CHAPTER III.SUDDEN TURMOIL.
While the blushes played across her cheeks, Señorita Lolita Pulido sat at one end of the big table in the great living-room of her father’s house and watched the final preparations for her wedding.
Don Carlos, her gray-haired father, watched proudly from the foot of the table. Doña Catalina, her mother, walked majestically around the room and gave soft commands. Native servants scurried like rats in and out of the great room, carrying bundles of silks and satins, gowns, intimate garments.
“To-morrow!” Don Carlos sighed, and in the sigh was that which spoke of cruelties bravely borne. “To-morrow,señorita, you become the bride of Don Diego Vega, and the first lady of Reina de Los Angeles. And my troubles, let us hope, are at an end.”
“Let us hope so,” said Doña Catalina.
“The Governor himself dare not raise his hand against the father-in-law of Don Diego Vega. My fortunes will increase again. And you, daughter of my heart, will be a great lady, with wealth at your command.”
“And love also,” the littleseñoritasaid, bowing her head.
“Love, also!” said Doña Catalina.
“Ha!” Don Carlos cried, with a gale of laughter. “It is love now, is it? And when first Don Diego came wooing, the girl would have none of him, even to better the family fortunes. He was dull, he yawned, and she wanted a man of hot blood and romantic. But when it was learned that he was Señor Zorro— That made a difference! Love, also! It is well!”
Señorita Lolita blushed again, and fumbled at a soft garment upon her lap. There came a pounding at the door, and one of the servants opened it. Don Carlos glanced up to find a man of the village there.
“It is a message,señor,” he said.
“From whom?” Don Carlos asked.
“From Don Diego Vega, to the littleseñorita.”
Señorita Lolita dimpled, and her black eyes flashed as she bent over the heap of garments again. Don Carlos stood up and stalked majestically toward the door.
“I take the message,” he said, and he took it, and handed it to Doña Catalina, that she might read it first. “Don Diego Vega is not wed to my daughter as yet. It is not proper that he send her sealed messages.”
His eyes were twinkling as he turned away. Señorita Lolita pouted and pretended indifference, and Doña Catalina, her mother, unfolded the message, and read it with a smile upon her lips.
“It is harmless,” she announced.
Señorita Lolita looked up, and took the message from her mother’s hand. Don Diego Vega, it appeared, wasted no words. His message was read swiftly:
This man has orders to make a record carrying this greeting of love to you and fetching yours in return.Thine,Diego.
This man has orders to make a record carrying this greeting of love to you and fetching yours in return.
Thine,
Diego.
“Ha!” Don Carlos shouted. “Economy is a great thing, but not in words when there is love to be spoken. You should have seen the messages I sent to Catalina in the old days!”
“Carlos!” Doña Catalina warned.
“And paid a native wench royally to slip them to her,” Don Carlos continued, shamelessly. “Behind the back of herduenna! Page after page, and every word a labor! I could fight better than I could write!”
“Perhaps so can Don Diego,” the littleseñoritasaid.
“Staunch and loyal to him, are you?” Don Carlos roared. “That is proper. Pen your reply, my daughter, and let this man establish his record for the return trip to Reina de Los Angeles. Do not keep Don Diego waiting.”
Theseñoritablushed yet again, got up, and swept into a room adjoining.
Don Carlos addressed the messenger: “How are things in the town?”
“Don Diego entertains hiscaballerofriends at a last bachelor supper,señor,” the man replied.
“Ha! Young men only, I suppose?”
“Sí, señor!”
“Wine flows, I take it, and the table is piled high with rich food?”
“Sí, señor!”
“Ah, well! I shall have my turn to-morrow at the marriage feast,” Don Carlos said. “My regards to Don Diego Vega!”
“They shall be given him,señor.”
Theseñoritareturned and handed what she had written to her mother, who perused it and sealed it, and handed it to the messenger in turn. The man bobbed his head in respectful salute, and hurried out. A native servant closed the door behind him—but neglected to drop the heavy bar in place. Because of the unusual excitement, none noticed.
Don Carlos resumed his position at the foot of the table. This was a great night for him, and to-morrow would be a great day. He was happy because his fortunes were on the mend, because the Governor had been forced to cease his persecutions. But he was happy also because his daughter was to have happiness.
Don Carlos and his wife had lavished upon this, their only child, love enough for a dozen. And now both glanced at her as she fumbled at a silken shawl. Her black eyes were sparkling again, though dreams were glistening in them. Her cheeks were delicately flushed. Her dainty hands played with the silks. One tiny tip of a boot peeped from beneath her voluminous skirts. A bride of whom any man could honestly be proud, Don Carlos thought, and with proper blood in her veins and proper thoughts in her head.
“So Don Diego makes merry to-night with his young friends!” Don Carlos said. “I would like to peer in upon him now.”
Could he have done so, he would have seen a merry gathering. In the big living-room of Don Diego’s towncasaa huge table had been spread. Don Diego sat at the head of it, dressed in fastidious garments, andcaballeroswere grouped around it. Richly dressed they were, with blades at their sides, blades with jeweled hilts, but serviceable weapons for all that. Wine cups and dishes were before them. They feasted, and they drank. They toasted Don Diego, and the Señorita Lolita, Don Diego’s father, and theseñorita’sfather, and one another.
“Another good man gone wrong!” cried Don Audre Ruiz. He sat at Don Diego’s right hand, because he was Don Diego’s closest friend. “Here is our comrade, Don Diego, about to turn into a family man!” he continued. “This scion of Old Spain, this delicate morsel ofcaballeroblood to be gobbled up by the monster of matrimony! It is time to weep!”
“Into your wine cup!” Don Diego added.
“Ha!” Don Audre Ruiz cried. “But a few days ago, it seems, we rode after him as though he had been the devil, rode hard upon his heels, thinking that we were following some sort of renegadecaballeroplaying at highwayman. Señor Zorro, by the saints! We shouted praises of him because for a time he took us out of our monotony. Then came the unmasking, and we found that Don Diego and Señor Zorro were one and the same!”
He ceased speaking long enough to empty his wine cup and make certain that a servant refilled it.
“Señor Zorro!” he continued. “Those were happy moments! And now he is to turn husband, and no more riding abroad with sword in hand. We shall die of monotony, Diego, my friend!”
“Of fat!” Don Diego corrected.
“What has become of the wild blood that coursed your veins for a few moons?” Don Audre Ruiz demanded. “Where are those precious, turbulent drops that were in Zorro?”
“They linger,” Don Diego declared. “It needs but the cause to churn them into active being.”
“Ha! A cause!Caballeros, let us find him a cause, that this good friend of ours will be too busy to get married.”
“One moment!” Don Diego cried. He stood up and smiled at them, gave a little twitch to his shoulders, and then turned his back upon the brilliant company and hurried from the room. They drank again,and waited. And after a time, back he came, a silk-draped bundle beneath one arm.
“What mystery is this?” Don Audre demanded. He sprawled back in his chair and prepared to laugh. It was said of Don Audre that he always was prepared to laugh. He laughed when he made love, when he fought, as he ate and drank, his bubbling spirit, always upon his lips.
“Here is no mystery,” Don Diego Vega declared. He smiled at them again, unwrapped what he held, and suddenly exhibited a sword. “The blade of Zorro!” he cried.
There was an instant of silence, and then everycaballerosprang to his feet. Their own swords came flashing from their scabbards, flashed on high, reflected in a million rays the glowing lights of the candelabra.
“Zorro!” they shouted. “Zorro!”
“Good old blade!” Don Diego said, a whimsical smile playing about his lips.
“Good old point!” exclaimed Don Audre Ruiz. “With it you marked many a scoundrel with your mark, notably and especially one Captain Ramón. Why do we endure his presence here in Reina de Los Angeles? Why not force the Governor to send him north?”
“Let us not mar a perfect evening with thoughts of him,” Don Diego begged. “Caballeros, I have brought this blade before you for a purpose. We have drunk toasts to everything of which we could think, and there still remains an abundance of rare wine that has not been guzzled. A toast to the sword of Zorro!”
“Ha! A happy thought!” Don Audre Ruiz cried. “Caballeros, a toast to the sword of Zorro!”
They drank it, put down their golden goblets, and sighed. They glanced at one another, each thinking of the days when Señor Zorro had ruled El Camino Real for a time. And then they dropped into their chairs once more, and Don Diego Vega sat down also, the sword on the table before him.
“It was a great game,” he said, and sighed himself. “But it is in the past. Now I shall be a man of peace and quiet.”
“That remains to be seen,” Don Audre declared. “There may be domestic warfare, you know. A man takes a terrible chance when he weds.”
“Nothing but peace and quiet,” Don Diego responded. “The sword of Zorro is but a relic. Years from now I may look upon it and smile. It has served its purpose.”
He yawned.
“By the saints!” Don Audre Ruiz breathed. “Did you see him? He yawned! While yet the word ‘Zorro’ was upon his lips, he yawned. And this is the man who defended persecuted priests and natives, defied the soldiery and made the Governor do a dance! ’Tis a cause he wants and needs, something to change him into Zorro again!”
“To-morrow I become a husband,” Don Diego answered him, yawning yet once more and fumbling with a handkerchief. “By the way,señores, have you ever seen this one?”
He spread the handkerchief over the wine goblet before him, and as thecaballerosbent forward to watch, smiles upon their faces, he passed one hand rapidly back and forth across the covered goblet with such rapidity that it was hidden almost all the time, and with the other hand he reached beneath the edge of the handkerchief and jerked the goblet away, letting it drop to the floor. The handkerchief collapsed on the table. Don Diego waved a hand languidly.
“See? It is gone!” he breathed.
“Bah!” Don Audre cried as the others laughed. “At your boy’s tricks again, are you? Where is your wild blood now?”
“I am done with roistering and adventure.”
“A man never knows when his words may be hurled back at him and cause him to look foolish,” said Don Audre. “It is foolish to take everything for granted. For instance—”
He stopped. The sounds of a tumult had reached their ears. For a moment they were silent, listening. Shouts, oaths, the sounds of blows, the clashing of blades.
“What in the name of the saints is that?” Don Diego asked.
A trembling servant answered him.
“There are men fighting over by theinn,señor,” he said. “I heard some one shout of pirates!”