CHAPTER IX.LOVE AND MYSTERY.
Señor Zorro, having concluded his song, crept over boxes and bales to the little door of the storeroom. There he crouched and listened for a time, but heard nothing save the noise from the ship’s deckand the wash of the sea and singing of the wind through the rigging.
Presently he opened the door a crack and peered out into a pitch-dark, narrow passage. He slipped through and closed the door after him. Again he stopped to listen, and then he crept forward, reached a ramshackle ladder, and went up it swiftly and silently to a tiny hatch.
Lifting the hatch he crawled out upon the deck near the rail, hidden from the glare of all the torches. He had seen such a ship as this before, and knew her build well. There were no mysteries for him.
Along the rail he went like a shadow, and as silently. He reached a point where he could look amidships. Barbados was back among his men, now, urging them to greater speed, and Sanchez was echoing his commands. The ship was sailing at a fair rate of speed before a freshening breeze.
Señor Zorro crouched in the darkness and contemplated the pirate crew for a moment. He put out a hand to brace himself against the rolling of the vessel, and it came in contact with a tub of small bolts. Señor Zorro had an inspiration.
Far ahead of him, in the flare of a torch, he saw the ship’s bell. Señor Zorro grasped one of the little bolts, stood to his feet, took careful aim, and hurled the bolt from the darkness. He missed the bell by the fraction of a foot, and the bolt flew overboard.
Señor Zorro grunted, got another bolt, and tried again. It struck the bell squarely, glanced away, and fell into the sea. Out above the din rang one clear note. The ship had an excellent bell.
Instantly there was silence. Barbados whirled to look forward. His crew stood open-mouthed.
“The ship’s bell sounded!” Sanchez wailed.
“And which of you struck it?” Barbados demanded.
“No man was near it,” Sanchez declared. “But it sounded. I do not like this business!”
Barbados shivered, but made a show of courage. “Something struck it,” he said. “Possibly something dropped from aloft. Are you babies that you flinch because of the ringing of a bell? To your work, else I wade among you, naked blade in hand! Ha! I have sailed with a throng of children, it appears!”
They bent to their work again, and at that moment Señor Zorro hurled another bolt, and the bell rang out clearly once more. Again the work stopped as though Barbados had bawled an order for the men to cease.
“A ghost bell!” a man shrieked.
“A ghost bell!” Sanchez declared, crossing himself. “We are doomed! The ship is doomed!”
“To your work!” Barbados was both afraid and angry now. He strode forward, threatening them. He made his way toward the bell, and stood looking at it. Because of his presence the bell did not ring again. Yet Barbados did not feel at all easy. He beckoned the man who had the goblet.
“You retain the thing?” he asked.
“Sí, señor!”
“It is an evil thing for you to hold.”
“You want it?”
“Not I, by the saints!” Barbados swore. “And do you keep away from me while the thing is in your possession. If misfortune comes to the ship or the company because of the goblet, then will you go overside first of all! And with a weight around your neck!”
The man scurried away along the deck, and Barbados, his courage returning, whirled around and issued a volley of commands. From the darkness Señor Zorro hurled another small bolt, and for the third time the bell sent forth its ringing message.
Barbados whirled around again, his face suddenly white. He was within six paces of the bell, and he knew that no other man was nearer it than that. He felt the eyes of the terror-stricken crew upon him, and knew that he must show courage now, else lose his control over his men.
“Some one is playing a trick,” Barbados said. “And when I find the hound of hell who is doing it, I feed him to the sharks in two sections!”
He called two of the men, bade them get torches, and stationed them near the bell with orders to watch it closely. Theyshivered, but they obeyed. Thoughts of a ghost were terrible enough, but Barbados was there in the flesh, and his cutlass was ready in his hand.
But the bell did not ring again. Señor Zorro had accomplished his purpose, which was to make the crew nervous, and he was through playing in that direction. He slipped on along the rail, now and then peering over. After a time he picked up a line, fastened it to the rail and tossed the other end overboard, tried it with the weight of his body, made a loop in it, and slipped one leg through the loop.
Over the rail and down the side he went, slowly and carefully, the sword of Zorro in its scabbard at his side. And presently he came to a porthole, through which light streamed. He swung around, grasped the edge of it.
The Señorita Lolita, looking up suddenly, almost shrieked in sudden alarm. But the next instant she was off the bunk and across the tiny cabin, and her face was within a foot of his.
“Zorro!” she said. “You are doing a reckless thing—”
“Would I allow a few score mere pirates to keep us apart?” he asked. “Am I that sort ofcaballero?”
“But you are in grave danger, from the men above and the sea beneath!”
“Danger is the spice of life,señorita! After we are wedded it will be time enough for me to be tame.”
“But that may never be, Diego.”
“Zorro,señorita, if it is all the same to you. I must remember continually now that I am Zorro.”
“You must get back to the deck and go into hiding,” she said. “I fear for you. And should anything happen to you what would become of me?”
“It is some small risk,” Señor Zorro admitted, “but I felt that I should make this call.”
One of her hands was at the porthole’s edge. Señor Zorro, clinging to the rope, grasped it in his right hand and carried it to his lips.
“The most beautifulseñoritain all the world!” he said.
“Zorro!”
“And for once I have you,señorita, when yourduennais not present to pester us. We are betrothed. We were to have been wed to-day. I will have more courage,señorita, if I have felt your lips against mine. The memory of our betrothal kiss still tingles in my veins, but it is a memory that should be refreshed.”
“Señor—”
“How is this?”
“Diego! Zorro, I mean!”
“That is much better.”
“And then you will climb above and take heed for yourself?”
“With a kiss for incentive, I could climb to the summit of the world and reach for heaven!” Señor Zorro declared.
She blushed and then inclined her head. He bent forward, and their lips met in the porthole.
“Go!” she said then. “Go, Zorro, and may the saints guard you!”
“My arm is strengthened,” he declared. “And your wishes are to be obeyed.Señorita, adios!”
An instant their eyes met, and then he was gone, climbing up the line hand over hand through the darkness. Señorita Lolita tried to watch him, but could not. And so she hurried back to the bunk and curled up on it again, holding one hand to her flaming cheek, moistening with her tongue the lips that the lips of Señor Zorro had pressed.
Zorro reached the deck and disconnected the line, wishing to leave no trace behind him. He glanced toward the land, and realized that soon the dawn would come. Along the rail he slipped, until he came to a spot from where he could watch the pirates.
The majority of the loot had been stored away. No man was aloft. Barbados was cursing at a group near the opposite rail. Señor Zorro looked across at him and wished that he was near. He saw Sanchez, too, knew him for the lieutenant, and it came into his mind that Sanchez had commanded the squad that had abducted theseñorita.
And, as he watched, Sanchez started across the deck, around the mast, bore down upon Señor Zorro where he stood inthe darkness. Soon he would be in the darkness near the rail. But before he could reach it he would be forced to pass beneath one of the flaring torches, and for an instant the strong light would be in his eyes. Señor Zorro whipped out his blade and crept forward to the edge of the blackness, keeping behind a mass of cordage piled upon the deck.
His eyes were narrowed now, his lips in a straight line, an expression of determination in his face. So he stood and watched Sanchez approach, holding the sword of Zorro ready.
The moment came. The blade darted forward and struck, and its point worked like lightning. Sanchez gave a scream of mingled surprise and pain and fear, and reeled backward, clapping a hand to his forehead.
Barbados whirled to look. Señor Zorro, as silently as a shadow, darted along the rail through the black night, on his way to the little hatch and the storeroom below.
“Fiends of hell!” Barbados was shrieking. “Sanchez, what is it? You screech like a shocked wench!”
Sanchez, still shrieking, staggered back and turned beneath the flaring torch to face them. On his forehead was a freshly cut letter Z.
“The mark of Zorro!” Barbados gasped. “So—”
“A demon struck me!” Sanchez cried. “I saw no man! Something came out of the night and struck me!”
“Fool!” Barbados shrieked. “A blade made those cuts.”
“But there was no blade, no man! Out of the dark it came—”
“Think you Señor Zorro is aboard?”
“No man, I say!” Sanchez shrieked. “It was a ghost. There is a ghost aboard. We are doomed—the ship is doomed! The ship’s bell rings—and men are cut—”
“By my naked blade!” Barbados swore. “A sword in the hand of a human made that cut! Do I not bear one myself?”
“But how could this Señor Zorro get aboard?” Sanchez wailed. “It was a ghost!”
The ship’s bell gave forth one more melodious clang! Señor Zorro, on his way to the storeroom and his hiding place, had stopped long enough to hurl another bolt.