FRAY FELIPE USES HIS WIT.
Barbados, who had been drinking heavily of the rich, stolen wine since
the culmination of the fight with the _caballeros_ and the crew of
the trading schooner, had reached the stage where he was surly, mean,
dangerous. The sensational escape of Señor Zorro had been as oil poured
upon flames with the pirate chief. He roared and cursed like a fiend
after Captain Ramón had ridden away in pursuit, cuffed some of his
men out of the way, and then stood with his fists planted against his
hips, his feet wide apart, a black look in his face, his tiny eyes
glittering ominously as he glanced toward the adobe building wherein
the _caballero_ prisoners were quartered.
Sanchez and the others who knew Barbados best had been busy keeping out
of his way and so escaping trouble, but now Barbados bellowed loudly
for his lieutenant, and Sanchez was forced to disclose himself. He
approached his chief warily, ready to turn and run if Barbados was in a
belligerent mood; but he saw at a glance that what wrath Barbados was
enjoying was not directed toward his second in command.
“Sanchez! Fiend of the fiends!” he shouted. “By my naked blade, it is
in my mind that we are growing weary because of the lack of sport.”
“Then we must have sport,” Sanchez said. “If you’ve anything to
suggest――”
“We have prisoners,” Barbados remarked, licking his thick lips, “and
it is possible that a little torture would not be amiss. Say, roasting
at the stake for one of those high-born _caballeros_ whose blood is
gentle.”
“Ha!” Sanchez grunted. “It is an excellent idea――if we draw out the
man’s agony.”
“The drawing out of his agony can be accomplished without a great deal
of trouble,” Barbados declared. “We’ll make him squirm and squeal.”
“But there is an ambush to be prepared for the soldiers,” Sanchez
suggested.
“There will be ample time for that at a later hour,” replied the pirate
chief. “It will take some time for those troopers to gallop out here
from San Diego de Alcála. We can fight better if we have more wine to
drink and some sort of sport to watch before giving battle.”
“And which of the _caballeros_ shall be roasted?” Sanchez wanted to
know. “All of them are valuable men from the standpoint of ransom.”
“Ha! One can be spared,” said Barbados. “Not a man in that adobe but
has very rich relatives. What sum we lose from the one we roast we can
fasten on the others. We’ll force them to gamble and decide the victim
themselves. That is a happy thought. Come with me and fetch half a
dozen trusted men along.”
Barbados, having arrived at a decision, started straight for the adobe
building as Sanchez shouted to some of the men nearest. The pirate
chief unfastened the outer door and entered with the others at his
heels. Then he unlocked the inner door and threw it open.
The _caballeros_ were sprawled around the room, talking to one another
in low tones, and they turned and looked at Barbados as he stood before
them, much as men might have looked at an intruder. Scorn was in every
face, and the pirate chief was quick to notice it.
“So you raised a din and attracted our attention, and thus aided this
Señor Zorro to escape!” Barbados accused. “It is in my mind that there
must be some punishment for that.”
The _caballeros_ turned from him again and began talking to one another
once more as though Barbados had not addressed them. He growled a curse
low down in his throat and took another step toward them, glaring
ferociously.
“I have here a pack of cards properly shuffled,” Barbados said, his
glare changing to a fiendish grin. “I’ll put them on this bench, and
you prisoners will form into a line, walk past the bench, and each draw
a card. The man who draws the first deuce will be the victim.”
“Victim of what?” one asked.
“Of torture!” Barbados roared. “The stake! Roasting! My men demand
sport, and I am the one to give it to them. It is an even thing for
you――the gods of chance will decide.”
“And suppose, _señor_,” said Don Audre Ruiz, stepping forward with a
great deal of sarcasm and scorn in his manner, “that we do not care to
play your game?”
“Ha! The solution of the difficulty is easy if you do not,” Barbados
assured him. “In such case, since you seem to be the leader here, we’ll
torture you and thereafter two others picked out at random.”
“Death is close behind you, pirate, if you do this thing!” Don Audre
warned.
“But you will not be here to see it if you are roasted first,” the
pirate chief reminded him. “Line up, prisoners! Do _caballeros_ shake
with fear at such a time?”
Don Audre Ruiz took another step forward and sneered in the face of
Barbados. “_Caballeros_ are not aware of the existence of such a thing
as fear!” he declared. “If there is no other way, put down your pack
of cards. But if you have courage and the spirit of fair play, let me
fight it out with any two of your crew of fiends――a dagger against long
blades.”
“Do I resemble a fool?” Barbados requested to know. “Have I but half a
mind? Run a needless chance when we have you powerless already? Ha! A
_caballero_ might do such a fool thing, but I am not a _caballero_.”
“A blind man could see that,” Don Audre retorted.
“Ha! More of your insults and I’ll roast the lot of you! Line up! Here
are the cards.”
Barbados put the greasy pack down on the end of the bench and stood
back, folding his great arms across his chest. Don Audre Ruiz glanced
around at his comrades, and they began forming the line. Sergeant
Gonzales, feeling a bit out of place, dropped back to the end. And then
the line moved forward, and the first man turned a card and saw that it
was a ten, and passed on.
One by one they advanced to the bench, picked up a card, showed it
to Barbados, and moved forward again, playing with death, but with
inscrutable faces.
“Ha!” the pirate chief cried. “Fortunate _caballeros_, eh? But one of
you must draw a deuce soon. And then my men will have rare sport. We’ll
see whether a _caballero_ of gentle blood will squeal and squirm when
the hot flames lick at him. We’ll let the women torment him first, and
the children! Well―― Ha!”
Barbados suddenly bent forward, an evil smile upon his face. Don Audre
had reached the bench and had turned over his card――the deuce of spades!
Don Audre drew in his breath sharply, but his face gave never a sign of
emotion. The others crowded forward.
“Ha!” Barbados shrieked. “It is well done and appropriate! You are
their leader, _señor_, and possibly will set them an example how to
die. For you we will make the fire hotter and the torment longer. We’ll
see how long you can live.”
“He’ll flinch quick enough!” Sanchez cried, grinning.
Don Audre Ruiz tossed the card away and dusted his hands as though the
bit of pasteboard had soiled them. Then he raised his head proudly and
looked Barbados straight in the eyes.
“How soon?” Don Audre Ruiz asked.
“How soon, _caballero_? Now, at once, and immediately! My men crave
sport!” Barbados cried. “And while they listen to your shrieks and
pleas for mercy they can drink some rich wine we took from Reina de Los
Angeles.”
“Are you human man enough to let me have speech with Fray Felipe before
I die?” Don Audre asked.
“Want to pray with him, do you?” Barbados sneered. “I’ll have him at
the stake for you. You can pray through the smoke.”
There was a sudden jostling in the crowd, and Sergeant Gonzales
shouldered his way to the front.
“Foul pirate!” said he. “Murderer and fiend, let me make a deal!”
“What is this?” Barbados asked.
“I am a bigger man than the _caballero_ here, and fatter men roast
better. Also, I wear the uniform of the Governor, and you hate such
uniforms. I’m twice the coward that Don Ruiz is. I’d squirm and squeal
twice as much. Ha! Would it not be better sport to roast me at the
stake?”
“You want to die for him?” Barbados asked.
“I offer myself in his place, since your fiends must be amused. I did
not get a chance to draw a card, or surely I’d have drawn a deuce.”
Don Audre put his hand on the sergeant’s arm.
“This is useless, my friend,” he said.
“Not so!” Sergeant Gonzales declared. “You are a fine man of parts, Don
Audre Ruiz, and really amount to something in the world. And I am but a
big pig. There are many better men who can fill my place.”
“Whatever your birth and station, you are now, in my estimation, a
_caballero_ and a brave man,” Don Audre said.
Barbados roared his laughter.
“A hero!” he sneered. “I cannot let you take the _caballero’s_ place,
fool soldier, but, since you wish to be roasted, your wish is granted.
We’ll roast you later, when we have need of more sport. These other
_caballeros_ will be ransomed, but there is nobody in the world who
would ransom you for as much as a bottle of thin wine.”
“That is true, fiend of hell!” Sergeant Gonzales said.
“But it is not true!” Don Audre Ruiz cried, his face lighting. He
whirled to confront the other _caballeros_. “Friends, promise me
this last request――have your people make up a purse and ransom this
soldier,” he said. “He has been the friend of Don Diego Vega for years.
We used to smile at that peculiar friendship, but now I can understand.
The sergeant, also, is a man of parts, and Don Diego realized it while
we were blind. A last handshake, and then――”
They surged toward him, and Barbados and his men stepped back to the
door and waited. There was an evil grin on the face of the pirate chief
again. The gods of chance were working in his favor, he felt, when they
had delivered this _caballero_ into his hands for his evil purposes.
“Come, _señor_!” he ordered. “It is not gentlemanly to keep my men
waiting long for their fun.”
Don Audre Ruiz shook the hands of his friends for the last time and
turned away. They led him out and closed and barred the door again.
They conducted him through the front room and into the open, first
binding his hands behind his back.
“If you are a human being, let me see Fray Felipe,” Don Audre said.
“I’ll have him beside the stake,” Barbados promised. “He can mumble
over you all he likes.”
Some of the pirates were shouting the news of what was to occur. Men
came running from every direction, shouting and laughing and waving
bottles, determined to see how a _caballero_ could die. Women and
children hurried from their huts.
The stake was ready, for it often had been used before, both for
prisoners and pirates. It was a favorite method Barbados had of
punishing traitors and those he deemed guilty of breaking some of the
many laws he laid down. It stood near the sea, a long metal bar upright
in the soil, the débris of many fires scattered around it and half
buried in the shifting sand.
Already some of the men were hurrying toward the stake with fuel. The
women and children were shrieking insults at the condemned man. But Don
Audre Ruiz held his head proudly, and his lips were curled in scorn.
Only the unusual pallor in his face told that there was a tumult of
emotions within his breast.
They lashed him to the stake and made his body fast there with ropes
and leather thongs. One chain they wrapped around him to hold him fast
after the ropes had been burned away. Women spat at him, children
hurled at him small stones and scoops of sand. The pirates danced
around him like savages, waving wine bottles and brandishing their
cutlasses.
“So you think that you will not squirm and squeal, eh?” Barbados
taunted. “In a very few minutes we’ll learn the truth concerning that.”
“You promised me the _fray_,” Don Audre Ruiz replied. “But I did not
think that a pirate could keep his given word.”
“Ha! I’ll show you that I can play at having gentle blood!” Barbados
laughed. “Matter of honor, eh? The _fray_! Fetch me the old _fray_,
some of you!”
The dancing and drinking was continued, and more fuel was heaped around
the stake and its victim. A few feet distant stood a man with a flaming
torch. Barbados, his arms folded across his chest, stood waiting to
give the word. And after a time old Fray Felipe thrust his way among
them and reached the side of the pirate chief.
“What is this that you would do?” he demanded.
“We intend to broil this _caballero_ until he is done properly,”
Barbados replied. “Being a pious soul, he has need of a priest before
he dies. So we have sent for you.”
Fray Felipe knew that there was small chance for an argument here.
Ordinarily Barbados was exceedingly superstitious where a man of the
church was concerned, but now wine had given him a false courage. If
Fray Felipe saved Don Audre Ruiz now it would not be through an appeal
to the heart of Barbados.
And so Fray Felipe did a peculiar thing――a thing that startled them
all, and Don Audre most of all. He threw back his gray head and laughed.
Barbados blinked his eyes rapidly, and Sanchez swore softly beneath his
breath. Had the _fray_ gone insane suddenly? Were his wits wandering?
It was a horrible thing to see an old _fray_ laugh like that.
“So it is as I suspected,” Fray Felipe declared. “I had thought for a
moment, Barbados, that you were a pirate leader in truth, a general
with brains. But you play the boy.”
“How is this?” Barbados cried.
“Traitors play with you, and you walk into traps. You and your fiends
spend time at such cruel sports as this while your enemies are preparing
to annihilate you――”
“_Fray_, what is your meaning?”
“Are you blind?” Fray Felipe asked. “Are you an utter and simple fool?
You have put your confidence and trust in this Captain Ramón. And at
this moment he is riding back from San Diego de Alcála at the head of
the troopers, perhaps.”
“Ha! I know it, _fray_. He is leading the soldiers into an ambush!”
“So you are such an easy dupe!” Fray Felipe said. “I know his plans,
and so does the little _señorita_. You will form your ambush at the
head of the cañon. And he will lead the troopers around it, attack you
in the rear, cut you off from your camp, and annihilate you. By doing
that he’ll save his face and gain favor with decent men and women
and with the Governor. He’ll claim that he saved the _señorita_, and
ask her in marriage, get her for a bride without cutting himself off
forever from honest men. A man who can be traitor to one cause, Señor
Pirate, can be traitor to another.”
“Lies!” Barbados thundered.
“They are not lies!” Fray Felipe declared. “And you are playing here
when you should be preparing for the battle. Easy victims you’ll be for
the troopers!”
Barbados seemed to hesitate. There was a quality in the _fray’s_ words
and bearing that indicated truth. Then there came a woman’s screech,
and Inez thrust herself forward.
“The old _fray_ speaks the truth!” she declared. “I overheard the
_commandante_ talking to the _señorita_. He told her that he was
tricking you.”
“By my naked blade!” Barbados swore.
“He is doubly a traitor!” the woman screeched. “I would not trust him.
Make ready to fight the soldiers. Do not be caught in a trap. The man
at the stake can wait. It will not hurt him to be bound there and
meditate for a time.”
Barbados suddenly seemed convinced. He began shouting his commands, and
Sanchez echoed them as usual.
Men also ran to get horses and weapons.
“Catch me in a trap, eh?” Barbados cried. “I can arrange a trap myself,
and not in the cañon!”
He rushed away, shrieking more orders. Don Audre Ruiz, fastened to the
stake, was forgotten for the moment. Fray Felipe approached him.
“It was the only way, _caballero_,” the gentle _fray_ said. “It would
have been far better to have let the traitor wipe out these rogues
entirely, but I had to save your life. And the soldiers will triumph
when they come. Right is on their side and fights with them. Also Señor
Zorro is at liberty!”
“Loose me, fray!”
“I cannot, _señor_. There is one chain that is too strong for me. But
they have forgotten you now. I’ll search for some tool with which I can
remove the chain. The ropes and the leather thongs will be easy.”
Fray Felipe bowed his head and shuffled away. Don Audre Ruiz remained
lashed to the stake.