and tallow. She fastened the torch to the wall, went out again, and
returned with food. A jug of water, some poorly cooked goat flesh and
a pulpy mass, the like of which the _señorita_ never had seen before,
constituted the meal.
“Eat, wench!” Inez commanded. “Eat, and drink your fill of the water!
A dainty morsel you are, but there be some men who like women of a
different sort. Ha! ’Twould do you no good to make merry eyes at my
Barbados!”
The _señorita_ scarcely understood, for she had not been taught to make
eyes at any man. She drank deeply of the water, for she was thirsty,
and she wanted to eat, but did not like the appearance of the food.
“Too dainty for pirate fare, eh?” Inez sneered, rubbing her fat nose
with a forefinger. “Wait until real hunger gnaws at your stomach,
pretty wench, and then you’ll eat!”
The _señorita_ got up from the stool suddenly and stepped forward. Her
hands were at her sides, her chin was raised, there was pleading in her
face.
“You are a woman,” she said, softly. “In your heart there must be some
sympathy for other women.”
“Not much,” Inez acknowledged. “Few women have shown sympathy or
kindness toward me. I was a poor girl working on a _hacienda_, and
listened to the lies of a handsome traveler. And when my fault was
discovered it was the women who turned their backs. A woman of your
class, wench, kicked me out!”
“That is the way of the world,” Lolita told her. “Still, you must have
in your breast some inkling of pity. Would see the thing happen to me
that is going to happen if I cannot avoid it?”
“Ha!” Inez laughed. “What would you?”
“Help me get away!” the _señorita_ begged. “Help me to be free, and in
some manner I’ll get up El Camino Real to Reina de Los Angeles. I have
friends. In time I’ll send you more money than Barbados will get from
Captain Ramón.”
“And Barbados would take the money from me, slit my throat, and find
him another woman,” Inez replied, laughing coarsely. “I know nothing of
his business deals with Captain Ramón or any other. Nor do I care to
know them!”
“Have you no pity?”
“I have nothing to do with it,” the woman declared. “I have orders to
give you water and food and a light, and I have done so. That is the
end.”
Before the _señorita_ could speak again the woman had gone out and
closed the door. Señorita Lolita heard the bar dropped into place once
more. She went slowly back to the stool, and managed to eat a few
morsels of the goat’s flesh, after which she drank more of the water.
By the light of the torch she inspected her prison room. There was
nothing in it except some old casks that once had contained olives and
tallow. There was but the one door, and only a single window, and the
window was small and had bars of metal across it.
Escape was impossible, the _señorita_ decided. She went back to the
stool again, and sat upon it and buried her face in her hands once
more. The future seemed to hold nothing but death and disgrace, and she
knew how to choose between them, if the chance was given her.
Tired, exhausted by the events of the day, she found sleep descending
upon her. She left the stool and curled up in a corner on the floor,
determined to keep awake. But she could not. Her head nodded, and after
a time she fell asleep.
A din awakened her. The torch had burned out and the light of day was
pouring through the little window. The little _señorita_ was stiff and
uncomfortable. She got up and hurried to the window, and by standing
upon one of the empty casks managed to peer out of it.
She could see a portion of the camp. The pirates were arming themselves
and rushing here and there like madmen. She could hear the great voice
of Barbados as he issued his commands. And then there was a lull, and
she heard singing in the distance. Another lull and she heard a single
voice raised in song:
“_Atención!_ A _caballero’s_ near――”
Her heart almost stopped beating for a moment. But in the next instant
she told herself that she had been foolish to hope. It was Señor
Zorro’s song, but he was dead at the bottom of the sea. And other
_caballeros_ knew it. It was some _caballero_ singing in the distance.
But that gave her a small measure of hope, for it meant that Don
Diego’s friends were at hand and would make an effort to rescue her.
There was another time of comparative silence, and then the battle
began. The _señorita_ could see none of it at first, for she was on the
wrong side of the building. But she could hear the shrieks and cries,
the ringing of blades, the screeches of pain and curses of anger.
She saw the crew of the schooner attack from the other side, and
shrieked her horror as the pirates cut them down. And then the fight
was out of her sight again.
Down from the cask she dropped. She ran across to the door and pounded
upon it with her tiny fists, struck it repeatedly, until her hands were
cut and bleeding. After a time it was opened, and the woman Inez stood
before her, thrust her away and entered.
“What is it, wench?” she demanded. “More food and water?”
“No!” she gasped. “I――what is taking place? There is so much
confusion――”
“A battle is taking place, wench!” the woman declared, bracing her
fists against her hips. “Some _caballeros_ came in a ship and saw fit
to attack the camp. Many of them will see nothing more.”
“And――and the battle――”
“How goes it, mean you? Ha, wench! The _caballeros_ are being cut down,
of course. We have them three to one! Some are to be taken prisoners,
some held for ransom, others tortured. It will be a lesson to the
men of gentle blood not to fight with pirates! Gentlemen are only
gentlemen――but men are men!”
“Gentlemen are always gentlemen, and sometimes mere men are beasts,”
the _señorita_ told her.
“How is this? Do you want me to rock your head with a blow, wench? Ha!
There will be rare sport if this Señor Zorro is taken prisoner.”
“Zorro?” the _señorita_ gasped.
“The same, wench! You were to wed with him, I have been told. Ha! He’ll
not be ready for his wedding when Barbados has finished with him!”
“Señor Zorro is dead!”
“I know that he walked the plank. And the fools thought that he was a
ghost when he appeared here. But somebody must have saved him from the
sea. He’s out there now, fighting. They will make a captive of him!”
The _señorita’s_ heart beat wildly. Then it had been Zorro she had
heard singing in the distance!
But in the next instant she told herself that it could not be. Zorro
had walked the plank with a weight fastened to his wrists. The pirates
were mistaken. It was some other _caballero_ who looked like Señor
Zorro, who fought as he fought, and acted as he acted.
She threw aside the momentary hope, and crept toward the woman Inez
again. If the fight was going against the _caballeros_, if the pirates
were to be victors, she had scant time.
The _señorita_ began acting as she never acted before, and though
she was new to the game, her woman’s intuition, her terror and her
desperate need served her well.
“So the pirates are to win!” she said, laughing lightly. “And there
will be a lot of ransom money and loot.”
“How is this?” Inez shrieked. “You, a prisoner, seem joyful that the
rescue is not accomplished.”
“I am a prisoner――_sí_!” the _señorita_ said. “But perhaps I shall be
more soon.”
“What mean you?” the woman gasped.
“Perhaps it might have been in my mind that it would be better to have
a real man than wed a gentleman of noble blood. Is it not peculiar that
Barbados took me the night before my wedding?”
“Ha! Can you speak with plain meaning?” the woman asked.
“Did you believe the story of Captain Ramón?” the _señorita_ demanded.
“I did, too, at first! And then I thought differently. You are getting
old, you see, and fat.”
“Wench!” the woman cried, threatening her.
“If you strike me, Barbados will punish!”
“Barbados punish me? Ha!”
“Are you so easily fooled?” the _señorita_ asked. “It is plain to me
what is to happen. Barbados means to have me for himself. There is no
escape. So I may as well make the best of it. And since I am to be the
woman of the pirate chief, I must be loyal to him. If things must be
so, is it strange that I hope he gets much ransom and loot?”
“By the devils of Hades!” the woman swore. “If I thought this to be
truth――”
“Can you not see that it is?” the _señorita_ queried. “Captain Ramón
may have dealings with Barbados, but it does not follow that Captain
Ramón is to have me. That was just a little falsehood to fool you,
possibly.”
“Ha! So you would take my place?” the woman cried.
The _señorita_ recoiled as the other approached, and held up one of her
hands.
“I have no desire to take your place,” she declared. “But since I
cannot help myself, what else is there to do?”
“I could kill you with my bare hands!”
“And then Barbados would kill you in turn and go find himself another
woman.”
“Ha! I could kill him!”
“You could not!” the _señorita_ said.
The woman Inez was quiet for a moment, and then: “You are right――I
could not,” she replied.
“There is a way.”
“And how, wench?”
“Help me to escape,” the _señorita_ said. “If I am gone, you are in
safe possession of the affections of Barbados. He will not raid again
soon, will not soon have a chance to find him another woman. And you
can, in the meantime, win back his love again.”
“Ha! If I aid you to escape he will kill me!”
“Make it appear that I escaped myself,” the _señorita_ replied. “You
are strong. You can tear out that window until it is large enough
for me to get through. Let him think that there was some tool in the
storeroom and that I did the work.”
“Ha! If I thought you were speaking truth――”
“Very well!” said the _señorita_. “Wait and see whether it is the
truth.”
The woman hesitated, searching the _señorita’s_ face with her keen
glance. Then she grunted and hurried into the other room, while Lolita
Pulido waited in fear and trembling, wondering what was to come now.
Had the woman gone to tell Barbados the story?
But presently Inez returned, and she carried a peculiar strip of iron
with one sharp end, a bit of wreckage, perhaps, from some ill-fated
ship.
“Watch you at the door, on the inside!” she commanded. “Do not go into
the other room. They are still fighting and perhaps there will be time.”
The _señorita_ hurried across to the door, hope singing in her heart
again. There she watched and listened to the din of battle. All would
be well if she could escape in the confusion and get away from the
camp. She could reach El Camino Real and make her way along it. If she
could reach San Diego de Alcála, she would find friends.
She turned and looked at the woman. Inez was tearing out the masonry
and adobe around the window. The metal bars already were inside the
room and out of the way.
“Be quick!” the _señorita_ said. “I am small, and do not need a very
large space.”
“It is done!” the woman replied.
She hurried back to the middle of the room, and the _señorita_ turned
to look. The aperture was large enough, she knew at a glance. She could
crawl through, jump to the ground, go up the slope, and reach the
fringe of trees that she could see in the distance. Once more hope came
to her.
“I must have some old clothes――ragged and dirty clothes,” she said. “I
will leave some of these.”
The woman did not reply, but she hurried from the storeroom with a
gleam of avarice in her eyes. She was more than willing to trade ragged
garments for some of silk and satin.
Back she came, after a time, and the _señorita_ pulled off her gown and
put on the ragged one, shuddering as she did so, not because of the
rags but because of the dirt. She streaked her face with dirt from the
floor, and washed her hands in it, disarranged her hair, and threw a
ragged shawl over her head.
“A woman does not wear a torn shawl, a ragged dress, and fine slippers
at the same time,” Inez observed.
The _señorita_ kicked off her slippers and thrust her feet into the
filthy sandals the hag furnished her. She hurried to the window, the
woman before her. But Inez grasped her by an arm and held her back.
“Not that way!” the woman gasped. “It is too late! That way is guarded!”
The heart of the _señorita_ sank again. She scrambled to the top of the
cask she had used before, and peered out. Within sight there were half
a dozen men guarding that side of the camp against a possible surprise.
If she got through the window they would see her, block her path up the
slope and toward the trees, and investigate.
“Is there no way out?” the _señorita_ cried in despair.
“There is only the front.”
“Then let me out the front way. The men are fighting, and perhaps they
will not notice me if I go out that way, and make haste up the slope.”
“All women and children have been ordered to remain in the huts while
there is fighting.”
“They will do no more than shriek at me to get inside again,” the
_señorita_ said. “I can pretend to be frightened, and run. I can get
away, if you’ll let me out!”
“And I be blamed for it!”
“Not so!” she cried. “Bar this door. I’ll slip out the front, and they
will think that I came around the building. You can pretend that you
believe me to be in the store room. When they open the door and find me
gone, find the window torn out, they’ll think that I did it, and got
out that way. If anybody is punished, it will be the guards outside.”
“I am afraid!” the woman said.
“And are you not afraid, also, of seeing another woman in your place
here?”
The face of Inez grew purple for an instant, and her eyes blazed.
Suddenly she strode across to the door, opened it, and looked out upon
the fighting. She closed the door again, and turned back to face the
_señorita_.
“The fighting now is at some distance,” she said. “There is a chance.
Wait!”
She whirled around to bar the door of the storeroom. The little
_señorita_ waited, trying to be calm, though her heart was pounding at
her ribs. She was to escape at last! She could get up the slope, hurry
through the trees――
“You must use speed!” the woman was informing her. “And if you are
caught, you must take all the blame. Barbados would kill me if he knew.”
“Give me a dagger,” the _señorita_ begged. “Then, if I am caught, I’ll
do that which will render me speechless!”
“Ha!”
“I mean it! Death would be welcome to the other!”
The woman hesitated a moment, and then reached beneath her ragged shawl
and drew a dagger out. The _señorita_ clutched it, and hid it away in
her bosom.
For another moment they faced each other. And then the woman Inez
lurched across the room toward the door, the _señorita_ trotting along
at her heels.
And hope turned to black despair once more in the twinkling of an eye!
For the door suddenly was thrown open, and before them stood――Captain
Ramón!